Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

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As the Apple Turns
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Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
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Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
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Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Friday, July 18, 2003
18:57 - Now that's classy http://www.apple.com/ipod/vw/	(top)
I heard about this yesterday, and went to find it myself; it's not hard. Apple and Volkswagen are running a promo to sell VW New Beetles equipped with iPods. Both companies are prominently featuring the promo, and the popup Flash tour is accessible from either apple.com or vw.com. I suggest you take a gander at it, too, if you're so inclined. It's one of the most delightful, artfully produced little Flash pieces that I've ever seen. It was inevitable, really. When two groups of people have so much in common, eventually they find each other. Volkswagen and Apple. Buy a New Beetle. Get a new iPod. And the kit that brings them together (plus a lot of other cool stuff like free music and a $100 Apple Store coupon). They're right. The two companies do seem made for each other. I bought a Jetta in 1999 because VW seemed to have as likeable a corporate attitude as Apple does, as much as because I liked the car so much; they both have a certain quirky but restrained and very tasteful design sense, and that "cult of corporate personality" thing that I know is a myth in actuality to the employees in the trenches-- though knowing, as we do, the very real differences in corporate atmospheres between, say, Microsoft and AOL, it could well be that companies like Apple and VW can in fact be cut from the same stylish cloth. I love the way my Jetta looks; I love the muscular whirr of the VR6-- just like I love antialiased fonts and FireWire. Both companies make products that people identify with and, indeed, fall in love with. And VW has been pushing relentlessly upmarket-- we're in Touareg and Phaeton country now. "Pods Unite" is what they're calling the promotion. Watch the ad linked from Apple's site for yet another of those little frissons of well-being like the one you get when you open up a box and are greeted with the word "Enjoy", or when Zephram Cochrane cues up "Magic Carpet Ride" on the sound system of Earth's first warp-ship as it launches from a missile silo. The kit you get with your Beetle is pretty nice, too. Granted, it's at heart just a cassette-adapter setup, not a line-in option on their in-dash player or anything; but they've done an excellent job packaging the flexibility of what they do have. All the components are white, including the Sony tape adapter and the Monster audio cables and the trick little cupholder insert. Plus VW gives you a couple of CDs' worth of drivin' music, a $100 off coupon for the iTunes Music Store (provided you dump a grand into it), and a 'zine that says YOU ARE NOT A HERD OF CATTLE on the cover. Seductive. It's like, the way the world would be if materialism-- lovingly crafted materialism-- were the highest form of art. Is the alliance of companies like Apple and VW a harbinger of a whole new kind of demographic, a white-clad yuppie generation that listens to techno music and goes to raves and surrounds itself with purring technology that just melts into the walls? Or is it the other way around-- that demographic is already here, and it's just waiting for the mothership to call the iPod People home?