Smaller, Bigger, Thinner

Today Apple finally announced the iPad mini and in turn, stomped out another pink unicorn in the tech junkie arena. While cool, my initial tongue-in-cheek is that they now offer a Maxi-pad and a Mini-pad for lighter days. I sure hope the next iPod is not a small white cylindrical device with the headphone coming out of the bottom! Late night TV would run that one into the ground!

OK back on track. Being the tech junkie that I am I would like to have one I need one! Why you ask, umm, because its new and smaller but bigger yet thinner and I don't have a device that has those exact specifications now do I? Sheesh! So yea, I need it! I mean my iPhone 5 is nearly a month old now so I need deserve something cutting edge. Not to mention its fun to watch the Android guys roll their eyes and attempt to call me a "fan-boy", sorry, I dig the products but also understand the limitations and over-zealousness of the marketing. Remember, most power marketing is for the lowest common denominator, uninformed consumer to make an easy decision and feel good about it as though they are the informed expert, whether Apple, or another product. Heck, look at the election propaganda, marketing engine currently revving.

In all seriousness the iPad Mini is a pretty cool device and I would like to add it to my arsenal for no better reason than its smaller and a little easier to manage. I have both the iPad and iPad 2 and while they are great and I use them several hours of every single day they are horrible to read on in my opinion. Ignoring the screen glare when outside, the bigger issue is the amount of times I have nearly "face palmed" trying to hold it and read, the iPad taking the place of my palm of course. Near miss face-palms in bed or on the couch are too numerous to count. Actual iPad face-palms I can count on one had luckily, although for me that is still too many. Sure I could go with a Kindle for reading but that has its own set of issues.

Now the conundrum of need vs. want vs. being realistic comes into play. I plan to table the idea for a few days, maybe weeks and decide at that point. As I write this I have yet to watch the official keynote so there may very well be something earth shattering that will change my mind in one direction or the other, you never know.

I have owned every iPhone released, I have 2 iPads but not a 3, several Mac's and currently a MacBook Pro (nope not the newest with the Retina display - see I have some self control buried deep within). I have used Mac's all the way back to the Color Classic days and OS 6 (yes b/w). When companies like Power Computing were allowed to make clones of Apple products I was there with money in hand as well, yup, dating myself now. I still have a Color Classic at home and no I wont sell it to you because you want to make a fish tank out of it, mine still boots! I think it is running OS 7.1, and may even have a White Night BBS or another on there. Ahh, those were the days administrating a BBS and I only dabbled in it compared to many of my friends and colleagues.

It's funny though, I work on Windows based machines to pay the bills at the Popsicle stand so go figure? I like to think of it like driving my daily car for the workweek and breaking out the Ferrari for some weekend fun. No, I am not referring to the semantics of speed, power, or beauty, well maybe beauty, Macs tend to look a lot better than most rigid Windows based machines. But enough about tech for now, I am sure the media is doing more than enough to get the word out there.

In my-life happenings I had to turn on the furnace last night and actually start up the heater for the first time this year. Usually we can go until at least Halloween so we are about a week early. It was 67 degrees in the house when we got home and I don't want my fuzzy kid to be cold. Although I will boast a little, I have a NEST thermostat so I could change the temperature from anywhere in the world if I feel the need. Yup, see tech-junkie earlier in the post. Hey NEST's are bad-ass!

It's supposed to snow in the valley today but I don't see that happening, the hills are getting pounded with snow it is still a little too warm down here. It may flurry but I don't see it sticking. I think its going to be a good year for snowboarding and skiing for once. I wont be enjoying it, my back is too jacked up anymore so I wont risk it. The past couple years have been really bad for the resorts I would imagine with the weak winters and early Spring.

For me, its time to watch the keynote and have some lunch! No grubbin' sketti this time, today it will be creamy macaroni and cheese with the usual side of toasted sourdough bread. Pretty much the standard these days, hey if it aint broke!

Photo: Apple iPad mini