Music

Evocation
DONE! Well, mostly. I worked on the mix last night and will have to listen to it for a few days, making adjustments where necessary. That make song #9 on the finished list. 2 more to go.

Instrumental
I spent the remainder of the night editing the guitar parts and doing some post production prep. I separated the drums into their own individual tracks and widened the guitars for a fuller sound. Again, I just need the acoustic parts from Carlos to finish up.

Interests

Apple
It’s a sad day for the Apple faithful. Apple announced yesterday that they this January will be the last appearance for them at the Macworld Expo, which ends an annual 25-year-old greatly anticipated tradition. Imagine if someone told you that this is the last year that christmas will include Santa Claus.

If that wasn’t enough to make your heart drop, it was also announced that our Apple prophet, Steve Jobs (Santa Claus himself), will not be delivering the keynote as usual. Much speculation has been made about his health issues do to his history with pancreatic cancer and recent appearance at other presentations. Steve retiring from Apple was inevitable, but obviously it would be better on his own terms and with a solid plan for a transition in place. As evident from the last presentation at Apple’s Town Hall, Jobs has been delegating keynote duties to other key employees including Jonathan Ive and Phil Schiller. There’s no doubt that his absence will leave a hole in operations. How can one man effect a company? This is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is Apple. Try to imagine Easter with no bunny, Thanksgiving with no turkey, the Howard Stern Show with no Howard, the New England Revolution with no Steve Nicol, the bible without a hateful, jealous, violent god, catholicism without the guy with the big hat, Thelema without Crowley, a Star Wars movie with no Lucas.

For more information:

cnn.com
macworld
macnn

Here’s a collection of Steve Jobs quotes I found that really sum things up:

“Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.”

“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
– BusinessWeek, May 25 1998

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
– The line he used to lure John Sculley as Apple’s CEO, according to Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, by John Sculley and John Byrne

“It will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry. This is landmark stuff. I can’t overestimate it!”
– On the iTunes Music Store (iTMS), Fortune, May 12, 2003

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”

The best one of all:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Related posts:

1. Apple Crisis Update
2. Jobs Well Done.
3. The Death of an Era.
4. I See Red People.