Thursday, Augus 14th was one of the darkest days of my life. Yes, I work in New York City, and yes I experienced the blackout that happened on that day first hand. But that is not what makes this day so dark for me to remember. It was also the day that my dear friend, whom I loved so dearly as a brother, died. From a metaphysical standpoint, this simply cannot be a coincidence. I believe that we are all connected in ways that we cannot understand. You don't need to be rich, or famous to be a powerful soulful manifestation of humanness on the Earth.

His name was Ian, referring to himself as "Ian the Terrible" and was one of the kindest, gentlest, most intelligent and interesting people I have ever known. Goodbye, dear friend. Rest in eternal reward.

Took a trip over to Javitz today to see what was up with the yearly Mac shindig. Can't really say too much of an exciting nature was happening there to get me all fired up as in the past. Owing, doubtless, to the fact that Macworld is moving back to Boston as of next year, everything was on a much smaller scale.

My pal Christian said that he covered the whole thing in a couple of hours. That would've been the case for me, but I ended up spending a lot of time at demos and free workshops (work didn't spring for the really good ones this year, sadly).

Don't get me wrong, there were great things there and I did enjoy some of it. The new G5 is IN-CREDIBLE and I really look forward to picking one up. (At the hefty price of new mac hardware, that may have to wait until Christmas bonus time).

Saw a great demo also of eMagic's Logic Platinum. Logic is an extremely cool audio sequencer and synth that does a lot of the work of rackmount studio equipment only through software (!!!) The demo guy was entertaining, a decent musician and seemed to have a tight grip on the wares and its capabilities. He slowly evolved a song, tweaked it and added small parts as he went and finished up by letting it play and listening to the final product from the audience. Very slick.

As a direct result of a hangover induced by a couple of top-shelf major 'rita's I had the pleasure of enjoying with my girl last night (at this totally killer spanish restaruant downtown), I found myself maintaining a very low profile and spent most of my time chillin'with the codec-heads at the SF Final Cut Pro User Group. I was just basically holding my head a lot while learning all the subtle trickeries of that very unique subculture. Wish I was a part of it! Ah, so much to study, so little time! I'm convinced I'll never learn even half of the things I'll want to in this life. Sigh.

Okay, so I indulge in a little self pity time to time, but all in all I'd have to say that while I overall enjoyed my trip to Javitz for the Apple Dog and Pony show, I miss the cultish excitement and rock and roll/brown shirt youth rally feel of earlier headier days of the Jobs keynotes. The good ones, anyway.