Well, the talk is heating up again for Apple’s all but certain entry into the mobile phone market.

ThinkSecret reported today that Apple has once again hooked up with Cingular to help them launch the iPhone. While this is great for me and millions of other Cingular customers, my hope is that Apple doesn’t tie themselves down to one service provider for too long. There are just too many potential Apple customers that use the other major cellular providers to ignore them for long, and I don’t really see people switching providers just to get a new fancy phone. It costs too much in fees and penalties to do that.

Of course, because it’s an Apple product, maybe it will be sweet and cool enough to cause a revolution in cellular phones just as the iPod has changed the digital music market for the better.

So, I was reading MacRumors.com the other day and found their post about Wal-Mart retaliating against Apple to be very disturbing. The post cited a New York Post article claiming that Wal-Mart threatened movie studios so that they wouldn’t sell their movies on the iTunes Store. From what I’ve read about Wal-Mart’s tactics, this does not surprise me one bit.

Personally, I do not buy media from Wal-Mart because of their demands to censor albums and movies. Besides that, I can’t really stand going in to their stores in larger cities because they’re completely trashed. The employees or associates or whatever they call them couldn’t care less about the way the stores look. I wish I could say this is an isolated situation, but I have been in Wal-Mart stores all over the country, and they’re always the same. The only time I’ve enjoyed a trip to one of their stores was when I was in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. The people there had pride in their store, and it was a nice experience. Store managers from large cities should go out to these stores out in the country to see how to do their jobs.

Anyway, back to my main point. If Wal-Mart did indeed threaten their suppliers, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Time to take down the Goliath of Retail and let Apple take over the world (big sinister laugh).

So, today’s game between the Bears and Vikings was the first Bears game I’ve seen this season because I’m out on the west coast, and all they play out here are crappy west coast games. It was good to see an old fashioned central division game with great defense. There’s no need for finess in the black and blue division. Just give me some great defense, a great running game, and an occasional pass, and I’m a happy camper. I’m not sure the Bears had any of those things today besides a lucky pass that caught the Vikings off guard. At the end, though, the Bears managed to steal the thunder from the Vikings and pulled off a win for me (they must have known that I was watching).

A buddy of mine, who will remain nameless, is a huge Oklahoma fan. He started a website called VoidGame.com after Oklahoma was robbed of a win over Oregon. The officials really goofed up at the end of the game, and they’ve admitted it. Now, they’re only human, and I can understand that. We’ve all messed up something in our lives at some point. One of the biggest problems is there is no rule in college football that indicates what to do in this situation. What happens when a call is so blatantly wrong? As far as I’m concerned, the game is over when the whistle blows. Unfortunately, people will be talking about these blown calls for years.

Okay, it’s time to vent a bit. I have spent many hours in the last two days pulling weeds and grass from the flower beds around the house that we rent. They just keep coming back with a vengeance. One of the biggest problems I have is that the area around the plants is bare soil. There is no mulch or wood chips to block out the sun to stop the weeds from coming back. Anyway, I’m blogging now because I can barely grip the weeds to pull them out. I think it’s time to go out and get a cultivator and go to town on these bad boys. No more Mr. Niceguy! Okay, I feel better now.

Ever since Microsoft and PC makers started marketing and selling Windows Media Center PCs, I’ve thought that they were just taking the wrong approach. While a geek like me would want a PC in their living room, the average person most likely does not want to have a PC as the centerpiece of their entertainment center. Using a computer is a very active form of entertainment whether a person is surfing the Internet or playing games. Watching television, on the other hand, is a very passive activity. People just want to relax and enjoy the show, and they want it to be very easy. As Aerosmith once said, “Just Push Play.”

In comes Apple with the iTV. They’re going to change the name before the official release, and my bet is that it will be part of the Mac family rather than the iPod family. I’m sure Steve Jobs and co. will come up with a snappy, marketable name. The iTV allows users to stream movies and media from their Mac or PC that’s sitting anywhere in their house through a wireless or wired connection. There will be no need to have a computer sitting next to the TV. Using the handy little remote included with the iTV, users will be able to browse through their media and select the movie or media they want to watch.

Apple once again has taken something insanely complex and made it accessible to the average person. That’s how they won the MP3 player market and the digital download market. It is also how they will continue their dominance in the digital media age by bringing the media into the living room. Congrats Apple! I can’t wait to see the finished product.

For those of you that keep track of my blog and read the comments posted here, you know that my buddy, Scott, has been pestering me about writing more. Well, I’m going to do my best to write more about everything that is going on around me. That’s the problem, really. I have too much going on in my life. If all goes as planned, I’ll have more time to write, but only time will tell.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Scott, who happens to be a really great writer, has finally broken down and started a blog. In his posts so far, he has related real life experiences to technology projects and working life in general. His blog almost has an Office Space kind of feel to it. It is most definitely worth a visit.

I found one post to be just vintage Scott. In the post, he writes about the first six days of a new job. It’s one of those it’s-funny-because-it’s-true moments working in corporate America. Anyway, check out his post and the rest of his blog. I think you’ll find it amusing to say the least.

Well hello there everybody! It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I wanted to let you know about changes I’ve been making to my website. I’ve decided to make my blog the centerpiece of the site so it is more visible to the rest of the world. One of these days, I’m going to get serious about writing something everyday, and this reorganization helps make those writings more visible.

I have also added a new email subscription feature for my blog feed. You can click on the Email Subscription link in the sidebar of my blog or simply click here.

I’m excited about these new features, and I hope you like them too. There will be more changes to come as I incorporate some of the web’s latest capabilities into my site.

Thanks for stopping by!