What the hell is wrong with AT&T? Now there are stories out saying they won’t sell iPhones to anyone in New York City. When a reporter called customer service to see if that could really be true, the customer service person said, “New York is not ready for the iPhone.”

New York. The biggest city in the United States, a place where I’m told many business and finance and media type people are living, cannot have the iPhone anymore? Does it say that somewhere in AT&T’s ads? Somehow I must have missed the little asterisk after the “We’ve got the fastest 3G network” phrase — the asterisk that takes you to a little disclaimer that says, “Except your phone won’t work for shit in the largest city in the United States.”

Update: Now there are other reports that AT&T is saying they’re doing this because of “fraudulent activity” in New York.

Honestly I’m just freaking out right now. Katie is here feeding me Ativans and I’m just chewing them up like breath mints and wishing I was Dr. David Banner and could turn into the Hulk and start throwing cars through the windows of the AT&T headquarters. Randall Stephenson can’t be reached.

In short: this is a huge company that’s going off the fucking rails. It’s bad enough they can’t run their own wireless network. Now they can’t even get their lines of bullshit straight either.

You can’t believe the other shit that’s going on behind the scenes, and the way they are trying to stifle reporting on their problems. One example and I’m not naming names — last week they bought up all the ad space on a very big tech blog, and blitzed the site with AT&T ads. And, perhaps coincidentally, a critical story (which we heard about because they have to call us too) somehow, by some miracle, never saw the light of print. Amazing.

You know, I was sort of feeling bad about Operation Chokehold. Now I’m thinking we didn’t go far enough. If anyone has ideas about what to do next, I’m all ears.

I don’t see this anywhere, but it seems Google has decided to get really serious about the Chrome download numbers, so they’ve plopped a small ad on the top right-hand corner of the page.  Since the page gets a bazillion hits an hour, this oughta goose the numbers a lot.  More here.

Mosspuppet has a story about how Dear Leader has an alien kept in a secret location at Apple HQ, and that the alien is the source of all the childlike wonder these past few years.  Some wingnut in Alaska brings up points like, “Steve’s return to health – did he go to another state for a liver transplant, or did the alien fix him?  Steve’s Reality Distortion Field - It’s not just a joke; it’s an actual reality distortion field, used by Emperor Gleb’thos to rig the Kreltar elections in 23-’124.”  Of course, it all figures. This guy is from Alaska, and we know there’s another wingnut or two up there, sure, you betcha.

The Kindle was Amazon’s most gifted item in the company’s history, says Amazon chief Jeff Bezos.  A year from now, when the other e-readers have gotten their footing, will he be able to say the same thing? I saw the Sony reader today at Borders- there were a ton of them and no one was paying any attention.  Looked forlorn, actually.

Are we looking at that? I was thinking about this the other day. In The Beginning, There Were Desktops. And They Were Good. Then, we started wanting a bit more mobility, so we got us some Laptops. And They Were Good, Too.  So I am back to my first question.  Based on all the new hardware released in the last couple of years, are we looking at a paradigm shift in computing?  An entirely different form factor than what we’ve accepted lo these many years?

Think about it.  When cell phones first came out, they were huge, fit in a bag over your shoulder, and cost a gazillion dollars.  Now, they’re as small as a cassette tape (remember those?) and can pretty much do everything.  Swiss Army Knives with a Net connection.  Cell phones, or mobiles as they would say in the UK, are actually really small personal computers that happen to make phone calls.  Unless you <ahem> use AT&T.  The computing capacity of an iPhone is amazing.  Look at all it can do.  The upcoming Nexus One will certainly join the league of SSPs, or Super Smart Phones. Will the iPhone eventually kill off the iPod?  Perhaps.  Why have two devices?  I’ve got 4,771 songs in iTunes.  Can’t get all those on an iPhone.  Yet.

So that’s one way that the computer has moved off the desk and laptop.  The other- wait for it- the tablet.  If the fanboys are to be believed, the iSlate is going to be another game changer for One Infinite Loop.  Not right away, though.  Initial cost is likely to prohibit that.  Remember how much iPhones cost in 2007?  The same thing will happen here.  Eventually, the cost will come down as the technology advances. But the portability is the key here. You can take it anywhere, easier than a laptop.  Lighter, faster, and full of zoom-zoom.  People want things small, fast, sleek, and powerful.  Hmmm, sounds like the iPhone or iSlate, eh?

There will be desktops for decades to come.  Corporate IT departments that still run Windows XP and IE6 won’t go within 100 miles of the award-winning Firefox browser, much less some weird techy thing from Star Trek.  Eventually, lightweight, fast, mobile touchscreen devices will rule the roost.

Until the next big thing comes along, of course.

So CNET’s Natalie Del Conte has this AT&T HTC Pure phone. She decides to toss it into a New York cab, and wave bye-bye. This is all about the Microsoft My Phone service which allows users to find and retrieve a lost cell phone. Apple also has a similiar service.  PS- don’t ever loan her a cell phone- she’s lost seven in NYC cabs.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Gizmodo has published a comprehensive list to all the latest rumors regarding the iSlate.  Which is how I will refer to it until the next rumor pops up.  And how will Dear Leader present The Holy Grail?  Just kinda subtle, slide in there with the standard “One more thing?” Or will there be lotsa flash-boom-bang, like Chuck Heston and his tablets, shown here.  We will see.

Nice work there guys, no wonder I finally let my dead tree subscription lapse. You know what was the first real successful social network? Napster. Napster? Damn straight. The original. People not only connected to swap songs but actually chatted and got to know each other and became a community before the fuckin’ mafioso record executives shut it down. That was a magic time but it was brought down in one fell swoop because it was free, nobody was making any money and the suits were scared. It was Woodstock 1969 again, the fences were down, the hippies were running wild, but this time, the man came back and boarded that show back up. You had freetarded pirate shit like Gnutella and limewire but it lost the point, the community aspect, these new apps weren’t about creating communities, it was about outright thievery disguised as stupid “information must be free”/commie-sap-socialism crap. Today, you got your MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, all controlled by geeks, suits and media twerps who are trying to be the next Google. Nothing free going on during these social interactions, believe me. You’re all participants in biggest advertising media survey ever – hello, suckers!

we know what you want - and boy, are you gonna' get it!

Al Gore must be having fits. I hear New Zealand’s not a bad place to relocate, hobbits work cheaper than elves and are non-union.

I don’t drink but I appreciate the imagery behind the “shaken, not stirred” line in the Bond novels.  And the helpful folks at MI6 have posted the recipe for the perfect martini.  You can do it with this martini maker on sale at Amazon, too.  Here’s the first time Bond asked for his signature drink, which he would briefly call “The Vesper.”

‘A dry martini,’ (Bond) said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet.’

‘Oui, monsieur.’

‘Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?’

‘Certainly monsieur.’ The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

‘Gosh, that’s certainly a drink,’ said (Felix) Leiter.

Bond laughed. ‘When I’m…er…concentrating,’ he explained, ‘I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I think of a good name.’