Long dang day it was; Everything in the world has to be done Wednesday night, so . . . sorry.
Specifics – busy writing a column and writing & doing the voice-over for a video. It’s been work since sunrise – sped off to the office listening to the 70s XM channel this time. Midnight Train to Georgia. Whoo-hoo. Gladys Knight may have gone back to George with the fellow who thought he’d be a star (superstar, but he never got far) because she was a failure, too, and he provided a handy excuse. Got to work, helped a bit on the newscast, did another segment in one of the new studios, then finished the first of three flu videos. I look fat. The camera may add ten pounds, but a blousing-out shirt adds another 15. I’m not at the fighting weight I was when I went on my great no-carb crash diet, but then again, about half the people I met during that period thought I was dying.
The one thing I learned from the no-carb diet was the pleasures of a breakfast sausage, and to this day I have a small one with a few jots of Rooster Sauce. Cub foods stopped carrying the brand I prefer, and switched to one that has no brand name as far as I can tell. Bob’s Slaughterhouse Miscellany, perhaps. As I typed on twitter this morning: has that gamy aftertaste kids love!
File’s almost done; leave you with this.
If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.
Some thoughts:
At some point someone will have to develop a post-production plug-in that automates the herky-jerky camera motion, just to save time and effort. I understand the appeal of the technique, and to be honest I prefer it to watching a straight-on boring wide shot with cut-away close-ups; it provides visual engagement when the content is utterly banal. As in this case.
Who are these people? How does the pathetic “geek” know Hot Maybe-Mom? Is the older woman his mom, or Hot Maybe-Mom’s? Not to get all sociological on you, but at the end Geekboy puts down Tall Cool Guy, and it’s totally unconvincing and almost awkward. He would never have slammed Grandma: disrespectful. He wouldn’t put down Hot Mom; turns off target market. So he can only go against Tall Cool Guy. But it just makes him look pathetic, and his sign-off surfer-d00d gesture nails that coffin shut.
There can’t be an analogous Mac version of this, because Apple would never presume that people might hold a multi-generational social event to upgrade their system software.
After watching the entire thing, I still have no idea what Windows 7 does, or why it’s different. Something about photos and email, yes, but aside from that it’s a blur. I did get the impression that you could go online and learn more about Windows 7. Crucial party tip: print off some stuff from a website.
Later today: First Day Covers. Thin pickings hgere, but Thursdays and Fridays are like that.
Pass it along, if you wish
76 Responses to Thursday, Sept. 25
Host with the Most
Dudes, that’s great. How’s World of Warcraft running on those systems?
Tip for your Windows 7 party: prepare your salads with plenty of 7-up dressing. Have enough 7-up ice for the soft drinks (or, I think in this case good stiff hi-balls would be a better choice). And for God’s sake don’t forget the 7-up cake with 7-up icing.
Actor: “Wait…what’s my motivation again?”
Director: “You’re hosting a party centered around an upgrade to a Web browser.”
Actor: “um…why would I do that?”
Director: “Look, ..I don’t know, just do it.”
Actor” “okay…I think I’m just going to go with ‘desperate actor so willing to work that he’ll pretend to host a party for software.’”
Director: “hey…whatever works.”
Windows 7 Is Bringing The Sexy!…
As the Hollywood knew in its golden days, it’s what you don’t talk about that makes it intriguing. In other words, this is a pretty *$#*@#-ing good parody of an other staggeringly lame advertisement:
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt…
Yeah, pretty lame.
Which is probably why there are over fifty comments on the subject here.
(Crazy like a fox?)
Well, Apple left an opening with the appalling “I’m a Mac” campaign (“Hey, folks, it’s true! People who buy our products really are smug, condescending jerks!”). And the clever MS response to those ads inched soooo close to coolness.
But they just couldn’t stand it — cool is just not in Microsoft’s nature. This ought to undo any last little whiff of it.
@NavySeabee
Worst?
Not even close.
I have to use a Mac from time-to-time at work.
Hate. It.
It doesn’t help that their spokesman is Brandon from Galaxy Quest.
Just like “Lauren,” these people aren’t cool enough for a Mac…
At least they aren’t off their meds, like the “Windows 386″ loon. WOW, just wow.
Caramba!! For a six-minute video it seemed to last thirty. All along I kept thinking this has to be some very subtle parody, like Best In Show or Spinal Tap. But as the minutes ground on, the realization hit: these people are serious. Un-bee-lee-vable.
[...] Via Lileks.com [...]
Those are four people who would never be seen in real life together, much less at any sort of party, especially one oriented around an operating system. The sort of people who would attend a Windows-oriented party don’t live in “houses” so much as they live in “one room apartments with no windows and enough empty Cheetos bags to build a life-size Chester Cheetah.” Tack that on the front of “-party” and you have a little more accurate portrayal of where this party would really be occuring.
James got quoted at CNBC.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33007219
You guys are missing out on a great opportunity, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. How can you resist hosting a party EXACTLY like they describe it, just so you can blog about how many people either committed suicide or slowly, slowly backed out the door, without making any sudden movements?
I see comments like this nearly verbatim all the time. Just once, I’d like to know what irreplaceable Mac-Centric program(s)is out there that forces people to use a Mac “once in awhile” and “hate it”. I can see why unfamiliarity might breed contempt, but to make such vague statements seems awfully bogus to me. Maybe they had to check their email at a public coffeehouse kiosk? Yeah, that’s HARD.
No, it come with OS X, and has since at least as far back as 10.4, released in 2005.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Absolutely nonsensical.
They never have to get there. OS X 10.23 is entirely possible, if not likely. (I’m voting for dinosaurs, personally. Or beetles, since there are so many of them.)
Software version numbers only look like plain vanilla decimals.
Ah, OS flamewars (he said, sipping his coffee).
Someone please do a spoof that involves strippers, cocaine, marijuana, etc … “For my Windows 7 house party we’re going to sacrific little 7-year-old Jimmy to Moloch and paint a big “7″ on each of the walls with his blood!” Gosh golly gee it’ll be ever so much fun!
@WalterPeck
Yeah.
There are times when it’s useful to bring up another OS, e.g., when Vista was new it was hard to evaluate its sidebar without comparing it to panel apps in Gnome and KDE, and when the OS X dock was new, it was hard not to compare it to other docks, and now with the pinning in Seven it’s hard not to compare to the OS X dock. But these are details.
Each OS has its place, and any serious computer geek ought to be familiar with and able to work with at least three different environments. Otherwise you miss the forest for the trees and develop a narrow view of computing wherein you conflate general concepts with the one particular implementation of them that you’ve used.
I think the idea of doing a party at home for Windows 7 launch is pretty cool. The video is maybe not the greatest, but it’s really for people who’ve already signed up to do a Windows 7 launch party. In that context, it’s not so bad… probably better than reading a dry list of suggestions for most people.
[...] James Lileks of The Bleat writes, “If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have [...]
There was a time… when I actually went to a midnight roll-out party at Egghead for Windows 95.
Windows 95 was the apology for windows 3.0, or 3.1, or 386– who remembers? It was a reasonable advance.
I do know that the Mac at the time was pretty dead– it was the non-Jobs period. And Egghead’s only Apple product was the Newton.
I brought my 14 year old son with me.
We were there long enough to grab some free donuts.
The Windows 7 party kits they mail out do not include donuts.
So I didn’t sign up.
[...] Go here. Share and Enjoy: [...]
[...] As CNBC mentions: “one Washington Post reader wrote: “If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.”" [...]
[...] design, cuisine, and human reproduction. To quote Mr. Lileks: “If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long [...]