Iger Gems

Bob Iger gave a talk at the Sanford C. Bernstein Media Symposium he did a little impromptu comedy about VOD:

"I have to go to page 3, a-b-c-, yellow-green-purple, backspace three times, then I had to do a cartwheel and wash my face."

Bob is as funny as he is a gentleman.

Nemo Car?

The Disney Blog reports that Citroën has released a new car called the Nemo Concetto that apparently uses Disney's characters from Finding Nemo. He wonders "did they license this?" I'm wondering the same thing. Think I'll find out.

Cruft Questions Kindle

Cruft compares the NYT on Amazon's new Kindle to the real thing and finds some, uh, differences.

Max Headroom is back

Thanks TV Squad!

EMI cutting back on RIAA

EMI wants to significantly cut back on the $25M a year it pays to the RIAA. $25M is an awful lot to pay for an organization that has been completely ineffective in stopping piracy. Better to cut it and call it profit. In other news, Warner Music Group announced profits of $5M today down from $12M a year ago. With profits so slim, you have to look at taking extreme moves. $25M is a lot on a profit of only $5M.

DCA sneak peak

Jim Hill has a post up about the new DCA and in it a shot of model for the front of the park. Wow! It looks a lot different, but I like it. This is a much better entrance and the Cathay Circle theater makes a nice weenie. It feels much more substantial than the current Sunshine Plaza which feels very, uh, empty.

OLPC Feedback

A few readers had things to say on OLPC...

klark kent 007 said...
Remember that Steve Jobs offered to put OS X on the OLPC for free.

mike said...
The support aspect is dead-on. A good buddy of mine did his Peace Corp time in Jamaica with their Ministry of Education, and his great accomplishment ended up being the creation of a bootable Knoppix-based Linux CD distro, so that each computer out in the field would have the same system and app config, and thus training would be simpler and pretty much every software problem could be solved by rebooting to a fresh system.

But let's not shit to heavily on Negroponte -- he had the balls to draw a line in the sand, build this thing and ship it. Did it have the patented Media Lab dogma stink on it from day one? Yes. Would Intel be building the Classmate otherwise? No.

Even if his project is a failure per se, he got everyone to realize that getting computers and communications into the third world at a price they could afford was possible. Regardless of who builds the boxes, that fact alone will make the vision successful.

I don't actually think OLPC has been a failure, yet anyway. And you are right, no one would be talking about this space without them. My issue is that Negroponte has gone out of his way to bash and alienate a lot of people and in my opinion the whole project has been mismanaged. Its upsetting because he had such good goals and so many people rooting for him and you just hate to see the whole thing not work out because of arrogance and hubris.

Yes, the fact that he would not accept MacOS X, or Windows for that matter, when it was offered to him is an example of what I am talking about. In his defense, however, they have a lot of things build into their OS that would have been hard to pull off with someone's custom OS like the mesh networking. But you have to ask yourself, are all these bells and whistles, while technically interesting, besides the point. Do they really lead to an easier-to-use, easier-to-maintain laptop that meets the goal of getting the laptop in more kids hands? I would say the answer is no. The difficulty of learning a new interface, the bugginess of the software, and the lack of service and support options (its hard to find someone to support a custom Linux build with all these trimmings) have become barriers to adoption. In retrospect, they would have a lot better off to use Windows or Mac OS X.

The Great Japan Robot Exhibition

Finally, I get around to posting these. Here are my shots from The Great Japan Robot Exhibition in Ueno district of Tokyo. Apologies for some of the blurry pics. They wouldn't let you use a flash and you KNOW how the Japanese can be about rules. Anyway, Enjoy!

The show covered 3 things. Anime fantasy robots, Karakuri mechanized figures from 18th and 19th century Japan, and real robots engineered in Japan. These are shots of the anime part of the exhibit prominently featuring Astro Boy, Gundam, and my favorite, Tranzor Z. No mention of the breast-missile shooting Aphrodite A however.






Here are the karakuri figures proving a Japanese legacy in mechanization going back two centuries.






Here's the robot goddess that loomed large over the entire exhibit. Also, a demonstration of robot vision where a man break danced and the robot vision system tracked the movement of his limbs.




Here's a display of microrobots. A robotic tank, butterfly, bug, and helicopter. Also a robotic toy from Sega Toys marketed as the world's smallest robot. It has no sensors or intelligence, so its not really a robot, but it uses a clever electromagnetic movement to walk. It is controlled by a "remote" that uses magnetic polarization to control its direction. Very clever. They also have a Disney version.







Musical robots were a big theme. Here you see robots that can dance (one of my favorite designs, so beautiful) and that can play piano. They also had one that played trumpet, but I don't have a picture. Here's a picture of a robotic piano again from Sega Toys that sells for $500 in Japan and has over 100 motors. Each of the keys move individually. There is a Disney version now available with over 300 Disney songs embedded in it.





Robotic movement was another theme. Here's a few versions of wheeled robots including one that can climb over any obstacle, a robotic chair, and, yes, a real exosuit that give you robo-strength.





Here are several twists on the robo-companion/playpal genre including a robot version of popular anime character Doraemon and of course Aibo.







A couple of Gundam-inspired humanoid robotic. Enjoy the video.




And of course, a cool robot gift shop including lots of vintage robot toys and Tomy/Takara's totally awesome 17 servo Isobot. I brought one home! Also, dig on this totally cool robot seal. Yes, they had this for sale.

Enchanted

Took the kids to the El Capitan screening of Enchanted this weekend. What a magic experience! It is truly a great movie. I expected something the kids would love, but it was a lot more charming and a lot funnier than I expected. Very entertaining. Amy Adams was perfect and a breakout star. If you haven't taken your kids yet, please, go.

The El Cap really outdid themselves this time. They had a tent in the back that was part of a 3.5 hr "Enchanted Experience". They had meet-and-greets with all the Disney Princesses, including Giselle, who is not technically a Disney Princess because Disney could not come to a financial arrangement with Amy Adams for her likeness. Nevertheless, my 2 yr old daughter went nuts!

They also had an elaborate arcade area, Princess dress-up and make-up stations, bounce houses, and climbing walls. We stayed until the kids couldn't take it anymore.

The El Cap really raised the bar. It is always an experience to go there, but this was the best film experience I've seen there. I really hope future screenings meet or exceed this. I wonder what they'll do for Prince Caspian?

Wither OLPC?

WSJ has an article today about Nick Negroponte's OLPC and all its woes. WSJ - clearly sourcing from the Negroponte camp - blames Intel and Microsoft for OLPC's woes. But OLPC News thinks there's a different source for their problems:

I'd like to take the position that if OLPC is getting stomped (and I don't think its being "stomped" at all), its due to its own foolishness and arrogance, as much or more than any underhanded competition from Intel or Microsoft.

Couldn't have said it better myself. OLPC News points out two of OLPC's biggest problems: service and support. OLPC has never had a plan for this. Their basic outlook has been "that's your problem". They naively think that kids in third world country schools are going to keep these things serviced and going.

I know the Classmate PC guys at Intel. They are not winning bids from these countries because their laptop is cheaper. In fact, its more expensive. They are winning because they have a better service network and overall solution for these schools. In fact, a lot of these schools already have computers that go unused in a corner because they aren't serviced.

But Intel has been a lot easier to deal with too. OLPC News points out that Negroponte has called pilots "ridiculous" and refused to do them, instead insisting on an all-or-nothing 1M unit commitment from these countries. Even at the completely unachievable price of $100 per laptop, that's $100M, a sizeable chunk of the education budget for many of these countries.

Its time someone calls Nick Negroponte on all this. There's a lot more that I know about this than I can post on this blog, but Negroponte, while deeply well intentioned, has been really arrogant to a lot of people and all these problems are karmic payback. I think its ridiculous that the press is still buying this line about how he is so aggrieved and victimized by Intel and Microsoft. The reality is that from the very beginning, he made very public statements that Intel and MS were not wanted. He basically said that their stuff was buggy and bloated and that he didn't want it. So can you really blame them for doing their own thing? He has allowed the media continue to call his PC the $100 PC despite the fact that its costs at least $250 to make without service, support, shipping, etc. He is over a year behind schedule. He has lost the support of many of his early country sponsors. The reality is that OLPC has made a lot of promises that it did not deliver on and its time that the media make Negroponte take the blame for that and stop blaming it on Intel and MS who really have nothing to do with these problems.

Panera

A Panera Bread just opened up about 7 miles from our house. I'm sitting here now waiting on an order. This place is slammed.

If I were Starbucks, I would buy Panera. I haven't looked at the financials or anything, but it seems to me that Panera (I think they are still independent) has a lot of growth ahead of it. Starbucks is stalling and needs something. Trying to get lunch customers is a stretch for Starbucks IMO. The Panera and Starbucks brands are very compatible. The first thing you think when you go into a Panera is "hey, this looks like Starbucks". They could do combo stores all over the place much like the successful KFC/Taco Bell combo format. It would improve Panera's coffee and morning & mid-afternoon traffic and give Starbucks more lunch and dinner traffic and improve their breakfast offerings and pastries. It would probably increase the consumption of coffee too. If you go for lunch or dinner, you might grab a Starbucks drink on the way out. This could be a winning format. Are you listening Starbucks?

Relative Excitement about His Absence

Back when Isaiah Washington was kicked off Grey's Anatomy for his annoying behavior, he got saved by NBC's Bionic Woman which gave him a five episode arc. You would think he would have been humbled by the Grey's experience but instead he was still pretty cocky:

"There's been some relative excitement about my presence. I may end up doing more than five episodes. I don't see myself becoming a series regular but there's some talk about spinning me off into my own show once 'Bionic Woman' becomes a huge hit."

Well, last week, they killed off his character. You never know, people can come back on these types of shows. But I sure hope he doesn't. He was as unlikeable on the show as he is in real life. I don't see anything there that is spin-offable. I'm sure NBC did its research and found people just don't want to look at this guy right now. I, for one, never did.

Obama v. Huckabee?

Here's where it gets interesting. Obama is leading in Iowa. Hillary is in decline. Edwards is still a strong third. On the Republican side, Rudy is in decline, Thomson is in decline, Romney is the leader and Huckabee is has now surged to second.

If Obama wins Iowa, its going to shatter the illusion that Hillary has this race in the bag. Huckbee likely will come in at least third and that may make him a real contender. We could be looking at a Obama/Huckabee choice next November. But you can't by any means could Hillary or Romney out.

Rudy is flailing. Christian conservatives can't stand him, Pat Robertson's endorsement not withstanding. There have been a lot of terrible articles about him reminding everyone of the bad side of Rudy, and its scarily too similar to what we hate about Bush - cronyism, corruption, and hard ball politics.

I can't wait till the Iowa Caucus. Its like Christmas for political junkies like me. You just want to find out what's in the box under the tree.

A la carte

NYT has an editorial talking about a la carte cable schemes and why, in their view (and that of cable lobbyists) it would raise consumer bills, not lower them as intended. Why?

The reason is that unmoored from the cable bundle, individual networks would have to charge vastly more money per subscriber. Under the current system, in which cable companies like Comcast pay the networks for carriage — and then pass on the cost to their customers — networks get to charge on the basis of everyone who subscribes to cable television, whether they watch the network or not. The system has the effect of generating more money than a network “deserves” based purely on viewership. Networks also get to charge more for advertising than they would if they were not part of the bundle.

Take, for instance, ESPN, which charges the highest amount of any cable network: $3 per subscriber per month. (I’m borrowing this example from a recent research note by Craig Moffett, the Sanford C. Bernstein cable analyst.) Suppose in an à la carte world, 25 percent of the nation’s cable subscribers take ESPN. If that were the case, the network would have to charge each subscriber not $3, but $12 a month to keep its revenue the same.

That's an extreme scenario. Even if a la carte was offered, it wouldn't mean that bundling would be illegal. Bundles would continue to be offered. Odds are most people would not change their current line-up and would stick with basic cable. After all, people get cable to get a wide range of channels. No one gets cable for 2 channels. So I doubt the situation would be the disaster that lobbyists claim. A la carte could also lead to more innovative bundling concepts that offer consumer choice like "Pick any 20 channels you want for one price".

The problem with all this talk is that its looking at cable as if it lived in a bubble with no competition, and we all know that's not the case. There is already a lot of programming on the Internet and more coming everyday. We are going to reach the day in the next 3 years where people start dumping cable because they can get everything they want online AND it offers them the choice they want. Smart MSOs would start to offer - and indeed market - consumer choice before the Internet does it to them. The fact that this is even as much of a debate as it is shows that deregulation of the communications industry has been a failure because it has created monopolies with protectionist mindsets and the consumer is not being served.

Unfortunately, the Internet is not the panacea that we would all like to be because these monopolies are working overtime to quell competition by doing things like throttling P2P, traffic shaping, and other preferential strategies designed to advance their interests over the consumer and protect their monopolies.

Charlie100.com

My 4-yr old tells me that he's opening his own website that sells toys, cameras, robots, unbreakable sticks, unbreakable leaves, and unbreakable toilets.

X-Mas (Play) List

I've been a little jet lagged from Asia, making it hard for me to get to sleep at night. And I'm still coming off a high from my Thanksgiving playlist. So Thanksgiving night and tonight I put a few hours in and put together a draft 2007 X-Mas playlist. I had a lot of left overs from last years list that I wanted to use but didn't because they didn't fit. There's also lots of new music I found. There's lots of real gems here. The list may be a little rock heavy and a little distopic, but it sounds good to me right now and flows pretty well. Good news is, I have plenty of time to listen to it and tweak it between now and X-Mas. If you get a chance, look up these songs on iTunes and lemme know what you think.

Suddenly It's Christmas - Loudon Wainwright III
Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
Father Christmas - The Kinks
A Great Big Sled - The Killers
Angels We Have Heard On High - Relient k
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Hannah Montana
Run Rudolph Run - Sheryl Crow
Cool Yule - The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Someday At Christmas - Stevie Wonder
This Christmas (Hang All the Mistletoe) - Macy Gray
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Mariah Carey
What Christmas Means to Me - Al Green
Mele Kalikimaka - Dave's True Story
Winter Wonderland - Ella Fitzgerald
White Christmas - Elvis Presley
Jingle Bells - Sammy Davis Jr.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - Bing Crosby
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Sarah McLachlan
Merry Christmas, Baby - Otis Redding
Blue Christmas - Johnny Cash
Christmas for Cowboys - John Denver
The Christmas Song - Chris Isaak
Silent Night - Willie Nelson
God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen - Jars of Clay
Auld Lang Syne (Live at the Fillmore East) - Jimi Hendrix

The Rat and The Crow

This week Ratatouille passed $600M globally. While it is unlikely at this point that it will surpass The Incredibles, it is still the #3 best grossing Pixar movie ever and the #4 animated Disney movie. It has gone a LOT farther than many people excepted it to go, especially the vocal - indeed long-winded - Pixar critic Jim Hill.

Today, Hill posted a column in which he "eats crow" about Ratatouille and finally acknowledges its success...sort of. He claims is it still losing money and has not earned back its - according to him - $150M production budget and $180M marketing budget. First of all, I find it hard to believe that Ratatouille is not profitable by now. But secondly, I find his financial claims curious.

Hill claims that Ratatouille cost $150 to make because "Pixar management insisted that 'Ratatouille' had to make its previously locked-in June 29th release date." Okay, I will acknowledge that I don't know the first thing about Studio financing, full disclaimer. But here's where his story doesn't jive for me. Pixar, at this risk of being obvious, is an animation company. They have animators on staff full time. It is not like live action films that use third-party production companies, contractors, and most expensive of all, actors. IF it in fact took more resources than normal to make Ratatouille, then that meant that Pixar probably took animators off another project to put them on the Rat. My point is that Pixar would have carried the costs for the staff whether they were working on Ratatouille or something else. Since it is my understanding that Pixar doesn't use outsiders to make its movies and does not bloat and shrink around projects as live action studios do (that IM Pei building in Emeryville isn't getting any bigger, you know), I don't think its likely that Pixar would see its actual overall costs increase even if it did spend more time on a movie than was originally allotted. What I'm saying is that if Pixar had to put more people on Ratatouille to get it done as Hill claims, I doubt it would impact the bottom line of Pixar at the end of the day. I would think the larger issue would be that it would impact the production schedules of other projects, which it apparently has not as Wall-E is being advertised, on time, for next summer.

Now as I said, I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination on Studio accounting. I really have no idea. But Hill's claims don't pass the smell test for me. Well, they do, but they smell of sour grapes.

The Word on Black Friday

Gizmodo summarizes the CE items to go for on Black Friday. They also have a few words for the wise:

1. Avoid digital cameras in general. You can do better online.
2. You almost can't go wrong with the widespread deals on GPS.
3. We listed those Polaroid TVs from Wal-mart but you read this site and should know better.
4. Best Buy's doorbuster 40" Samsung 1080p TV isn't listed above since we found it here. UPDATE: IRS troubles with those folks. Thanks tipster. Similar deal at Sears, we believe.
5. Where's Apple? Here's Apple. No word on their deals yet.

Want to see all the Black Friday specials? Go here.

The Fun Factor

The Washington Post has an article about how no one is buying toys this year because of the recalls, and the proclaims the winner to be the Wii. I think that's right. Except the Wii is still on shortage. Its cool to run short in the first few months, but a year later, it looks incompetent and Nintendo is just giving customers away. They also make the point that most toys are about shortly lived gimmicks - aka Tickle Me Elmo - and don't get played with after a couple of, um, tickles, while products like the Wii give you better value for money. I've always believed that and its one of the things I'm trying to bring back to toys, long lasting play. I've always wanted to do a study, maybe I should do it now, one year after X-Mas what are kids still playing with, how long did they play with it, how much did it cost, do the parents in retrospect think it was worth the money, and are they more or less likely to buy the same type of item again. I bet what you would find is that parents are gravitating more and more to electronic items because they have open ended play or to good value for money items like plush or dolls while the chasm in the middle, expensive Elmo-type toys are the ones that will suffer.

Save those bones

Ruhlman implores you not to disgard those Thanksgiving bones and to make turkey stock instead. As you know, fresh stock is the key to cooking.

Don't say this

Radar has a list of the Top 50 things not to say on Turkey Day. He's my top 5:

6. Can we all go around and cop to some past molestation?

12. I'm just saying, if the N-word is now unacceptable, maybe it's time we come up a new slur.

14. Remember Jason Biggs and that apple pie in American Pie? Well, it also works with turkey.

15. You're all so disgustingly bourgeois. If you need me, I'll be in my room, listening to Coldplay.

18. Looking hot! If you weren't my older sister ...

JG on Sicko

JG has some thoughts on my Sicko post....

I am recovering from a sandwich that was the size of my head. So I'm reading and catching up. This is by far my favorite posting in awhile.

Who are we? I just want to be proud of us again, us Americans. I am so tired of the condescension from foreigners-like when when go abroad and sew big Maple leafs on their backpacks so they dont get mistaken as Americans. I want to be patriotic. I really do.

Good call CH. This is such an important topic. In fact I was listening to some people talk about their health care issues and it made me sad that we have come to this-the segregation and alienation of classes in a free country.

And then some more thoughts after that...

Sorry, in the second paragraph I was referring to Canadians.

And in the third paragraph I wanted to make the point that we all are scared shitless of terrorist when the real terrorist are our own government and politicians who have let it come to this.

Thanksgiving Playlist Redux

Okay, that wasn't flowing as well as I'd like. Here's some edits. I added some family and home based songs. Trying to keep the vibe mellow. The Brian Wilson song was just too weird and Church, an awesome song, only loosely fit the theme. Changed Amazing Grace from Jerry Garcia to Willie Nelson because the Jerry Garcia version is slow and kind of rambles. Also cut Dido because I don't really love that song and its kind of depressing. Don't worry. I got a lot more material than I used, so a lot of these cut songs will be back next year.

Thanksgiving Theme - Vince Guaraldi Trio
How I Got Over - Aretha Franklin
Everybody Eats When They Come to My House - Cab Calloway
I Thank You - Sam & Dave
Sweet Potato Pie - Al Jarreau
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - Marvin Gaye
Mashed Potatoes - Rufus Thomas
Sweet Potato Pie - James Taylor & Ray Charles
Kind and Generous - Natalie Merchant
Colors of the Wind - Christy Carlson Romano
Our House - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Happy Together - The Turtles
We Are Family - Sister Sledge
I've Got Plenty to Be Thankful For - Bing Crosby
Thanks for the Memories - Bob Hope
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
Our House - Madness
Thank You - John Mellencamp
Thank You - Led Zeppelin
Amazing Grace - Willie Nelson
Turkey in the Straw - Vassar Clements

Thanksgiving Playlist

Here's something for Thanksgiving I whipped up in the airport. Now that the Led Zepplin stuff is on iTunes (yay!) I will probably replace the Duran Duran "Thank You" with the original Zep version. Most of the songs are about giving thanks...or food. I have 3 songs called "Thank You", and 2 songs called "Sweet Potato Pie". But they are all different songs. Download and enjoy. I'm posting to iMix, but its not up yet. Will add the link when its up.

Thanksgiving Theme - Vince Guaraldi Trio
How I Got Over - Aretha Franklin
Everybody Eats When They Come to My House - Cab Calloway
I Thank You - Sam & Dave
Sweet Potato Pie - Al Jarreau
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - Marvin Gaye
Mashed Potatoes - Rufus Thomas
Sweet Potato Pie - James Taylor & Ray Charles
Kind and Generous - Natalie Merchant
Thank You - Dido
Colors of the Wind - Christy Carlson Romano
Roll Plymouth Rock - Brian Wilson
I've Got Plenty to Be Thankful For - Bing Crosby
Thanks for the Memories - Bob Hope
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
Church - Lyle Lovett
Thank You - John Mellencamp
Thank You - Duran Duran
Amazing Grace - Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, & Tony Rice
Turkey in the Straw - Vassar Clements

Disney Zakka

Back on the grid! Spent 4 days in Japan. With no GSM mobile service, its a lot harder to blog (using all that cab time). I'll post a few different things on Tokyo including all the pictures I took of the Great Toyko Robot Exhibition, but this post is about Disney zakka.

For those of you who don't know what zakka is, its a Japanese phenomenon of kitschy character merchandise. Zakka shops are organized by character in each section you will find toys, stationery, home items like little lunch boxes, and other things all under a single character. Disney has a huge business in zakka competes with Sanrio (Hello Kitty) for the #1 slot.

The best zakka shop in Toyko - possibly all of Japan - is Kiddyland in Harajuku. Its a 7 floor store with every character that has even as slight fetish in Japan. To tell you how niche it gets, my wife asked me to pick up some Cheburashka merch. He's a Russian TV character from the '50s. My brother and sister in law are adopting a kid from Russia and they wanted to make him feel at home. Anyway, they had it. So that gives you an idea.

Disney zakka has kind of waned a bit in the last 2 years or so. It used to be great because they would push all these secondary and tertiary characters. For example, Orange Bird was big a few years ago, a character that Disney created for the Florida Orange Growers Association when they sponsored the Sunshine Pavilion at world. I'm a big Orange Bird collector. Sadly his day has passed. He's but one of the casualties of a renewed focus on core franchises by Disney Japan.

I have to say Disney zakka was looking better than its looked in a while. More original unique stuff than when I was there 6 months ago. Unfortunately, Kiddyland won't let you take pictures in the store. There was a really nice Mickey & Minnie Mouse program in a vintage brown color. There was a pretty big statement of Alice in Wonderland. The oysters from Alice was been big for several years and they are still pretty popular. They also had kind of a microrange around Tomy's Dollcena dressed as Alice. Cheshire Cat is also big. Nightmare Before Christmas was very big predictably given the time of year. I don't remember seeing much Pooh. He was huge a few years ago and then kind of burned out. They have a huge section of Disney mobile phone accessories.

Probably the coolest Disney thing I saw in Japan was the new Medicom Toys vinyl figures of Mickey smashing a guitar. That was is really cool.

Beth Cherry's Blog

Since Populuxe is mostly a blog for my pals, I thought I would point you to Beth Cherry's blog if you haven't been there already. We've been e-mailing back and forth lately and so told me about it, so I thought I'd check it out. Today she has this really funny bit about her jeans which I will post here so you can read it, but go to her blog any way.

This morning when I put my pants on, they seemed kind of big. I thought...hmmm...these are kind of big...I wonder...
And then I pulled out my Holy Grail jeans, the smallest size I've been able to wear since I was a freshman in high school, the pair of jeans three months ago I could barely pull up past my knees, the jeans I've only been able to wear one day in a decade, the jeans I take out, look at, and think - one day I will wear you again, demon jeans.

I stepped into them and pulled them up - foomp - perfect.

I took them off again, because I want to put them on again tomorrow. How many days, I wonder, can I put them on again before I can't?

She doesn't have an RSS feed, which I hope she will fix.

Tim Burton

Disney has signed Tim Burton to direct a live action version of Alice in Wonderland and he will also re-make his 1984 short Frankenweenie. How cool is that? A Burton Alice in Wonderland? You know that's going to be awesome. You know that John Lassiter, who used to share an office with Burton at Disney Animation, had to have been involved here. I'm loving this new Disney Studios.

Leaving Shanghai

Its was a quick trip. A productive trip. And now I'm out. On my way to Tokyo. That means no cell phone which will seriously cut down on my ability to blog. But I'll try to get in a little time to post some of my Xian Tian Di pictures as well a hopefully some choice shots from Japan.

Missing home

Really missing home right now. Its just getting harder and harder to be away from the kids and my wife. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this pace of travel.

Android looks awesome

What Android really offers is the OS platform that OEMs need to compete with Apple and Microsoft. It looks really awesome. I can't wait to see how it gets used.

Dazed and Confused

Last night was a tough night. Went to bed at 10 pm. Woke up wide away at 1 am. Took another Ambien, actually it was the generic of Amvbien that never seems to work right. God back to sleep around 3pm. Woke up at 7 am. Now I'm totally delerious. Having a hard time putting sentences together. Can't decide whether to work out or try to recover in the room.

Dinner at Xian Tian Di

When you're on the road, you meet all kinds of people. Things get wierd in an instant. Tonight I went to Xian Tian Di for dinner. I went to Kaab, which JG and I went to before. I got a table at the bar next to some Americans. They had over-ordered and gave me their quesadillas. We got to talking. They were all pilots based out of Anchorage, Alaska. They fly cargo for Northwest. Miserabe life these guys have. They said they are always tired. None of these guys had wedding rings and all talked about their wives in the past tense. Then their friend Len showed up. I knew there was going to be trouble when one of the crew was named Len. True to his namesake he proceeded to hit on everything in the bar. It was a little sad. I had to get out of there. Now I'm back at the hotel and about to go to sleep.

Sicko

I bought this movie at the airport and watched it on the plane. It made me mad, not at Michael Moore, but at America. Mostly because, I know it to be true. Traveling as much as I do, I have the benefit of knowing actual Canadians, Brits, and Frenchies. And none of them have any of the problems with health care that we do. But coming from a small working class town, I know a lot of people who are in trouble because of health expenses. My sister is one of them. My mom another.

I think I'm with Moore on this one...at least partly. We need public health insurance. I think you could keep private carriers, no reason to make them illegal. But make them compete with a federal program. And then let the market decide. That's what we all believe in right? If people want to pay for an expensive system designed to deny them coverage but maxmize CEO pay, then I say that's their right. As the Supreme Court once said, we can't protect you from being stupid. But if people want a system that's all about patients and not money, they can get the federal plan.

I also had a few ideas watching Sicko that I haven't heard any candidates talk about:

- It should be criminally illegal to bias medical claims decisions on the basis of financial return. The only consideration should be whether the patient needs the care. Corporations should not be able to maximize profits at the expense of lifes. If someone dies because of a financial decision made at a HMO, the people involved should be charged as accessories to murder.

- We should offer tax credits to insurance companies that can increase the wellness of their patients. I like the program in the UK that is shown in the movie where doctors get bonuses for getting people to stop smoking and to lower their cholesterol. We need to put the focus on preventative medicine and not on surgery and pills.

I actually think these two reforms would go a long way and are fairly non-contraversial.

BTW, I thought this was probably Moore's best movie. It was very measured. I'm surprised it didn't create more of a movement.

It makes me really sad. I think Moore asked the right question, "Who are we as a people?" We've just gotten so off track. America used to stand for something and now it just stands for money. The WWII generation had principles and values. Two generations later, that's all gone. I blame the boomers, the most selfish generation in history. But I can't really say my generation is doing much about it either.

This is the kind of stuff I want to hear candidates talk about. Edwards is doing it. Obama does it in a very surfacey way. But they get no time on these issues. The media is just so biased towards advertisers and the right that they can't look at this objectively.

Still, I'm pretty confident its going to change in the next 10 years. I think the conservative movement in America has had its day for a while. They've destroyed government and people are fed up. As these boomers - who as I said are the most selfish generation in history - start to retire and medicine drives them into bankrupcy, they will turn to government to help. And it won't be the Republicans that will help them. Social programs are going to be back in style, you mark my words.

Shanghai

Ah, Shanghai. I haven't been here in probably 6 months or more, but it feels like I was here just yesterday. Shanghai is where I first got serious about posting to Populuxe with my visit to the Water Town.

The flight was okay. I didn't get upgraded and got a middle seat in business. I shouldn't complain...but I will. Those United Business class seats are torture devices. The stewardess was (predictably) old and angry. She yelled - and I mean yelled - at the guy in front of me for talking during the announcements. It was a little bit of an episode and she had to come back and apologize later. The guy next to me read with his light on the entire flight. He was reading a book called "The God Delusion" and he was a basic prick the whole time in all kinds of small ways. I suppose that's the problem with Godless people. Nothing to fear, hey, I'll just be an asshole.

Its sort of an unwritten code amongst travelers. An hour after dinner, you turn off your overhead light. If you need to read, you use your reading light. But there's no need to light up the cabin like its a stadium.

On my way to the Four Seasons now. Probably going to out for dinner. I worry that if I stay in, I'll go to bed too soon. I need all the going back and forth to burn some time until probably around 10 pm. If I can make it until then, I should be cool. I think I slept about 3 hours or so on the plane. I tried to stay up as long as I could.

I have the camera with me this trip. So hopefully, I find something interesting to take pictures of.