I’ve been using my Mac for quite some time now. I’m a bit more acclimated with it, and while I’m no expert, I’ve seen enough to safely say that Macs are no better than PC’s. Here are a few reasons why:
- My MacBook Pro crashes with the Apple’s version of the BSOD more often than I’ve had Windows BSOD on me… and it does it on shutdown!
- Today, for instance, an application locked up on me. Tried to Force Quit to no avail. Killing it from the Terminal didn’t even work. Decided to log out and it froze. No BSOD or anything, but it sat there displaying my wallpaper and nothing more.
- The “beach ball” shows up more often than Windows would ever hang up on me. It shows up randomly and applications hang and even OSX hangs. It’s quite annoying.
- You can’t highlight a file and hit the Delete key on the keyboard to move the file to the trash. The mouse is not always better.
That’s just a few, but the first 2 are big ones. Everyone whines about how Windows is always crashing and needs to be rebooted. I haven’t had a better experience with MacOS X. The only operating system I’ve had fewer crashing issues with is Linux.
So to all you Apple fanboys out there… It does not just work.
Apple had recently filed suit against clone-maker, Psystar, that was packaging OS X with their computers for being in violation of the OS X EULA, which restricts OS X to Apple hardware. How did Psystar respond? In the only reasonable way possible, they filed a countersuit saying that Apple is engaging in anti-competitive behaviors by tying their operating system to their own hardware. I’ve been waiting for this day as that is my number one complaint about Apple. I like their products, but I wish they were a bit more open (you can arguably say that they are more “closed” than Microsoft, though fanboys will say that Apple is a hardware company while Microsoft is a software company). No matter how you spin it, Apple is both a hardware and a software company since they do make both.
I like OS X. Heck, I’ll go as far as saying I love it (though it crashed on me this afternoon when I was shutting it down, as it does every few weeks… which is more often than Windows crashes on me, including Vista). I just hate that you have to buy overpriced hardware to use it. The hardware in Macs is no different than the hardware in a decent business class PC, which can be had for a lower price if you know where to look.
I hope Psystar can make some headway with this countersuit. It’s everything the tech world needs right now. Apple’s lock-ins (the iTunes/iPod lock-in, which is partially gone with their DRM-free music, even though they charge more for it, and the OS X/Mac lock-in) have lasted too long. Everyone loves to bash Microsoft about their anti-competitive behaviors, and I’m not saying they don’t deserve some of the bashing, but Apple has been ignored for too long. Having a smaller marketshare should not exclude you from scrutiny.
I know I’ve written about Julian’s before, but I had to write about them again. Susan and I went there for dinner last week. We wanted to go for a walk, but didn’t want to cook. Julian’s had some healthy stuff on their summer menu, so we stopped in for dinner before going for a walk. Susan got the tuna steak (ew because it’s rare, though she likes that kind of thing) and I got their mussels special, which was awesome. Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing (though the food was excellent and certainly healthy). I’m writing because they had a freaking keg of freaking oak-aged freaking 120 Minute IPA on tap. Yeah… it was freaking awesome. Susan ordered it while I got the Avril, which was also on tap. That restaurant is full of surprises and totally worth your time. The Avril was fantastic on tap (often saisons are not very good on tap, but this one was) and the 120 was phenomenal, though I would have preferred it as a dessert beer because it was so sweet (it’s on the sweet side to begin with and the oak aging added a sweet vanilla note to it). So we got the beers with the highest ABV and the lowest ABV that night.
Go to Julian’s. Drink lots of good beer. Eat lots of awesome food.
Visit their MySpace page for updated food and drink/beer menus.
I’m all for biking and green buildings, but Zane’s Cycles in Branford, CT has taken the cake. They have torn down a bunch of trees to build a “green” building for their bike shop.
The bike shop has been growing over the years. They originated in a nice storefront on Main Street in the center of Branford. They have since moved to a larger space in a strip mall on Rt. 1 with oceans of parking. Their new building is also going to be on Rt. 1, and because it’s not in a dense urban area, it will likely also be surrounded by a sea of surface parking.
Someone needs to inform the owners that if they truly want to be green, they would have renovated their current space or bought an existing building to renovate rather than tear down trees and add more blacktop.
Zane’s Cycles gets an F in environmentalism.
I know I had previously said I would do a side by side, but that never happened. What did happen, however, is that I moved a bunch of beer from my pantry to the cellar for the summer (the pantry is much warmer than the rest of the apartment now, while the opposite was true in the winter). Because of that, I forgot I even had a bottle of Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen Weiss. I pulled it out of the cellar and decided to pop it open. I had previously tried this at a couple tastings at Nikki’s. When the beer was fresh, it had a nice hops bite to it that fit perfectly. The beer has aged a few months and here are my thoughts.
The beer pours a cloudy grassy yellow/maize color with a huge head. Carbonation is more present now than it was fresh. The beer smells of yeasty breadiness and a nice hoppy grassiness. The flavor up front is some of that sweeter malt flavor along with some bready flavors. The hops are there, but more subdued than they were when the beer was fresh. They were a bit grassier now and not quite as in your face as they had been. This tastes much more like a German beer than an American beer. It’s got a nice mouthfeel, just ever so slightly chewy and bready. It’s still quite drinkable, though if I gave it an A before, I’d give this a B+ now.
I much prefered this beer fresh. In my opinion it has passed its prime, though it is still a very excellent beer (and this is coming from someone who isn’t a huge fan of wheat beers, especially those with lots of yeast). The whole idea behind the beer was the hops and with those more subdued, you aren’t getting the purpose of the beer. If you haven’t had it and can still find it, it is worth trying. It does taste more like the German version did fresh.
Tonight, Susan and I decided to try something new for dinner and ended up at Tina’s Jamaican Caribbean Restaurant in the middle of Providence’s Little Italy (which is actually simply becoming the dining district with all the great food of various ethnicity). I had heard their food was good, but it’s always empty. I think they do a lot of take out business. The waitress was really nice. We started by splitting the coco bread (bread made with coconut milk) and a beef patty. They were both excellent. I ordered the curried goat and Susan got the curried chicken. Both meals came with vegetables (which was cabbage and peppers and some other stuff), rice and peas (peas are actually red kidney beans), and fried plantains (which were quite delicious). Both our meals were excellent. The chicken and goat were so tender, there was no need for a knife. I had never had goat before, but it was like a greasier lamb. It peeled right off the bone and was very tasty.
The only thing I didn’t like was sorrel, which is like a berry wine with rose petals (it’s not alcoholic). The rose petals added too much perfuminess to it that made it a bit unbearable, but it still tasted good. We both left very satisfied and Susan even took some home. I think we’ll be going back there again. It’s definitely worth a visit. Don’t let the lack of customers deter you, the food is awesome.
Tonight I decided to try one of the beers from, new to RI, Fort Collins Brewing. I tried their Z Lager, which is a rauchbier. It pours a darker reddish amber color with almost no head. It smells of caramel and other malts with a hint of smoke. The taste isn’t quite as smoky as I would have liked, but it is nicely smoked. It’s an easy drinking beer and worth a try as it’s one of those styles you don’t see very often. Fort Collins is likely a welcome addition to RI.
On Wednesday, I had Southern Tier’s Cherry Saison from their imperial beer series. I’ll start off by saying that I wasn’t crazy. It was a little dark for a saison. It had a cloudy orangy yellow hue to it. It smelled of spices and a slight hint of cherry. The flavor lacked the cherry, which wasn’t too bad, but it had too much of something and not enough of something else. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about this beer seemed off. I didn’t finish the bottle. It wasn’t overly drinkable and it is definitely not worth another try. In fact, if you have to drink the whole bottle yourself, it’s not worth the price. It’s worth trying if you’re going to split the bottle with 2-4 other people.
According to Forbes, Providence is the fourth “hard-drinking” city in the country. It seems they get their rankings by taking the percentage of residents who had at least one drink in the last 30 days, the percentage of men who had at least two drinks per day and women who had a least one drink per day, and the percentage of residents who had five or more drinks on one occasion.
I don’t know why I care, but I like seeing Providence ranked high on lists. We were beat out by Austin, TX; Milwaukee, WI; and San Francisco, CA. The only other area city on the list was Boston, which came in ninth. Keep drinking Providence!
I have a few beers to write about (it seems as though I will always have a beer to write about, there are so many different beers out there). I’ll go in reverse (based on the title).
Tonight, I had Haverhill/The Tap’s Haver Ale, a cream ale. It pours a pale amber color with a small head and ample carbonation. It smells light with a little grassiness to it. The taste is light, but somewhat creamy, even with all the carbonation. It has a slight grassy bitter hops aftertaste, but it’s just for balance. The mouthfeel is pretty creamy as well, but light. This is a great warm weather beer and a style you don’t normally see very often. It was very tasty and definitely worth a try.
Last night for dessert, Susan and I split a bottle of Southern Tier’s hot new imperial beer, Crème Brulée. They call it an Imperial Milk Stout. I would call it an imperial vanilla stout. Either way, this is one very different beer. It pours a very dark mahogany brown with no real head. Upon popping open the bottle, the smell is strong. It’s very a very sweet vanilla and heavy cream scent. It’s nothing I would have ever expected from a beer this dark. Upon first sip, you can tell this is a sipping beer. It’s very strong in flavor. To be honest, it tastes just like creme brulee. It’s creamy, it’s sweet, and there’s a lot of vanilla and cream flavors in it. It has an aftertaste of roasted malts that don’t necessarily fit in, but also don’t ruin it. The only issue is that it is slightly boozy (no shock there at 10% ABV). This is not a beer to drink on your own. I split the bottle with Susan and even then it was tough for us to finish (in fact, we ended up pouring a little down the drain not because we didn’t like it, but because it was tough to finish). This is a beer to be split between 2-4 people and have as dessert. It would pair well with anything chocolate, vanilla, or creamy. I have a second bottle that I plan on aging for a year to see if the alcohol will mellow and the roasted bitterness will lighten up a bit. This would be one awesome beer if the sweeter side was more prominent throughout.
Finally, last night with dinner, I had Smuttynose Hanami Ale. The label says it’s an ale brewed with cherry juice and other natural flavors. From what I could tell, it’s an amber ale brewed with cherries. For a fruit beer, it’s a good one. It pours a nice amber color with a small head. It immediately smells like cherries, but not overwhelmingly so. It has a nice cherry flavor, but it tastes like there are some spices mixed in as well. I imagine that’s the “natural flavors”. It’s a very easy drinknig beer, though not overly light. It’s worth a try. I’d buy it again.
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