The March 26 Wireless Reporter, "Spanning the Wireless World," showed up in
my inbox with a story about Charmed Technologies, claiming that this outfit
blends style and substance in Grand Fashion. All right, I bit. I clicked the
link and went to the Charmed Technologies web site. It had graphics and
sound, so it took a few seconds to load, and after it did, I looked around
and couldn't really find any actual products, except a developer's kit for
something called Charmit. Photographs accompanying this thingie showed
skinny models wearing oversized goggles. I wasn't too sure exactly what it
did, but it would cost you 2000 dollars to put it together yourself.
Looking for clues, I went to another part of the site, promoting what it called "The
Brave New Unwired Fashion Show," a "professionally produced Paris/Milan
style runway extravaganza so extraordinary, there is a patent pending." Wow.
Probably be able to order it over the Internet someday at
runwayextravaganza.dom. But what was it? "The stunning models are wearing
the latest in forward fashion while displaying and demonstrating the most
futuristic technology. The event is a cutting edge high energy multi-media
event presenting the integration of computers into fashion." Okay.
They want to make bracelets that send e-mail. I got it. But here was the clincher:
"When available, celebrities superstar athletes bring additional magnetism
to the show." How do you argue with that? Yes, celebrities superstar
athletes can bring magnetism to any show. But they do have to be available
don't they? It's like saying, "If Julia Roberts were sitting on my couch,
her dazzling smile might light up the room." Of course, Julia Roberts is not
sitting on my couch, but if she were, boy oh boy, could I move a lot of
product. If I had product to move, of course. Does anybody any more? Like
they say: "When available, actual usable products can bring customers to any
web site."
Going back to the Wireless Reporter I learned that one of the
founders of Charmed Technology was Katrina Barillova, a "former
Czechoslovakian intelligence agent and model." A Czechoslovakian spy AND a
model. Well, that explained a lot of things. The somewhat fractured English.
The promise of glamor. The withholding of any actual information about the
nature of what they actually sold. The concept of making a piece of fine
jewelry that's also a cell phone, computer, data organizer, laser gun, and X
ray specs. I love the Internet. Like they say, "When available,
Czechoslovakian supermodel spies can make any web surfer feel like James
Bond." If you have the disposable income, of course. And if the futuristic
technology actually exists. I gotta go.
(hear the realaudio version)
I had the occasion to rent the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger
flop, THE SIXTH DAY, last week, and must say I enjoyed it very much. Good
story, great collection of character actors, some twists and turns, and
everything blew up nicely in the end. So why did it bomb at the box office?
Well, I don't know. Maybe America just got tired of Arnold. It's hard to
believe, I know, that that big lovable chunk of Austria could ever wear
thin, but all things must pass. And that was a curious thing about the SIXTH
DAY. Enjoyable as it was as a romp in a dystopian not too distant future, it
already seemed dated. It was about clones, for one thing. On the big list of
things to worry about, despite the efforts of the media, clones are not high
up there. What's the big threat? All a clone is is your identical twin.
What's he gonna do, look like you to death? And the movie opened with a
scene showing quarterback mortally injured in an XFL game and replaced with
a clone. This movie was made, what, last fall? And already the XFL is
ancient history. It's hard to portray the future when the futuristic details
with which you populate it are dead relics from another time.
Remember Blade
Runner? The bleak cityscape of that movie was crammed with companies and
products-- logos and billboards for Atari, Pan-Am, and Cusinart, companies
that today are either non-existent, or a shadow of their former selves. But
even the real world seems increasingly dated. The Sunday relic Parade
magazine has a column called inside dot.com this week. Dotcom. How quaint.
The column calls our attention to new products we might be interested in
purchasing. The time I checked this column out, the products endorsed were
an amplified telephone, a universal ac adapter, and a CD storage case. O
brave new world that has such products in it. Let me whip out that credit
card. Doesn't it seem like the whole consumer world today is packed with the
kind of junk you see in catalogs you look at anxiously as you're waiting for
the plane to take off? Does anybody really buy this stuff? If so, who? Why?
I think it's evil clones or replicants myself. Somebody ought to make a
movie about that. I gotta go.
(hear the realaudio version)
Big news from the fruit front. As of February, plum growers
have received permission from those who give permission for this sort of
thing to change the name of prunes to "dried plums." Even as we speak, new
packaging with the new name, the new concept have showed up in stores.
Inside the packaging, of course, it's still just prunes, as far as I'm
concerned, but hey, I see the problem. Remember Pruneface from Dick Tacy.
You're probably too young. Prune is wrinkled, old, dried-up, boring. "Prune"
has connotations that "raisin," for instance, does not. Raisins will not be
called "dried grapes" any time soon. Raisins have a certain elan, perhaps
even a panache. Prunes, however, in the popular American imagination, are
something octogenarians eat to keep regular.
Dried plums, it's no doubt
hoped, on the other hand, will be something soccer moms nibble on with their
morning latte. As a matter of fact, according to the Associated Press,
"Industry research shows that women between the ages of 35 to 50
overwhelmingly preferred the term 'dried plum.'" That we're asking focus
groups to decide what names we prefer for our wrinkled fruit is probably a
sign that we are indeed entering what many fundamentalists call the end
time. The final days. The end of empire. The world as we know it. We're
doomed.
But it's a done deal. The California Prune Board is now the
California Dried Plum Board. And chickpeas are now officially garbanzos,
filberts are officially hazelnuts, and a fig is still a fig. I say, it's a
prune, I say the hell with it, and I say excuse me, I have to go dry plum
the hedges. I gotta go.
(hear the realaudio version)
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