U-g-l-y, you ain't got no alibi, you're just ugly.

The new iPods? Fantastic! The new features in iTunes? Stupendous.

But WTF is up with the interface in iTunes v7? Seriously, the non-standard scroll bars, the atypical checkboxes, the abnormally dark selection bars...fugly. Just f-ing ugly.

For why hath these abominations been wrought upon us? What's wrong with the scroll bars in Mac OS X? Or the checkboxes? Nothing. Use them.

The new Cover Flow view is superb. (I like the similar UI in Omni Dazzle, too.) The reorganized Sources section? Genius. (I want that kind of categorization in Mail.) And iPod management within the application, instead of through Preferences? I wanna kiss someone.

But please, please, please, stop with the hideous scroll bars and lame checkboxes. They're just ugly.

And it appears I'm not the only one who thinks so.

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"U-g-l-y, you ain't got no alibi, you're just ugly."	Lyrics from Ugly by Fishbone

At Last

So now 54% of Americans think things in the United States are going either "pretty badly" or "very badly," according to a CNN poll conducted the last week of August 2006.

It's taken this long for a majority of Americans to realize things are going badly? Well, at least they've finally started paying attention.

The good news, though, is that they understand how to turn things around. According to the CNN report, that same poll found "[a] majority — 55 percent — said they are more likely to back a challenger in races on this year's ballot. Such anti-incumbent sentiment is higher than the 48 percent recorded as 'pro-challenger' in a similar survey in 1994, when the GOP took control of both houses of Congress."

So what's this mean for the Democrats? Again from the CNN report on 4 September 2006:

Democrats lead Republicans by a 10-point margin, 53 to 43 percent, among likely voters asked which party's congressional candidate they would support in November, and Democrats held a 56-40 lead on the same question among registered voters."

So perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train after all.

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At Last	Song by Etta James

Rip. Mix. Burning bush.

Even iTunes is prodding me into action, at least judging by how Party Shuffle put these two songs together.

With Gwen urging me on and Terry assuring me it's not "what" but "how," it certainly felt like a message. Guess one can find messages anywhere, should one look.

Five Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

Wow. It's been a long time since I've posted here. If I thought there were any regular readers, I'd apologize.

I've been distracted remodeling my house, which is weird since I'm not doing any of the work.

But while I've been without TV (as I didn't bother to try moving the satellite dish to the apartment in which I'm staying) I've been reading more, and getting more fired up about the many things going wrong these days. So I'm going to start ranting here instead of at the dog, on the off chance it would do more good. We'll see.

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Five Months, Two Weeks, Two Days	Song by Louis Prima