(Alternative title: There’s an reason the word “anal” is in “analyst”)
Apple quadruples its profit, but the stock takes a ten percent-plus dive because the company “missed” the number of iPod sales stock analysts —who are not employees of Apple, do not sit on the Board of Directors, and who are not Apple executives— said they thought the company should have sold? They sold 6.4 million iPods in a three months. How many Rios did Creative sell in the last three months? Oh, that’s right, they canned that music player.
Hold on, it gets better.
Those same analysts, who are poo-pooing Apple for failing to sell as many iPods as the analysts thought they should have sold, seem to think Delphi is a good buy. No wonder monkeys are just as good at the stock market as these guys.
[With thanks to John Gruber, and Matt Deatherage and W.R. Wing on the MacJournals-Talk list.]
Tag: rant
Attention Steve Levy and the rest of ESPN’s anchors:
USC did not win the national championship in 2003.
USC did not win the national championship in 2003.
USC did
not
win
the national championship in 2003.
The Trojans did not play in the BCS national championship game for the 2003 season. The BCS was created to determine a single national champion. For 2003, that national champion is LSU.
USC is not a two-time defending national champion. If you continue to insist they are, then I expect you to also refer to Auburn as a current defending national champion.
Note to self: do not join the clueless Authors Guild.
I echo Gruber’s sentiments regarding the decision of the Authors Guild to sue Google over Google Print. For one, an author can choose to exclude his work in a fairly simple process. Second, as an aspiring author, were I to publish a book, I would love to see it read by as many people as possible. If Google Print helped me accomplish that, so much the better.
My employed friends almost daily remind me of the travails of life in corporate America. I’d still like a job, thanks.
An unsolicited copy of the premier issue of Men’s Vogue arrived in the daily post.
What.
The.
Hell.
???
The time has come. We made the decision to transition our two year-old to a “big boy bed.” Not an actual bed with a frame and headboard, mind you; we’re just throwing the mattress on top of the box springs on the floor. Parental common sense: it’s fewer inches they will fall when they roll themselves off the edge. Parental common sense, part deux: it’s shoved in to the corner, cutting the number of edges available for rolling off in half.
So we took advantage of the Labor Day sales this holiday weekend and went mattress shopping. I thought I would pass along some helpful hints, should you find yourself in this situation. (Which you will, eventually, unless you enjoy self-induced spine curvature because you’re still sleeping on the mattress you took to college with you nearly twenty years ago.)
Forget comparison shopping. Mattress stores will sell the same brands, but it will be impossible for you to compare models. Why? Because the mattress manufacturers and retailers are sadists, that’s why.
Manufacturer X has a nice medium-range mattress, which is in demand by three different retailers. So Manufacturer X has three separate tags identifying this mattress for Retailers 1, 2, and 3. Therefore, when you are in Retailer 2, and looking at Mattress X2, you have no idea it’s the exact same mattress as the X1 you saw at Retailer 1. And so on. So forget comparison shopping.
Throw the price guarantee back in their face. All three of the retailers whose doors we darkened offered some form of a price guarantee: matching, 110% of the difference, etc. It’s totally laughable, because of the lack of comparison-shopping ability consumers have when it comes to mattresses. They know you’re not going to find the Sealy Posturepedic X95J Super Sleeper any where else, because it’s not called the X95J Super Sleeper any where else. It will be called the F4 Dream Cushion, have a different fabric covering it, and you’ll be none the wiser.
So when the sales person mentions the price guarantee while you’re browsing, you can laugh and tell him he is full of it.
Hire a babysitter. I’m sure a neighbor would’ve been happy to watch our son for a couple of hours, but I didn’t think about this until after the fact. Consumer Reports recommends lying on a mattress in the store for 15 minutes to get a definitive feel for its comfort. Obviously the anal-retentives at CR have never gone mattress shopping with their Thomas the Tank Engine-obsessed two year-old in tow. One is unable to lie on a mattress for 15 seconds as the aforementioned two year-old tears up and down the aisles, running his Thomas and Percy trains over the mattresses as he goes.
In the end, buying a mattress is still a gut call. We didn’t want to go cheap, but we didn’t want to spend a grand on a set, either. We were looking for something in the middle, that would get him to his teenage years. Hopefully, we have succeeded.
George Carlin is a better narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine.
Nothing proves more how the mainstream media has gone off their collective rocker than the fact that this week, ABC’s 20/20 is devoted to the myth of Dracula.
Since when does Liar, Liar qualify as science fiction? I just saw an advertisement on SciFi declaring they will be showing it next week. I didn’t realize they were so desperate for time fillers…
No, that is not a typo in the title. I mean “BS,” not “BCS,” though some would argue they have become one and the same.
I mention this because a few moments ago I flipped on the idiot box to channel surf while relaxing for a few minutes. The satellite receiver had been left on NBC, which is showing the AVP Nissan Manhattan Beach Open, the women’s final, to be specific. They were just coming back from commercial, and noted that in attendance was a large portion of the USC Trojan football team. Then there was the magical BS moment:
“It’s hard enough for a team to win a national title, much less three, which no team has ever done before…” said spokesbabe to Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart.
She was, of course, referring to the fact that USC is ranked #1 in the pre-season polls, and the Trojans will be the frontrunners for another national title in NCAA football. She is, of course, wrong, as is any other sports broadcaster, to suggest that USC may become the first team to win three in a row.
USC did not win the national championship in 2003.
Let me say that again, for the many Trojan worshippers out there, including those infesting sports broadcasting.
USC did not win the national championship in 2003.
That honor went to LSU, which defeated Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl to win the BCS National Championship.
The whole point of the BCS, despite its myriad shortcomings, is to have a clear national champion at the end of the college football season. The whole point of the BCS is that there will no longer be a shared national title. One champion. One.
LSU was the national championship team for 2003. USC was the national championship team for 2004. USC will not become the first team to win three national titles in a row, should they prevail in 2005.
Was USC denied this opportunity, by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher in the standings at the end of the year, and getting the shot against LSU in the Sugar Bowl? Undoubtedly. Just as Auburn was denied the opportunity of a national title by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher at the end of the 2004 season. Chalk it up to a bias toward Oklahoma in the poll voters. (I note with amusement that now, having gotten it wrong two years in a row, Oklahoma doesn’t even break the Top 5 in any of the preseason polls.)
I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: If USC and its worshippers want LSU to share the national title with them for 2003, then USC must share the 2004 title with Auburn. Leinart and Co. will be going for their second title in a row this year, not their third.