Submitted to Apple

WTF

You finally build the project with your left nut, the distribution provisioning, and the juice of a shriveled goji berry (kind of redundant with the first item in the list), upload it to iTunes Connect and it rejects it with the dreaded "doesn't validate."

They say I can’t use the name Alice because they have something named Alice. What? Where? Please. You think I didn't check ahead of time? I’m sure they’re not saving the name Alice for some super secret pre-MacWorld product. 25 years ago Apple said they couldn’t use the name Alice because some database company already had it. Thus the Through the Looking Glass name. Maybe they’re thinking of that? Nah, that can’t be. There aren’t that many people at Apple who remember anything from 1984. They know there was some commercial with some woman in a tight tee-shirt throwing something at a screen but only because they saw the parody on The Simpsons.

Please get some better error messages. This is like having a Q&A with Socrates (or should I say a Q& with Socrates.

Oh Apple. I only say these things because I love you. You know that, right?

Some combination finally works and it takes, but then I realize I didn't incorporate all of the legal department's input. Well, I'll just withdraw it after my crack legal department checks in. Trust me, do not mess with my legal.

Doctor Who?

Added a Cheney sound of Darth Vader. I didn’t like that idea at first but everyone else does. I’m not a big Star Wars fan or sci-fi fan. MAD and ETC are huge Doctor Who fans. For ETC’s birthday in February, as a surprise we took her to a Doctor Who convention in LA. That was weird. Going to a convention about a tv show I’ve never watched. 10 is their favorite doctor. Apparently he regenerates soon into some other actor and they're already getting out the tissues.

Nico to the Rescue

Nico Berry fixing up the Bush pieces. He came up with the idea of the threat level as opposed to the helmet pawns. Ghost blogger is having an even harder time remembering dates.

This logo is part of his portfolio and the fact it says 1984 seemed cool.

Full Metal Helmets

A few people don’t like the soldier helmets as pawns in the Bush Memorial Pieces – potentially a dig at the military, although I don’t mean it that way at all. Need to figure out something else.

Sharp Dressed Man

I've asked a bunch of people to test Alice but am only getting vague "great" comments. An old friend of MAD, Scott Warren, wrote a long detailed review. He's not only a great guy but cool (and also looks like a member of ZZ Top). Nice guys get a thank you post.

Hip Hoppity Success

Nico’s hip hop set is amazing. Big hit with everyone.

Yes, We Can

Hearing Obama say “Yes we can!” never gets old. Slamming the Bush people never gets old either. Not sure if people will recognize Alberto Gonzalez or Rumsfeld. In November, ETC had made a cool Obama sign and placed it high over our garage but some neighbor complained to the city of San Carlos that it was bigger than the regs and made us take it down. The young kid from the city seemed embarrassed to ask us to do it. We put regulation Obama signs along the driveway. Touche.

Skateboarders are cool

The husband (Nico Berry) of ETC’s writing mentor does great work and is a skateboarder. He has these cool hip hop figures so I’m going to pay him to do a set for Alice. Actually, this might have happened a few weeks back but my ghost blogger didn’t keep a diary and is having a hard time remembering dates.

It's Good to be the Queen

I was going to have the Queen in the Bush set be Laura Bush but Cheney is way better.

Don't Tread on Me

Some people think I shouldn’t use the US flag as background on the chessboard set. Never stomp on the US flag apparently. I’ve changed the squares to red states and blue states and that looks better.