Microsoft's Zune, that is. Andy Ihnatko's Chicago Sun-Times review is pretty much perfect. Don't write him off as an Apple cultist, however. He gives props to the PDDs that get it right.
Audiophiles probably know Steve Guttenberg for his writing about hi-fi and home theater in numerous publications, as well as his blog The Audiophiliac. What only a handful of folks know, however, is that Steve is a talented graphic artist, manipulating photographic images to express the world as he (sort of) sees it.
Well, actually on the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is a delightful yard or so of bookspace. I used to have this edition, although I didn't realize that many bibliophiles consider it to be the best blend of fact and great writing ever collected. I just read it out of order on many a long winter's night. Somehow, Google just isn't the same.
On our daily rides, Jeff Wong and I have watched a few of these abandoned bikes disassembled part by part as they serve as donor bikes for urban scavengers. Ultimately, all that's left is a lock and a frame—or, sometimes, just part of a frame.
Apparently there was some sort of awards ceremony in LA last night, but news of it has only just reached Brooklyn. I stopped caring about the Oscars years ago (pretty much around the time I became a voting member of NARAS and realized how little the Grammies had to do with musical quality), but I never cease to be amazed by how much they seem to matter to other non-film-industry people. Mark Evanier has a nice essay about the post-ceremony media frenzy—and he totally pwns Tom Shales.