The Idea Blog

My earlier post about Comcast (Update: I’m mid-way through their appointment window; I’ve called and confirmed I’m still on the schedule; no one’s here yet) reminds me how important the little things can be. Two items from the “little things” department.

1. In the July 28 issue of The New Yorker, up front in the agate type listings for “Night Life,” wherein the magazine gives an alphabetical listing of clubs and the like with a helpful directory of who and what’s playing, there’s a statement that I’ve never seen before: “Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it’s advisable to call ahead to confirm engagements.” Ah, irony. Who says it’s a lost art? An unexpected reward for the assiduous reader.

2. Then there’s David Pogue’s column yesterday, MobileMess, about Apple’s problems with its MobileMe roll-out earlier this month. It’s not that there’s a problem with the service. Sure that’s a problem, he says, but that’s often the case with Intel, with Microsoft … with a number of tech companies. “the real problem is how Apple is responding. For a company that’s so brilliant at marketing, it seems to have absolutely no clue about crisis management.”

Sure enough, I’m suffering right along with 20k+ other affected users, and as a big cheerleader for Apple products, I’m squirming a bit.

Man, it’s the little things.