Years ago, when Hayley Westenra’s My Gift to You album came out, I was unable to acquire a copy, on account of it having been released only in New Zealand, and further on account of me not living at the time in New Zealand.

Now, I’ve paid a return visit to eBay where I see I can not only buy a copy,  but can get it on sale!  For more money!  Wait…

I have no objection at all to paying that price, of course.  It’s just not particularly good marketing in the eBay listing.  Earlier this year, one of the 70 copies of her very first CD sold on eBay for over $3,000 (says Wikipedia — and for once I believe it, since if I had $3,000 to spend on a CD, that’s the one I’d choose), so an extra $7.36 is, in fact, quite a bargain.

I love Coolidge Corner in Brookline.  Let’s consider just a few things I experienced there this evening:

How Windows Work

Dear Guy in T-Mobile Store,

The enormous plate glass window separating the store from a very busy intersection is, as most windows are, transparent.  When you walk directly up to it and start picking your nose, many people will see you, very few of whom will have wanted to.

I believe the device you thought you were using is a door, which, when closed, is typically opaque.

Sincerely,
Passer-by who was just minding his own business

I’ll See You in Court

Overheard from someone passing with a cell phone, in the tone one uses with a hostile witness in a courtroom:

Did she or didn’t she sleep with Jacob on Wednesday?

The Outcast

A boy and his father were shopping for another child’s birthday present.  The boy recommended a particular Bionicle figure, which prompted this conversation:

Father: Do you like Bionicles?
Kid: No.

Father: Oh.  Well, how do you know he’ll like them?

Kid: Most kids my age like Bionicles.  Like, most kids like sweet things like ice cream, but I don’t.

During a discussion this morning about Natalie Dylan’s virginity auction (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d use), we visited the BunnyRanch website to confirm some facts.  Naturally, there’s a Frequently Asked Questions section.

Some of these are routine.  The first two: “Where is the BunnyRanch located?” and “Which airport do I fly into?”  Frequently asked indeed.

Let’s keep reading:

3.  Where can I fly my private plane or jet into?
4.  Where do I land my helicopter?

When the fourth most frequently asked question is, “Where do I land my helicopter?” (and the answer is, “The Moonlite BunnyRanch has a special landing pad in front just for helicopter uses”), you know you’re looking at an expensive destination.

I also love this question, if only for its fascinating reflection on our society and values:

9.  How old do you have to be to visit the BunnyRanch?
You must be at least 18 years old to have sex or 21 years old to have a cocktail at the bar.

The real question now is how much longer we can keep talking about Natalie Dylan and the BunnyRanch before my girlfriend will veto the trip to Vegas we’ve been planning.

Clients occasionally need to send me screen captures of their browser windows.  Sometimes this is for debugging (e.g., so they can show me something that’s broken).  Other times, like today, it’s to show me an administrative application that I can’t access myself.

I spent some time today looking through details in some captured pages before the Google Toolbar atop the page caught my eye:

Anyone else find that recent Google query particularly interesting?

This was the fortune in my Chinese food this afternoon:

Enjoyed the meal?
Buy one to go too.

“Marketing Cookies.”  Coming soon to a restaurant near you.

Foodler lets lazy people (like me) order food online from area restaurants and have it delivered.

When browsing menus, the site highlights certain food terms and offers definitions.  For example, if you don’t know what “chipotle” is, just click it to see the definition:

A brownish-red hot spice consisting of ground, ripe, and dried jalapenos that has a distinctive hot, smoky, biting, sweet, and meaty flavor.

When planning an order from Moogy’s recently, I noticed the word “broccoli” highlighted, and couldn’t resist clicking.  Broccoli is:

Tiny bunches of tightly closed green buds growing from a thick edible stalk.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider our achievements as a society.  As an average Foodler user, I’m already expected to lounge on my couch as I order food and have it delievered, without exerting more effort than I would in writing this sentence.  Now, in addition, I’m expected to be unfamiliar with what broccoli is.

And if you turn your attention to the left, you’ll see the Morlock race evolving beneath our feet.

I went shopping for some color coding labels from Staples this morning, and I particularly enjoy the picture of what a yellow dot looks like.  You can also zoom in if you find that picture of a yellow dot insufficiently detailed.

I’ve written before about Office Depot’s picture of a white poster board (which looks suspiciously similar to the rest of the white website), but now I feel like the giant yellow circle is even more awesome.

What ever happened to that “caller ID” craze that took the nation by storm back in the 1990s?  It was this fascinating technology that would show the name of the person calling whenever the phone rang.

Sure, telemarketers abused the system, either sending false information or simply hiding their number as “Out of Area” or “Unknown Name,” but for legitimate calls — the ones we wanted to answer anyway — it worked great!

Of course, when someone in my “Contacts” list calls my cell phone, I can see the person’s name and even their picture now, but what about people who haven’t called before?  I just get their number!

Now I have to turn to Google whenever my phone rings to figure out who’s calling.  Searching for a number works well when it’s a legitimate business calling, or an illegal telemarketer, but it fails entirely for personal calls.

So I ask again: what happened to that “caller ID” craze of the 1990s?  Have we just forgotten how it’s supposed to work?