I hope you all (well, the Americans among you) had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This is an ad for a Bruce Lee edition of a technology product. It is a shameless appeal to internet dorks, begging them to embed it on their blogs. And it’s working.

And furthermore…

[Geekologie via itchymutt]

I don’t mean to be glib, but why am I supposed to be concerned by the increase in gas prices? McCain wants to get rid of the federal tax on gas for the summer, to keep the price down–does he not understand how economics works? All that does is shift the cost from gas buyers to everybody in the country. If we were talking about a public good, like, I dunno, PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, it might make sense to distribute the burden among all citizens. But gas is a pollutant the use of which we’re trying to cut down on. I, for one, welcome anything that encourages the conservation of such a limited (and harmful) resource–including high prices.

I know that there are lots of people out there who can’t afford gas as it is, and who will be seriously hurt by further increases in fuel prices. But in the long run, we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels–and obscuring the true cost of gasoline only exacerbates the problem.

Short version of the above:

Why should my tax dollars be used to subsidize the cost of your gasoline? Tell you what–if gas is so important to you, YOU pay for it. I’ll just keep investing my money in bus passes and my own two feet.

Well, I wasn’t quite right, but you’ve got to admit, I was pretty close. I just thought the $299 model would be the new economy size, when it remains the flagship. And I’ve got to say, when you combine the hardware upgrades with the software upgrades–including Exchange compatibility and Mobile Me–it’s a pretty damn compelling product. Update: here’s a good rundown of what’s new, and whether the new stuff is actually an improvement.

Unfortunately, my secret wish–a 3G iPhone with a QWERTY slideout keypad–remains unfulfilled.

But more relevantly, the announcement leaves things kind of insane in the iPod pricing world: you can grab an 8 gig iPhone for $199, but an 8 gig iPod Touch (which is just an iPhone without the GPS or the phone functions–including, critically, cellular data) costs $299. So you’re paying an extra $100 for less functionality. Now, I know, the Touch is much thinner, and probably more importantly, you aren’t gonna have to commit to a year of paying at least $60/month to activate it. But nonetheless, how are you going to explain the intricacies of subsidized cell phone hardware to the average consumer, who doesn’t give a crap about such boring things? Answer: you aren’t. You’re going to lower the price of the iPod Touch so it at least matches the iPhone’s, and you’re going to subsequently sell a billion of them.

So I look forward to that announcement. But I was really expecting it today–the announcement of the iPhone price cut seemed like the right time to reassure consumers that Apple isn’t trying to rip them off (remember how upset you idiots got when they lowered the iPhone price the first time?). If it doesn’t happen soon, I suppose Apple will just save it for October, the better to make lots of money around Christmas.

I find this sneaky ad to be very good.

Does this ad terrify anyone else? The first few times I saw it it really disturbed me. IT LOOKS LIKE THAT FIRST GUY IS GONNA SMASH HIS HEAD!

None of what follows (except for the stuff about my obsessive need to finish the video game baseball season) is news. It has all been said, much more eloquently than this, many times. But that’s never stopped me before. So let’s get started.

I’ve got to give credit where it’s due. After getting back from my trip last week (more on that later), I discovered that I had some extremely annoying problems with my Comcast Tivo service. The next day I called to complain and, hopefully, get it fixed. Although the tech person I talked to couldn’t fix it, she was very apologetic and friendly and we scheduled a customer service visit. Then I woke up today to find everything working again. So when I called to cancel my upcoming appointment to fix it, I asked if they could credit my account for the time my DVR wasn’t working. And without any complications or questions or anything, the customer service dude credited the full month’s cost of the box and Tivo service. Obviously, I would prefer that everything just work, but any interaction with telecom customer service that goes so smoothly deserves note–it’s only fair, since I was quite prepared to pillory them for what I assumed would happen.

Good customer service fever… catch it!

I’m leaving America for a week. Here’s something to remember me by: