Organizing your writing life

HELL TO THE NO: So, this week I was ready to go buy myself a shiny, new apple green iPod nano. Then yesterday, Steve Jobs and his Apple minions unveiled the new iPhone instantly making any iPod you own obsolete. Today, I decided fuck this shit, man, I ain't gonna keep shelling out money when the minute you buy something it's old technology. I spent a small fortune upgrading my vinyl and cassettes to CDs, and while I love the convenience of downloading music from iTunes, I don't need an iPod to listen to it. You can take those songs and burn them onto a shiny new CD-R, which most new CD players will play just fine. Sure, I'd love to have a nano and I'm practically salivating over the iPhone, but the truth is I can't afford it. Okay, I can afford a nano, but I can't afford to replace it every year or two when the bigger (or in iPod's case, smaller) and better comes along. At some point in 2007 I am going to have to buy a new laptop because old Bessie here is grinding her hard drive a little too much these days and the release of Vista by Windows will make the buggy XP obsolete. Sorry, Apple, you're not getting my money anytime soon. I will not be moved. On the other hand, if one of you kindly readers would like to donate an iPod (even the little shuffle), I wouldn't say no.

Tonight, Dubya is going to announce his plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq in an attempt to "win" the war. It appears the lessons of Vietnam are lost on this administration. We have now been in Iraq longer than we were in WW II and we've lost more than a dozen US troops in just the first 10 days of 2007. The Democrats, as usual, are dithering on what to do and can't formulate any kind of Plan B. Even some Republicans are questioning Dubya's move, but Dubya ain't paying any attention. He's gonna "win" in Iraq if he has to kill every last civilian in the country. I can't help but think of that quote from the film Nixon when Howard Hunt (played by Ed Harris) describes the president as "the darkness reaching out for the darkness."