iPhone Ads

The iPhone Ads are out – I first started seeing them on TV during the Red Sox-Yankees game last night. My first reaction: the finger motion required to navigate around the UI is very… effeminate. I’m not sure if it will become a common method for interacting with hardware -like the motion for interacting with the iPod’s clickwheel- but I think it’s distinctive enough that it will at least attract attention (good or bad).

Baseball managers

MS and I were talking yesterday about the difference between a manager in baseball vs. a coach in football. My assertion was that comparatively, being a baseball manager looks pretty easy. In any sport, the coach role involves making decisions about who starts, who to draft, developing team camaraderie, etc. So, I consider all of that a wash (pretty even no matter what sport you’re talking about).

In terms of the actual games, it seems like after the lineup is selected, the baseball manager has to make only a handful of decisions, and spends most of the time sitting on the bench doing nothing. In football (and basketball, and most other sports I can think of) the coach is constantly involved in the game, yelling at players, making play calls, etc. In baseball, he basically decides bunt/swing, when to put in a relief pitcher, when to steal, and when to sub people in and out (which isn’t nearly as frequent as it is in other sports due to baseball’s rules). The game mostly runs itself while he sits around. Ironically, baseball is the only sport [I know of] where the manager wears the same uniform as the players, as if he’s really involved and might jump in and play at any time (I believe historically the managers used to also play).

Am I underestimating the role of the baseball manager? I’m not saying they don’t do any work, just that it seems like they have to do an order of magnitude less work than their football counterparts.

In other random news…

You might have thought that the Thunder in Paradise post was random. You’re right, it was one of those things that came out of a random conversation at work. For those of you on the East Coast, here’s another bit of randomness which came out of a work conversation…

Cookie Puss Yes, that’s the Cookie Puss ice cream cake from Carvel. What I didn’t know was that around St. Patricks day they offer the “Cookie O’ Puss” which is just like the Cookie Puss, but with some green accents. Remember that? If not, how about Fudgie the Whale?