And Finally Air
The Mrs got his Macbook Air yesterday, after what sounds like a very positive 'Personal Shopper' experience at the Apple Store, and it's safe to say he's loving it. I'm also having strange feelings towards the things. Every time I read about them online, or look at his, I feel a strange craving to get one, even though I've never craved a Mac in my life before, and there's not one single use I have for it. I can't work out where this is coming from - there's nothing it could do that I can't do with my (admittedly heavier and less sexy) laptop, and there are a bunch of things I can do on the laptop that I couldn't on the MBA. There's no logic to this at all. There's just the craving....
Finally Cloverfield
Friday night we managed to get out to see Cloverfield at long last.
Loved it. Completely loved it. I don't understand the complaints I've read about the ending, the filming style or the narrative structure, because as far as I can see they're all exactly right for the exercise. And don't let's get carried away, an exercise in making a particular kind of filmic experience is exactly what it is. It's also one of the best, purest, examples of film as extended metaphor I can recall in a long time.
Yes, some of the performances aren't great, and occasionally the presentation creates some confusion, but that actually adds to the sense of uncertainty and dread that is essential for the film to work at all. The ending is obvious from the opening moments, but as with very many narratives that work like this, the suspense comes from finding out how matters get there, and that's done extremely well. Even a few minutes before the end I had some uncertainty of what the exact final circumstances would be.
Big approval rating from our house.
Taking Our Lives In Our Hands
Back around Christmas I noted the San Francsico Zoo drama that was happening while I was out of town. Today we decided to check out the scene of the drama, which was something of a mistake. SF Zoo is doing its best to modernise, with much talk in its signs and marketing material of 'the new zoo', but they'll have to go a long way successfully to obscure the blot that is the old zoo. There are still many animals in horrible old concrete enclosures with apparently little space and less stimulus. Those which have been moved into newer facilities seem more active, more engaged, and generally healthier (I know, I know - I have absolutely nothing on which to base this observation except my own wholly unscientific viewpoint), but it's all still a sad juxtaposition with the various beasts still in the old style areas.
I know that zoos generally are still places that need to be viewed with skepticism, and the effect of captivity on the animals remains unclear in many cases, but many zoos have successfully transitioned from places of entertainment to places of education and conservation - we were at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo a couple of years ago, and it's outstanding. We were somehow expecting something similar of SF, but were sadly disappointed.
On top of which, we were frankly astonished that punters aren't mauled on a more regular basis. Half the enclosures felt like it would require very little effort for an inmate to get out or a visitor to get in. One example - there's a bloody great rhino in an enclosure separated from the 'audience' by a low fence, a five foot strip of grass, and a metal fence with a 'mess' easily big enough for a person to get through, all on a level. We weren't able to see the actual scene of the tiger incident, because the big cat house is closed to visitors at the moment, so we couldn't evaluate it, but seriously - we were shocked. And in case you missed it at the time, by the way - it's official: Tiger death zoo walls 'too low'.
Wet and Woody
Went for a big tromp in Muir Woods, north of San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge today, then drove up the coast. Both in yet more torrential rain. The walk in the woods was made more atmospheric by the rain and the mist. The drive up the cost was rendered a nightmare as the rain got heavier, the road got more and more flooded, and the bends got sharper and sharper. It was a great day out, but heavy going at times.
Or Maybe Nothing In The Air
The more I think about it, the more I think Apple's handling of the ditribution of the Macbook Air is pretty disgraceful. This thread on a Mac forum makes pretty dismal reading:
- Some stores have no kit and don't know when they'll have any (though sometimes what the people answering the phones and the people on the shop floor say about this varies).
- Some stores have demo models but no stock actually for sale, and either can't or won't say when they will have stock for sale.
- Some stores appear to have had a small number (like, a handful) in stock for sale, but no idea when they'll get any more.
And in the middle of it all, the people who the potential customers are dealing with (store telephone and shop floor staff) are being made to look like either liars or idiots, or like they work for a company that doesn't care enough about them or their customers to give them the information they need to answer a legitimate (and in theory simple) question: "When will you be able to sell me a Macbook Air?".
A couple of years ago I was in this very town shortly after the iPod Shuffle had been released, and The Mrs had asked me to look out for one for him. The story then was similar, and I had to stop by several times each day 'just in case'. After the careful planning and logistical delivery around the iPhone launch, you'd think Apple had shown that they'd learned their lesson, but clearly that's not the case.