Answer? Using an iPad is Equivalent to Being in Hell

NOTE: I am writing this post the good old fashioned way: using a laptop. Yes I am aware of how "six-months ago" that is... but read on....

Well it was certainly a noble question, "Am I in Hell? Or just using an iPad?" One cannot be blamed for posing the question. It's an innocent and justifiable enough question. It just wasn't the right question. The right question it turns out was "Why do I feel like I am in Hell whenever I use the iPad?" And of course the answer is "Being in Hell and using an iPad are the SAME thing".

See, it all started about a week ago. I received this incredible looking device for my birthday from my even more incredible looking wife. I had been talking about getting an iPad for months. I had gotten used to the iPhone -- bear in mind if you do NOT have an iPhone that there is a VERY large learning curve to using one. iPhones do not have regular keyboards - they are virtual, not tactile; and because they are an Apple product they are just about incompatible with every known device, website, app, software in the known universe. But still... there is a feeling one gets from using an iPhone -- (scientists have actually just finished a small clinical trial that showed that using an iPhone elicits certain endorphins in the brain that are similar to the feelings we get when we are in love or being loved or being made love to by another. This is true. Look it up).

So i had gotten used to the iPhone after about a year of using it. And no, the marriage still wasn't perfect. To this day I still cannot use more than half of the applications or tools that I use on my traditional PC-based hot-rodded laptop (mind you this thing is a monster if you're a tech-geek. Custom designed and hand-built with a quad-core processor, ultra-high resolution screen, more ports than a space-shuttle, more RAM than is humanly fathomable, the most expensive video card money can buy along with the best sound card humanity can invent). So it should be fine, right? Well for the most part it is. Only problem being that it is still, alas, a laptop. In other words, it's significantly larger and heavier than an iPhone.

Seeing that my job entails hunching over some kind of "content creating" device for hours at a time, there was a real need for me to be able to invent some kind of system to still be able to create content and not do real damage to my health. My back and neck are already severely compromised due to how many hours I have hunched over this thing. A Vegas book-maker could gamble that "yours truly has spent 20 hours straight hunched over his laptop without moving except to take bathroom breaks" and win 100% of the time. Unfortunately the statement is easily true. It is the nature of how much the industry I work in has changed. The music-making industry that is. But that's another story. So... over the last few months I had begun realizing that I could do quite a bit using my iPhone. No it's not easy, and it's certainly not comfortable. But once you've hit the bed at 4AM and you've just put in an 18 hour day and you're dead tired to the point of your eyes being crossed, finishing up that "last bit of work before you wake up in 3 hours to start the process all over again" is best accomplished on a smaller device with a less trauma inducing screen than a laptop. Hence the iPhone. I could write a three page blog post in less than an hour on the iPhone. No kidding. I have mastered that virtual keyboard. But again, it just doesn't feel that comfortable, nor healthy. Not much does anymore in this high tech world. But again, that too is another story.

I am in love. With my laptop and my Sony Clie. I have always slept with a guitar and a cat since I can remember. Lately my guitar is getting jealous of the laptop. The cat doesn’t seem to mind at all. Preparing for Transcendent Radio. More on that soon. IN the studio today to do more guitars.

Just announced that 15 million people in Ethiopia are on the verge of total famine within weeks. So what's really going on here? How the hell can this happen when people are so happy and healthy here in America? Is there a solution?