Tag Archives: ipod

I wanna be Apple’s lawyer

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Over the past few weeks, there’ve been several lawsuits filed again Apple Corp which are no doubt keeping their lawyer’s busy.

I’m sure the boys over at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe keep busy every day finding new and more intriguing ways of writing evil things into EULA’s, Privacy Policies and going after copyright infringement, but fighting off a variety of incoming suits must keep them busy.

Everyone wants a bite of the Apple. They’re one of the biggest, most prominent companies still making money in today’s economy. They seem to be able to do no wrong that way. Everything with the Apple logo on it has turned to gold lately, which makes them a target.

The lawsuit that was disclosed today makes no sense, and is just one of the dozens of frivolous ones they (and many others) contend with every year.

AppleInsider.com is reporting that Apple is being sued by a guy who’s clearly after nothing more than money.

Apple is the defendant in two recent, offbeat lawsuits, including one filed by an artist who alleges he invented and named the iPod and iPhone in the 1980s, only to have Apple and actress Sarah Jessica Parker steal his trade secrets.

In meeting these people, Wakefield alleges he was asked by the congressman to disclose his “trade secrets” to the FBI, including the concept of the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone, the last of which he allegedly specifically named nearly 20 years prior to its debut.

Yep. Wakefield claims to have invented the iPod and iTunes nearly before the internet came into existence, prior to the MP3 being developed and other insanity.

The next suit mentioned in the AppleInsider report talks about someone suing Apple because Lil’ Wayne (stupidest name ever) may have used a concept in one of his songs.

They then go on to mention how Apple was also sued for being connected to the Mafia.

I figure if Apple IS connected to the Mafia (and I have no specific knowledge for or against this), then these lawsuits should quietly disappear.

Blame it on the Girls

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I have to admit that I’m becoming one of those old guys who loves the music of his generation, and when he hears any new music either goes off on a rant about “the state of music these days” or quietly mutters something about the Doobie Brothers.

I pretty much fully blame the internet and MP3 players for this. Ever since I got an MP3 player and the internet, I don’t recall ever listening to radio. The ultimate downside of this is the lack of exposure to “emerging talent.” You know, like Britney or Lady Gag-me. I mean Lady Gaga, of course. Generally speaking that’s not really a problem, but it does mean I’m out of touch with the advances and what the kids are listening to. I also don’t go to clubs or any other place where modern music gets played.

Yep, I’m becoming a curmudgeon at 40. 41, sorry. Sigh.

That said, I have apparently missed Mika. He’s been profiled in a few months of the Gay Newsletter they send us all (that’s a joke), but I tended to ignore it. Last night, for some reason, I clicked on the play button for his latest video and found myself rather enjoying it. It’s light and poppy, modern and yet accessible. Find out more at http://www.mikasounds.com

Maybe I should explore some more of this modern music. Apparently there’s a set of musical triplet boys people are talking about.

V-Day – The married way

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Today was Valentines Day and an all around good day to be a married guy in love.

It wasn’t a perfect day, or didn’t start that way, but kept getting progressively better, which is what really matters, along with getting to spend it with Chris.

We stayed home until late-ish and had a nice time hanging out on the bed with the dog and chatting. Then we decided to head downtown, do some reading at Chapters and do our part to stimulate the economy with some retail therapy. That was harder than we expected.

We headed to one of our retail meccas – Future Shop – in an effort to spend our hard earned money on shiny things that go beep and boop and show pretty pictures. Chris has been desiring after his own iPod Touch and I’m about ready for my first laptop. That’s right, I’m a laptop virgin. Oh wait, that may be misinterpretted. That’s right, I’ve never owned a laptop. Better.

We spent some time looking at the tiny little netbooks with me insisting I needed something real and devising various ways to WIFI the house, use the old computer as a fileserver and go all laptop-fu on the place. This pissed off the salespeople as they kept swarming us and we batted them away like King Kong did the planes on the Empire State Building.

We decided to hold off on the laptop (At least until tomorrow) and then headed off to get the iPod.

WRONG. They’re out of stock of all but 1 or 2 8 gigabyte ones. Seriously? WTF? OMG! The horror. Here we walked into Future Shop to drop nearly $1000 and we had to walk out empty handed. No wonder the economy is tanking.

Buddy at F.S. (not his real name) did check and tell us that we could get one at the North Vancouver store – “in a strip mall or something” he said with distain. So we headed home, walked the dog and caught the bus to North Van after calling to verify they had them in hand.

Once we got there and tracked down a salesperson (Hossein) we found out he couldn’t help us, but after leaving us in his stinky wake, he toddled off to tell someone we wanted to buy an iPod. 10 minutes later we still waited. We finally grabbed Vince who seemed like he wanted to help but he didn’t have keys. He called someone twice, and hung out with us until they came. I liked Vince. Chris thought he was too eager to apologize for his co-workers.

Vince was great, Future Shop in North Van needs to give their customer-service-head a shake. Only 1 person in the store on Saturday afternoon had keys to the iPods.

On the way home there was an adorable young couple on the SeaBus. She was pretty and he was a very handsome young man all dressed up. Nice suit jacket, shirt and tie. And blue jeans. But with nice shoes. He seemed to be very eager for a man of 16 or so and very sweet, doting on her. Problem is he set off my gaydar. No problem for me, but maybe for her. It was still very sweet to see the young lovers going out for their date.

Chris and I spent the rest of the night at home sitting next to each other watching COPS, eating junk food and playing with our iPods. 3 feet from each other but not talking.

I think the iPods may have been a bad idea. If we start emailing each other from inside our tiny little condo, I’ll know it was.

Happy V-day Christopher. I love you.