b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

I think it would be fair to say that I have been less than particularly enthusiastic about the Zune, Microsoft's foray into the music player market.

Touted as the iPod killer its numerous flaws, not to mention its tasteless brown colour, have rapidly earned39;t it an America wide yawn - and only in America because the music marketplace it works with isn't available elsewhere yet.

Just to recap its failings

1. The Zune is incompatible with Windows Media Player, you can only use the Zune software (because we needed ANOTHER music player)
2. Only works with specific versions of Windows, not Mac OS X or Linux.
3. The supporting software won't install on many computers running Windows XP
4. and is rumoured to not be compatible with Windows Vista
5. The Zune can't be used as an external storage device
6. Wont accept or play TV shows recorded using Windows Media Center's digital video recorder
7. It only speaks English
8. The Zune Marketplace only accepts Microsoft Credits, not real money

I suggested a while ago that I would really have likes to be in the meetings where they were defining the thing, and to meet the product manager crazy brave enough to enter a battle of marketing wit with Steve Jobs apparently almost completely unarmed. Clearly some other people at MS have stopped drinking the cool aid long enough to think some of the same things.

Today its been reported that Bryan Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, is going to be moving on to "pursue his own interests". I have a mental picture of all the Microsoft employees out in the car park will Bill shouting - " WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS PIECE OF SITH" and every one stepping back to leave Bryan standing there. Trapped like a geek in headlights.

Shame.

In 2002 James, my partner of the time, and I went on an Atlantis cruise around the Western Caribbean, San Juan, St Croix etc, along with the trip to the Maldives with Steve and a week James and I spent in Sorrento, it was one of the most wonderful holidays I have had.

What is great about the cruises is that they are all of the good of a circuit party weekend, with out much of the bad, combined with the bliss of laying around in the sun. We both loved it and I came away with some good friends who to this day are an important part of my life, like Bruce and Billy.

There was plenty on the boat to do or not do as you chose. Tea dances, stage shows, dinners, lunches, hanging by the pool, parties and shore trips. There was also a lively trade in extracurricular activities if you were so inclined.

James is quite the honey, and provided he doesn’t dance in public he tends to get hit on a lot. As the boyfriend I was bathed in the reflected lust from the hawks circling around him. He is oblivious which just drives them NUTS.

It struck me on that trip how caught up some of our American cousins seem to be with categorization. They seem be determined to specify their make, model and operating interfaces and then to find partners who have the right, um, plugs. Back home in Australia, we seem to be more prepared to just wing it and do what comes naturally.

That or we are just trampier. I am not completely certain there.
In the afternoons, around 5pm, there were “Tea Dances” on the pool deck. Most of the boats party interested passengers would assemble and dance the afternoon away as the sun set and the boat sailed on from whatever lavish exotic location we had visited that day. One afternoon as I was standing on eh edge of the dance floor watching the hawks vie for James attention, one of them decides to try it on with me.

He was handsome enough in a Miami stretched, pumped, tanned and plucked sort of way but lord did he not have conversation skills. That seems to be that way, the prettier or bigger they get the less they seem able to hold down a conversation that doesn’t directly involve talking about themselves. The exclusion to this is Mark Schneider who is usually not too self involved considering how outrageously good looking he is.

So the hawk is trying it on with me and I am being all coy, funny and politely disinterested when he pulls what he must have thought was his killer line - “you know I am one of only ten tops on this boat, don’t you?”

What? Did I miss the survey when I came on board? How can anyone make that sort of statement? Firstly, they can’t know. Secondly - WHO CARES!

It never ceases to amaze me, given how moralistic and puritanical the populus American culture is about most things - hello, religious right in control of th three branches of government, that they are so forward about their sexuality. Always shoving it down your throats, as it were.

So suffice to say, I gave Mr. One of Ten his marching orders and went back to the pleasant (for me) pastime of watching James “dance”. A few minutes later another guy approached me, apparently he had been listening to the start of the pervious conversation because his opening line was “Actually, I am the 11th”.

If its not one thing, its another.