WWDC Keynote

MacWhispers writes their dream scenario for WWDC keynote…

1. Steve comes out and immediately begins recapping… millions of iTunes downloads… new iPods have carried sales above 1 Million units… iLife, Switch, and retail have been huge successes in recruiting consumer buyers… but…

2. Things have been a little sluggish in the pro market, he admits… something, believe it or not, Apple is aware of, and has been working on… Let me show you a video…

3. Lights dim… familiar music theme starts… and, surprisingly, a very familiar TV commercial grows into motion on the gigantic screen: the Snail commercial from 1998!

4. Lights come up. Steve says, “You know, I really enjoyed those days, didn’t you? Well, after five years of struggle, I have some good news for all of you, today: Those days are back.”

5. Panther. The first fully 64-bit enabled consumer desktop operating system. Enjoy!

6. What good would a 64-bit operating system be without 64-bit hardware?

7. Introducing the new PPC 970 powered Power Mac G5 and Powerbook G5. Single processor versions available today from the Apple online store. Dual PowerMacs coming in July.

8. One ungodly lovefest/demo follows where Panther is run in all its screaming glory on a dual 2Ghz PPC 970 Power Mac G5… concluding with the biggest smiling Phil Schiller we’ve ever seen running the Photoshop bakeoff of all bakeoffs: the 2.0GHz Dually kicking the butt of a top of the line 3.2Ghz P4 Dell… by a factor of over 2 to 1… **scalding** the Pentium system… Then, just for giggles, Steve suggests that people might want to see the same test with the now available single processor Power Mac. So, Phil runs it again with the single processor G5 and, though it’s a lot closer than with the dually, that PowerMac wins the bakeoff as well, by a convincing margin of about 20%.

9. Steve says he has one more thing he wants to show before closing… the new Power Mac TV commercial. Down go the lights. Up comes the coolest remake of the Snail commercial you’ve ever imagined… “Our apologies to the Pentium 4… but, the Power Macintosh G5…”

Pretty much what my dream keynote would be. We’ll find out here in a couple hours.

Eating The Best Of The Rest

Anthony Bourdain on the popularity of offal.

I have become increasingly interested in the pleasures of offal, even evangelical about it. Again and again, in Vietnam, Brazil, Singapore, Mexico, Portugal, France, even England, I have found that a tradition of skillfully prepared hooves, snouts, shanks, innards and “scraps” is a vital part of a nation’s culinary culture; it is essential training for proud cooks. If you have developed, over time, an ability and an inclination to coax flavor and texture out of the nasty bits, chances are you really know how to cook a chicken or a steak.

So often, the dishes created from poverty and necessity – like feijoada in Brazil, haggis in Scotland or menudo in Mexico – become national treasures, points of pride, cornerstones of cultural identity. At the same time, there seems to be an increasing interest in offal among the food cognoscenti; as an example, the restaurant St. John, in London – which serves spleen, trotters, ox hearts and bone marrow – has become a must-go stop on the international travel circuit of the food elites. Onglet, jarret, sweetbreads and, recently, pork belly have all become hot menu items on the East and West Coasts of the United States, and are slowly spreading in popularity.

Second front opens in the coffee war

2nd St. in Belmont Shore is under siege from two Starbucks – one at either end of town. There are some other coffee bars in town – a Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf and a couple of struggling indie shops but Belmont is pretty much under the yoke of the Starbucks tyranny.

Until today when I noticed the following sign going up on the building directly opposite one of the Starbucks. Finally for once, someone is going on the attack and locating their shop across from a Starbucks instead of the other way around.

 

peets-longbeach

I’m unbelievably happy that a Peet’s is going up here.