Technically Incorrect

I wouldn't for a moment think that anyone working late on something frightfully significant in Redmond would conceive of alcohol as a means to help them through their engineer's block.

But just in case there is one tortured soul who might be tempted to have a six-pack delivered to his cubicle, I have some difficult news.

i-Booze, the Seattle-based folks to whom you used to be able to turn online for a swift delivery of soothing liquids, seems to have fallen on difficult times.

For Techflash has delivered the information that not only has i-Booze failed to secure a license to sell liquor but that its enterprising founder, Karim Varela, uncorked a plea bargain on two misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and illegal possession of alcohol with intent to sell.

Isn't Epic a lovely name for a beer?

(Credit: CC Epic Beer/Flickr)

In truth, i-Booze isn't i-Booze any more. While the idea reportedly came to Varela when he was in jail for DUI, there were those who felt the name might be something of an incitement to excess. So the company recently changed its name to Dilky.com.

Which some might find a more neutral moniker, but I find my neural association membrane immediately goes to "alky."

In speaking to Techflash, Varela did not sound confident of Dilky's resurrection: "We are still working with the city and the liquor control board to regain a license, but it is a difficult battle."

Prohibition is not quite at hand, though. Anne Radford of the Washington State Liquor Control Board said the board will look into the matter over the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Varela is hoping that former customers and those who would like to be current customers might lobby the board with a human rights appeal. Or perhaps offers of a free wine-tasting trip. (Some details exaggerated here.)

What hope he has, Varela is putting into the presence of a new Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, who replaced someone called Tom Carr.

"We feel our downfall was mostly due to ex City Attorney Tom Carr's battle against bars, clubs, and alcohol in Seattle and we just got caught up in the middle when really we're providing a beneficial service for the community," Varela told Techflash.

A beneficial service, indeed. I would happily use it were it to descend to the Bay Area. However, it might also have helped if the service had benefited from a name such as i-Pinot or i-(De)liver rather than the somewhat provocative i-Booze.

Spontaneity doesn't come naturally to everyone. Neither is it welcomed by everyone.

So please imagine how those who visited the new Microsoft store in Mission Viejo, Calif., a few days back must have felt when store employees suddenly decided to drop their trousers, wave their Zunes in the air, and sing a couple of Maria Callas' greatest hits.

No, it really wasn't quite like that. However, I feel sure that one or two people might have preferred the trouser-dropping and Zune-waving over the spectacle that actually occurred.

As the Black Eyed Peas were forced to propel some of their entirely commercial stimulation down the sound system, the employees performed their own version of the line dance for the one-legged. Because I am consumer-focused at every moment of my waking day, I found myself concentrating more on the reactions of the customers than on the techniques Spike Jonze might have used to make this an MTV VMA winner.

As the employees line up for this troubling, tourettesy Texas One-Step, one already feels a strange squeezing sensation on behalf of some of the customers.

Around the 1.15 mark, a little girl, her hair ponytailed with a yellow scrunchy, makes as if her vicinity has not been invaded by dancing, clapping, or stray employee sweat. She sits. She stares into her screen. The adults make fools of themselves.

Yes, this is the Microsoft store version of "The Ice Storm."

Two minutes of constricting visual constipation are temporarily saved by three ladies who rush in from the mall to join in. These women, their purses held in place by a determined gravity, begin to show the employees just why Fergie's tunes are precursors to a fiery personal life.

Look, I'm lying. But they are definitely better than the tall, blond string bean of a chap whose twisted movements are rather too similar those of certain people who bought Vista and couldn't make it work.

I want to like this microcosmic flash mob of dance. I really do. However, once the balding chap holding the Brookstone bag joins the shifting knee-lifting, I find myself searching again for the little ponytailed girl staring into a very fine PC. She has not turned her neck one degree to observe these escapees from reality. She seems to have decided that this is not Miley Cyrus, this is not even Cyrus Vance, ergo this is not happening.

But it did happen, spontaneously, in Mission Viejo. That's the place where the mission is old, right?

I want to be a force for good. Doesn't everyone?

Which is why I was delighted to be moved by the words of Microsoft's Bill Gates during a CNBC TV special in which he and Warren Buffett discussed the meaning of life. Or something similar.

Asked by an audience member what he thought of Steve Jobs and Apple, Gates began with an insouciant smile.

Then he tossed garlands of roses and pearls of praise at the Apple co-founder.

He said: "He's done a fantastic job."

Which was charming in itself. But he continued to describe how Jobs saved Apple: "He brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things."

So, from now on, everyone who happens to be a fanperson of either brand should seek out one of his or her supposed mortal enemies, hold hands with them and see if, together, they cannot try to be a force for good things too.

Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."

So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."

In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7," Microsoft showed that perhaps some of its underwear is currently a little twisted.

The post read: "An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was 'borrowed' from Mac OS X."

This would suggest that Aldous was, in fact, misquoted.

However, the post, written by Brandon LeBlanc, continued, "Unfortunately, this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."

"I'm Steve Jobs, and Windows 7 was my idea?"

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Some would therefore now conclude that he was quoted accurately, but he didn't quite get his facts right. This is entirely possible, though one might wonder why he would have made comments with a ring of such endearing honesty.

However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this Windows Team post is a comment left by someone with the handle "i-dont-do-tat".

This commenter wrote: "I know Simon Aldous, having worked in the same U.K. subsidiary as him for a few years. He's a good guy who, for me, is telling it like it is. He's paying testament to the common view that a Mac is cool and a great template to copy."

As many in the world of business will tell you, copying happens all the time. The competition is scrutinized religiously, and the best articles of faith are taken and sometimes even improved. This happens in every product category.

The "i-dont-do-tat" poster concluded that perhaps honesty might not be such a bad thing: "Denying this to your customers just makes you look stupid because the very look and feel of Windows 7 is desperately trying to look like a Mac OS--just admit it."

Oh, of course one mightn't expect honesty in the mass-market arena. It is a very dangerous place in which to say anything at all. Equally, though, in a tech world interview, perhaps a little nod toward the opposition is not such a bad thing. It might even lull it into a little complacent smugness.

One can only hope that Simon Aldous had a good breakfast Thursday and that he hasn't endured any untoward communications. Unless it's a job offer from Apple, of course, which he should accept only if the company gives him a better deal and appears to come from nicer people.

That's how the corporate world works, you see. Like high school, it's all temporary, so you have to make the most of it while you can.

Sometimes you take a wrong turning in life and, Wednesday, a slight concussion led my eyes to fall upon the pages of PCR.

It is a little more intelligent than my normal reading matter, but I am very grateful for its interview with Simon Aldous, Microsoft's partner group manager.

He was quoted, for example, as saying: "One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use."

Perfect harmony?

(Credit: CC Esparta/Flickr)

You're waiting for the punchline, right? You know, the one about how he was kidding.

Wait away because he continued: "What we've tried to do with Windows 7--whether it's traditional format or in a touch format--is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics."

I know that such words might cause some entrenched foot soldiers in both of the fanchildren camps to hoot, hiss, sigh and reach for the nearest farming implement.

However, isn't it rather charming to hear someone admit that a competitor's product isn't overly expensive or overly pretentious, but that it has something about it that is good and that real people who buy real products actually appreciate?

There are many ways of showing respect to those you don't actually respect.

So it's touching to see that Apple has not only produced a few "Get A Mac" ads to darken the hearts of those about to upgrade to Windows 7, but has also donned its Wellington boots, gone down on its knees, and offered a dig in the grubby world of search.

I am grateful to The Next Web, who discovered that Cupertino has been throwing a few grenades into Google searches such as "Download Windows 7" and "Windows 7 download."

(Credit: The Next Web)

While one naturally expects to see ads for Microsoft stores adorning these searches, Apple has slipped in ads that suggest the best way to upgrade to Windows 7 is to actually purchase something from the Apple family.

Some might find it amusing simply that Apple is using such a tactic. But perhaps others will be a little disappointed that the wording for the ad is so straight. No jibes. No subtle suggestions that Windows 7 is merely a Manchurian macrame version of Vista. Not even a hint that Windows 7 will make you more miserable than eggnog ice tea.

How sad.

Have you ever been hurt by a lover who went back to her ex?

Have you ever experienced that constant troubling frisson, even when you were with them, that it was only a matter of time?

Well, might I offer you a little televisual solace? Jerry Seinfeld, he who walked a mile in Bill Gates' shoes with the man himself, has gone back to his first wife, the Mac.

It seems almost a movie from an alien world to remember Jerry and Bill buying shoes and moving in with a normal American family.

I know some found these ads bizarre. I found that a good thing. And a very good thing for Microsoft. These movies were a delight, a departure, a signal of something that was finally different, a signal that someone was, well, thinking different.

Yes, they didn't last. They were, perhaps too daring for their time and their brand. But they were more viral than the "I'm a PC" campaign.

So to now discover that Seinfeld has appeared on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with a MacBook Pro craftily centered on his desk is to experience something akin to a kitchen knife being sharpened upon one's spine by a recently fired busboy.

You can see a still over at TUAW, because I am too disturbed to show it here.

Although I have embedded a little waffle from Seinfeld and his co-starring minions explaining their enthusiasm for "Curb"'s Larry David.

However, if it is, indeed, remotely true that Seinfeld was paid $10 million for his aborted Microsoft ads, one might have hoped that he would have wondered if it was quite right to be seen with a Mac again so quickly.

Unless, of course, Apple paid him $15 million. Which they wouldn't. The company would have been more ready for him to pay it. So, Jerry, love "Curb Your Enthusiasm". But did you really have to? Did you?

The jingle competition held recently by Microsoft must be tattooed to the tips of your tongues.

For those who might have been attending a serious yoga retreat at the time, a man called Jonathan Mann won $500 for a ditty that some described using a word that rhymes with ditty.

It seemed to me to be rather good business at the time. Microsoft spent very little money and received much publicity. However, some new footage of the Bing jingle being performed has struck me in the eyes and buried itself in my worried parts.

You see, it features many, many children from the Keith Valley Middle School in the non-Amish region of Pennsylvania singing the jingle, dancing to the jingle and wearing uniform T-shirts imported from the Left Coast.

I know I should find this charming. I know that I should consider this an educational initiative that engaged a bunch of kids and prevented them from spending hours listening to overstressed, underpaid teachers who dream of lottery wins and Barbadian beaches.

So why is my inner Netflix suddenly bringing to my attention footage of Romanian schoolchildren circa 1963? Why is my inner screen projecting a 1959 appearance by Nikita Khruschev at one of outer Moscow's fine collective farms?

Why do I find this Bing footage slightly peculiar? Please help me. Does my Eastern European heritage make me overly sensitive to this kind of thing? Do your children pay homage to Microsoft by singing the Bing jingle while waving their arms around at school too?

Perhaps you are one of those who saves your credit card information on your Xbox remote so you can buy points at the very time your mood demands them. Perhaps you also have a dog. Then this story from Fox News will be important to you.

Greg Strope and Christine Payne of Richmond, Va., were lying in bed one night, when Greg got an e-mail from Microsoft. No, Redmond wasn't wondering if they'd like to buy a slightly used copy of Windows 7. Nor was this a late-night Bing jingle phone karaoke invitation.

Did I mention Greg was in bed? And that Christine was with him and his Xbox wasn't? Oh, and that he didn't check his phone that night? This is relevant information. Because the next morning Greg went downstairs and checked his phone to discover that the e-mail was a thank you from Microsoft for purchasing 5,000 Xbox points. Greg was somewhat flummoxed, as the time of purchase seemed to coincide with the time he was in bed.

Then he espied his Xbox remote. He detected a little spittle. The spittle was not his own, nor that of his beloved, nor even that of his roommate, who had also been in bed at the time. The spittle belonged to Oscar, his dog.

Perhaps Oscar had sudden urges to buy some new game content. Because there was no other explanation as to who had made the Xbox purchase. "The only living creature that could have done it was the dog," he said.

Greg surmised that Oscar had pawed at the remote with such beginner's good fortune that he had successfully spent $62.50.

Greg didn't even attempt to persuade Microsoft there had been a mistake. However, he did tell Fox News: "I just wish they'd make it a little harder to purchase points."

Oh, Greg. Retail doesn't work that way. It's there to make purchasing easier. Try sending Oscar to your local 7/11 and see what he comes back with.