Really? A Vegan Diet?

(Note: Blogger is being super awesome today and not letting me add pictures. Sorry for all of the text without something shiny to distract you on occasion.)

My mental image and personal feelings about Steve Jobs have been altered and I want to know how to get the original ones back. The original feelings that I had about him were those of admiration and appreciation. Now I'm just angry at him. (Yes, I know that he's dead and that I never met him. That's not the point.) How could someone so smart be so incredibly stupid?

I'm a big fan of modern medicine. Big. Huge. If you tell me that there's something wrong with me (medically wrong with me), the first thing that I'm going to ask is "How do we fix this?" (That's assuming that I'm even at the asking question stage. Usually I'm more direct and would probably tend to go with "Fix it.") If you tell me that there is something really wrong with me, say like a rare form of pancreatic cancer, I'm going to have a much more urgent feeling about all of the fixing. And surprisingly, that is one of the many things that was different about me and Steve Jobs.

See, Steve Jobs, when presented with the fact that he had the only type of curable pancreatic cancer (as opposed to the regular kind that just kills you almost instantly), decided that instead of having the surgery to fix it that he would instead try "...fruit juices, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments — some of which he found on the Internet". This according to the New York Times and cited from his biography which comes out tomorrow. Good Lord.


Fruit juices?! He tried to cure his cancer with freaking fruit juices?! He was a freaking genius who had all of the money that he would need to do anything he wanted to do to try to combat pancreatic cancer and instead he goes for fruits and herbs and...and...stuff he found on the freaking Internet?! Had he been on the Internet...EVER?! You know what's on the Internet? Crap. Crap and porn. And yes, obviously there are some good things on the Internet, but I guess Steve Jobs wasn't aware of those sites because he tried to cure pancreatic cancer with a rutabaga!

Basically, if he had the surgery when he was first diagnosed (instead of spending nine months trying alternative methods, some of which included going to a freaking spiritualist), there is a good chance that he would be alive today. But by the time that he finally let them "open up his body" the cancer had spread to his liver. And that's because fruit juices don't stop the spread of cancer. (Make a note of that, kids.) So now I'm mad at him and I see him in a totally different manner than I did before I learned how ridiculous he was being.

I guess that when you have built the most successful company on the planet that you're going to get somewhat of a swelled head. I understand that. The ego is a pretty powerful thing. But does it really affect someone so much that they can't think in a rational manner when the circumstances and the consequences become a matter of life and death? For Steve Jobs, it apparently did. He thought he knew what was best and what was better than what doctors (and common freaking sense) would have told him. And for nine months there was apparently no changing his mind. Oh, sure. After the surgery, he was all gung-ho about how to beat his cancer. But by then, from all accounts, it was likely too late. The cancer had spread, he needed a liver transplant and he eventually died. And now I'm mad at him.

I'm always marveling at how different every single person is from each other. Thus, it never ceases to amaze me when people make choices that I just flat out do not understand. Why didn't he just get the surgery? Would it have killed him to just have listened to his doctors? Probably not. And that's my point.

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Don't Go There

I am amazed, simply amazed, at the self-centeredness of so many people. The cluelessness. The oblivion. The doe in the headlights idiocy. Seriously, what is wrong with you people when someone influential and famous dies? Do you have NO concept of basic mourning protocol? Apparently not. Let me go through some basics.

First of all, I'm obviously talking about the hoopla surrounding the death of the beloved Steve Jobs. While I personally do not quite understand the whole shrine building practice, it has become quite popular. I guess because people really want to feel like they've made some sort of a connection or an expression of themselves or something. I'm not sure what and I don't get it. But I do know this. You people that are going to Steve Jobs' house are out of line.


Are the people who are pilgrimaging to his home aware of the fact that his family including his three children (who seem to be 20, 16 and 13) still live in that home? Do these moronic pilgrims think that somehow their standing outside of the home in which he likely died is going to be of some comfort to the family? Why are they there? I cannot think of anything more inappropriate. Let's take a quick gander at the statement that the family made. Hmmm...oh, there's this part: "We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief." Respecting their privacy does not mean drawing apples in chalk (or worse, leaving real apples) on the sidewalk in front of their house!


His kids just lost their father, for cryin' out loud. They don't give a crap how much you love your iPod. Maybe one day they will (give a crap). But right now, their dad just died. Let me just tell you that my dad wasn't some great, big famous guy to anyone but me. And when he died, it was all I could do to deal with the delivery people who brought by flowers that people had sent. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if there were a bunch of jackass strangers standing in my front yard during that time. (While I cannot imagine, I can speculate and let me tell you that it would not have gone down well.) Get the hell out of his yard. Now.


Some people seem to think that the building of a shrine outside the home where family members of the deceased are still residing is an appropriate show of grief and sympathy. Those people are known as insensitive idiots. Please do not encourage that sort of behavior should you encounter it in the wild. Really, the only appropriate reaction would be to run those people over.

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iRony

I knew it wouldn't be long before silly season started after the death of Steve Jobs. I just didn't know that it would be SO soon and SO completely freaking asinine. But then again, whenever there is the possibility of the Westboro Baptist Church having anything to do with anything, I guess I can't expect a guarantee.

Shortly after the death of Steve Jobs was made known to the world, we were all privy to a tweet from the completely idiotic Margie J Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church Phelps'. These are the people (their brains likely riddled with syphilis and no longer capable of rational thought) who tend to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also like to picket funerals of people who were gay or supported gay rights. In general, they're just a bunch of a-holes. That is most easily evidence by Margie Phelps' tweet which is seen below. Behold!


That's right. They're going to picket his funeral. Please do not let the irony of the fact that she sent this from her iPhone (which, in case you were unaware, Steve Jobs freaking invented!) escape you. And when this was pointed out to her (through a bazillion tweets in the Twitterverse), she gave just the sort of response that I would have expected would have come from someone like her. Behold!

Right. That's why you used your iPhone. Because God made it to tell us that. And look, without even challenging her beliefs, I'm just going to come right out and say that I'm pretty sure that God did not create the iPhone. The small children in China that assemble iPhones have had more of a hand in the creation process than God did. And while I'm on the subject, how is it that none of these Westboro people have been shot yet? I'm merely wondering out loud. I'm not suggesting violence by any means. (I AM a fan of about two percent vigilante justice, however. And I think that these lunatics would qualify for my system.) I'm just sayin'.

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Bye, Steve

Steve Jobs died yesterday. I didn't know it was possible to be this profoundly sad about the death of someone that I've never met. However, it apparently is. I'm really sad. Sad that he wasn't around longer, but grateful that he was around at all. Thanks for everything, Steve.

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He Changed My Life

(Warning: Depressing post.) Last night, Steve Jobs announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Apple. All I kept reading was how this would effect Apple. Let me tell you something. I am not worried even in the slightest about Apple. I am, however, extremely worried about Steve Jobs.

I don't know the man. I've never met him. (I did see him a couple of times walking to his car at what my uncle calls "The World Wide Headquarters of Apple in Cupertino". My uncle lives less than half a mile from that building and I don't think that he's ever seen him, so I consider myself lucky. It's like I saw Bigfoot or a really lost Yeti or something.) But I hold him responsible for my love of all that is the computer. And I love computers so much.






My dad brought home an Apple II when I was in 7th grade. He bought it used after seeing an ad in the newspaper classifieds. (For my younger readers, a newspaper used to be delivered daily to one's home and it contained pages and pages of summations of current events.) It came with a ton of games and programs on 5-1/4" floppies (and TWO 5-1/4" external floppy drives so that you could back-up all of your bad ass software). I explored every single one of those disks. I never looked back.





And I'm not an Apple fan girl. I've been using PCs for at least 20 years. But, the first three or four computers that I ever had were Apple. And the first computer I ever bought with my own money was an Apple. (An Apple IIGS to be specific. The GS stood for "graphics and sound". It was beautiful.) The point here is that this isn't about Apple computers and now Apple products for me. It's about a guy who not only changed the entire world, but who also changed my world. And changed it for the absolute better.

When I realized what an iPod could do, I knew that my life was going to be better. And as a complete nerd, I will disclaim that I have but one song on my 32gb iPod Touch. (It's Eric Johnson's Cliffs of Dover if you must know.) The rest? Podcasts and apps. And I never go anywhere without it. It makes me happy. SO freaking happy. I could probably go on and on, but I think that you get the point.



When Steve Jobs took his leave of absence back in January, he wrote in his announcement "I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can." He's not coming back. And when someone has had pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant, that doesn't sound like a good thing. So while I know that Apple will be OK, I don't know that Steve Jobs will. And it makes me sad. I even cried a little when I heard that he was stepping down. He's only 56. The world should have many more years with Steve Jobs in it, but I don't think that's going to be the case. I could be wrong and I hope I am, but I just don't think that this is shaping up to be all that rosy.





I wish the man all the best. I think that he changed the world for the better. I know that he changed my life for the better. I feel very lucky to have been able to watch him develop and grow throughout his entire career. And even if he has to leave us now, his influence on computing and accessories and business will live on forever. Good luck, sir. And thank you for everything.

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Steve Jobs Briefly Speaks Out

Oh, Steve Jobs. I never know whether I should love you or loathe you. It's usually a little bit of both. And it doesn't really sway much in one direction or the other. There are equal amounts in each part of both love and hate that I feel for you. The email exchange that you had with a senior at Long Island University exemplifies these feelings, though I think I end up a little more on the love side this time.

According to the gawking folks over there at Gawker, a Long Island University senior, a one 22-year old Chelsea Kate Isaacs, had been given an assignment by her journalism professor to cover the university's plan to give all incoming students an iPad. She "...wanted to get a quote from Apple about the use of iPads in academic settings". That seems fairly reasonable. So she called Apple's PR department six times and left six messages and got zero responses. For some reason, that seems to have surprised her.

I don't know what Apple's reason for not returning her calls was, but I'm guessing it has something to do with them being fairly busy. Aside from that, I'm sure that she could scour the Innerwebs and find a quote from Apple about how wonderful they think their iPads are and how they will be immensely valuable in a scholastic setting. In fact, I'm positive she could find their take on it somewhere out there. If there's one thing that Apple can do well, it's speak highly of themselves.

Ms. Isaacs then decided that she would just email the man himself, so she sent an email off to Steve Jobs. Part of the email that she sent included the following sentence: "Mr. Jobs, I humbly ask why Apple is so wonderfully attentive to the needs of students, whether it be with the latest, greatest invention or the company's helpful customer service line, and yet, ironically, the Media Relations Department fails to answer any of my questions which are, as I have repeatedly told them, essential to my academic performance." Good God. And I thought that I was wordy.

That was one sentence. And really? She repeatedly told them that answering her question was "essential" to her academic performance? Not good. She's going to need to learn a little bit about how to phrase things when she's annoyed. What do they care if she gets a good grade or not? Does she have an iPod? That's good enough for them.

And it turns out, Steve Jobs didn't give a fat rat's ass about her grade. And he let her know it. In his reply, which was about one-tenth the length of the sentence above, he wrote, "Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry". Guess what? She didn't like that very much. I, on the other hand, liked it very much.

So, having not learned anything about brevity, she responded to Steve Jobs with: "I never said that your goal should be to "help me get a good grade." Rather, I politely asked why your media relations team does not respond to emails, which consequently, decreases my chances of getting a good grade. But, forget about my individual situation; what about common courtesy, in general —- if you get a message from a client or customer, as an employee, isn't it your job to return the call? That's what I always thought. But I guess that's not one of your goals." Wow. She's a talker, that one. Gotta mouth like a motorboat. But which one is it, cupcake? Emails or phone calls? Clearly, your emails are being responded to, by Steve Jobs no less!

And he continued to respond by explaining the realistic nature of the situation over there at Apple when he told her, "Nope. We have over 300 million users and we can't respond to their requests unless they involve a problem of some kind. Sorry." It's just not possible. The mathematics are not such that they can tend to every individual who wants a quote that they can find on the Internet. But do you think that was good enough for her? Hardly. So what do you think that she did? She wrote him another lengthy response, that is correct. She told him, "You're absolutely right, and I do meet your criteria for being a customer who deserves a response: 1. I AM one of your 300 million users. 2. I DO have a problem; I need answers that only Apple Media Relations can answer. Now, can they kindly respond to my request (my polite and friendly voice can be heard in the first 5 or 10 messages in their inbox). Please, I am on deadline." For cryin' out loud.

Perhaps he should have told this simpleton that when he says "a problem of some kind", he means a problem with a freaking Apple product. Not a problem in general. It's not a suicide hotline or anything like that. But she might want to find one after his final response to her. It was short. It was direct. It was kind of all sorts of awesome. It read: "Please leave us alone."

I don't think that this has anything to do with him being Steve Jobs and thinking that he's better than everyone else (regardless as to whether or not he really does think that, which I'm guessing that he does on occasion). I think it has to do with her not understanding how the real world works and how it's not something that a company with 300 million users can be bothered with. I can only imagine how self-important her voicemail messages that she left were. No wonder he asked her to leave them alone. Besides, what's she going to do? Buy a Zune?

If you'd like to read the initial email that Ms. Isaacs sent to Mr. Jobs, you can do so at the link that I provided to Gawker above. It's lengthy. It's self-important. It makes it clear that she has a deadline. And from how it reads, it seems to indicate she might want to spend just a little more time in those journalism classes. She gets a little muddled toward the end. Hey, I'm just saying! Look, I'm far from a professional journalist, but at least I don't expect the world to bow down to me because I possess fairly adept typing skills and an Internet connection.

I'd also like to mention how incredibly happy it made me to be able to write a post where I could use several "vintage" pictures of Mr. Jobs and of Apple products. It's awesome. It's really hard to squeeze things like that into posts about moronic politicians and stories about things going awry when they involve a penis.

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