I’ve been an Apple fanboy for longer than I’d like to admit. Apple products have been a part of my work (and life) since 1986. I learned ‘desktop publishing’ (a new phrase back then) on the original Macintosh Plus, using Aldus PageMaker 1.0. It ran on a single floppy, which I still have somewhere, buried deep in the archives.
The Macintosh radically transformed how I worked. At the time, I was a graphic designer just getting started in the business. When you needed type, you had to spec it, and order it from a type house. If you fucked up, you had to do it over. If you needed an illustration, you hired an actual illustrator. Art wasn’t sent on disc, it was prepared on boards, with overlays and color keys and rubylith (I can hear the old heads groaning). Having a good eye and quick knife skills were critical to your success. To meet a deadline, your job most likely depended on what time the FedEx guy made his last pickup. More than once I had a boss who said, “If it isn’t done on time, you’re taking a ride to the airport (to the FedEx hangar).”
To say that this little computer made my life easier would be a grand understatement. It also opened doors of creativity and allowed for more experimentation – and most importantly – cut down the amount of time to prepare art for print production. And besides that, it was fun. Of course, there were challenges and growing pains. Now that we could do our work faster, more was expected of us. And where did we store all those files? Those floppies filled up fast, external storage needed to be added. As we added more Macs to our department, we networked them together with AppleTalk cables strung thru the drop ceiling, using an external 20 MB (yes, Megabyte) Hard Drive as our file server and a giant Apple LaserWriter as our printer.
Eventually, the Mac Pluses were no longer fast enough. We needed power! We needed Mac SE’s…then Mac IIci’s…MacIIsi’s…Quadras,LCs (the Pizza Box Macs) and PowerMacs. I’ve had the opportunity to use or tear apart pretty much every model Apple put out. I’ve even used the Apple QuickTake, one of the first consumer digital cameras on the market. The quality sucked, but you could see the possibilities. I briefly owned a Newton (again, another idea with great promise).
Fast forward to today. Being self-employed, I can only salivate over the latest models announced at Mac World. I’ll just have to make do with my G5, my first-generation iPhone and my trusty white PowerBook. I can’t imagine doing my job ‘the old fashioned way’.
All these years later, I still find using a Mac exciting and fun, and we have Steve Jobs and the amazing company he founded to thank for it. Unfortunately, the media as of late have been focusing on his health ( a popular headline: “Is Steve Jobs Dying?”). Yes, Steve is ill, and he does have an obligation to his shareholders to disclose certain information about his health. But Steve is a smart guy, and if he passes or decides to permanently retire, a transition plan is in place. I’d just hope that the media would respect Steve’s privacy, let him recover and deal with his health issues in private, but sadly that’s not the kind of society we live in.
Happy Birthday, Steve. Get well soon.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma–which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Winter is officially here in Philadelphia and we have our first real ‘Winter Storm Warning’ for the area (a ‘Winter Storm’ in this area is now anything over an inch of snow – it’s not like the pre-global warming days when 4-6″ snowfalls were common).
I like to use the phrase ‘French Toast Storm’ for these alerts. A ‘French Toast Storm’ is when they broadcast a storm alert on the news and every person runs to the store for eggs..milk…bread.
Not sure where I borrowed the phrase from, but if you Google the term, it seems like a common phrase in the Boston area.
I’ve already been to the store this morning, throwing elbows with the old biddies in the neighborhood, so I have my ingredients at the ready. Here’s my recipe for Stuffed French Toast, a family favorite on Christmas Morning:
Stuffed French Toast
(This recipe is for 2 people, I usually make it for more, so adjust as needed.)
4 slices of bread (any kind you like)
1/4 cup Philadelphia Cream Cheese
2 eggs
2 tbsp. milk
2 tsp. sugar (optional)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Fruit preserves (any flavors you like)
Powdered sugar
1. Spread cream cheese on each side of the bread
2. Spread fruit preserves on top of the cream cheese
3. Put the slices together (like a sandwich)
4. Mix milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Make sure the bowl is big enough to dip the bread in.
5. Coat the sandwiches in the egg mixture and place on griddle. Cook on both sides until golden brown.
6. Gently slice the sandwiches diagonally (use a sharp knife and don’t press too hard or you’ll have hot cheesy fruit popping out the sides), dust with powdered sugar and serve!
Note: The sugar in the egg mixture is optional – the preserves should provide enough sweetness. This recipe works best when serving a large amount of people. I buy 2 or 3 kinds or preserves and make a few of each flavor.
I’m not a “fast food” guy. People who know me well know that I love food and I love to cook, and that I know the importance of good, fresh ingredients and more importantly how good nutrition positively impacts your health
That being said, I’m not immune to the siren’s call to the occasional drive-thru cuisine. It’s something I rarely do, and when I do it I try to make good choices. Oh sure, there’s the occasional Whopper from Burger King (leaving me thinking later “What Have I Done?”), and I’m not to afraid to admit there’s some edible choices at Taco Bell.
One night before the holidays I was out and about, trying to cross more items off my holiday to-do list. Hunger finally set in and the thought of going home to cook just wasn’t happening. And there she was, Taco Bell, right on the way home. I headed to the drive thru and placed my order. I ordered a chicken soft taco and a drink one of the least nasty items on the menu), and proceeded to the payment window. The guy at the drive thru gave me my total and asked if I’d like any hot sauce. I said yes, got my change, and was handed a packet which held said hot sauce, napkins, and my receipt. I proceed to the next window, got my food and headed home, resisting the temptation to be one of those people who drive and eat and get food all over themselves and their car…
Once I got home, I pulled out my food, and went for the hot sauce. The first thing I noticed was the weight of this “Sauce Delivery System”. It weighed more than my food. I dumped the whole thing out on the counter. There were 25 (TWENTY-FIVE) packets of hot sauce. That’s a helluva lot of sauce. And those damned packets everywhere. Just for giggles, I weighed them: 8oz. That’s a half pound of sauce for a little chicken taco. I’m sure the guy at the window was just lazy and grabbed a (giant) handful. I’m sure not every customer is blessed with a half pound of sauce for their food. But if so, maybe we’ll hit Taco Bell every day, repackage the sauce in jars and sell ‘em.
You gotta do what you can to make ends meet in these ‘uncertain times’…
Follow the gang from ‘Peanuts’ as their ad agency struggles to come up with the concept for the agency holiday party invitation. (All stereotypes represented are sadly 100% true.)
Everyone’s favorite girl from Alaska does a little interview, at the Turkey farm of course! Of course, you can’t hear a word she says because you’re transfixed on ole’ Bob back there waiting to put another poor turkey through his magic slaughter machine. This is *almost* as good as a SNL parody….
While sorting through some old bookmarks I found a link to a set of archive photos on Philly.com of the old Liberty Bell Park Racetrack. For those too young to remember, Liberty Bell Park was a racetrack in the Far Northeast section of Philadelphia that held harness racing and Thoroughbred horse racing from 1963 until it’s demise in 1986. The Franklin Mills Mall now stands in it’s place.
I don’t have many memories of the place, except for the fact that when I was a youngster, the Ringling Bros. Circus used to come to town every year around my birthday and set up in their parking lot. My dad would take me there every year for my birthday.
The only other memory is when they had a huge concert there in ‘81: The Police, The Go Go’s, Oingo Boingo and The Specials. (A Police fan has posted a set list here.) Attendance was around 16,000.
I live about 5 minutes from the current Franklin Mills Mall. It was great when it first opened, but, like most retail malls, has gone downhill the last few years. Once known for outlet stores of high-end/popular retailers and entertainment (restaurants, movies, arcades – even a bowling alley), the mall has transformed into a hodgepodge of urban streetwear stores and borderline “dollar”-type stores. There’s still a few good retailers there, but it’s not quite the destination it once was.
Rumors have surfaced in the area over the last few years that the mall was being sold off by the parent company to developers, who had planned to make it a mix of housing and retail.
