Ok, after years of being an Apple fan boy they have officially made me angry.   It all centers around my beloved iPhone.    Well, that honeymoon is now over.    First, a few weeks ago, the released their fancy new Ringtone features...which are crap.   Not only do they charge you to convert iTunes songs you already own into ringtones, but they don't let you create your own songs and sound bites to ringtones.    This is something I have been able to do with EVERY smartphone I have ever used...for me...thats saying a LOT.    Well, all was well and good cause a few quickly companies figured out a way around this silly limitation and solved the problem for us.    All was good...I thought.

Next, Apple in their infinite wisdom demonstrated how much they hate their early adopter customers by showing us how much they could gouge us on a new phone.   That's right, little more than 2 months after we all stood in line for hours to get the new Jesus phone apple lowered the price by 200 bucks.   As an avid gadget freak I am used to paying a price for new devices but also having done this a LOT, I usually expect a 6-9 month window of exclusivity before prices come down and everyone else gets invited to the party.   The only explanation for this is that Apple was gouging us all.    Luckily this time, Apple was redeemed partially by offering us a hundred of our gouged dollars back in the form of a store credit.    Again, all was better...for a time.

Well, last week, they pulled it again.   This time, they upgraded the firmware (third time since release) and once again, added NONE of the features we have been asking for.   No eBooks, no Copy/Paste, no Exchange support.   Nope, all we got was yet another way for us to give Apple more money.   iTunes Music store...Come one!!!!    Oh, but that's not all Apple had up their sleeves.   Yep, they have successfully ended (at least for now) the amazing third party development that was going on.     I had just become excited about some of the new software that I am able to run which closed the gaps I had with the iPhone.   For the last week I have been reading eBooks in Books.app and life was good.   Well, the love is now gone.    With the latest firmware all third party development has come to a screeching halt.   Goodbye ebooks, Goodbye ringtones  Goodbye file browser.    I am stuck at version 1.0.2 indefinitely.   

Honestly, for me it might be the last straw, the third strike so to speak.   I still love Macs but this iPhone business has really made me angry.   I am once again phone shopping.    Jesus phone...yeah right.  Make that Hell Phone.

I have been trying to finish Lego Star Wars II for MONTHS.   I have been stuck at 98 of 99 gold bricks which is the FINAL obstacle to finishing the game.    The problem is that due to a bug (or something) I would crash at the same point every time when I tried to finish the final obstacle.    To make matters worse, it takes over an hour to get to the point where it crashes.   I think I have tried it 8 or 9 times before I finally gave up.   Since I got a new XBOX this week, I decided to give it one more try and sure enough...it worked.   I don't know it was transferring the game to my new Elite fixed it if the old machine was just flaky but now I don't care.

I have been stuck at this same stupid spot ever since the beginning of the year and honestly, have lost my taste for playing games due to this little bit of "UGH" that LucasArts and Microsoft put me through.      But now it's over, it's time to get my game on again.   Fall is here, the weather will soon be getting cold and there are a pile of games coming out that look like fun.    First up for me...Bioshock.   This is one of the top rated games for the 360 and although it looks a little scary, I am hopeful that my feeble gaming skills will be able to finish it.    After that is Halo 3.   The last Halo was a cliffhanger so I can't wait to see how it ends.    Lastly and possibly my my anticipated game "Mass Effect" is coming in November.   I have played  a few Bioware's titles such as "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "Jade Empire" and can't wait to see what these guys do on next gen hardware.

Well, not much else to say.   Sorry about the lack of posts lately but if you want to stay up to date, be sure to check out my PAD which is going strong.