The infamous table
Buca di Beppo, Seattle
7 Mar
2011
That’s a damn fine chocolate bar, right there
Dark chocolate is good for you, so I try and eat seven or eight pounds of it a week. (Don’t judge.)
The darker a chocolate is, the more beneficial it is. Darker chocolate has more cocoa in it. The more cocoa, the better. Kind of like Ke$ha, except exactly the opposite.
Milk chocolate is about 40% cocoa content. It’s like a brown, melty Big Mac in a foil wrapper. Avoid that, obvs.
Chocolate needs about 70% cocoa to be considered “therapeutic.” (And bloggers need about 1 instance of using the word “therapeutic” to be considered douche-y. In air quotes, no less.)
Really “good” chocolate has 80% or more cocoa. I guess the “excellent” stuff has 90%. And to really go hardcore, you should be flying to Madagascar and taking a bite right out of the trunk of the Cacao tree. Be a man. Do it.
Anyway, usually, the darker the chocolate, the more the taste approaches that of shag carpeting. And not that imported shag like Martha Stewart has in her “Love Den,” either. So, like anything that’s good for you, the really good stuff tastes like shit.
Except, today, I tried an 85% cocoa bar from Green & Blacks and you know what? It was good. I suppose that’s not a surprise, given that this would be a really long post just to say, “hey, it tastes like crap, too…add it to the list!”
85% means that the bar is pretty much just cocoa beans, a bit of corn syrup and the ground-up remains of underpaid chocolate plantation day-laborers.
I kid. There’s no corn syrup.
So, if you’ve convinced yourself that eating chocolate should be part of your new health regimen, congratulations. Your ability to rationalize your behavior is impressive. Oh, and try the Green & Black’s 85%. And some Ke$ha. You’ll love it.
The chocolate, I mean. Ke$ha sucks.
4 Mar
2011
Who said anything about "Carlgate?"
The folks at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) managed to speak to Yann Lecoreller and G. Carre, CEO of Awyse yesterday concerning the Talking Carl story I have been obsessing about all week. It is a very good summary of the history, but there is not much new information that I haven’t already reported here.
They do cover an abortive update to Talking Carl that Lecoreller posted earlier in the week, noting that it was pulled, then re-submitted when it turned out to have some serious bugs. These details are not directly related to the Intellectual Property issues that are central to the dispute between Lecoreller and Awyse, but it certainly added to the confusion for Talking Carl customers this past week.
The whole article is worth a read if “Carlgate” is fascinating you as much as it is me.
Details here.
4 Mar
2011
I think I'm obsessed with Talking Carl
At this point, it's not about the app. The drama surrounding the little red guy is shaping up to be more and more curious each day. Just a few moments ago, the following email arrived from the CEO of Awyse.
Subject: Apologies for the conviniences due to Talking CarlTo our valued customers,I have received thousands of emails from Talking Carl customers who are upset about awyse changing Talking Carl by Talking C. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.First, I would like to take a moment to thank each of you for your patience, understanding, and support during Awyse’s recent outrage.We know how important Talking Carl is to you and your kids and we take any disruption to our service very seriously.Second, we never wanted to hurt any of you. We always aimed to bring you entertainment by the best technology.Third, we want you to know we are doing our best to bring you your beloved Carl back!As a valued customer of Awyse, we'd like to apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of awyseThank you for allowing Talking Carl to be a part of your life.If you require any additional information please visit our official [Facebook page](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Awyse/167459146639638?ref=ts), and follow us on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/#%21/awyse_official).Kind regards,G. CarreCEO
Let's ignore for a moment the "apologies for the conveniences" subject line, since I suspect that English is not Mr. Carre's first language and that this was not meant to be unintentionally funny.
But I'm confused, specifically with respect to the line, "we are doing our best to bring you your beloved Carl back."
Does this mean Awyse is working with yann lecoroller again?
If not, and based on yann's previous statement, I was lead to believe that he was the owner of the intellectual property behind Talking Carl's identity, if not the code itself. And if that is indeed true, how in the world can Awyse promise something like this?
My suspicion is that the contract between Awyse and Yann was poorly written, and what we're witnessing is a battle over the ownership of the Talking Carl brand being played out in public.
Despite including links to their Facebook and Twitter pages, there's no further clarification given there. And so, I've reached out to both yann and Awyse for clarification and will provide an update once I have something more to report.
Which I hope is soon. I never intended my first post on this to be any more than a casual observation on a design mistake by an App Store developer. And following this saga is turning out to be my new hobby.
