If I'm going to spend three hours on a Friday afternoon sitting at a bar, I'd really rather it not be Apple's Genius Bar. That's Apple's free (unless you've got serious hardware problems) walk-in help center at each Apple Store. Very cool concept, even if I arrived during lunch and watched one "genius" juggle four or five disgruntled people at a time.
Apple Stores are kind of weird in general. It's like walking into a cartoon. A cartoon full of wealthy people under unflattering lighting. I guess that wasn't it -- maybe it just seemed animated because all Apple stuff comes in funky colors.
I guess I shouldn't assume all these people were wealthy. The guy sitting next to me had an elderly G3 just like I did (not mine, a loner from a client). But I can't get over how expensive the Apple lifestyle is, particularly iPods. $249 for the cheap one? Dang. I know I'm both a tightwad and a neo-Luddite, but I think I recoil at these sorts of prices because I can't help thinking of an iPod as a giant Walkman, and a Walkman never cost $499.
Granted, a Walkman also couldn't hold your entire tape collection at once. The ability to walk around with thousands of songs in your pocket is, of course, a very groovy feature of the digital age, and surely if I was still a dot-commer I'd have sprung for one by now (I did buy a Palm V back in the day), but now that I've sobered up, I can think of plenty of other things to do with half a G. And if someone in front of me can't, I assume they're wealthy.
Unfair, as I can think of a few people who have iPods who would insist they aren't rolling in dough. But it's all relative, isn't it? To half the people in LA, I'm rich because I have a computer.
Didn't mean to get all reflective there. So the second biggest nominative letdown of the day, other than the Genius Bar not being full of beer and music and friendly locals, is that Vienna Pastries on Wilshire does not sell European treats. I have no idea what Austrian pastries are like, but surely with Austria being that close to Germany, they can't be all bad. Now I've got a Herculean craving for rumkugeln. Damn you, Vienna Pastries...damn you to hell.
Apple Stores are kind of weird in general. It's like walking into a cartoon. A cartoon full of wealthy people under unflattering lighting. I guess that wasn't it -- maybe it just seemed animated because all Apple stuff comes in funky colors.
I guess I shouldn't assume all these people were wealthy. The guy sitting next to me had an elderly G3 just like I did (not mine, a loner from a client). But I can't get over how expensive the Apple lifestyle is, particularly iPods. $249 for the cheap one? Dang. I know I'm both a tightwad and a neo-Luddite, but I think I recoil at these sorts of prices because I can't help thinking of an iPod as a giant Walkman, and a Walkman never cost $499.
Granted, a Walkman also couldn't hold your entire tape collection at once. The ability to walk around with thousands of songs in your pocket is, of course, a very groovy feature of the digital age, and surely if I was still a dot-commer I'd have sprung for one by now (I did buy a Palm V back in the day), but now that I've sobered up, I can think of plenty of other things to do with half a G. And if someone in front of me can't, I assume they're wealthy.
Unfair, as I can think of a few people who have iPods who would insist they aren't rolling in dough. But it's all relative, isn't it? To half the people in LA, I'm rich because I have a computer.
Didn't mean to get all reflective there. So the second biggest nominative letdown of the day, other than the Genius Bar not being full of beer and music and friendly locals, is that Vienna Pastries on Wilshire does not sell European treats. I have no idea what Austrian pastries are like, but surely with Austria being that close to Germany, they can't be all bad. Now I've got a Herculean craving for rumkugeln. Damn you, Vienna Pastries...damn you to hell.
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