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What do you do with a problem like Maria - I mean, Jaguar...

There's a great thread running at Jalopnik discussing what Ford should do with Jaguar as part of "The Way Forward".

Here's a great comment, which almost exactly echoes my thoughts on the subject:

B Borrman says:

Keep it or sell it. All that matters is that the owners are willing to correct the nASSer mistakes. Jag shouldn't ever have been vying for BMW-like volume. Turn it into what it once was, a British Maserati. I'm guessing Ford won't want to play the small volume game though.

Kill the X-Type, build the XF without compromising it to appeal to every 5-Series shopper. Turn the XJ into the Quattroporte competitor it wants to be.

Remember way back when the XJ Series III V12 was the fastest sedan in the world? Yeah, that's what you should be doing again. Remember when you built iconic designs that everyone lusted after? Do it today! Someone needs to build beautiful cars again -- Jag, it's your chance!

Jaguar has been and always should be a niche manufacturer.

They need to forget about VOLUME sales, and make it appeal to a smaller market. Make it a high margin, high quality, high performance, luxury niche brand that basically competes directly with Maserati and Aston Martin and maybe some Porsche models. Forget about the BMW/Lexus/Lincoln/Cadillac/Audi/Volvo(they're another Ford subsidiary!) competition and their respective markets, and make Jag cars for the Jag market. (which will need to be recreated since it's been torn apart for the last 15 years and no longer exists)

I am doubtless that I don't need to introduce the Smashing Pumpkins to my readership, but I've been rediscovering their seminal Siamese Dream(this is a great article) record this morning.

This album just blows me away.

What would my early teen years have been without Geek USA and Soma?

And songs like Today and Disarm and Rocket literally defined the mid-90s post-'primitive-punk' spacey alterna-rock (Rolling-Stone used to love to say that) scene, mixing the elements of those earlier punk and metal groups, (without dragging all the boring/disgusting glam/hype from the 80s along with it), with the rawness of the contemporary punk and emerging/crashing grunge scene, with the songwriting and composition of the more mellow 80s mavericks (Morrisey, anyone?), with advanced production techniques and quality some groups still struggle to achieve/copy (Thank heaven for you, Butch Vig).

The lyrical and musical themes are whimsical and heart-wrenching, sweeping from aggressive to easy, spacey to intense, operatic and orchestral to ultra-personal. And COHERENT - JESUS can nobody put a record together anymore?!

For any of you out there who've forgotten about this album, or lost it and haven't heard it in some time, I'm encouraging you to dig it out again, or buy a new copy. This is one of those records I'm sure my kids will be sick to death of when they're 14, and playing for their kids when they're 30.

Before I get to my deconstruction of Woz's musical tastes, I've found something in the "less-pirates-equals-global-warming" vien.

A brilliant article, reposted on RichardDawkins.net from theonion.com had me ROFL this morning.

Here's a great excerpt, but I encourage you to check out the rest of the article to get the whole point :

"Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."

Last night Morgan and Lindsay and I took a trip into Sackville to see Steve Wozniak give a presentation - to hear him tell stories, really.

Woz is truly an amazing guy. I think he's also a great storyteller. I'm excited to get to his new book (which I bought last night) after I make my way through all of the other reading I've committed myself to.

His presentation was great. He was so funny and it was easy to see he liked to boast about his best pranks and gadgets.

I got to ask him a question too! I asked about what music he listens to. He pretty much said he now listens to the music he listened to when he was a kid (~20), which was Dylan and The Beatles specifically. He also noted that he 'switched' to country around the time Apple got started - because there was more meaning to the lyrics.

More generally, he said that when they were kids, Steve Jobs and him used to talk about music a lot. He said that he always felt that music is best when it has something important to say. Hence the Dylan. And the country music. I'll try to extrapolate a little here, with a little rundown of what that might all entail, in a separate article.

Just a little something else to keep your head from exploding with anticipation during the lead up to the keynote at (1:00PM AST). I don't know what this radio show is but it sounds like complete trash - and hilarious!

The girl's silence is absolutely amazingly funny. Way to go! The clip is ~7 minutes long, but stick with it until the end - it's totally worth it.

Daring Fireball's predictions for today's keynote. His are the same as what I'd already come up with, so I'll just let his very professional-type article speak for me. I'll do a quick update after the keynote to fill you all in.