Will everyone please stop eating so damn much?

Or at least get some exercise. Or maybe it's the growth hormones in the various food we eat these days. All I know is that I went out with my family to take advantage of some after-Christmas sales, and there were literally zero men's small ski jackets out there. Even mediums were almost impossible to find. But there were an enormous number of XXL and even XXXL about. Did stores over-buy on the large sizes or under-buy the smaller ones? I asked around and, nope, that's not the case. There just are more and more people who need elephantine clothing. At least, in the US (as anyone who has traveled overseas will attest to).

Does this explain that Costco sells relaxed-fit men's jeans with 30-inch waists? I mean, who do you know with a 30-inch waist who needs relaxed fit? How big can your ass be if you have a 30-inch waist? Of course, the real reason is that they just order relaxed fit; they don't believe that there are many people out there who don't need it. This assumption, in my opinion, begins to break down at the smaller waist sizes.

OK, I'm glad I got that off my chest. It just pisses me off that buying clothing has now become an ordeal (I suppose, unless I want to pay the extortionate prices that REI charges). It didn't used to be that way...

Declaring creativity bankruptcy

I previously wrote about an iPhone copycat product. An unknown company can probably be excused (at least, by those of us who have no intellectual property involved) the desire to make a quick buck off of the latest Apple product. But a large, well-known company? I submit that this is the creativity equivalent of declaring email bankruptcy: Nokia's admitting that they'll never catch up with the rate of innovation of one of their competitors. And this product is vaporware! That's right, they can't even imagine making something that looks significantly different than the iPhone. Sad.

Amen

Sometimes, the simplest things are the most important. Like the "silent mode" switch on an iPhone. The easiest way to silence a RAZR? Turn the volume all the way down. Meanwhile, TVs have had mute buttons since they made infrared remotes.

Whatever happened to originality?

Meizu multi angle
Originally uploaded by stiber

It doesn't seem that anyone's even trying anymore; they just rip off whatever they want. Even if some say that there are signifcant differences with the iPhone.

Then again, just about every portable device that makes sounds has buttons arranged in a circle around a central button, so maybe this isn't really all that new.