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So I we were out shopping, and she was looking at some imitation bags, and I noticed sitting there a few ipod shuffles (the tiny tie-clip ipod) and they were in new apple boxes, and I was pretty surprised that they even had customers for such things.  The export-only oriented factory is indeed in china, so hey.  I had the store let me listen to it playing music, and after laughing at their iniital price of 3x japan retail, I explained that it was silly for me to pay any more than 50% of retail, when retail for the same item includes oh, a receipt and a warranty.  So I take it home and plug it in and look closer, and actually, it is an AMAZING fake.  Looks totally real, even plays mp3 files.  But it is actually just a flash memory mp3 (not aac compatible) player that looks and feels 99% like a real 2nd generation shuffle.  It cannot sync with iTunes, and it copies files very slowly.  But other than that it is damned hard to notice that it is not real.

Of course an economist would say that if I still want one, retail is a decent price, and I should not think of the price as retail plus the 50% retail I already paid, but that is what it feels like when it was an impulse buy that I barely need.  Foolish me.

I wonder if the guy selling it even knows it is fake, let alone what he is selling, considering his initial completely insane asking price of  about $300.

Is this actually the case? This article says that a study shows that if you take all the energy used to produce a single prius, then the gas used at MPG estimates over its 100,000 mile expected life, it uses more energy than even a hummv (despite the hummv having horrible mileage and driving on the road for 300,000 mile expected lifespan). All this because of the globe-circling production process involved in the high-tech batteries…

See this movie.  I don’t care what kind of movie you like.  Just see this

OK, If you are squeemish about blood, well, maybe you shouldn’t see this movie.

Spoilers! Below I discuss minor plot elements that you would have to be catatonic to not see a mile ahead.  Stuff that Spoiler crazies not unlike myself might still rather not know before seeing a movie.

Leonardo DeCaprio somehow manages to improve his already stellar acting credentials. The slow development of his friendship with his psychiatrist is so subtly and believably expressed that I strongly felt the characters’ connecting.  It is a rare quality that a cinematic romance appears not believable, but real.  Not just in the romance department, his character is conveyed with great emotional appeal.  Usually movie Heros come with cartoon morality, or “jaded worldliness” that seems equally artificial after endless repetition.  Here DiCaprio’s character somehow manages to be a beacon for us and yet alive, wounded, human.
Jack Nicholson must have a John Malchovich door into the Devil’s head, because he has spent a career honing his capacity to play the part.  In Scorcese’s Gangs of New York we got a villain that seemed human, a dark product of a vicious time.  With Jack this time around it is easy to say he is just pure evil, but he is much more impressive a villain than that, because he is also completely real, human, a dark and grimly driven fiend, pitiable in his life’s meaninglessness, frightening in his believability.

Damon’s performance is complicated.  He does an incredible job as well, so much so that I had some difficulty separating the actor and the character.  Both he and DiCaprio lie for a living, but Damon’s liar lies to protect the wolf that preys on us, and DiCaprio lies to protect us from the wolf.  DiCaprio’s character can’t sleep at night from the stress he is under.  Damon’s I imagine sleeps the peaceful sleep of the truly lost.

This is just incredible!  My collection of music is almost entirely electronically produced or altered, leaving me lately wanting something more… natural.

Enter an incredible archive of perfect concert recordings from the golden age of Rock.

Although overall a pretty trivial film on the merits, something powerfully compelling is in there, at once grim and glowing, following the title character’s life through its arc of woeful interactions with other human beings.  Watch with someone you love, really.
SPOILERS, so just stop reading now alright?
Her later life turns further and further south as her trust in the people in her life runs out, and her will to live reaches its zenith.  Even then, her lover is terrified of hurting her again, so pushes her away, while her would-be rescuer (an old female friend) she pushes away herself, afraid of being hurt by more human interaction.

Despite all its melodramatic tricks, or in spite of myself and quite because of them, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to real life.  Beyond that, well, this isn’t my diary, it is a blog.

It is fascinating to consider the evolution of consumer behavior in the US, compared to other countries, including the US of yesteryear.  I hold no illusions about the supposed greatness of the past.  A lot of things were much worse.  But people seem to agree that Customers used to be polite to service industry professionals, and that the staff themselves were higher-trained.  Is this true?  I am too young to really remember how polite or impolite or skilled either party used to be.

Regardless, the current state of affairs is unhealthy.

In Japan, the contrast is stark.  There is no tipping, but service is excellent.  Customers are, for the most part, very polite.  Staff are polite as well, and even the 4am convenience store clerks can make instant math calculations in their heads that involve carrying, and staff (AND many customers) bow (very very slightly) at each other a few times during a given transaction at a checkout counter.
Contrast: On a recent trip to San Francisco, I went to a  smoothie chain and the bill came to 2.05.  I gave the employee $3.  He pressed the 3 on the keypad, hit enter, and the register opened.  Then I realized I should make things easier on him and just give him a nickel as well.  The employee then stared blankly at his register for about 20 seconds unable to deal with a register telling him one number (0.95 change) and reality suggesting the blindingly obvious, (give back my third bill, tada).

There are negatives here though.  If the customer wants something that is not on the menu, it is usually not possible to request it, because they clearly believe the inverse maxim: the customer is NOT always right.  At least in this case, I wish they would learn from us.

In the linked police report, the supposedly “stolen” (opened early) gift is referred to as a Playstation Game Boy.  That would be a wonderful name for a chinese black market toy.

I am tired of most of my albums, but I have once again hit a point where there are no websites or magazines I find I can turn to to recommend a nice steady flow of just a few to try listening to per month.
Instead I look and find a hundred listening recommendations, making my eyes glaze over and instead not buy or download any of them.

Or I go seek out and then listen once or twice before forgetting about the new acquisition and it disappears in the noise of a large existing collection, making me begin to wonder if after all a “rent it for a week” service with iPod support might not be a great idea when I don’t care to listen to most of my collection more than a few times.  Internet radio remains damningly repetitive and bland.

I was surprised to find that in my last video chat with my parents, they were fascinated by the tv ads for the Wii.  Given that they have no interest in console games whatsoever, this seems a good sign to me of its broad appeal.  I may have mentioned the Wii to them a few weeks ago when I visited them, helping to plant some interest, but that alone couldn’t have been enough.

Despite Liam Neeson’s horrible fake american accent, I recommend it.  A look back at a different time in american society, only half a century ago, yet so very different (and in unpleasant ways, the same).