Well then! Happy Birthday to Me eh? 28th of March and i'm another year older - also presumably wiser, more mature, and slightly more failing in health. Most, however, consider that last element to be in bad taste.


I definitely feel older. Its a rather depressing thing, truth be told.

But still, it was a great birthday. Thanks must go out to all those who sent me well-wishes - i appreciate it greatly.



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Here's an interesting phenomenon!

I'm sure that all of you, (isn't it wonderfully arrogant how i ASSUME there are readers? such hubris!) evidently being IT-savvy enough to get onto this blog, have heard of the Apple iPod, and also the Creative Zen players. Now, question: Which player strikes you as infinitely more cool?

Here's what happened to me. I was surfing the web (Net? which do you guys prefer? Personally i favour web. God knows why) checking out mp3 players. I was mainlly doing a cross-comparison of the Creative Zen 20gb player, and the Apple iPod 20gb player. Now the former (according to the information on Yahoo's shopping site, which turned out to be slightly spurious. For the purposes of my discourse here, however, that fact is irrelevant) was 1/10th the weight, had a battery life 3 times that of the apple, was about half the size and had far more functions (microphone, radio, contacts, organizer etc). It was even slightly cheaper! and higher ratings on the sound quality, too.
Despite the Creative player being the clearly superior product, however, I couldn't help but feel that the Apple was somehow a better thing to buy. That the iPod was, in some indescribable way, more COOL than the Creative Zen player. Steve Job's little beauty just had this certain je ne sais quoi to it - something so strong that even while consciously acknowledging that Creative was the thing to get, still thinking "But damn the iPod is so cool!" (by this point my brain wasnt really working - this allows me, when recreating the process in writing here, to use the word "cool" twice, and so close together. Under other circumstances i would, of course, never do this, having a massively expansive vocabulary. Really!).


And then it hit me. I had one of those moments for which that seldom-used, but very beautiful word can be used: an epiphany. (note it down!) The Apple iPod wasn't the better product. It was clearly not as good as Creative's gadget. Neither was it, in itself, cooler - because what IS cool anyway? Naught but an arbitrarily assigned tag, given to various items/places/people by a fickle minded species. What MADE the iPod cool then? BRANDING. MARKETING. IMAGE. that's what. I must confess to watching TV sometimes, and the Apple ads are positively ubiquitous. That means they're EVERYWHERE. when a new product's being launched, of course. Another example: Ostensibly the hottest teenangst show on TV these days, The OC's Marissa has, of course, an iPod. They're all over the place, in all the right shows (read: Larry King, sadly, has NOT been paid to be seen with an iPod.) and that's created this aura of special-ness around the product.

First of all would be hats off to Apple's marketing team. They've obviously done an amazing job, which isn't really any suprise (look at the iMac revolution!). The second thing is that i'm rather disturbed by this phenomenon. I prize my individuality and ability to think for myself (whether or not i'm correct in assuming i HAVE these attributes, i leave to you) and being shown just how much my mind can be influenced by the media leaves me highly unsettled. I felt positively brainwashed. not the nicest of feelings in the world, really.


The good thing is that now i'm even more metacognitive than before. Plus, i feel like I should worship successful marketeers =)



Oh, in the end i got the Creative player. Its great. And no, i receive absolutely no monetary benefits for saying that.


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Its now about 1 1/2 weeks till you get back. It feels like forever since i've seen you (which is strange because forever is a good deal longer than 5 days. I'm sure on this) but at least the time is ticking past. Love is pumping thru my veins/driving me insane.






And with that i think my time has come
Let me trot off home, away.
My time is done, i've had my fun
By keyboard no more shall i stay.



(cheap rhyme is such a delight)