Mitcz.com : Official blog of Rev. Mitcz, the demented devilish comedian from Hollywood, CA.

Lemme just get this out to those of you who may be unaware. A few little factoids about El Reverend Mitcz :

1. I’m a total hardware geek. If it has lights on it, and/or makes noises – I’ll probably cum.

2. I’m an Apple fanboy. More on this later

3. Whereas some people will make a life choice based on their current situation, and later enhance it via technology – I tend to make life choices based on the cool new hardware I can geek out on and incorporate that tech’s usefulness into my lifestyle as a motivator.

4. Money matters very little to me. I live like a rich kid, but I earn like a middle-class guy. I don’t want to die with money in the bank, because that’s the sign of a life unlived.

5. I’m an unabashed consumer who will readily admit that shopping and buying new things not only relieves my stress, but I operate under the comfort lie of “new things” enriching my life.

My Love for Apple Products

In most areas of my life, I consider myself to be a “form over function” type of person. I don’t care how pretty it is if it doesn’t do shit for me. This applies to my social life, as well. I’ll take a “6″ who can deep-throat over a “10″ who complains about the taste of man-sauce and refuses to swallow. This doesn’t mean I drive a beat-up old truck because “this sucker gets me where I wanna go” – I actually drive a very nice, manual-transmission 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5s (with the “convenience package” and custom iPod integration upgrades). But it does mean, other than my aforementioned fondness for deep-throaters, that I will generally weigh in how something feels, or functions, over just how “purdy” it is.

That having been said, I have spent the better part of the last 10 years of my life as a web/graphic designer so I know a thing or two about “purdy” and if given the choice between two similarly-functioning items, I’ll choose the more attractive one. This is where my love for Apple has been near-undying and that Steve Jobs could probably sell me iCE Cubes and an iFreezer to keep ‘em in if I were an eskimo.

I recalled to a friend of mine not long ago that, when it comes to gadgetry that doesn’t immediately strike my fancy, I’d probably consider getting one if Apple made it. I’m not an out-and-out “everything Apple touches is gold” person, not by a long shot. But Apple does have a way to make things not only very attractive looking, but also incredibly functional, easy-to-use, and they’ll sell it in a way that makes me go “hmm… ya know I COULD use something like that after all”. For instance, I’ve never justified owning a PDA, but when I bought my first “real” iPod (the Shuffle hardly counts), I got all giddy about syncing contacts, iCal calendars, and little notes. I even carry the full text of the U.S. Constitution around in my pocket… ya know, just in case. Those are very much PDA-like functions. Though they’re of little actual use to me on most occasions (save for my iPod lighting up to remind me to make a car payment or call someone on their b-day), it’s a nice little bonus to have. I was one of the last people to jump on the iPod train, though. Until they unleashed the 60GB iPod Photo with a color screen and photo-synching capabilities, I didn’t really see a use for an MP3 player. Then, of course, Alpine had to go fuckin’ with me by saying “hey check out this $150 car stereo that directly interfaces w/an iPod and charges it while you drive!”. I’m now on my 3rd iPod, after giving Nad my old 60GB iPod and picking up a black iPod Video just a few months ago. Yeah, I have little use for a pocket video player.. but g’damnit, it’s black! Fuckin’ Apple. Got me again. Okay, and I really wanted Nad to have a decent MP3 player so picking up a new one for myself in the process turned out to be the best bang-for-the-buck decision I could make.

My Apple lust didn’t start with the iPod, however. They hooked me as a 12-year old when my mom brought home the school-loaned Macintosh LC II. I now carry 16 times the hard drive space that LC had on my keychain. Still.. my friends were using these bland PCs at the time, most of them running DOS and this sucker had built-in paint programs and text editors and.. ya know, fun shit. After tinkering around in Paintworks, and later Photoshop, I’ve now found myself 15 years later doing essentially the same thing on hardware that costs, inflation being accounted for, about the same amount. How silly. But at least it puts food on the table, right?

Recent Geek Splurges, and Reasoning

June 2005
1GB iPod Shuffle – Bought it to jog with. Wore it all the time until.. (see July) But only jogged once.

July 2005
60GB iPod Photo – I just had to get it. You understand

Alpine CDA-xxxx – I forget the model number, but it’s got the ability to “talk” to an iPod with a special connector.

Alpine KCA-420i – The special connector for the aforementioned Alpine and iPod.

Final Price : $800, after you factor in the install charges and all that shit.

August 2005
PowerMac G5 2.5Ghz Dual Processor, 1.5GB of RAM – this replaced my 5-year old G4. Don’t need much justification there.

Price : $3200 (roughly). But, it’s on credit. So Shhh…

September 2005
Best Buy informed me that I had a line of credit. Oh joy! So I bought a few things..
20-inch Apple Cinema Display – best display ever. And that old monitor was killing my eyes.
250GB External Firewire Drive – I needed more drive space.
160GB External USB 2.0 Drive – I needed more drive space, and it needed to work with MusicPlus’s front-room PCs which didn’t have working Firewire ports.
300GB Internal SATA Drive – I needed more drive space. I’m up to 1.2 Terabytes now. And I’ll need more soon.
iPod Charger – A spare to keep in the car, for overnight visits.
4-port USB Hub – It had an iPod shuffle dock built-in. That’s cute AND functional.
Canon Printer – What designer doesn’t have a decent printer?
12-inch Camera Tripod – So I can rest my Canon Mini-DV camera on my desk
10-button Logitech Wireless Mouse – It’s rechargeable and my old one stopped recharging.
9-port Card Reader – Cause what self-respecting designer can only read 5 card types on a USB 1.1 connection? Sheesh.

Final Price : $1500. Not too shabby. But…. it’s on credit and almost paid off.

January 2006
Bluetooth 6×8 Wacom Tablet – Cause my wired 4×5 Wacom was looking dusty and outliving its usefulness. I use this new one all the time, though.

Bluetooth Dongle – Cause what good is bluetooth without a dongle?

Final Price : $180. See? Sensible.

February 2006
60GB iPod Video (black) – As I said, I wanted to get Nad something really nice for his b-day and he’s still in love with that 60GB iPod Photo. And why wouldn’t he be? I sure was. Admittedly, I had contemplated this for quite a while but I’ll be damned if I can pass up an Apple Store on the way back from depositing money into my bank account without getting the urge “just to look”

iPod Universal Dock – Because what good’s an iPod without a dock?

USB 4-port hub – New USB toys = more USB hubs. I have 4 now. That’s 16 ports, plus 2 on the back on one on the front of my G5. I’m using 16 of them.

Final Price : $500, roughly. That includes tax, though.

March 2006
Samsung A940 Cellphone – The old phone was dying. This one’s got live TV, Bluetooth, Motion Sensing (I can actually play dice by shaking the handset), a business-card scanner, 2 Megapixel camera/video phone, speakerphone, and MP3 player. Rawkdafuggon.

Price : $180. Rebates and swindling, out the ass. It’s a $400 phone.

May 2006
Olympus VC-480pc Digital Recorder – I had a nice little sony recorder before, but lost it in Phoenix where it was later retrieved and my friend is holding it for me until I go there to visit soon. In the meantime, I needed a new digital recorder to make quick comedy notes into and I was holding out hope that I could transfer the audio files into my computer via the USB port on this one. Alas, Olympus dropped support for this fucker after Win2k, so even under emulation it’s near-useless. Gave it to Nad.
Price : $50, down the hole. Don’t buy from shady Hollywood mom-and-pop “high tech” stores.

Olympus WS-2 Digital Recorder – Smaller. Lighter. Works like a USB flash drive. The USB connection is built-in so there’s no need for cords, and it records better audio. All around better.
Price : $100. But you can’t put a price on timely comedy notes, now can you?

Norelco Bodygroom – Okay, they bought me by actually selling this thing as a ball-shaver on their website. Don’t believe me? go have a look for yourself. This thing shaves everything, smoothly, while in the shower, and it’s got a blinking light on the charging cradle. How fuckin’ badass is that?
Price : $50, mostly cause I wanted it before the weekend and was willing to pay extra shipping. These things are NOWHERE to be found offline, and I looked around for like 3 solid days, too. Well worth it, however.

So Why All the Prefacing?

Well, I pour out this shit cause Nike and Apple made a joint announcement today. Their new “Nike+iPod” campaign launched to announce that they’ve got this nifty little system that combines the iPod nano with a sensor and receiver and shoe, so you can jog along to music while the iPod tracks your time, speed, incline, calories burned and all sorts of shit which you later sync with your Mac or PC and can use to track the progress of your fitness program.

Now, the sensor is $29. That ain’t bad at all.
The shoe, supposing you can’t just strap the sensor to ANY shoe with some duct tape, is $100. That’s about average, or lower, for a quality lightweight running shoe.
The iPod nano, however, ranges from $149 – 299, depending on drive size. I’m thinkin’ I’d go $199 for the 2GB version.

So, let’s have a look-see at this shit before I start in on my geek fantasies :

You see that shit? Wireless live-information gathering. Sweet shit. Now, let’s look at the $100 shoes :

Not too shabby. Black. Red. Small. Lightweight. I can dig it. Nike… well, I don’t know too much about them but I’m assuming they probably make a good running shoe that won’t kill my feet. Fuck, the last pair of running shoes I bought (for $35) fell apart after a few months and I barely ever jogged in them.

From there, you’ve got the NikePlus.com website, where you can look over all the fancy stats and live bar graphs and shit like that. Ohhh… how geektastic. I love stats. I have a background program running 24-7 that monitors every song I play in iTunes and updates Live on the sidebar of my blog. Of course, you can delve deeper and check out all the songs I’ve listened to way too many times at the full site over here.

Okay, now you’ve got my sales pitch. My drooling geekery. The reason I bring all this shit up? Well, obviously I’m considering making just such an investment. To be fair, I was already planning on picking up a Nano for jogging anyway, though I was also gonna carry it around on me via the TuneBuckle (pictured below) at other times.

As I mentioned in the first part of this now-way-too-long blog rant : I often wait until a certain technology excites me before making the initiative to change my lifestyle. I know I should jog more often. I need to get out and breathe fresh air on a more regular basis. I’m not liking that my late-20s metabolism is starting to catch up to me and my former dietary (read : 98-percent fast food) habits are wreaking pure havoc on this once-resilient body. So, okay, I’ve accepted that I should work out. For once in my fucking life. Ya know, make a plan to do it. I figure the cheapest and easiest way is cardio work. The cheapest and easiest way to do that – jogging. Plus I live at the base of Hollywood Hills – it’s a beautiful and multi-cultured neighborhood to trek around in.

So here comes Apple, once again, with a beautiful and very functional solution to my problem. Hooking up with one of the world-leaders in fitness and athletics, so I feel like I’m being taken care of pretty well. The site you share your stats with is a community site, so there’s likely to be hints and tips galore shared between users on making the most of my jogs, and/or other workout techniques I might wanna try out. If you want to get me away from the computer, you’ll need to entice me to do so. There’s a few ways to do that :

- Offers of sex
- Naked titties that I can have a guilt-free (and wallet-free) look at
- Geeky technology shit
- Movies
- Live shows featuring bands that DON’T suck.
- Drinking around the company of people who may offer me one of the first two items mentioned.

It stands to reason, therefore, that if I’m going to be motivated to jog and/or workout in general (which could definitely increase my chances of getting more of the first two items mentioned), you’ll need to appeal to one of the other items. Believe me, if there was a place I could go to jog while looking at a live, endless supply of naked titties – I’d be a joggin’ fool. Barring that, I can be swayed with geekery. Stats tracking. Beeps and voice commands while I jog, like a computerized trainer in my ear. Oh joy! Seriously though.

I think Apple may have just saved my life.
(okay, exaggeration, but still.. cholesterol’s a bitch ain’t it?)

P.S. – If anyone wants to organize a daily meeting of women who would stand alongside key areas of a jog-able area around my homestead and flash titties as I jog each time I pass, I might consider that possibility as well.

Diggin' my shit? Well then..