Need I say any more?  I walked by the Apple store on Fifth Avenue to gawk at the poor saps waiting in line to buy the $600 right to brag to their friends.  By 11:30 am, there was a line that reached around the block and back to Madison Avenue- and there were a ton of news vans and reporters scoping out the scene.

My favorite sap was a gentleman holding a sign offering to sell his place in line to the highest bidder.  As if the iPhone weren't expensive enough!

If you're a wine fanatic like me, or even just interested in learning a bit more about the wine world, here are some excellent sites on the web that you'll appreciate. If you're a beginner, remember- wine is fun, relax!

• Wine Library TV - A daily video segment where the incredibly entertaining Gary Vaynerchuk tastes wine. His sense of humor and non-snobbish approach to wine make this site a must-see.
• Corkd.com - A site that helps you keep track of your favorite wines, and see what wines your friends are drinking.
• Wine-Searcher.com - Looking for that particular wine that you just have to buy? Wine searcher will tell you where to find it.
• Wine Enthusiast - The ultimate source for buying anything having to do with wine. (except for the wine itself)
• Cellar Tracker - Like Corkd, this site lets you read reviews by other wine fans on the web, as well as keep track of your own collection of tasting notes.
• Wine Pages' Guide to Wine Regions - A great reference if you enjoy traveling to various wine regions.
• Robert Parker's Vintage Chart - Good for determining whether that bottle of expensive wine is "ready to drink."

There are so many more resources available for wine lovers on the web beyond these links. Start to poke around and you are bound to find some gems. If you do, let me know!

From the New York Times:

Talk about hype. In the last six months, Apple's iPhone has been the subject of 11,000 print articles, and it turns up about 69 million hits on Google. Cultists are camping out in front of Apple stores; bloggers call it the "Jesus phone."  All of this before a single consumer has even touched the thing.

The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype - New York Times

Can Mahalo, a new search engine, steal some market share away from Google?

Last month, another company, Mahalo (Hawaiian for "thank you"), inaugurated a search service with manually edited results. It started with several advantages: venture capital backing, 30 editors, systematic focus on the most commonly requested search terms, and the added idea of supplying Google's search results for any search not covered by its own best-of-the-best lists.

The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip - New York Times

From Lifehacker:

Stephen Colbert sits down with email etiquette author Will Schwalbe and dives face first into email etiquette, discussing the finer points of why drunk-emailing, all caps shouting, and irresponsible emailing can bite you in the ass.

Etiquette: Stephen Colbert, email assassin - Lifehacker

From CNN Money:

…you'll have to find something else to listen to next Tuesday. That's the day dozens of online broadcasters go silent, in protest of a new levy the government and the music labels are about to impose.

Future Boy: Internet radio sites to protest new fees

Remember Jimmy Fallon's character, "Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy" from SNL? He's the antithesis of "Help with a Smile," for sure. Here's one of my favorite clips:

Hysterical!

From Ars-Technica:

A new study says that on average, more than half of the ink from inkjet cartridges is wasted when users toss them in the garbage. Why is that interesting? According to the study, users are tossing the cartridges when their printers are telling them they're out of ink, not when they necessarily are out of ink.

Study: Inkjet printers are filthy, lying thieves

And I was really looking forward to the cell-phone-signal blocking paint that all the theaters were going to be painted with in the future.

Typically you are told to turn off your cellphone before a performance. But at a recent Saturday matinee of "Spring Awakening," the Broadway musical that garnered eight Tony Awards last week, the audience was told to do just the opposite.

During Intermission, Cellphones Are Brandished in a Promotion - New York Times

From the New York Times:

Captchas are the puzzles on many Web sites that present a string of distorted letters and numbers. These are supposed to be easy for people to read and retype, but hard for computer software to figure out.Most major Internet companies use captchas to keep the automated programs of spammers from infiltrating their sites.

There is only one problem. As online mischief makers design better ways to circumvent or defeat captchas, Web companies are responding by making the puzzles more challenging to solve — even for people.

A Dog or a Cat? New Tests to Fool Automated Spammers - New York Times