Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Shiny Things = Corporate America?

I was responding to Flatman about ‘liking’ the iPod while at the same time thinking about William commenting on looking at other brands. This made me think, when did I fall in love with ‘Corporate America?’

I must admit when the movie Fight Club came out, I didn't really get it. I grew up in Seattle and watched the birth of grunge unfold before me. I would make you sick with the names and seminal events I could drop but I never felt that Gen X hopelessness and passive-aggressive attitude towards the government and global corporations so perfectly portrayed in the movie.

Being from Seattle, it was very much an outdoor life of hiking, camping, hunting, fishing and conservation, I consider myself an 'green' Republican. Being in that environment you realize that much like my trancendence to triathlon, quality gear, 'Shiny Things', usually come from either a big cutting edge company or the complete opposite a self starter that customizes gear, like Red Oxx and Feathered Friends.

While I normally have a slight recoil to Corporate America, I must confess I like Microsoft. I worked on the main campus and met Bill Gates, (I have been to his house), Nathan Myrvold (1st Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft), Paul Allen and Steve Balmer. I went to Starbucks when there was only a dozen stores in Seattle. I used to drink coffee with the John D, the owner of Tully's coffee. I actually owned a 286 computer running Windows 3.o way back when memory cost more than gold. While I abhor AOL, my first internet account and surfing ability was as a 'guest' on my roommates AOL version 2.0 way back in 1995. Love Nike.

While it does take me a while to get on board with trends, I buy quality stuff. I am such a big fan of iPod that I won't even consider other brands. iPod is cutting edge. The beauty is the simplicity of the trackwheel. I am a bit dissappointed that the mini was discontinued in favor of the nano but only from a storage capacity point of view.

A nano holds 33% less in storage but the offset is its a fraction of the size of current iPods, weighs 1.50 ounces, but has the same battery life of 14 hours and the screen is color. Its memory allows photos to be viewed.

Honestly, I have cut and changed and recreated this post a few times now trying to find a way to end it, spending way more time than I wanted to but I am glad I did this. I jumped all over the place but the jist is that I appreciate quality gear. I do a lot of research and debating on what I want and choose wisely.

Maybe I should create a gear review/opinion area?

5 comments:

William said...

Hey, I agree with you here. I'm in the tech field and surrounded by people who HATE Microsoft. I have to listen to how Novell is still a far superior NOS as well as Corel for an office suite, despite that it crashes a lot during printing etc. and I waste so much time telling clients thats there is nothing I can do to fix it.

I like Microsoft. I read Robert Scobles blog. I often shop at Walmart too, they have the best products at the lowest price and they are usually in stock.

William said...

There is no doubt that Apple is creating quality products, except for the easily scratched screens on the Nano, which is probably more user abuse than anything.

The three reasons I MIGHT choose a iRiver T10-1GB is because I can replace the battery when away from the computer, listen to FM radio and record audio.

I like that, green Republican.

Wil said...

Hey - a review section would be cool!

And Fight Club is one of my all-time favorite movies - there are so many little references in it that make it a classic - the having dinner with Hemingway comment, for one. Hemingway loved boxing and had this philosophy that one must risk life in order to feel alive, he was also a fan of bullfighting for this reason - OK, I'll shut up, I could go on about Hemingway and his ideals forever.

Flo said...

Yeah, a fellow "green" Republican. I am a lot like you. I too am slow to pick up a trend (I've only had my iPod 3 months) but when I do I want the best. I have nothing against corporate america but it's not the be all and end all. Anyway, I get your point and a gear review would be awesome since I am usually the last one to know about something. Now, I'm off to check out this thing called a Garmin Forerunner??? ;)

mipper said...

i have a love/hate thing with wal-mart. best prices, love a lot of their generic grocery brands, convenient blah blah blah... but then there is the "fake" rollbacks (you know where they raised the price insanely 3-4 weks before then drop the price but it is still more expensive than it originally was), the whole cattle herding feeling in the store, the fact that there can be 50 people in line and only 5 out of 27 registers open... the list goes on.

ahhh... corporate america. it is a love/hate thing for many of us.

btw, i never got the whole grunge agnst either (grew up in that era) and i always wondered why they hated corporate america but sold their souls in flanel on mtv. what can you do?