No kidding — media pundit Michael Wolff (of Newser and Vanity Fair) now piles on with a piece that bears the subtle title, “AT&T Sucks.” Apparently AT&T does not buy advertisements on Newser. Surely they do buy ads from Conde Nast, which owns Vanity Fair. So no doubt pressure will be applied from that direction. But maybe Michael Wolff just doesn’t care. He says his iPhone drops calls all over Manhattan, and he’s sick of it. Sometimes he calls AT&T to scream at someone, and they tell him they’ve never heard of anyone else having problems with a cell phone in New York City. Ahem.

Finally, Wolff turns his attention to us:

What’s Apple doing? Why did Apple do this deal with these stumblebums in the first place? And, surely, such flagrantly vile service is enough to call it quits on any deal. So what gives over there at Apple? Why aren’t they suing AT&T and making the iPhone an open network device? Steve Jobs is famously unsympathetic to human weakness and heartache, but AT&T is beyond normal sadism. I suppose, the great iPhone accomplishment, the test of its virtuosity, is that so many people believe they need to have one even if that means dealing with AT&T.

But enough. Come on. Please, God.

This is ONE reason I grew suspicious of all religions …

LARS SAYS: RICH, GOOOD!!! POOR, REAL BAAAAADD!!! POOR MAKE RICH BABY JESUS CRY!!!!

Kinda undermines stuff like the loaves and the fishes story? Maybe Jesus had a word with his number one, and boom, before you can say sushi and crackers, nothing but leftovers!

steal an XBox - go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not get to see the iSlate next month

Jeremy Gilliam just couldn’t pawn the stolen XBox, he had to take it home and then turn it on, making him the next candidate for America’s Dumbest Criminals. Authorities located his alleged felonius carcass in a nanosecond and threw his butt back in the slammer before you could say, “Microsoft just pilfered code from another company and almost got away with it but trampled them just the same” !

LARS SAY: THIEVING BAAAAAD !!! XBOX, GOOOOD !!!!

LARS SAYS: I-PHONE GOOOOD!!! DROID-PHONE BAAAADDD!

Some tech writers seem to think so, here and here, for starters. Particularly the version used in the Droid. It could get very interesting once the Google NexusOne is allowed to propagate among the amasses. The profile between Android and iPhone users is almost indistinguishable. That must sound like heresy, doesn’t it? Gee, you think one of my predictions might ring true (Google phone used as second phone by iPhone users)?

wouldn't be caught dead using a PC, though, would he?

Something Jobs and Bezos hasn’t fully thought out, yet … a combination bedroll and up-to-the-second news!

Thanks to Ted Rall

LARS SAYS: APPLE, GOOODDD!!! HOMELESSNESS, BAAAADDD!

Brinke posting about Lars Ulrich’s current hearing loss had me reminiscing about the early days of the internet when there were dozens of great (and not so great) Flash animation websites, including the once mind blowing Camp Chaos, which had an excellent series based on Metallica’s run-in with the original Napster.

Here is a classic webisode, from YouTube:

let’s chant together chillin’ : NAPSTER BAD!!! BEER GOOOD!!!

re-visist the whole series here

Apparently, the specs for the Google netbook are out of the bag , and the blogosphere is workin’ up a serious pud callous speculating what a pretty awesome machine this’ll be, you’d think it was the latest gift to the world bequeathed by Steve Jobs, but we already know what awesome is going to be … I’m spoiled already, so, as far as I’m concerned, the Google netbook will only be a mere Windows 7 killer – big deal – the rest of us will have the iSlate.

a 1980's mock-up, this is not the Tablet of God!

please don't mug the Verizon iSlate tester

Last July, Wired ran a piece on what life would be like with a Google OS netbook. Have a glance, if you will, I’ll wait. Wheee! Such a wunnerful piece of fun!! Isn’t it? No? But it’s not Microsoft, so, it must be good. Yeah, but, I,I,I,I … yes, I know that stutter. There. There. It’ll be here before you know it. Only a few months from now. Or if you’re in a Verizon test city and you see one of them, “Can you hear me now?”-types playing with what appears to be a large iTouch – mug them viciously, bite both their arms off, grabs it from ‘em, takes it home, takes it ta’ bed wichya’s, it’s precious, it is, precious!

One of the funniest videos I have ever seen. (Disclaimer: I have always hated this song, too.)

Oh, sorry, make that alleged bomber. For the record, let’s establish that blowing up a plane is right up there on the list of things that are really bad to do.  And this headline caught my eye on CNN.com: “Explosive device sewn in suspect’s underwear.” In..his..underwear.  Now, I have never done such a thing, nor do I intend to, so I can’t speak from personal experience.  But it would seem to me, that sewing a bomb into your underwear is a really good way to limit your career opportunities.  

Lars Ulrich is the drummer for the incredibly loud heavy metal band, Metallica.  And he says he has a hearing problem.  Imagine that.