Tretakoff Musings

I have a confession: I am a lapsed comic book geek. Yes, years ago, I was one of the thousands who trekked to the local comics store weekly to grab literally dozens of new issues. I proudly hustled my newfound issues home, ravenously consuming the rich storyline and revolutionary artwork, then carefully sealed the issues in plastic sleeves, storing them away for archival purposes. And there they remained. And, actually, remain to this day. As I moved across the country, I stopped making the weekly trips, and eventually stopped altogether. I briefly experimented with subscribing, but the issues arrived torn and crumpled, making me frustrated. At last, I lapsed on this rich world of fiction. It's been years, and I have discovered the various repackaging of complex storylines in my local Barnes & Noble in bound collections, but the prices remain startlingly high, and I am just not a bug fan of paper, as those who read this blog well know. I wondered if there was any way the comics...

ever since the launch of the Apple iTunes App Store for the iPhone, Apple has straddled the line between being an agnostic content aggregator and a fascistic controller of content that makes the Chinese government look like the Wild West. Case in point is that I now have not one, not two, but three separate applications on my iPhone that have since been removed from the Apple store for further downloads, with no explanation. Let's have a look at these insidious apps, shall we, and see what evil they have wrought. First up, Tapulous' Friend Book . Tapulous are the makers of the Twitter iPhone client, Twinkle, that was easily one of the most popular Jailbroken applications before they went all legit. In addition, they make Tap Tap Revenge, an iPhone enabled version of Dance Dance Revolution. Friend Book delivers photo dialing, powerful contact search, but best of all, Handshake: select a contact record, hold two iPhones running Friend Book together, and shake. Voila, the contact ...

We're not native Californians, but we sure do love living here. However, Amy still misses her sister back in Boston: she talks on the phone with her constantly, visits her (here or there) at least once a year, and more. When the movie Sex and the City came out this year, there was no one she wanted to see it more with than her sister, and she was determined to, even though they were 3000 miles apart. She thought about what were the essentials that she wanted to capture: - The ability to see the movie, at the same time - The ability to share their expectations before the movie - The ability to share their impressions after the movie So, armed with this, she hopped online and found a theater that was running a showing out here, and a theater in her sister's area that was showing it exactly three hours later. She bought the tickets for both, called her sister, and said, "We're going to the movies." At the appointed times, both drove to their respective theaters, cha...

I'm rather left speechless at The Sportsman's Guide's latest home decor addition . This is like having a hot tub emblazoned with images of ice cubes.

How the heck did I not hear about this? Amazon has expanded the functionality of their wishlists to any other site online . Yep, that's right: you can now add any item, from any site, to Amazon's wishlist, with one click. I was using TheThingsIWant.com for this, but Amazon integration? Count me in, folks.

When I wrote my blog post on the Clear program for airport security, I had no inkling of just how it could transform from a scam to an outright security threat. However, it seems it has come to pass , as a laptop with over 30K members' information has vanished. Clearly, a bad decision.