Lisette Voytko

Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011.

On that day, a little something inside me died too.

That little something? It was the last of my belief that magic existed.

There’s been so much said about Jobs since he passed away, so I’ll spare you the details of my thoughts regarding his role as product and industry innovator. That’s established.

What I will share is my conviction that I’ll miss him most during Apple product announcements. Jobs was a master of showmanship, a wonderful presenter, and his show-stopping proclamation of “One more thing…” was the veritable rabbit in Apple’s hat.

Out of nowhere, life-changing products would appear. The first iPod from a pants pocket. The MacBook Air from a manila envelope. Places we all knew technology didn’t occupy, us civilians used to the blocky beige boxes sitting in our home offices.

The first time I saw an iPhone commercial was at the Rutgers University Bookstore, my part-time job in the summer of 2007. A couple of TV’s were mounted from the ceiling, offering background noise and news to us workers. 

I stopped in front of a TV, mouth agape.

“Whoa….” That was all I could say.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

I think I may have gotten goosebumps, too.

It was the first time I had seen anything so completely new and out of the ordinary. Not even the Nintendo and Playstation my brother and I had as kids compared to this feeling— wonderment. In the palm of your hand, no less!

Today, as I’m sure we all know, Apple announced the new iPad (it’s just iPad now, not iPad 3, or HD, or any kind of suffix.) As he has before, CEO Tim Cook presided over today’s announcement. If you’ve got an hour or so to kill, you can watch today’s keynote here.

And Cook does a fine job presenting, speaking clearly, showing energy, even cracking jokes here and there. 

But today’s presentation was nothing like the one Steve Jobs made on January 9, 2007:

The whimsy of it (skip to 03:15 for a visual gag of what iPhone could look like), the energy of the audience, and the lead-up to iPhone’s unveiling are amazing effective. Of course, the presence of The Man Himself adds an extra layer of electricity. I still feel excited watching this keynote.

But today’s? I was almost bored. The rumor cycle surrounding Apple product announcements is 95% accurate. I already knew the new iPad would have a retina display, and that 3G models would have 4G LTE capability. I tuned into the Gizmodo liveblog solely to get the news, and to avoid the fever pitch of Twitter. Which means…

I tuned into the liveblog as the easiest method of ignoring today’s keynote.

Do I want the new iPad? Of course. Apple is genius at creating consumer desire. 

But am I wowed by it? Not really. There aren’t any huge or innovative improvements in this iteration, just a nicer display and faster data via telecom.

During today’s keynote, I had to force myself to focus. A nap was what I really wanted.

I’m sorry, Steve. It wasn’t always this way.

What did you think of today’s Apple product announcement? Will you purchase the new iPad or new Apple TV? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

I’ve written previously about why I watch AMC’s The Walking Dead. (Reasons including: Zombies! Apocalypse! And more zombies!) 

What I failed to mention is AMC’s live half hour talk show which follows new episodes on Sunday nights. Aptly named Talking Dead  and hosted by beloved Internet geek Chris Hardwick, aka @nerdist, it’s designed to give viewers a real-time forum to digest each week’s action on The Walking Dead. Discussion is driven by fan questions taken from Facebook, Twitter and phone calls.

Accompanying Hardwick are two or three guests to participate in each episode’s discussion. Appearances have been made by Walking Dead cast and crew members, with my personal favorites being Steven Yuen (Glenn) and Greg Nicotero (co-executive producer and special effects makeup.)

Some seemingly random guests have also popped up. Notable questionable guests have ranged from Jon Heder (of Napoleon Dynamite fame) to Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction.) Guests such as these two gentlemen profess to be diehard fans of The Walking Dead, but they don’t make great TV, or add anything significant to the discussion. 

Take, for example, the following quote from Dave Navarro from Episode 208’s bonus segment. (Check it out here at the 02:38 mark.) He was responding to a fan question which asked, “Who is more dangerous? The surviving humans, or the walkers?” He responds:

They [the surviving humans] have the ability to manipulate and think, and outsmart and run and use tools and guns, and you know, the walkers are, you know, God bless ‘em, not the brightest bunch of guys in the world.

This is pretty elementary, and a waste of airtime. It outlines the basics of any zombie survival story. Humans = smart and fast, zombies = brain-dead and slow. I’m a fan of Jane’s Addiction, but not this response.

This isn’t Navarro’s fault. Celebrities who enjoy The Walking Dead enough to be guests on Talking Dead are essentially endorsing it. And it seems highly likely AMC could grab extra ratings by featuring notable personalities on Talking Dead. On paper, this makes sense.

When watching Talking Dead, though, the discussion always seems a bit underdeveloped. Take last night’s episode, for example. Dale Horvath (played by Jeffrey DeMunn) kicked the bucket, literally, at the hands of a zombie. After getting over the shock of seeing Dale’s guts torn out, the only thought in my head was the following:

Is it possible for a zombie to rip someone open? Don’t they get weaker as they decompose?

The reason given for the zombie’s ability to kill Dale in this manner was extremely bony/decayed fingers, which I don’t buy. If you’re a med student or doctor and know better, please let me know. Otherwise, I call shenanigans.

And Dale’s death was a topic of discussion for approximately three to five minutes, before Hardwick moved on to another segment. There are some wonderful segments on Talking Dead— the In Memoriam and behind-the-scenes special effects in particular— but something’s still missing.

I wish more time was devoted to discussing the nerdy intricacies of each episode. Pinning down The Walking Dead’s zombie mythology would be a good start. Maybe a majority of fans (including Hardwick) have read the graphic novels the show is based on, and therefore maybe they’re trying to avoid spoilers. Maybe they could include the bonus segments (available only online) with the actual broadcast?

Food for thought. Zero calorie, too. Gotta lay off those guts!

In the United States, it largely appears that the topic of “health” is divided into two camps:

• The latest fad diet (Atkins, the Cleanse, etc.)
• The latest fad exercise (Tai Bo, Zumba, etc.)

The idea of “medicine” in American health has become entertainment, and practically a spectator sport. Channels like TLC air reality medical programming such as “Untold Stories of the E.R.” The mid-2000’s had an obsession with plastic surgery, resulting in more reality shows (“The Swan”, “I Want A Famous Face”) as well as medical dramas (“Nip/Tuck”). Even sitcoms got in on the action, with “Scrubs” running for nine seasons. Of course, I can’t briefly summarize American medical television without tipping my hat to “E.R.”, the seminal medical drama that made every hospital everywhere wish for a George Clooney to call their own.

Clearly, the American public is clamoring for this type of programming. I worry, however, about the accuracy of medical dramas and sitcoms. In 2005, Slate ran this piece entitled “Paging Dr. Welby- The medical sins of Grey’s Anatomy”. The article cites egregious errors in medical process and policy, ranging from organ donation to autopsy. 

It’s generally gauche to discuss one’s medical history without the safe confines of TLC’s interview sets, but this is relevant to the task at hand. See, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in doctor’s offices, and it all started when I was born.

I was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a type of congenital heart disease. Here’s the MayoClinic’s definition of my condition:

Tetralogy of Fallot (teh-tral-uh-je ov fuh-LOE) is a rare condition caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth. These defects, which affect the structure of the heart, cause oxygen-poor blood to flow out of the heart and into the rest of the body.

I had surgery to correct my Tetralogy when I was just ten months old. I had an excellent repair, which has been commented on by the various cardiologists I’ve seen throughout my life. I’m very lucky; I have no restrictions on physical activity, and I live a completely normal life. Stretches of time go by where I forget I’ve had surgery, and am only reminded when I glimpse the chest scar from my incision in a mirror.

But in a world where the medical profession is mined to write entertaining TV in order to garner high ratings and then line network execs’ pockets with money, the truth of what occurs in the operating room stays in the operating room.

Everything I know about my surgery I know second-hand from my parents. My parents, who aren’t medical professionals, only have information they were given at the time. Here’s what my mother told me via email this morning:

It was a big deal because Dr. Karp* (University of Chicago -Ed.) did the surgery. He had developed a technique to correct all the defects in one surgery - which spared you subsequent surgeries. The amphitheater was full and you had many doctors assisting. One doc just did the pulse on your feet.  He came in a few times before the surgery to practice.

Yes, you read that correctly. ONE DOCTOR FOR JUST MY FEET. That’s hardcore.

Contrast my mother’s story with this Grey’s Anatomy clip from YouTube. Sandra Oh’s character Christina performs surgery on a patient who starts crashing mid-operation. Another surgeon idly stands by reading a magazine, trying to prove a point to Christina, rather than being MEDICALLY RESPONSIBLE AND PROFESSIONAL by stepping in to save the patient’s life. Imagine if you were the patient. It’s disgusting and terrifying

This is why we need more hospitals like Houston, TX’s Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital. On February 21st, Mashable reported that surgeon Dr. Michael Macris performed a successful double-coronary artery bypass on a 57-year-old patient. His colleague Dr. Paresh Patel live-tweeted the entire surgery via the @houstonhospital Twitter account. This is the first time in history a open-heart surgery has been live-tweeted.

The tweeted procedure includes photos and videos (NSFW or the faint of heart. See what I did there? -Ed.), which can be viewed in a Storify story created by the hospital. 

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s tough to watch, but it’s highly educational. More importantly, it’s 100% true, unlike medical drams/reality shows. The hospital reported they reached 225,000 viewers through the live-tweeted surgery. It may not be the same record-breaking ratings that “E.R” received, but it’s a start.

Medicine can only benefit from this kind of transparency, to counteract the “pop culture-ing” of itself in American entertainment. I would love to see more procedures in various parts of medicine documented in social media. These kinds of broadcasts would help demystify medicine for the average citizen, for example.

My only concerns have to do with security, which in this case is twofold. Security for the patient being one, and security for the hospital being another. What kinds of releases or disclaimers do patients have to sign before participating in a social media broadcast of their surgeries? And for hospitals, are there different kinds of protections or insurances in the event a patient dies or experiences complications in one of these broadcasts?

In the end, however, a person in Houston, TX has a repaired heart. The Internet at large now has access to a complete open-heart surgery. And all of us have benefited from it. 

* I never met Dr. Robert B. Karp after my surgery was performed. A Google search informed me he passed away in 2006. I regret I never got to say ‘thank you’ in person, so this will have to do for now. Thanks, Dr. Karp.

The Internet has expanded our ability to pacify average Americans better than ever by offering fantastical adventures to every corner of the imagination. Your home office is the window to your world, and the heart of your social life.

- Bad Religion, “The State of the End of the Millennium Address”

The above Bad Religion quote came from a spoken word track off the band’s 1998 LP No Substance. Can you remember what the Internet was like in 1998? Let me refresh your memory:

Yeah, that’s what Google looked like in 1998. Things have come a long way design-wise, huh?

The home office, however, is even more important to us than in 1998. The majority of information is received and transmitted through the Internet. My proof are the deaths of the famous. I’ve learned about the deaths of Steve Jobs, Amy Winehouse and Osama Bin Laden through social media, as opposed to TV, radio or the newspaper. The advent of Facebook (founded in 2004) and Twitter (founded in 2006) has solidified the web’s social aspect as something very permanent.

I love the Internet. All of us do, I think. Ostensibly, life is easier, work is more productive, and it’s created many jobs in America. First in California’s Silicon Valley, and now in New York’s Silicon Alley. Life’s good, right?

Except…

Do you ever have to turn away from Twitter’s excessive bleating? Have you developed headaches from focusing on your MacBook screen for too many consecutive hours? Do things just… not feel real?

It’s a type of fatigue that happens to everyone in this Internet age. It’s normal. It’s ok to admit, swear. 

There’s a quite simple cure to return to earth. Just make something with your hands.

Seriously. Draw a picture, design something out of Sculpy. If you knit, knit. If you like food, make something from scratch, like I did tonight.

After a day of working online, my eyes were killing me. I felt vaguely disconnected, out of place. On a whim, I threw on a pair of shoes and headed to my neighborhood market.

Once there, I loaded up on fresh produce, breads, eggs, salsa, hummus, cheese, veggie burgers, mostly natural foods that struck my fancy. I also picked up a 5 lb bag of Idaho potatoes.

After carting it all home, I vaguely remembered a recipe for homemade baked French fries from a magazine article I read earlier. I decided to attempt my own version.

I cut up two potatoes in half, and then in quarter-inch sections. I dipped them in egg, and rolled them in seasoned bread crumbs. I popped them into my pre-heated oven, turning them once to be golden brown on each side. 

I prepared them along with a mushroom veggie burger, topped with Monterey Jack cheese, fresh sliced tomato, onion, spinach, ketchup and Grey Poupon. Below is a lovely picture for your feasting eyes:

And I can’t tell you HOW AMAZING it felt to make fries essentially from scratch. Sure, I didn’t make a veggie burger from scratch (nor the bun) but fresh, simply-prepared foods do wonders for your state of mind. (OK, maybe that was aided by the glass of red wine I drank with my meal, but still.)

The Internet wasn’t always around, but feeding yourself has. What better way to get in touch with yourself than to prepare a simple, delicious meal? Bonus points if you share your creation with others, because it means they get to take an Internet break, too.

Sometimes, you just need a break. But, uh, when you’re done, does anyone want to do my dishes?

This morning, first reports from CNet, Mashable, The Verge, etc have been trickling in, bearing the news aloft their gadgety gondolas:

Apple is releasing a brand-new iteration of OS X this summer. Say goodbye to 10.7 Lion, and hello to 10.8, christened “Mountain Lion”. I’m very excited to finally upgrade my MacBook, which is still running Snow Leopard (10.6, now almost two full iterations behind.)

See, at a previous job, I installed Lion on my workstation the day it was released. And it was nothing but headaches. A favorite issue was the day my workstation (a 27” i5 iMac) got stuck in a crash loop, caused by Lion’s new feature of re-opening in-use applications upon restart. (For those interested in the fix, I SSH-ed into my workstation via MacBook Pro and used SUDO KILL PID via command line.)

After that experience, I haven’t been Lion’s biggest fan. I’ve been hesitant to recommend Lion to many people, unless someone wants to take advantage of iCloud.

Today, that’s all changed.

Mountain Lion is an even closer integration with iOS than Lion. Reminders, iMessage, Notifications and increased social media support (with a strong focus on Twitter) are all present in 10.8. Another notable addition is the ability to wirelessly sync your desktop to your TV via AirPlay, as long as you own an Apple TV. (Now I gotta go buy an Apple TV!)

I’m currently waiting to get my hands on Mountain Lion’s developer preview. And this is the first time I’ve been excited about a new OS since the release of Snow Leopard. When I’m anticipating something as typically mundane as a software release, I know Apple’s heading in the right direction.

Using Apple products is like being in a soothing, comfortable ocean. I’m ready to dip my toes in. The water’s warm.

And if a double-decker bus crashes into us

To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die…

- The Smiths, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”

Yesterday, as we all know, was Valentine’s Day. This day is spent in one of two cliche, well-documented ways:

• Alone at home, crying into your red wine and Chunky Monkey.
• Snuggling up to your current snuggle bunny, preferably with red wine and Chunky Monkey.

Just the addition or subtraction of a body by your side drastically changes the experience, doesn’t it?

And no musical group adequately describes the longing for love and desperation of loneliness than British 80’s alt-rock act The Smiths. Fronted by the fabulously alluring Morrissey, The Smiths’ jangly rockabilly/punk songs were mainly about ordinary people and their experiences with love, rejection and death. Only together from 1982-1987, The Smiths still have millions of fans worldwide.

Those millions of fans will never get to see The Smiths live, because Morrissey has regularly stated in interviews that a reunion will never happen. This does leave room for tribute bands, with fans in major cities happily obliging others’ thirst to hear Smiths music live.

New York City’s premier Smiths tribute band is The Sons and Heirs. Cribbing their name from smash single “How Soon Is Now?”, this tribute group aims to replicate the live Smiths experience from playing the same instruments to lead singer Ronnissey (get it?) throwing flowers to the audience.

Here’s a shot of Ronnissey in action last night, at their Unloveable! show at The Bell House in Brooklyn:

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the above image was actually Morrissey.

I’ve only ever heard Smiths music in studio albums and some surviving video recordings. Never live. Never with the bass pounding in my body, the shimmering guitar, the howl of vocals.

And it was a wonderful show. The Sons and Heirs are pretty sonically identical to The Smiths, even in challenging numbers like “I Know It’s Over” from The Queen is Dead. Ronnissey even reached out and momentarily grabbed my hand during “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, my favorite Smiths song of all-time (in case you couldn’t tell!)

After years of being a huge Smiths fan, it was a liberating experience. Howling lyrics at the top of my lungs and dancing with my boyfriend in a crowd doing the same made such lonesome music truly joyful. The room was together as one.

In that sense, lonely becomes unlonely. And that, indeed, is the essence of love.

“Why do you want to watch that!?”

That was my mother, to me, last Thanksgiving. I had just described the premise of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” to her, and she was aghast.

“Because Mom, it’s an interesting hypothetical.”

It’s true. Just like the age-old question “What should you do with a drunken sailor?”, “What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?” likewise ranks high.

Would you…

• Grab your family and run for the hills?
• Go rogue and try to kill as many zombies as possible?
• Attempt to enforce order if the government collapses?

Or would you choose a completely different path?

‘The Walking Dead’ attempts to explore the above possibilities, and many many more. Happily, each horrific hour-long episode is beautifully shot and its zombies (referred to as “walkers” by many characters) are resplendent in Grade A special effects makeup. On a visceral level, it’s deliciously scary from the safety of my couch, curled up next to Boyfriend.

Mentally, “The Walking Dead” forces me to examine my own morality and ethics. What kind of person would I be if the world was overrun by zombies? I have the physical grace of a kitten in stilettos, so I know I wouldn’t survive. But what kind of decisions would I make with the time I had left?

Without actually being faced with a zombie apocalypse, I can never know for sure. But I can watch and think from my couch every Sunday night, trying on each situation and decision, listening to my guts. Might as well put them to use before they’re zombie food, amirite?

Before y’all get huffy, let me explain.

Pinterest is awesome. The Internet’s trendiest social network is evidence of how most of us think visually. Meaning, it’s infinitely easier to share an image of something rather than explain it verbally. (Ahem.)

Case in point, the majestic narwhal: