It Gar Br

By now we've forgotten the State Fair entirely, and want nothing to do with it. Autumn is here and we must be industrious and orient ourselves towards Omnipresent Pumpkin Spice Season. Oh, it's nice today; it would be a good day at the Fair, even though the breeze had an undertone of chill in the morn. Noon feels warm, but that's not going to last.

It's possible you'll go back to the Fairgrounds for something or other. I used to go to an Arts & Crafts event in the fall - and of course there's the Back to the Fifties event in June, which occupies the Fairgrounds with so much gorgeous metal you really don't see the bones of the Fair at all, even though they're all there. In the Fall, however, it seems wrong to go there. It's like going home and finding every store downtown empty and shuttered. Your parents moved away and didn't leave a forwarding address.

Anyway: here's a picture I never got around to posting. I like it because it's shorthand, and everyone knows what it means.

But only because it's an Italian restaurant. If you saw IT GAR BR on an auto-parts store, you'd be completely confused.

Someone who's just learning English might be confused, though. What's a Meatbaii?

COMICS The creator of Marmaduke explains his appeal:

Marmaduke has been around since 1954. His creator, Brad Anderson, has died at the age of 91. The obit concludes with the saddest thing you might read today.

TECH The Apple Event yesterday generated the usual coverage: They're not innovating any more, and Steve Jobs would be unhappy. Well, the Fall event is usually about the second version of the latest phone - fine-tuning, not reinvention. As for Steve Jobs weeping from the great beyond because they're selling a Stylus, well, Jobs was not an infallible being, and made a number of design mistakes, from the hockey-puck mouse to the irritating little thumb-wheel volume control on QuickTime. (I raise a glass to other UI nerds who remember such pointless things.) If you want a Stylus, they are making the best one you'd use. If you don't want one you don't need it. As for the keyboard, OF COURSE it's just like a Surface. I have a friend who uses a Surface because he's in the PC world and loves the keyboard; it's his everyday out-and-about computer. The iPad cannot be your everyday out-and-about computer because typing on glass is a pain. My wife uses an iPad for everything, and she uses a Bluetooth computer. Whatever works.

The real news is the Apple TV upgrade. Yes, a new remote is not MIND-BLOWING INNOVATION, except for the part about voice control and a glass-panel trackpad for navigation. I use the AppleTV every day, and like the idea of the app store and voice control, especially for my wife, who tires of going click-click-click through the alphabet to find a show.