"sounds Awesome" Engadget Podcast 123

123 is the last Endgadget podcast of 2008. everyone's excited about CES, macworld¹, clutch form-factors², x-mas, new year fantasies³, and the reader meet-up recap.

ok, listen up. enough technical banter already. I'm skipping straight to x-mas.

the GE OLED "holiday" tree mentioned in the podcast. this is the link to the original engadget post.

the discussion begins with the "holiday" tree versus "christmas" tree argument that took place in the comment section of the post that accompanies the above photograph. I read through some of those reader comments, and people really did "go nuts and lose their minds" over the title of that sculpture. the controversy may have blindsided the podcasters, but I wasn't surprised. if there's anything that people get silly over, it's dogma. while nilay was interested in assuring the readers/listeners that there is no engadget editorial rule on using christmas vs. holiday in their posts, josh made the following statement, "I would like to say that I have a personal policy of using x-mas⁴ as much as possible, but only because I'm a big futurama fan." that would be a great epigraph for a book chapter on the topic.

my favorite thing about this part of the podcast is learning about the editors' personal chirstmas/x-mas/christ-mas experiences. paul revealed that he hung about all vacation and watched netflix streaming through his x-box. I say, he was most likely in jammies, drinking hot chocolate, and watching john hughes movies. he didn't have a tree in his apartment, but his roommate did receive a "house⁵ from his gramma." nilay glommed on to his sister's tree, and got a zojirushi rice cooker. I'm no techy nerd, but oh boy, am I ever jealous about his rice cooker! I have an old tatung. it's pretty much one switch and a heating element. there are no computers in my rice cooker. it's so old that I can't find a photo of the model online (the one pictured below is similar, but more modern-looking than mine). I love it, but still, the allure of fuzzy logic cooking my soupy rice (congee) to perfection is so seductive.

rice cooker envy - how about an umami setting on your rice cooker? zojirushi has it.

josh did not exchange gifts with his wife for x-mas in 2008 (he "went crazy in 2007" at x-mastime), but he did have a nice tree, with no religious iconography. it was decorated only with star trek ornaments, plus one obama decoration. he mentioned that the tree was "really nice," and that he was "into it."

maybe he had a spock topper, since he didn't have an angel up there.

I knew that josh was nerdy, but having only star trek ornaments on the x-mas tree is other-level nerdiness. I'm not totally surprised, but I am mildly surprised.

everyone in the know knows that the best winter holiday to celebrate is circleness⁶!

as of this podcast, there were 12 days until the start of CES. after reading about the rivalry between tech blogs, I can't even imagine what CES is like for these guys. josh mentions being nervous, and it's obvious that everyone is keyed up about the event. these guys weren't trying to suppress the fact that they were salivating in anticipation of it. the slightly frenzied air of the talk makes me think that the event itself must be crazy for these journalists. I imagine geek machismo, one-up-manship style blogging, sleep deprived feats of nerd-pranking, and a lot of giddy, snorting laughter. I don't care how wrong this fantasy⁷ is, it's mine and I'm not changing it.

footnotes

1. so, no one is really excited about macworld. they're excited to talk about apple's cancellation of their appearance and the fact that steve jobs wasn't giving the keynote address. some guy named phil something or other was handed the keynote responsibility instead.

2. form-factor is hands-down the nerdiest piece of lingo I've acquired from this hobby.

3. paul wants the laptop of his dreams, which is basically an apple air that has adequate processing power and a replaceable battery. nilay wants streaming content to provide him with what he actually wants to watch in an HD format. I don't remember what josh wanted (his perfect smart phone).

I'm surprised that paul didn't fantasize about qrio. 

4. pronounced ex-mas.

5. the house was gingerbread style in its construction, and it lit up, and played a song.

6. go check circleness out. you owe it to yourself. the tree-topper shown is the circleness symbol of an infinity sign inside a circle. also shown is a lego death star ornament.

7. I know that there is live-blogging at many tech sites during these spectaculars, but I've never been a reader of the blogs, so I don't quite know the reality of how continuous the posts are. I'm not ready to become a reader yet.