Month: July 2005

Someone passed along this great technique, which I now share with you:

Get some quart-size freezer bags, with the press-to-seal tops. Boil a pot of water large enough to hold one bag per person in your group. Have everyone label a bag. Break 2 eggs (or 3, I supppose) into each bag, seal, and shake to break up the yolk. Open and toss in favorite ingredients—diced ham, bits of tomato, shredded cheese, mushrooms, whatever. Seal (try to keep most of the excess air out), shake again, then put all of them into the pot. Boil for 13 minutes. Remove from water, open, gently shake omelette onto waiting plate.

It comes out in one piece, believe it or not. It’s moist, never dry. All omelettes are ready at the same time (great for large groups). Cleanup is a cinch.

You know how, at the Oscars™, so much drama centers around opening that envelope? Or how a large part of the experience at a fancy restaurant is in how the food is laid out on the plate?

Apple takes a similar approach—make that delight—in their packaging, as any iPod customer could tell you. Now comes the box that the free t-shirt came in. While everyone else is now packaging t-shirts in that wrinkle-inducing shrink-wrap, Apple is different.

This 3.5 x 3.5 x 6.5-inch box is sealed at just one point on one end, and it looks as if it could open on any of the sides. But it doesn’t. Break the tape, and unfold the box, origami-style, to get to the contents. Remove the rolled-up t-shirt, thankfully free of wrinkles or chemical odor. Now what you’re left with looks like a take-out food container from your favorite Chinese restaurant. Completely unfolded, it’s a one-piece circle, with a discreetly-singular Apple logo printed on what was the inside bottom.

It’s such a work of art, I’m reluctant to throw it away.

I don’t often disagree with Roger Ebert’s film reviews, but it appears that he just didn’t get War of the Worlds. Ebert was looking for practicality and motivation on the part of the aliens, and was quite disappointed that the movie’s protagonists never learned much about them.

If the analogy hidden not far below the surface (no pun intended) means anything, it is precisely that it’s not always possible to know the motives of the attackers. In this sense, the creatures are somewhat like the one in Alien.

Anyway, “War” is pretty good. Leave it up to Spielberg to blend in the special effects so deftly, rather than making them the star of the show. I think he’s one of the few modern directors who can be trusted to render such a thought-provoking remake.

Last Saturday, June 25, marked the premiere of one of Apple’s newest computer stores, in Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Eight hundred or more people turned out, beginning well before 8am, for the scheduled 10am opening.

As one of the smaller facilities in the chain, the store could accommodate no more than about 100 people or so at a time. Fortunately, I was in the first wave allowed inside, even though I hadn’t arrived to join the growing line until about 8:30.

Neither Apple nor the mall provided any Disney-style entertainment to keep the well-behaved crowd moving or thinking or doing something while we waited, unless you count the attempts by Apple employees to rouse a cheer from the group.

It was not my first visit to an Apple store, but it was my first opening. While I wish I could’ve seen more merchandise up-close this time, it seemed a better idea to return when there would be a little more elbow room. So I bought my small iPod accessory, grabbed my free t-shirt, and left.

And that brings me to the reason for this post’s title: the shirt made a noticeable statement at work today (we’re not an Apple office, iykwim), with it’s simple white Apple logo next to a half-inch-high “Woodland.” It’s very subdued, very tasteful, very fashionable—and very black.