So the IPhone is out today and I'm itching to get my hands on one (even though I'd rather stay with T-Mobile, which has awesome customer service, especially when compared to my nightmarish memories of AT&T Wireless). I'm going to wait a bit to get the phone to try and avoid some of the launch madness, but the device certainly has strong potential to end the year as my favorite thing of 2008. In the meantime, I decided to share some of the stuff I'm really enjoying right now, as well as some of the things that are on my nerves.

THINGS I'M LOVING

The Internet is making us lazy, shortening our attention span, dulling our senses.

We still read, but our eyes glaze over anything more than a couple of paragraphs (140 words or less please).

We still listen to music, but now download a single onto our IPod one day and forget about it the next (how quaint the concept album now seems).

We still have friends, but now often substitute brief, vacuous messages or a 'Second Life' for physical contact and real intimacy.

(Continued from Part 1)

... I told my dad after my grandmother died that I believe we will one day in the not-too-distant future view the way we currently handle death and dying as barbaric. Tip-toeing around the subject - by removing machines or using copious amounts of morphine as a way to hasten death - seemed quite silly to me when the issue was as important as watching a loved one suffer unnecessarily.

95-plus years old, maybe 58 inches tall, maybe 80 pounds big. A colon that had stopped working. A silenced voice that could no longer tell her gathered family she loved them. Lips that were dried and cracked. A sunken face grimacing with each wheezing, irregular, hard-earned breath.

This is the opponent Death chose to take on in February 2007. But if He expected a quick battle, then He hadn't been paying attention.

OK, I know nothing about the oil market, but considering I distinctly remembering the then-CEO of Exxon-Mobil saying on CNBC that oil was way overpriced based on the fundamentals some 2-plus years and $100/barrel ago, I don't see why my lack of knowledge on the subject should keep me from commenting.

OK, I'm determined to try out this 'very short' blog post thing, so I want to wish everyone (which according to my blog stats means basically no one except for my girlfriend ... hi babyyy!!) a Happy Fourth!

i remember when I was a teenager reading and quite enjoying 'Life's Little Instruction Book', a short guide full of pithy sayings and reminders on the best way to live a meaningful and happy life.

I am a dead man.

Not in the literal sense, of course. My flesh is warm and my blood is pumping. And not, as far as i know, in the imminent sense either. I'm sure I've somehow jinxed myself by registering this domain name and starting this blog, but I am only in my mid-thirties, and as an American white male should thus reasonably expect to live at least another forty or so years.