UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

I think it was probably around 1983 that I got my first Rubik’s Cube. Wasn’t that the year they really hit big in the U.S.? Anyway, I just never had the patience or the logical foresight to be able to solve it. Never. Not once. Oh, sure, I was able to solve one side. I think once I might have solved two. But I could never envision how to put it all together. It’s the same reason I suck at chess.

Before long, I knew that it wasn’t possible to just solve the whole thing one side at a time. And, unnervingly, when you were closest to having the whole puzzle solved, just a couple of turns away from a complete solution, there would be a sequence of moves where none of the sides were solved. That was just too much for my 9-year-old brain.

Eventually I just gave up on ever solving my Rubik’s Cube. It didn’t help that I had also learned that you could turn one side to a 45-degree angle, pop out the middle edge piece, and easily disassemble the entire thing, reassembling it in perfect order. And so it was, that my speedy solution to the Rubik’s Cube, sadly, always involved a screwdriver.

This year my parents gave me a Rubik’s Cube for Christmas. (It’s OK… that’s not the only thing they got me for Christmas. I also got this, which rocks.) Today I decided, by gum, I’m gonna solve it! Of course, not on my own. These days Rubik’s Cubes ship with a little pamphlet revealing the magical seven-step solution. (No, not seven moves, more like a hundred or so. But seven basic logical steps.)

I was doing great… halfway through the seventh and final step, when… well, the whole thing fell apart. Not literally. They’re made pretty well — and it’s no longer possible to pop out the edge piece with a screwdriver. (Don’t ask me how I know that it’s no longer possible. I just have my ways.)

I realized after a moment of fretting that I had misinterpreted part of Step 7. I was left with this:

One good side, and five sides of crap. (Much like Yessongs. Sorry… had to say it. Not too often you can work in a joke about a 36-year-old prog rock triple live album. By Yes.)

After dinner I was sufficiently distanced from my devastating defeat that I was willing to have another go, and this time… success!

Here are a couple of photos I took of my office/studio for the RPM Challenge, and I figured I might as well post them here too, so you can get a glimpse into the world where the magic happens. Well, where… something happens.

As just about everyone who pays attention probably knows by now, the Bush White House today convened a Presidents Club luncheon, consisting of the 3 surviving ex-presidents, the White House’s current occupant, and Barack Obama, who in less than three weeks will be setting up shop in the Oval Office.

I find the photo above to be fascinating as a study in body language. George W. Bush stands front and center, but seems nervously out-of-place, with his awkward smirk and cocked left foot. Barack Obama is both leaning and looking away from the current president, speaking with his father. There is a strange stiffness in his comportment, as if simply standing in close proximity to “Dubya” is creating negative energy. GHWB stands at the end, hand outstretched in mid-sentence, in a position that suggests either patting a child on the head or pushing them away.

Bill Clinton stands grinning wistfully, hands behind his back, contemplating, perhaps, his own personal history (and I mean personal) in the very room in which the five men now stand.

And Jimmy Carter knows exactly what’s on Bill’s mind.

I’ll leave you to ponder the merits, or lack thereof, of my decision to omit an apostrophe in the phrase “Presidents Club.”

OK, so I missed the keynote today — client meeting. Sounds like the client meeting (or just about anything else in the world) was preferable to the Jobs-less snoozefest of the Macworld keynote.

I’m still trying to make sense of the announcement about iTunes. Everything’s going iTunes Plus, DRM free, new pricing levels, and 3G (and, rumor has it, EDGE) downloads. I guess the new pricing levels are cool. At least the cheaper one — who would be excited about the opportunity to pay more? Besides Ned Flanders? And the 3G (and EDGE, if it’s true) downloads are also cool and overdue (you’ve been able to download apps under 10 MB over-the-air from day one of the App Store). But I don’t quite understand the hoopla over the DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks, or, more specifically, the criticisms over the “upgrade” charge.

Either the complainers, or I myself, don’t understand something. iTunes Plus has been DRM-free since it debuted. And upgrades, to music that is newly available as iTunes Plus, have always been 30 cents per song or 30% of the album price, again since the beginning. The only thing I can see that’s different is that Apple is now pushing to convert the remainder of the entire, expansive iTunes music offerings to all become available in the iTunes Plus format. But the nature of iTunes Plus itself has not changed at all. Am I wrong about this?

Ultimately, I suppose this might make me slightly more interested in buying music from the iTunes Store, which, a year or so ago was my #1 destination for music. But only if I absolutely can’t wait to buy a song from my computer. The availability of the song purchases directly from the iPhone is really the only thing iTunes has going for it now as far as I’m concerned, and it’s all about format. I went all Apple and re-ripped most of my music in AAC format back when I got my first iPod, because its quality is better at any given bitrate compared to MP3. But… it’s not MP3. Amazon MP3 is a great service, better prices and often a better selection than Apple’s, and because it uses MP3, you have a lot more options for how you use the music. In my case, it means I can burn MP3 CDs that will play in my XBOX 360 or my car stereo. Can’t do that with AAC, DRM’ed or not.

So, until Apple switches to MP3, which will… not… happen, I’ll stick with Amazon MP3 whenever possible.

Update: I just went over to the iTunes Store to check out the status of my iTunes Plus upgrade opportunities. I’ve been upgrading my library as I went along since the feature debuted, so over time I’ve upgraded… I don’t know, maybe a total of a dozen albums. There are definitely more options available now (and I thought I read this wasn’t coming until April 1???). Not sure I want to bother upgrading all of these; some I’d be better off waiting, checking Amazon every day, and hoping they’ll eventually make them the $1.99 album of the day. Some, I’d prefer to deny ever having bought in the first place. (Steve Perry? Really?)

Of course, Apple only lets you upgrade all or nothing. Lame. (And yes, that’s how it’s been since the beginning… but the availability of “upgradeable” songs was an intermittent trickle and, probably, will continue to be over the next several months.

I went to YouTube to seek out the classic opening sequence from ABC’s Monday Night Football that I remember from the late ’70s/early ’80s. Well… I remember the music. I didn’t remember the visuals, which is why I sought it out. I was looking for something akin to this (regrettably, the only clip I could find on YouTube featuring any of the “classic” MNF music in its original context):

And here’s one that I remembered upon seeing it, but hadn’t recalled before:

But what I wasn’t expecting to find was this — the version from 1973:

I’ve always been interested in design and logos, even when I was 6 (1980). So it’s cool, thanks to YouTube, to be able to step back in time and see these gone-but-not-forgotten visuals from television’s past. And once again, I am reminded that as crazy as the things I remember from my early childhood (say, from about 1978 to 1983) are compared to how they are today, just a few years earlier they were immeasurably weirder.