Tag: Apple

Mac Van Winkle

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
Even the tree seems to be reaching for something out of its grasp.

Anybody else having a hard time waking up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

Maybe it’s a side effect from 10 days of snotlocker drugs. Could be the time change and tonight’s Beaver Moon. But my eyes didn’t open until after 6 a.m. this morning, which is a rarity in these, my Golden Years.

I know it’s not the avalanche of inanities we call the news, because I’ve been ignoring that shit. Oh, I’ll lift the lid for a peek now and then, but the smell is usually a dead giveaway. There’s something down there you don’t need to see.

Speaking of things best left unexamined, after the Great Power Failure I decided to rearrange the tech around here rather than buy a new Mac to replace the 15-inch 2014 MacBook Pro that our local Apple Store “Genius Bar” demoted from a functional laptop into a half-assed desktop while replacing its battery.

So, now, the 15-inch MBP awaits teardown and recycling. The 13-inch 2014 MBP has replaced it in my office, hooked to a 24-inch LG external display and a couple external drives because it has next to no internal storage (I pinched pennies on memory and storage because it was my road-tripper in the Before-Time). And the 11-inch 2012 MacBook Air, which was for traveling seriously light, has replaced the 13-inch MBP on keyboards in the world-famous Infernal Hound Sound podcasting studio.

Both have been updated to the latest versions of macOS they can handle (Big Sur and Catalina, respectively). But man, I gotta admit, these Macs were price/performance compromises from the get-go. And in 2024, it kinda shows.

The MBP rocks a 2.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 chip, while the MBA runs a 2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7. Both have just 8GB of memory, minimal on-board storage, and a shortage of ports. And they’ve been rudely awakened all these years later to find that things have … changed.

Hey, I can dig it. Shit looks a little different to me, too. And I can’t always keep up, either.

Y’think Apple will sell me a new Mac and a new me?

A sinus of The Times?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
I’ve long had a nose for news, but a nose from news?

Seasonal allergies may be associated with mood disorders like anxiety or depression, according to The New York Times.

Huh. And here I’d thought my mood had become disordered due to the pain in my ass, an ailment I contracted from reading The New York Times.

I shouldn’t pick on The Ould Gray Hoor here. Anxiety, depression, and ass pain can be acquired just about anywhere, from the lowliest blog (thanks for reading) to the self-anointed Newspaper of Record.

Lately we are presented with a sitting president going all Oprah on his studio audience — Look under your seats! Debt forgiveness for you! No arms for them! — and his predecessor snoozing through court dates, occasionally waking to flash the stink-eye around the room or curse a porn-star paramour. A third candidate for the job has a brain worm, a slow, underhand pitch not even I can take a swing at.

Two rappers are said to be “beefing,” which seems to mean “talking shit about each other from a safe distance.” You’d think these two gents might bump into each other at some social event, like the Met Gala — which is still getting coverage three days later — and then what? An X-slap followed by a virtual duel? Mics at 10 paces?

Speaking of talking shit, slaps, and mics, the House of Reprehensibles gave the back of the hand it wasn’t using to write the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Refrigerator Freedom Act, and the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act (HOOHAA) to the Creature from the White Lagoon for trying to topple Squeaker Mikey Mouse (hey, if you can’t legislate, defenestrate). MTG couldn’t even get the window cracked, much less toss Mikey out of it. Nevertheless she drew reporters like a dead dog draws … well, reporters. (Hi, Kristi Noem!)

Shoot, we can’t even get a new iPad without drama. Not that I want one.

When not blowing my nose or shifting uncomfortably in my chair I wonder whether in the race to become all things to all people at all times the media have become “a dildo that has turned berserkly upon its owner,” to misuse a Thomas McGuane quote.

McGuane was talking about America. And in some small sense, I suppose, so am I. Back to you, Chet.

Tech-no!-logy

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

The 2021 iPhone 13 Mini. Cute little kitty-cat not included.

Anyone queuing up for the new Apple gadgets this morning?

Me neither.

I have this fine 2021 iPhone 13 Mini here, which I had to snap with the 2016 iPad Pro, since I no longer have any actual cameras in the vicinity.

The iPad is practically useless — I was pinching pennies when I bought it and went for the 32GB of storage, which is of course full to overflowing despite my ruthless purging of apps, data, pix, music, etc.

It still works, but to no particular purpose, like the U.S. House of Reprehensibles, and I don’t expect to ever buy another.

Remember, kids: You can never be too rich or too thin, or have too much storage and memory.

Speaking of things that don’t work as they should, no further intel from WordPress. WP was good enough to send me a note proposing that I upgrade to their Business plan to “unlock a set of amazing features,” among them “live chat support for on-demand help from our global team of Happiness Engineers.”

This, like a new iPad — and commenting on the blog without having to buy a postcard, slap a stamp on it, and hand it over to the U.S. Mail — is another non-starter.

The Bloviator

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

It takes talent to step on your own dick without getting out of the car.

Herself is a huge fan of the original “Arthur” flick, the one starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli.

Me, I can take it or leave it, but I must admit that the thing is chock-full of quotable quotes. Pretty much any line delivered by Sir John Gielgud is a keeper.

But you have to know your audience when you cite a 41-year-old flick about a wealthy rumpot, horndog, and all-round dilettante — as Tony “The Blevinator” Blevins learned when he riffed on an Arthurism for a TikTok creator.

TikToker Daniel Mac spotted Blevins — Apple’s hard-charging vice president for procurement — in a high-zoot Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren at a California car show, and asked Blevins what he did for a living.

And like Arthur, Blevins was off to the races, quipping:

“I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women, but I take weekends and major holidays off.”

Oof. What Arthur said was:

“I race cars, play tennis, and fondle women, But! I have weekends off, and I am my own boss.”

Frankly, it wasn’t that funny in 1981. And The Bloviator’s updated take on it really fell flat at Apple, which showed Blevins the door. And not to his McLaren, either. Turns out he was not his own boss.

A tip of the hat to MacRumors, which is where I first saw the story.

Apple of my ay yi yi

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

Old Sparky is back on the job.

Rarely do the multinational corporations come in for praise here at Ye Olde Chuckle Hut.

They routinely claim to stand behind what they sell, but often can be found standing directly behind the customer, wearing a predatory expression and not much else. Just who exactly is the “end user” here?

That being said, here’s a tip of the Mad Dog sombrero to the support folks at Apple. They got right on the twitchy 2014 MacBook Pro I sent them, found a fault in addition to the one that I had diagnosed, repaired both, and shipped the sucker back with alacrity. Saturday delivery, before noon. Booyah, etc.

There was one small hitch in the gitalong, and in the end (har de har har) it proved to be no hitch at all.

When support notified me via text of the second fault and asked permission to fix it (for an additional three hundy and change) I was unable to approve the additional work online, either via Mac OS or iOS. Couldn’t get an active link on the “Git ’er done” page. God damn it all anyway, etc.

So I rang ’em up. Mind you, this was on Tuesday last, when the product barkers were pitching the brand-new iPhone 12 to the rubes. Hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry! I was expecting a long wait and a short reply that proposed my going and doing something to myself of which I would not approve.

Nope. My call was answered promptly, the support person kicked me to his supervisor, and she sez to me she sez, “Lemme handle that for you.” Including covering the additional cost.

Frankly, I was dumbfounded. The tab was not unreasonable, a whole lot less than buying a new MacBook Pro, and I was prepared to pay it. But all I had to spend beyond the initial repair estimate was a simple thank-you for the generosity.

“Yeah, you gotta lotta Apple product, been with us a long time,” she replied cheerily. Right on both counts, with everything from iPods to iPhones to iPads, MacBooks to Minis, PowerBooks to PowerMacs, going all the way back to 1990 and that first Mac SE.

Frankly, the only way the experience could’ve been improved is if they’d given me a loaner to drive while my MacBook was in the shop.

“Here, take the keys to this 16-inch 2.3GHz 8-core MacBook Pro with the 16GB of memory and the 1TB SSD, take ’er for a little spin while we work on the auld fella here.”

I guess they figured I didn’t need the bait. I’ve been on the hook for 30 years.