Lately I’ve had some strange feelings. Recently I found myself wanting an iPhone. Yah! Me wanting an iPhone? Previously I had thought that the iPhone was a great waste of money since there are so many more superior products on the market. I also have no need for a device that does so much. So I forced myself to figure out why I wanted an iPhone. Weeks ago I had also explored the idea of buying a new MacBook also. Since I am broke, that is no longer an option for me though. I guess I just wanted something Apple.

I don’t really need the products that Apple offers.  Yet I still felt the need to buy. Why? I am now forced to admit, that I want to buy an iPhone for the simple feeling of buying something cool from the Apple Store. There is just something about the feeling when you go into an Apple Store and pick up something. You just feel cooler. I’d love to get my hands on one of those cool iPhone boxes and have the clerk bag it in those sexy looking iPhone bags. I would then carry it around the mall and be seen with my iPhone bag so that everybody would know I just bought one.

Apple does this really well. They just sell cool. They have an entire flippin’ store of cool! I wonder how many other people have just bought Apple products just because they are cool. As for me,  I have to resist the temptation. My tax return money can be spent on better things.

It started with the original Pac-Man. Nothing fancy here, just the same board on every level and the same objective. Eat all the dots. Then Ms. Pac-Man gave us more mazes and faster action. For years I have thought that Ms. Pac-Man was the best version of Pac-Man ever. Some may argue that Pac-Man Plus is the best. However, I have recently discovered Jr. Pac-Man and I have to say that it is without a doubt the best Pac-Man game ever. Scrolling screens, more power pellets, and slightly better sound. I have to say that I’m hooked on playing it. Unfortunately my arcade never carried this game.

Jr. Pac-Man is regularly overlooked because it is not a part of the Namco family. The reason? Namco had a deal with Bally/Midway to release the original Pac-Man game, then Bally/Midway just did whatever they wanted with the title by making their own versions of the game. These are the versions we all know. Namco didn’t like that Bally/Midway was making and releasing their own versions of the game. They made a deal with Ms. Pac-Man, but when Jr. Pac-Man was released, that was the end. Therefore you don’t see Jr. Pac-Man ported on any home consoles.

All of Namco’s Pac-Man sequel attempts sucked. Super Pac-Man was lame and hard to control, as was Pac & Pal. Pac Land sucked, and all of the 3D attempts at the classic game sucked as well. Bally/Midway succeeded with Pac-Man because they were smart enough not to change the original game play. They simply made slight improvements to the original game. This is something I wish Namco would learn since they are the ones in control of the Pac-Man license. I would love to see more modifications to this original arcade classic on my home console. For now, I’m trying to make it to the 4th level in Jr. Pac-Man.

I would like to punch the person that made up stumblecards. They annoy my browsing pleasure. They are the infomercial you see while flipping through channels. They are the fly in my soup. They are the insect part in my rice.

The whole point of StumbleUpon is to browse things you might be interested in, not advertisements disguised as trading cards.

Am I the only one that doesn’t get the high definition television craze? Maybe I’m getting to be an old man, but I like my 3 old analog TV’s, and I don’t plan on spending money to replace them. I’ve been to the electronics stores and looked at these televisions. The televisions look very “pixelated” to me. That’s not something I want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on. I know these new televisions are slim and sexy and supposedly better, but It just seems that people are going crazy to chuck their old analog televisions out the door. They find reasons to purchase a $4,000 mammoth, high def television on credit. I don’t see the value.

I’ll admit that I picked a neighbor’s garbage. I found a perfectly fine 27″ television sitting out in the rain. The thing sits in my living room and works great. I can make out Roger Clemens’ face on it as he lies to all baseball fans. I don’t need to see him in high def. Am I the only one that doesn’t get it? Or is everybody just falling for another consumer rush?

I’ve had a PeoplePC dialup account open for the past four years. I provided this account to my mother before she got a DSL account. The $10 a month billing got old though, so I decided to cancel the service. I called in and got an agent that was no doubt not from the United States. English was definitely not her first language either.

After explaining that I wished to cancel service, she started babbling about keeping my account open. I expressed that I didn’t want to continue my service over and over. She continued to offer me two months free and removed my payment for the current month. She did a good job making it sound like my account would only be open for two months. The catch was that I would be billed again after two months. I struggled to understand this woman throughout the call. At some point I must’ve agreed to keep my account open. Toward the end of the call she ended up thanking me for staying with People PC. Ugh! I said no, I did not want to be billed by the company anymore! Finally I think she got the idea. We’ll see at the end of two months.

This seems to be the way all companies treat their customers. They stick you with people that don’t even speak the language. I tried to call my bank the other day and get a username and password for its Web site. I had to disconnect because I couldn’t understand the agent, and he couldn’t understand me either. I also am not content with the fact that somebody in a poor country has access to all of my banking information.

Here we go people. We’re sliding far downhill yet we still give our money away to these companies that just don’t give a damn about their customers. We can do better. Imagine if a computer company advertised 100% U.S. Technical Support. I’m waiting for somebody to do that, because I think most people are getting fed up. Maybe I should make a Web site that provides a list of companies that are not providing support from India or any other place I can’t understand. Oh wait! There are none.

I woke up today and decided that I need some glassware. I had broken all of my Pac-Man and Chicago Bears drinking glasses and I decided to go a little bit more classy and get some normal ones. This day though, I decided to go downtown instead of Target or Wal-Mart. I wanted to put my money into a nice little ma and pa business. Surely in the tons of stores downtown there would be at least one that sells glasses, right? Well as it turns out, I will never know. I drove downtown and looked at the stores from the street. It seems that all of the small businesses downtown have bought into the idea of branding. All of the places were named after something, like perhaps the person that owns them and I couldn’t find out what they actually did. Stewart’s, Gunderson’s, Al’s. What the hell are these places? If you have time to stop your car as your passing, you might be able to make out the small lettering under the name that tells you what the business is all about. Oh, Stewart’s sells guns, Gunderson’s Jewelry, Al’s Shoes. The car behind me honks because I’m going 5 miles per hour in a 30 to try to see if any of these places sell what I need.

It made me wonder about the thousands of other business I pass each day. I pass about 30 business back and forth from work each day, I have no idea what any of them do. Which is why I probably won’t go there when I need the services they provide. It’s easier to go to Wal-Mart or Target because I know they have everything. See, that is branding! Al, i’m sorry, but the store you own is not a brand. Nor should you try to be.

I have noticed many florists in the downtown area. These places look like they have been there since before the age of branding obsession because they have huge sings that say Unique Floral and Lewis Floral in big letters. The Sunshine Donuts sign has Donuts in huge letters. These businesses get it. Because of these signs, I know where to go for flowers or donuts in the future.

After about 3 hours of searching for glassware today. I walked into 3 furniture stores and art gallery (accidentally because it looked like a home store from the outside) and a variety store trying to find something and came away empty handed. So I’ll be getting my shipment of glassware from Target.com next week.

I’ve still been pondering how arcades can evolve back to where they used to be as far as popularity. It blows my mind that arcades in Japan are even going under now. What do confused teens do on Friday night now besides the movies? It hit me as I passed a local Internet arcade. The place was packed with teens playing games like Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Quake 4. This is definitely not the same type of crowd you’d get at your typical classic arcade though. No, these kids are more computer savvy. I also didn’t find but a couple of females in the bunch.

These Internet arcades still don’t appeal to those that aren’t as computer savvy, or just plain prefer a joystick instead. The return of the classic arcade is bound for a return. I’ve put together my own plan for how true arcades can evolve and make a comeback.

Make cheaper coin-ops - Use LCD screens and build the cabinets smaller. Do anything it takes to make the machines more affordable to arcade owners so they can actually make a profit on them.

Make each machine play multiple games - Remember the old Neo-Geo machines where you could play up to 8 games on one machine? All arcade machines should be like this. I think it would be beneficial for a customer to be able to walk into an arcade and sit down at his own personal arcade machine for a night of gaming and be able to play what he wants.

All games should be linkable to other players in the arcade - You should have the option when you start a game of accepting challengers from other players in the arcade, or even in other arcades via the Internet. Another player from his personal machine can find you and challenge you to a game.

Internet ranking system - Like they figured out in Japan and with Golden Tee, people like to be ranked. All players should be ranked on every game.

General Admission - Arcades should follow the model of Internet arcades and have general admission. I can imagine a gym club type of membership working out where you pay a monthly fee for access to the arcade.

Prizes - Give out prizes for top performers. Hold tournaments. Make the arcade a social place for competition.

There you have it. My business plan for the classic arcade comeback. Joysticks, social interaction and no chance of somebody taking over your game with cheats or a bot. If you have the money to accomplish all of this, feel free to steal it. I am sure kids everywhere would flock to your establishment. I would too.

I was watching 60 Minutes yesterday. They had a story about why Denmark is the happiest place on Earth. Researchers studied why the people of Denmark were so happy. The conclusion? They don’t concern themselves with having high goals. Basically, they don’t care as much when they are disappointed because they don’t hold themselves to a high standard. They instead focus on connections such as friends and family more than trying to get that promotion and make more money.

Here in the states where we rank 23rd on the world happiness scale, we always want more. We tend to value our success in how much wealth we accumulate. Nobody here can be happy working as a janitor or a waitress even if it might be what they love to do. Jobs like this are often ridiculed by people and in TV shows and the movies we watch.

I believe this is precisely why American’s, rich or poor are so stressed out in their lives. They have been brought up to believe that the pursuit of the American Dream means everything in their lives. Our parents and friends usually set these values in our minds. I know my parents wouldn’t brag about me if I worked in a retail store. Instead they get to tell people I work with computers. They are proud of that and they believe that I am smart because of it. What if I wanted to work at a retail store though? What if I wanted to be a construction worker? I don’t know of many parents that would support those types of jobs very well.

When asked for advice on how American’s can be happier, one of the Danes interviewed said to forget the American Dream. I tend to agree. I mean it’s great to have the opportunity and freedom to peruse the American Dream. It just shouldn’t mean everything in our lives.

Not many companies believe in providing its customers with free, quality technical support anymore. A tech support department means an unwanted expense to a big company, hence they are outsourcing tech support departments to places like India left and right.

Even getting simple tasks done seems to be a challenge for some customers. I once called Electronic Arts about a Sims game that wasn’t working because the CD was scratched. I just wanted a replacement CD. Instead, I was forced through troubleshooting. I’m not sure the representative understood me at all when I kept telling him “The CD is destroyed!”. He still wasted a half hour “troubleshooting” and ended up telling me to update my CD-ROM drivers.

I hear many stories from Dell and Gateway customers. The steps their techs often provide include no-brainers such as “Have you restarted your computer yet?” or “Is your monitor on?”. Instead of simply fixing the issue, they usually end up walking you through using your recovery CD to restore your computer to the factory default software, erasing all of your data.

Whenever you buy a technical product, do not expect support. Don’t even waste your time calling. Just assume that you aren’t going to get good support from the product manufacturer and seek help elsewhere such as an web forum or third-party support company. It’s just not worth your time.

LinkedIn seems to be gaining momentum in being a real player in social networking. Invitations from users have been attracting more and more users to the site each day.

The site allows you to see the professional background of a person. It’s kind of like an online resume. You can search for people you used to work with and see where they ended up. Get back in touch with old friends.

The site seems to be flourishing since it’s basically a simpler MySpace or Facebook, without all the junk that makes those sites difficult to work with. There are no cluttering ads, no annoying emails from people you don’t want to contact you (you have to pay a fee to be able to send messages) and no spam.

I’m officially hooked. I’m on the site all day searching for people I’ve been wondering about. Let’s see if it will go the way of Facebook and MySpace and bore me to the point of an abandoned account.