I took a short break during a very busy day and took a short video with my girlfriend at lunch time today where we walked from Green Park, through Saint James’ Park and ended in Trafalgar Square. These are pretty much the only clips which weren’t blurred by us throwing snowballs at each other and generally breaking the digital camera I bought for her at Christmas.
The snow completely transformed the capital – I’ve never seen it like this before!
Last week Apple released the latest evolutions of their entire Macbook line and I have to say… I’m not too sure about certain elements of the design. I’m not a huge fan of the keys on Apple’s latest line of keyboards, which have now made it onto the entire Macbook line. I don’t like the look of the black keys on the aluminium casing, nor the black frame around the screen, or the screen itself for that matter. The glossy displays always look incredible on first sight, but the reflections can be a little distracting. That whole look reminds me of some of the cheap old PC imitations of the Macbook line. The specs also aren’t a huge improvement over my nearly-two-year-old Macbook Pro 17†which is a little disappointing. The optical drive is the same 8x Superdrive I have now and there’s no blue-ray drive to be seen, which has been a standard feature in most high-end PC laptops for the last year.
But let’s stretch our imaginations for just one crazy minute and assume that Jonathan Ive knows more about product design than I do and does actually know what he’s doing. I know! I know! It’s a stretch, but I think we can do it if we close our eyes, click our heels together and dream about that yellow brick road.
A couple of friends rushed to the Apple store the morning after Steve’s keynote to buy the Macbook Pros. As did my brother, who has finally made the switch to Mac and invested in the Macbook Pro, maxing-out all of the options for the 2.8GHz version with 4GB ram and he is thus far extremely happy, calling me regularly this weekend to gloat. As my flatmate pointed out to me, and I relayed to my brother, it’s quite shocking that as a gay man with a good sense of style, who enjoys extremely expensive designer suits, gadgets and technology, he has only just switched from PCs to Mac. He then told me he is going to install Windows Vista via Boot Camp for some of his work-based applications. I have understandably subsequently disowned him. It’s a tough decision, but one that had to be made. I know you understand.
There are some cool features in the new Macbooks though, most notably the ability to easily replace the hard drive, which is the fastest-degrading element of any computer, especially in terms of speed. This means that in a year or two you can shell out £50 to replace/upgrade your hard drive easily yourself. Or you could shell out £350 to £500 for the 128GB Solid State hard drive Apple are offering and avoid the speed reduction altogether. It has only one third of the capacity of the 320GB hard drive they’re offering as standard with the high-end configuration though.
Shame there’s no 17†yet, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing how they update it in January.
One of the other things Apple design beautifully are their retail stores. They recently opened stores in Beijing and Sydney, and they both are on par with the standards in architecture and design set by their stores in the US and EU.
Apple Store Regent Street, London
Apple Store Fifth Avenue, New York
Apple Store San Francisco
Apple Store Miami
Apple Store Massachusetts
Apple Store Beijing
Apple Store Sydney
Bloody tasty if you ask me!
John and Vanessa watched, their fingers intertwined, as the sun composed the tropical sky into an exquisite meld of scarlet and blue. The soft, warm sandy beach remained empty around them, just as it had been for the whole day. Now, as the wind whispered to the leaves on the palm trees, John and Vanessa lingered over hot and tender kisses. A moment later John stared deep into Vanessa’s eyes. Sensually, he slid his fingers behind the nape of her neck, slowly leaned her back and…
…And if these two people were given a taste of the dessert I had last Monday evening, they would have stopped what they were doing and paid due attention to this heavenly pudding of the gods.
Sanj and I had our second business meeting at the Gaucho Restaurant in Piccadilly and I’m glad to say the place hasn’t changed since the last time we were there; they still make the best steak I’ve tasted.
What I didn’t know was that they also make the best dessert I’ve tasted. A few months ago I had dessert at the Japanese restaurant Yauatcha in Soho, which had the best dessert I’d ever tasted at the time… But Gaucho Piccadilly has this incredible Dulce De Leche Cheesecake… I’d had the Pancakes and Ice Cream dessert from their menu last time, which I thought was quite nice, but this cheesecake is on a-whole-nother level. It’s almost rude how tasty this dessert is. Everyone should go to this restaurant immediately and eat them out of Argentinean steak and Dulche de Leche cheesecake and then have the place closed down because otherwise I’m going to be a very very fat man very soon.
Sanj has been a very good influence on my health lately – a small area of his desk in our office is covered with natural nutritional supplements, seeds, nuts and oils and he’s got me taking some of them. We also have a healthy juice drink every lunch time from Gogo Juice in the local mall, where they make the juice in front of you with fresh fruit.
Sanj set me the challenge of trying a shot of wheatgrass after he did last week and after having my first shot, it’s become a regular fixture in my lunchtime menu. I think it tastes like peas, while Sanj thinks it tastes a lot like another word beginning with P. It’s not the best-tasting beverage in the world, but it does taste a lot better then a shot of Aloe Vera – the English language lacks the words to describe just how horrible that drink is. But hey – it’s great for your skin!
