“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”

Probably one of the most puzzling and unsettling stories ever written, those two lines written by Fredric Brown are actually a short-story within a short-story.

And while the 1948 text obviously is awesome, I have to admit I’m fond of this take on it:

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door…”

Very interesting. If the lock is on the inside, what is the man trying to keep out? If the lock is on the outside, what locked him in there?

While both stories are based on age-old variations of ghost stories, the (probably) earliest published version of it was written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich in the late 1800s:

“A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world; every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings.”

Notes should be taken by those who write all the crap horror we see in theaters these days.

I don’t hate Microsoft. Xbox 360? Awesome. Some of their web development stuff? Really underrated. Even the Zune, despite being a substandard iPod clone, is not really that bad.

Vista, while having some nice features, is not a good product. For being a six or whatever years in the making OS update, it hasn’t as much improved on XP, but made it more cumbersome to use.

And with Apple getting a cool kid on the block type attention over the last few years, thanks to the iPod and iPhone (and through that their computers and OSs,)  it came as little surprise that Microsoft went with cool advertisers Crispin Porter + Bogusky to change people’s perception of Microsoft.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky are in my opinion overrated. The BK King? I swore off Burger King because of it. Their Volkswagen commercials weren’t much better. And their Microsoft commercials? If this is how they’re trying to overtake Apple as the coolest kid on the block… No…

The Seinfeld commercials/mini-movies were, of course, a gigantic mistake. Sure they’re funny, and Seinfeld and Gates both come off really well, but so what? It makes no difference for Microsoft. Even if it does make people talk about the company, it is not something that will do any good for them. They’re already talked about. In fact, the only thing I can see benefiting from the ads would be the Gates Foundation, as Bill Gates comes off likable enough in the movies. Of course, they were all pulled a few days ago, a major major slap in both Microsoft and Crispin Porter’s faces.

The “I am a PC” ads are worse, as they try to sell Windows by responding to the “I am a Mac” commercials yet just make PC users seem like followers and not individuals. In other words the opposite of the message the ad makers are trying to convey. In many ways it is a good example of how Microsoft is a company of followers and not innovators. If they were to respond to Apple, they should not have done it directly, but rather make something equally eye-catching with an individual voice. I give this campaign two weeks before it’s pulled.

Regardless. Even if the ads hadn’t failed miserably, the fact stands that Microsoft’s flagship product, Vista, sucks the big one. The only way to fix people’s perception on that is to better the product. It doesn’t seem like that is in the cards though.

C’est la vie.

Yes, the tabloids got this one right; I did get an iPhone. There were multiple reasons why I took the step, the biggest of which was my previous provider, T-Mobile, going from being a tragicomedy to a snuff film. Three months with dropped calls and delayed text messages (seriously, T-Mobile, my amusing anecdotes usually don’t make sense eight hours after I send them) pushed me pretty well to the edge. And when two bills quadrupled what my plan actually cost… Buying myself out of the contract and going with the $75 AT&T plan just made sense.

As for the iPhone itself, my one line review goes something like this: The iPhone is best thing to have happened to anybody ever.

In somewhat of an interesting coincidence, Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event took place today. And as you all (all two of you) are interested in my takes on everything, here are my opinions about the announcements!

iTunes 8: Nice. The “Genius” feature, in particular, is useful when you have a lot of music, much of which you forget to listen to. I have that problem.

New iPod nano: Well, I certainly don’t need one, but it sure is a sexy piece of hardware. Seeing that it’s a big money maker for Apple, the update makes sense. I’d upgrade to it if I used the old “fatty” version.

New iPod touch: Probably nice if you don’t want an iPhone. Seems a bit pointless to me, but whateva’.

Portable games: Eh… I was never much into handheld gaming.

iPhone 2.1: Probably awesome had they bothered to actually talk about the damn thing other than “bug fixes.”

Jack Johnson: Really? Highest selling male artist in iTunes? Really?!

One more thing! Oh apparently not.

Overall: People will say they expected more, but really… It was an iPod event, how much new shit can you put in it?

1. We launched four (count ‘em!) sites at iluvspokane, many of which are updated daily.
2. Downtown Spokane has a new taco truck.
3. I’m finally a published writer.