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With so many of them I suppose there’s bound to be more than one that does the same thing, leaving us to decide which does it best. Case in point: I’m torn between the official $2.99 Wikipedia browser, a field of free alternatives and just using Safari. Maybe an offline dump is the way to go for that authentic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy experience.

Then there are some doing only one thing that leaves us wondering why do it at all, best illustrated by World 9, whose developer, to his or her credit, demonstrated the ambition to expand a simple noise-maker into “a network-based mapping project, that shows where everyone is jumping around the globe. Doesn’t it make you feel happy to imagine that somebody on the opposite side of the earth is jumping around the street just like you?” Also from the description: ‘Some say life is like a game. The difference is that life is going on and on. There is no such thing as “the final stage” in life.’ May Jovial Race never die.

And didn’t I come up with the idea behind Urbanspoon like ten years ago? (Though in my last サラリーマン job I suggested we put all our usual choices on a spinning prize wheel, like Elvis Costello once joked he would do with this songs on tour.) Except, of course, I didn’t conceive of geo-tagging, and still think it’s better implemented as an account-based service that stores your selections so that you’re not choosing from Carl’s Jr. every other day. Unless you want to.

In any case, I’ve always held to the belief that the well never goes dry—at least until the blood-brain barrier does—so here goes:

• Cheat Sheet™, which, no, isn’t meant for classroom use, but rather to help in awkward social situations as an under-table teleprompter, serving up conversation starters and, should the going get rough, subject-changers. Would be nice, too, if you could work on your lines in advance and bring them up when appropriate, so as to avoid any lost “jerk store” moments.
• Washing Dishes™ to make use of that touted accelerometer and take you back to the good ol’ days of Lucy-on-the-assembly line games like Gumball and Tapper; the plates pile up and you pick them up one at a time, twist & turn it under a fixed faucet, rubbing away at the more stubborn stains. Work faster, yeah, but smarter, too, because you can see what’s up next.
• Organization Chart™, admittedly a quickly cobbled attempt to incorporate the camera as well (3G’s performance I’m not convinced of yet to rely on for an online app), with which you can arrange your pictures into charts or with labels such as “wife of” or “boss of” so as to remind you who the fuck they are when you run into them.

…And these, from just looking around my desk and taking my empty 弁当 boxes to the kitchen. What am I doing here.

Could be 老婆 playing with the gas fireplace last night and not remembering which way the key was turned to with the valve closed, but I dreamed of looking out the window and seeing missiles launching in the distance and filling the skies with columns of white smoke. Retaliation was inevitable, and soon enough, I’d also watch as a wall of the same cloudy color moved in and presumably destroy my room with a view, along with the small group of people gathered inside. (I know I’ve had this one before, as I must be conveying a dread not so much of said nuclear holocaust, but of being put on the spot with moments before it actually hits and not knowing what to do with them. As if I’d regret it afterwards?) I am reminded, courtesy the Shakespeare app that Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene IV, called dreams “the children of an idle brain.”

—The third I is for iPhone. Yes, your humble narrator demonstrates his propensity for metanoia and caves to Jesus. In all honesty I can’t bear the thought of talking into a piece of glass (perhaps it reminds me too much of those formative years spent trying to cool the fever in my heart with my forehead against the window looking outside), and I was astounded how good the keypad on the $299 Bold felt just days ago when I first went into AT&T to discuss porting my number, but the apps won me over. 50,000,000 Elvis fans may so be wrong, but surely that raises the likelihood of something worthwhile being developed for it.

Though it ain’t the WordPress app, which I’ve given up on, and just as well, because I doubt I’d be satisfied blogging without being able to hyperlink across tabs and prove that I’m only repeating myself. It’s ironic how BlackBerry fanbois remind us to test the Storm fairly by clearing everything running in the background, but Gmail and AIM are crippled here without being able to. I do like Crazy Mouth, is it any surprise, yet how much better would it be were the animations voice-activated, so you could fake your way through the gamut of human emotions without lifting the phone except to eat.

I’ve yet to try it myself, but with even House’s best buddy blasting the Storm, I’m at a loss what to do with my T-Mobile account. Even if I could get an unlocked iPhone to work on their 3G, I hate how it’s come, at least for me, hearing from Henry how he ran into that fucking loser Ron shopping for one, to define classlessness (and that’s -less as in “spineless” and “penniless”, not “timeless”). And after the Curve’s keypad, I’m not about to subject my fingers to the same frustrating collision detection on a Bold. Why can’t they make an interface with big honkin’ buttons that are clear so there’s no loss of precious space for the screen?

I’m not certain what’s the better indication of impending apocalypse, rich kids with iPhones, or Wal-Mart shoppers with them, though I am sure they both are one.