As an experiment, I asked my more politically-aware buddy Grumpy for the names of some political blogs that would represent both the left and the right. As I consider myself pretty centrist (or as Grumpy says, “moderate”), I was curious as to how I would react to these (differing, extreme) points of view. Well, the experiment is over. After reading them for a few weeks, I found myself unable to read them any more.

The other day I was reading about Yahoo!’s new music service, which sounds to me like a cheaper version of Napster-To-Go. Or, in other words, a music subscription service. And, of course, once again I was reading about the imminent death of the iTunes music store, the iPod, and Apple. Now, while I recognize that some folks would certainly find a subscription service useful, most analysis on this subject always seems to forget one thing: people consume music differently than most other media.

I went to Best Buy to get two things: a 512MB SD card for my new camera, and a USB 2.0 reader for said card. I came out of Best Buy with two things: a (sucky) reader for the SD card I refused to buy, and Jade Empire. I was thinking about pre-ordering this game, but I procrastinated too long. Turns out, no big deal. It wasn’t even hard to find the “limited edition” of the game at BB.

Like Grumpy, I too have reached a point where something had to be done about my cell phone. We had the same phone (the Nokia 3650 on AT&T Wireless) because, and I’m not ashamed to admit this, I’m a follower, not a leader. At least in this corner of gadgetology. When it comes to cell phones, I need a trail-blazer. I need that trail-blazer to come to my house and make a phone call from within my house.

In my previous post I described the process of how I came to obtain a Cingular-branded Treo 650. What I didn’t describe what the flurry of activity that commenced immediate thereafter. See, I got that Treo merely two days before going to that geek-fest that was the 62nd meeting of the IETF. A new cell phone isn’t really that big of a deal – I expected it to work as a phone, and for the immediate future that was all that I needed.

Grumpy points me to a glowing, happy Salon article, Hallelujah, the Mac is back. This is an interesting article that raises a number of interesting points. More entertaining, however, are the reactions to that article, as selected by Salon. These letters read like a summary of every Mac vs. PC flamewar ever, distilled down to the essence, and without the profanity. I love it. You can tell if you are a Mac lover or a hater just by reading the two pages (so far, anyway) of letters.