Ice Cube

I haven't been over there since the storm hit, but the Daily Mail reports that the glass box -- aka "The Cube" -- in front of Apple's store on Fifth Avenue has shattered in the cold thanks to a snowblower mishap trying to clear the way. Now this is the kind of brutal New York City winter I signed up for!

S'Mac in the Face

My disdain for all things Mac is well-documented. Although I always have problems with mine at work, this week has been particularly frustrating with InDesign and InCopy crashing every half-hour. (My loud cursing would probably have gotten me fired anywhere else, but everyone else working on the Macs in my section is yelling too, so I kind of blend in.) But this isn't even about that. As regular readers know, Michael (sweetly) got me an iPod for Christmas 2005. It died after 10 uses and Apple promptly sent me a new one. But even though I only travel three stops on the subway with it, every time I dare to use it something goes wrong. Each time, I've ended up bringing it home and putting it on the speaker-station my mom got me and it seems to be working fine again, so I convince myself that the problem is me (I hadn't charged it enough, I hit the wrong buttons, etc.). So Michael and I leave for Rome last month and I make sure my iPod is fully charged (the little green battery indicator assured me I was good). I ended up reading and sleeping on the plane ride there, so I didn't pull out my iPod until five days later on the way home. Lo and behold, it's completely dead. The screen lights up and hieroglyphics appear for a second and then BAM! Nothing. Back when I was "slumming it" I could bring my portable CD player and listen to as many CDs as I wanted. If the batteries died I always made sure I had some backups. For reasons that are unclear, Michael's older iPod was working fine even on the way home, but when I asked an iPod enthusiast at work if he had any idea what was going on with mine (did I get another lemon?) he said that the batteries frequently lose their charge even if you don't play it. HUH??? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having an MP3 player with you on a trip? I don't carry around a computer with me (can you imagine?) and even if I had had the station, the plugs are different in Europe, so I still wouldn't have been able to play it. Again: when it comes to Mac products, I just don't get