Q: The Apple sticker in the back window says to others:

1. I have poor self esteem, but think and act like a arrogant, smug, fuck.

2. Instead of buying a better car, I buy new apple products... every year.

3. Starbucks Frequent Customer.

4. Ipod Inside: Please Break In!

5. All of the above.

Before I launch my tirade against smug apple users, let me start off by saying that I >do< have a mac. I have, by mac user standards, a somewhat older two processor 2.7GHz G5 mac with 4 gigs of ram that I use for editing. Why? Well, for one, I find Final Cut Pro to be an excellent editing system. Don't get me wrong-- if it ran on a Dell, or other decently assembled/built PC (for a fraction of the price I might add), I'd be all over it like stink on... well you know. After 15+ years in broadcast, I’ve used probably over 20 products to satisfy the needs of either image compositing to basic chop editing, from real time online systems dragging 4+ physical tape machines, to offline frame by frame rendering where a 30 second commercial takes hours (or days if we’re talking 3D animation) to render... and Final Cut (studio) with Motion and Shake is probably the best single seat solution I've encountered... without selling the house. Not all mac users are smug... some are like me: We use a machine because it offers the best solution for a particular set of criteria.

I've watched "smug" mac users invade every respectable discussion forum from ZDNet to tech support for nokia cell phones. The forum has zero to do with anything mac... but there they come- sitting from their perch in starbucks... coffee flying out of their ears, ready to start the 'you should buy a mac' - or 'mac's don't have that problem' - bullshit- every computer has problems- period. Might point out Safari was the weakest browser security wise. Mac's don't get virus's they say... bullshit. Mac's don't get virus's AS OFTEN. There's a lower 'glamor' rate for script kiddies to take down macs vs. pcs-- reason? raw numbers of machines-- but I digress.

So, I have a Mac, my wife and I both have ipods, my kids both have shuffles. So I >do< like their products for the most part... it's just the majority of their users that drive me nuts. EVEN WORSE than the users, is, god forbid, you have to go into one of those fucking Apple stores. It isn't the store design that irks me... the minimalistic approach is kind of nice... it's the folks making $7 an hour walking around in Steve-jobs-alike clothing, with what looks like a roadies stage pass for a Yanni concert hanging around their necks proclaiming 'Mac Genius.' Ok - first off- Supposdely, according to marketing, it doesn't TAKE a genius to use a mac- It's supposed to be easy- so let's go easy on the double speak. If by Genius, we're refering to the employees like we did the kids in the short bus as 'Special' - then I aggree; particularly if it was supposed to make them have better self esteem. If it makes them look and act like total douches, then it has certainly succeeded.

So here’s my point: I don’t hate Macs, I hate smug Apple “sheep.”

Why sheep? Who else would fight for a right to sit in a seat of an audience to praise Steve Jobs like he was a modern day savior; Wearing their turtle neck tight black shirts, as if that was a new idea for the future, when it is more remeniscent of a uniform in every early 80’s B sci-fi movie. Cheering every time he changes the material on a computer from white plastic to brushed metal to black plastic and then back to white plastic. That's not innovation- it's painting.  Apple is not an engineering company, they are a marketing company. What other company would let form precede function. (See first intel Macbook where they throttled down performance via a 'patch' to overcome a "after released" heat problem... and that's just the tip of the iceburg. Anyone remember generation 1-4 Ipod batteries, anyone, anyone?)

Airbook? Awe- it's so cute. To bad it's a totally worthless piece of shit if you unless you like to lug around A> external optical drive, B> USB hub, C> bah - who cares-- it's overpriced and a piece of "cute" shit.  Woulda been nice 10 years ago at a "what-if" exhibit in the worlds fair. Unless your only goal in computing is to sit in a starbucks with an larger than normal web-phone. Buy a friggen iTouch if you have to have a portable mac product to browse the web. Sure you 'can' put more programs on it- and they say "just plug in an external cd/dvd drive - wait- i'm using that port for a mouse-- I'll just use the other-- err-- only one USB port? --- For heavens sake- you can get a decent $500 laptop ($1000 if  you want a 'cute' one...) - (Windows OR unix...) that's more powerful, has the ability to read/write optical media... but God forbid it might weigh 5 ounces more and be an inch and a half thick... that might break the back of the smug Mac user... Which brings me to my next point.

Physical de-volution. Ok, yes, Mac has released "Mighty Mouse" or whatever the hell they are calling it- with a whopping 2 buttons on it and a real live scroll 'ball' - it's about as impossible to use and uncomfortable as previous iterations of mac 'mice.' -It's mighty alright... mighty annoying. For years- they insisted on a 'one' button mouse.... What was Apple going for-- to prove that folks can indead live with only a 'hoof' - to go ahead and reverse evolution to not needing 5 fingers? - 1 button click - who needs these other fingers. The FIRST THING I do when I encounter a mac I have to work on is reach into my laptop bag, grab my reliable (and cheap) microsoft branded USB optical mouse with 4 buttons and plug that puppy in - the mac doesn't "see" the 4th side button - or at least let me know it see's it (which windows does...) - but who cares-- at least I can right click without having to hold down option, or apple key, or whatever it is, freeing my left hand to use editing shortcut keys and/or-- 'gasp' - typing. Plus the thing fits in my palm better.. I don't have huge hands-- but I don't have these little kindergarten-like hands that they apparently model their mice after.

Here’s a stereotypical "smug" mac user situation, and why I just shake my head in dismay at the utter devolution of an entire generation. Sitting at starbucks, which SHOULD be a social situation (why else would you go somewhere to spend obnoxious sums of money on coffee), each glued to his/her mac, supposedly doing something “amazing, groundbreaking” – as they re-invent the same web 2.0 page over and over again.... babbling about some conspiracy theory in a blog or putting up an online gallery showing their non-monetized 'art.' using a pirated version of photoshop (yes... mac users pirate-- and from my experience- WAY more than Windows users - linux users don't have the problem since great software is available as open source.)- They use the same sans serif minimalistic (rounded) font, in different weights, sizes (and sometimes rotation... like that suddenly makes text 'art') - claiming creativity with no clear financial gain possible. The topper: using iChat to communicate with their friend 3 tables over:

MacJoe47: omg, will you look at the guy on table 4- he's using a windoze machine.

MacMike52: He's so stupid, how can he work on a machine like that. He doesn't even show up in our iChat list.

MacJoe47: I just went to get another triple fru fru express cherr-y-ific latte refill, he's using some wierd PC chat program called 'excel' with numbers all over the screen... you can't even see the picture of the person he's chatting with.

MacMike52: I think I saw that running on a Mac once, but why would you use that when you have iChat.

MacJoe47: He's leaving already? What's so important that he only spends 30 minutes here... those PC users are wierd: I think he was only drinking a 'Normal' cafe."

A Smug Mac users resume/budget:

Job: Freelance graphics artist / Part time cafe server

Dream Job: Mac Genius / Apple Store

Age: 29

Average gross income: $30,000 per year

Primary clients: Art Galleries, Coffee Shops, Whole Food Stores. (ok, I like business listed to the left... (maybe not the coffee shops- I just don't get paying $7 for a cup of joe-) but this is a rant... some feelings have to be hurt.)

Rent: $6000/yr - Living in a nice apartment is so materialistic, and owning a house is just giving into the corporation, and giving money to the banks. (but apparently making the apartment building owner rich is ok.)

Clothing: $500/yr – An unintelligible t-shirt that’s ‘hip and cool’ costs $20 at the local used cd-store. Something with a lot of attitude that makes you just want to smack the shit out of the little fuck.

Electricity: $4000/yr – you would think $300+ a month is high... particularly for a 500 sq foot studio apartment. Mac users are usually talking about the environment, and being “Green” all the time… but fail to realize that mac’s use far more energy than most equiv powered pc’s do. Particularly their workstation grade machines. The G5 was the biggest beast at this… This goes back to engineering coming well after they design a ‘cool shell’ for their products. But kudos to switching to intel-- they use far less power. So I can't fault apple too much here. But let's just put it this way-- the room my dual G-5 is in doesn't need heat.

Insurance: $2000/yr – (car only)- This would be lower, but he/she has had several fender-benders while screwing with his/her ipod.

Car: 1990’s compact of some flavor (most likely VW) that was completely paid for when they traded last years ipod model for it. $200 for a paint job of white, some pastel or silver. Ff course putting the “Apple” sticker in the back window to let others know their ‘cool.’ – (We've been over this already...)

Taxes: $5000/yr – They make tax preparation programs? You can write off equipment used in business? Nah – that’s for the people who give into the government who controls our lives... (but for some reason, uses 1040EZ and pays full amount)

Coffee: $5000/yr – This is figuring he/she makes it to starbucks about 250 days a year with an average $20 expenditure per visit.

Cell Phone: $3000/yr – AT&T Iphone service: $200/month Svc. $50/month iPhone payment.