Slate wonders if Apple is finally starting to show signs of consumer dissatisfaction, and concludes that there's a long way to go before the general public loses its faith in Apple. 

I agree.  But here's the thing: Apple products have been chintsy for a long time.  And often, I feel like the only one who sees this. 

I'm not saying I don't like Apple's stuff.  Like many other people, I too own an iPod.  I love it.  It's changed the way I experience my music. 

Yet I'm on my third one.  My first and second one broke within one year.  Each time I've gone to an Apple store to schedule an appointment, there has been a long queue of Apple customers with broken laptops, desktops and music players.  This has been the case regardless of what time I go, or which area store I go to. 

It's great that the form and usability of Apple's products are often second-to-none.  But I refuse to give them a pass on the reliability issue.  It's sort of like driving an expensive, old-school Jaguar: they are great to drive, but they are in the shop way too often.  As consumers we can, and should, demand more from them.   

I wish I could say I was surprised by this story, but I'm really not surprised at all.  Something tells me we'll be hearing a lot more about threats like this, especially if Obama accomplishes the unimaginable in a few months.

Top Gear, a BBC program, reviewed the Hummer H1 and H2; that review can be watched here.   It's pretty funny (and very British) the way Jeremy Clarkson describes the vehicle.  I figured it was topical because as it turns out, GM is having a great deal of trouble selling off their Hummer division. 

I'm not nearly as crunchy as the average Washingtonian I interact with on a daily basis, but I still loathe Hummers.  Not because they are bad for the environment, consume a lot of gas, and are ridiculously expensive.  If someone wants to spend lots of money on a car and lots of time and money at the pump, that's their business. 

What I loathe about the Hummer is that all that money gets spent for nothing.  The Hummer isn't pretty.  It isn't comfortable.  It isn't fast.  It isn't fun to drive.  It's not easy to drive.  It isn't even safe -- and the H2 is terrible in snow.

At least if you blow a lot of money and gas on a luxury car or a sports car, you might get some (or even all) of those features.  With the Hummer, you get none of them.   

So whenever I see a Hummer, I have to remind myself that every person has the right to spend $50,000 or more on a rapidly-depreciating tank-like automobile because he or she demands nothing more from an expensive car beyond size and gaudiness.  If one wants to go off-road AND spend a lot of money, there's always Land Cruisers and Range Rovers - SUVs that can actually provide great off-road performance without being complete failures in every other respect. 

This fall, I've changed kickball teams yet again.  Well, "changed" isn't really the right word: since the Big Kids don't play in the fall, I had to move to a new team to keep playing.  And, after hemming and hawing yet again about whether or not I really wanted to play, I signed up for the fall iteration of Team Lush (a team with strong ties to Big Kids).  Their fall version is Bitch Be Cool, or BBC for short. 

As a concession to the rest of my non-kickball life, I've decided to not prioritize fall ball the same way I do summer ball.  Thus, I missed the second game (which we lost 1-0 to Your Mom's Team), making us 1-1 on the season.  Once again, even though I almost didn't do kickball this season, I'm glad I came back to play again.  The social and networking doors it's opened up are truly a wonder to behold -- I now have a lot more events to choose from every weekend right now than I have at any other point in my post-college life.  Part of this is because I have finally been in the same place for more than a year (besides San Francisco).  But I also owe a significant debt to kickball.  Despite the college feel of happy hour and the silliness of the game, like almost any sports league it serves as an effective way to meet cool and fun people.  

The WP has an interesting article on the effect of gas prices on what used to be the American Dream: a big house, a big car and a lot of land.  Gas prices have forced many Americans to reconsider their love affair with the suburbs; far-flung exurb home prices are plummeting, while urban real estate in the DC area continues to thrive.  Even urban planning is shifting towards moving housing and business development towards mass transit options. 

The article's estimation of how many federal dollars get spent on highways vs. transit seems ludicrously conservative, but tax breaks probably didn't enter into the equation.  The paradigm shift hasn't taken off completely yet, but we are seeing the seeds of it right now.  People will change for money. 

Before, it was Geraldine Ferraro on behalf of Hillary Clinton.  Now it's John McCain who is allowing his surrogates to try to paint Obama as a "race card"-playing Negro claiming "victim" status.  Never mind that Obama never called McCain a racist, nor did he ever claim to be a victim of any kind.  Never mind that his campaign's most important task is to make white Americans not view him as claiming any kind of victim status.  His opponents will accuse him of it anyway in order to rile up white fatigue and resentment of race issues. 

True, Obama botched his delivery of a true statement.  But that doesn't give anyone the right to claim that he is suddenly calling McCain a racist.  To the best of my knowledge, nobody of note has called McCain a racist during this campaign.  As long as this stuff keeps happening, I'm going to keep pointing it out.