Why Apple Inc is cult for idiots

Folks, I have heard words lately I never wanted to hear in my life. It turns out my little sister is going away to college and I have been asked to finance a Mac for her. This is just the wrong request to make of a guy like me.

I was shown a CSUSF bookstore offering for an outdated and outmoded laptop that was current circa 2007. It was a Core 2 model running at 2.26Ghz, loaded with 2GB of RAM, and equipped with a 250GB disk. The price tag was over $900. Allegedly, she was catching a break on the price. This price was the result of a good sized student discount.

Anyone who knows something about laptop pricing these days will be laughing his ass off right about now. That is a clearance model. The exact equivalent from HP, Dell, Lenovo or Sony will fetch no more than $599 right about now.

To make matters worse, the current Core i5 model laptops from Apple run right around $1,800. I can show you a better Core i7 from HP for a meager $800. This is less than half the price; More like 45% of the price.

Now that Apple makes 100% pure Intel machines, they have no place to run to and no place to hide. Perfect head-to-head comparisons are now possible. Other firms are using the exact same Mobos, CPUs, GPUs, and Samsung LED LCD screens Apple... er... Foxconn is using to make Apple notebooks.

For all practical purposes, Apple laptops and Windows laptops are identical now. The visual styling maybe a tad different, but this is of no importance. The operating system is the main and only key difference. It boils down to OSX versus Windows7. That's the end of the story.

OH BUT THE TOUCH PAD MOUSE WITH GESTURES IS SO MUCH BETTER!

That is now an option with most PC laptops. The options adds about $100 to price tag. This cannot explain a more than two-fold increase in price.

Pray tell why OSX should more than double the cost of the machine? There is no answer. OSX development costs a lot, and Apple cannot spread this cost over the large market Windows has. However, this cost does not even come close to explaining the doubling of the Apple price-tag.

There is but one solution: Apple demands a very handsome profit for each and everyone of their items. They have never wanted to sell in volume. They have never tried to corner the market. They have always fostered an elitist mentality. They have always wanted to be a Rolls Royce vendor.

They could afford to sell their products at a much cheaper price. They simply don't want to.

I could afford to spend the money. I simply don't want to. In fact, I would be a complete idiot if I did so. A computer is not like a Le Creuset enameled cast iron pan. I will never be able to pass it down to my grandkids. The laptop I buy today is guaranteed to be undesirable rubbish in just 3 years or less. A man would have to be a fool to buy an heirloom quality computer.

The farce goes even deeper than this. There is almost no reason to prefer Mac OSX over Windows7 except for bad prejudices, usually based in creative cultures such as sound mixing. Anything OSX can do, Windows can do better. Windows can do anything better than Mac. I don't care whether it is simple job-apps like word processing, spreadsheets, project plans, or more complicated tasks such as 3d visual effects. Windows 7 does it all.

Unless I was totally dedicated and committed to developing software for the UNIX environment (something I am not) I can see no early reason why I would want OSX. OSX is the Rolls Royce of UNIX. This I will gladly admit. If I were a LAMP stack developer, I would want Mac OSX. Otherwise, I simply have no use for the critter.

So why do fools buy into the idea of Macintosh? Let me reply with a question. Why do fools buy into the idea of expensive enameled cast iron from France when cheap stainless steel gets it done, and is preferred by the expert chefs? You can have an entire set of stainless steel cookware for about the price of a 7.25 quart Le Creuset French Oven. Don't believe me? Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-Multiclad-Stainless-Steel-12-Piece-Cookware/dp/B0007KQZWU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1275433080&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Creuset-4-Quart-Round-French-Oven/dp/B0033I2Q2G/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1275433080&sr=1-5

I am afraid it goes deeper than this. Cookware doesn't quite have the dimension of religion that the Mac carries with it.

You see, Apple has always been cultic in its orientation. They have always attempted to breed a false sense of morality into their users. It is immoral and unethical to buy anything but. Your Mac is like your wife. Having a PC is like cheating on your wife. Also, you are violating the ethics of your religion. You are committing heresy, like an apostate, if you do. This will make you an antichrist in our community.

Creative types enforce the laws of Macintosh. They insist you be a bad-ass rebel against Windows7, and they insist you rebel in exact conformity with their demands. If you go any other way, the community will more or less lock you out.

I myself have witnessed sound engineers feigning difficulties with FAT32 format hard drives, unwilling to accept digital soundwaves recorded on a Windows PC. I have seen these greazie basterds waste my brother's precious studio time and money, attempting to get over technical difficulties that did not exist.

I have personally humiliated such drippy-hippies by showing them how to use their Macs to open these files without any difficulty. I have witnessed these humiliated drippy-hippies lecturing my brother about how he really should own a Mac, or he can't really share and participate in the sound engineering community... This after I have shown said hippy that there are no real problems in using Windows sound files.

Mac is a fascistic intellectual orthodoxy enforced among certain creative types. As is often the case with orthodoxy, the law has no real merit, it's just the law.

The Watchmen: They are who I thought they were.

Well, I saw the Watchmen yesterday morning at 10:15 AM at the AMC 16 theater in Woodland Hills. What is my first impression? Do you remember the big fit Dennis Green threw after his Phoenix Cardinals lost a 24-7 lead to the (then) undefeated Chicago Bears a couple of years back? He screamed: "They are who we thought they were!" He knew the Bears were not a Juggernaut. He knew they had weaknesses. He knew he could expose them. He did precisely that. Unfortunately, his team let them off the hook. I am not going to let these fuckers off the hook.

This movie is tanking at the Box Office

First of all, let's recognize one thing: This movie is not doing well at the box office. I have a substantial facts to back this claim up.

1. On Friday night, around 11:00pm, I went to the Magic Johnson 24 Hour Fitness in Sherman Oaks. The Archlight, one of our finest theaters in Los Angeles, is right there beside and on-top of the gym. I heard not a single peep from the upstairs balcony. That is a far cry from the din of conversation I heard for "Sex and the City" and several other big money makers. I decided to check it out. There was no one up there waiting on line for the movie. Nobody lined up for the midnight showing. There were probably some people waiting inside, but this was not a visible crowd.
2. On Saturday morning, our theater was perhaps 30% to 35% full. I didn't make too much of this at the time, as Woodland Hills is not a great place for morning showings. People party pretty hard around here on Friday nights. They don't often get up early for a 10:15 showing of a movie.
3. At around 9:00pm, my Dad called me. He saw the 6:30pm showing of Watchmen in Fresno California at the Edwards 21. This is the finest theater in Fresno, and one of the best in the world. It is an IMax. He said his theater was perhaps 20% full. Make no mistake: This is not because Fresno is bad movie town. Fresno hog-wild for movies. Just about all types of movies routinely outperform national averages in Fresno.
4. Around midnight, I called my buddy Colin. He is becoming senior leadership in one of the large theater chains down here in SoCal. I asked him how the box office for Watchmen was doing? He replied "What's that? Do I hear the sound of toilets flushing? They told us all along that this movie was tracking well and we could expect big crowds. I came out here to $&^%%&* to monitor, and we've sold only 700 tickets for the movie all day long. Worse, we opened it on three screens capable of seating 400 people per showing. The people aren't buying tickets for this turkey."
5. Let's see 3 x 400 x 5 = 6,000. 700/6000 = 11.667% full. Oh shit...! That sucks...
   

We don't yet have official boxoffice results from IMDB.com or RottentTomatoes.com. These will be made public in about 10 hours. I still think Watchmen will be #1, but the money figure will not be anything like the original $70 million I was expecting. This movie will under perform expectations by substantial measures.

The Cult of Alan Moore

There is a cult of Alan Moore out there which hyper-hypes everything he does. He is not what they say he is. He is nothing like what they say he is. He is not a visionary artist. He is not a genius. He is not a great story teller. He is not an insightful psychologist. He is not a great thinker on the subject of power. All of this talk is rubbish, poppycock and blarney. He is a hippy drug user who has experienced a great deal of brain damage due to LSD use. That is all. Only this and nothing more. His work is bizarre for this reason.

I am well aware of the fact that Time Magazine picked Watchmen as one of their Top 50 or Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century. This choice is absolute bullshit, and reflects very poorly on Time Magazine, even to the point of discrediting the entire list. The critical staff discredited themselves by making this choice.

God only knows why Cults get started. I have no idea why weak minded fools follow people like Madonna or Brittaney Spears. Likewise, I have no idea why perfect idiots would lineup behind a guy like Alan Moore. Like Madonna and Spears, he has no merit, and yet he is a pop phenomenon. The bastard isn't even good looking... but then again Madonna wasn't either.

Not Snyder's Fault

The Cult of Alan Moore will certainly try to blame this financial failure upon Zach Snyder. Some will say that this is a D- class implementation of A+ material. Let me make it perfectly clear: That argument is absolute and complete bullshit. I am talking about 100% pure bullshit. Snyder did everything possible to make a great movie. This is an A- implementation of C- or D+ material. Snyder is just working with bad, inferior material here, and that is all. While this movie is not a perfect implementation of the material, even if you came up with a perfect implementation, it would still be the same overblown LSD brain-damaged rubbish Alan Moore wrote in the first place. A perfect implementation of Watchmen would still be a poor movie.

Why would I say such a thing? Well, let me just tell you...

Spoiler Alert

There are some noteworthy issues in this implementation, almost all of which trace back to the graphic novel, but I will lay a few of them out for you. I have already declared that I felt the character design, names, and powers were utterly weak and stupid, so I will not repeat that line. Instead I will focus on the main elements of the story.

1. As many have observed, this is a piece of Cold War nuclear hysteria. The notion of immanent atomic war with the Soviets now seems totally laughable, and the subject of ridicule today.
2. The notion that Nixon took over as dictator of the country also seems preposterous
3. The notion that the CIA used the Comedian to hit JFK from the Grassy Nole in Dealey Plaza is so funny it brought a big laugh in my theater.
4. What gives with all the strange ass usage of classic rock tunes? I know there were lyrical references in the book. I remember this well, but Synder decides to turn these into Donnie Darrko style mini-music videos. The effect is bizarre.
   
5. What gives with Dr. Manhattan's cock and balls hanging out all over the joint? Of course, Moore let it all hang loose in the comic book also. Synder could have made a correction here, but he allowed the LSD brain damage to flow through to the final cut of the movie.
   
6. Snyder decides to shoot "a really hot" sex scene between Silk Spectre and Night Owl aboard his nice revolutionary aircraft. I do believe Snyder thought he was pushing the envelope, inserting a red-hot smoker in a super hero movie for the first time. I regret to tell him that the audience was laughing in my showing. My brother and I nearly fell out of our seats laughing at this scene. I got an abdominal cramp I laughed so hard. Make no mistake: This was bad laughter. I am sure Synder did not intend this scene as comedy. Perhaps 14 or 15 year old boys will think it is hot, but frankly, they may not dig it either. They have the internet these days, and there is much hotter material out there.
   
7. And then we come to the ending, a concept so bad that I must deal with it in its own section.

The End

Shakespeare says alls well that ends well. Does this mean alls bad that ends bad? If so Watchmen is pretty fucking bad. So what is driving this endless epic tragedy? Well Veidt has decided to unite the world (thus saving us from atomic war) by giving everybody a common enemy to fight.

In the comic, Veidt cooks up a giant octo-squid monster straight out of Godzilla. This thing attacks New York, and destroys the place. This is supposed to signifythat an alien power is prepared to invade the Earth. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. unite against this Godzilla-ish foe, and we live in perfect human unity & harmony thereafter.

In movie, Synder decided to change this ending. Smart idea. Moore's end was as excruciatingly stupid an idea as I have ever read anywhere at any time. Corn-cheese-whack in the extreme. So what does Snyder give us? Veidt has cloned Dr. Manhattan's power signatures. He destroys 15 major cities around the world, and makes it look like Dr. Manhattan did it. The world unites against Dr. Manhattan. We all live in perfect human unity & harmony thereafter.

So how does Dr. Manhattan feel about all this. Well... he didn't know about the plan ahead of time, but after the fact he thinks it will work. He doesn't approve or condemn, but he goes along with it. He even kills Rorschach to prevent him from telling the world. I would call that an endorsement of Veidt's plan. He decides to go off to some other galaxies and make some life there. Good idea... LSD burnout.

So what do I think?

So what do I think about it personally? The movie is not as bad as I had thought it would be. Because of Snyder's extreme efforts, it is more watchable than I thought. However, this is still a stupid story full of stupid characters and it has a very stupid ending.

The effect is a bizarre trip through 2:31 minutes (if you don't stay for the credits) which results in a big WTF? The audiance I saw the movie with felt the same way I did. Nobody was enthusiastically praising this film on the way out. Most people were shaking there heads saying "What the fuck was that?"

We should note in passing that Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame, was originally contracted to direct this movie years ago. He backed out of the deal, declaring that this graphic novel was unfathomable, unfilmable and a non-movie candidate. I think he was extremely wise. That is why I am a fan of Gilliam.