I've had the Air for about a month or two now, and I never tested the battery life. But today I had the chance to find out, roughly. We had a workshop at college today and I opened the Air almost exactly at 14:00. I used it almost constantly during the workshop, connected to wifi the whole time. It wasn't heavy duty usage, just regular internet surfing, email-checking and typing stuff up.  We left the workshop at 17:45 with 15% battery life left. That's 225 minutes spent and 33 minutes in reserve. If you add it up, you get around 4 hours and 15 minutes of real usage connected to wifi, the kind of work that I mostly do. Guess you can pimp it out if you turn the display down or something, but I had my display between 50% and 80% most of the time. Not so bad :-) All in all I'm very pleased with the Air. It's so light I can't feel it in the backpack, battery life is awesome (as in best I've seen, ever), feels incredibly strong. The screen on 100% is so bright I almost get sunburn. Did I miss the ethernet slot or the disc drive yet? Not really.

Wow, I must be eating not enough. Today I ate three bananas, an apple, two mixed fruit snack plates from the supermarket and half a (very unripe) mango. That can't nearly be enough, but I'm not hungry. In fact I had to stop eating because I felt kind of full, but without the lump in my stomach. I didn't eat cooked beans and tomatoes today. While they're delicious, it doesn't feel like Fruitarian. I may cut cooking and beans out, but I'm not sure yet. Unfortunately my options are not that great: winter in Germany means there's not much fruit to eat. Yesterday I tried papaya (gross) and avocado (disgusting). How do people eat those things? They taste very bitter and oily and not at all like fruit. It's a shame I can't drink milk, because I love banana milkshakes. Shakes without milk are kind of disgusting. I tried using water instead, but it tastes awful. Inspired by the Zuma Smoothie shop in Dublin, I'll try making some fruit juice. I love drinking fruit, so it'll be awesome.

Criticism of Fruitarians

I found an interesting site that argues against Fruitarianism. According to this source, it hasn't ever been done in the long term and all the "gurus" are lying.  I'm not so sure as I have seen similar "bash" sites cursing against vegetarians and that works perfectly well for me. Maybe some people just overreact on others not eating things. It's kind of weird that people scream when you DON'T eat animals, but display tolerance when the French eat snails or the japanese eat seafood alive. Because that seems kind of MORE weird to me. I guess the prospect of losing something you see as normal, such as eating animals, hurts a lot. What I have to give that site though is that no two Fruitarian sites seem to have the same definition of fruit. Some eat grains, some not. Some seeds, some not. Some nuts, some not. Some raw, some not. But that problem also concerns vegetarians: the two people who originally made me go vegetarian (my roommate Astrid and my sister Lena) both consider themselves long time vegetarians, though they both eat fish. Since I never liked fish much, this wasn't too difficult for me. One thing that also strikes me as weird is that people promoting Fruitarianism, or "weird" diets altogether, often claim seemingly impossible or unlikely results. I found a site claiming that one guy healed his AIDS eating a fruit diet. One guy changed his eye color. All kinds of miracle healings seem to stem from Fruitarianism. Steve Pavlina, who I read a lot, claims breathtaking new levels of mental clarity hit him when he went vegetarian, vegan and then raw. I experienced a few differences as a vegetarian, like not getting so stuffed as with meat. Since I eat fruit, I seem a lot less hungry. But it's not exactly a quantum leap. It's more like that 2% bonus that you take because it comes with the package. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but to me it seems like a lot of these diet effects are psychosomatic. That doesn't mean they're not real, but it means they don't work for me, because I don't believe in them enough.

The role of Diet and Exercise in Fitness and Health

I'm still not too sure about the importance of diet in fitness. It's now October, meaning I've been a vegetarian for six months and off sugar (except once a month) for five months. True, I've lost some weight, but that could also have been due to the regular exercise I got during those months. To be honest I was kind of disappointed, cutting out sugar completely, I was expecting more a drastic loss of fat. Maybe all that sugar isn't the only problem? I drank a lot of milk instead of the sugar, as in 2-4 liters a day. I also ate lots of cheese and other fatty products. Maybe it's the fat making me fat? Or maybe it's all the grains from the bread, pasta and rice I was eating, even though most of it was whole grain? Maybe it's just the lack of exercise? Pretty sad that after centuries of scientific interest in this topic, there is still not much progress. Some people claim it's all about the diet, some prefer exercise, many both. But I see so many people who follow some kind of diet and some kind of exercise regimen and get results they shouldn't be having, or not getting the results I would have expected them to have. One example: my roommate. He eats only junk food (microwave hot dogs), candy (chocolate bars) and drinks soft drinks in the range of 2 liters a day. He can't do a single push-up, even on knees. He can't walk a flight of stairs without breaking a sweat. Still he is thin like a needle, easily weighing 20kg less than me, although he is taller. The only solution I can think of is a)it's not what you eat, it's how much (sounds unlikely) or b)it's a genetic thing (sounds like an excuse) I guess it's not as easy as (How healthy you eat + How much you exercise)/2. But even if it were so simple, both these metrics are not valid. There are thousands of opinions on both topics, all contradicting each other. For every combination of diet and exercise there's both people who show incredible results using them, and people who are fat and unfit. Maybe it's really all predetermined. But that would totally suck ass.

Wow, I guess it's been 4 days already. That was quicker than I thought.

Good news, everyone!

It's easier than I thought. Even when staying in the hostel in Dublin, buying cheap and tasty fruit was never a problem. They actually had melon and coconut for 1.20€ and 0.84€. Coconut is amazing. I've always liked coconut taste in Bounty bars and the likes, but I'd never actually eaten coconut flesh (is it flesh?). It's a lot of work cutting the thing out of it's shell, but you can chew on it for a long time. I had to chew on single bites for several minutes. The taste is really fresh and the texture is amazing, like nothing I've ever eaten before. We also drank the coconut milk, but it wasn't that much. Maybe one cup. The coconut is so filling that we only ate half of it.

Bad news too

There's also shadow. I ate beans! Now this is the only part of fruitarian where the definition is unclear. Technically, beans are fruit. But technically so are grains, and so you could eat bread and rice and pasta and basically you'd be a vegan. The term fruitarian wouldn't mean anything special. But if you use the word "fruit" in the conventional sense, meaning sweet fruits like apples and oranges only, some foods that most of the Fruitarians eat wouldn't count. For example, tomatoes and avocados are more widely recognized as vegetables. Even more confusing, the German word for legumes is "Hülsenfrüchte", which means "shell fruits". So every bean is a fruit in German wordage. The opinions on the internet are confusing. Some people describe Fruitarian as 80% fruit and 20% beans and bread and tofu, while Mango, who kindly responded in my comments and also has a great Fruitarian Blog, does not eat legumes. Also some definitions include that all fruit must be eaten raw, while others don't say that. I imagine eating beans raw is not fun. They're kind of hard. Also I read that most of the vitamins in the tomato only emerge after cooking. That's why I decided to include beans and tomatoes and I'll cook them. That also gives me a way to get a hot meal, which I really missed in cold and windy Dublin. The pro-bean decision may also have been influenced by the fact that I really, really like beans. I used to not even notice, but since I've become a vegetarian I've really started to appreciate them. Plus I think they're pretty healthy. So what am I now?

Beanarian?

As the definition of Fruitarian is very unclear and I don't want to confuse you any further, I'll just make a list of things I've already eaten and consider part of my personal Fruitarian regime:  

• Apples
• Bananas
• Honey melon
• Nectarines
• Coconut
• Tomatoes (pulp from a can)
• Beans (cooked in tomato pulp)

Volume

Social pressure

This is a great one. Smokers must feel like that. Everyone and his grandmother has an opinion on why eating only fruit will kill you within hours. Even when I tell them it's only for 30 days and eating "a balanced diet" (whatever people mean by that) has me at 10kg overweight, they think I'll certainly die. Interestingly enough, they also know why! Not enough protein, important brain cells that can only stem from cooked meat, too much carbohydrates, not enough fat, too much fiber, not enough fiber, you name it. Even my close friends make a big deal out of it. I doubt anyone would even notice if I was to eat "only toast and french fries" for 30 days, although nobody thinks those are more healthy than fruit. A serious problem also is eating at restaurants. It's just impossible. We visited dozens of restaurants in Dublin, looking for anything on the menu that I could eat. In one cafe I asked the waitress if they had anything that was "only fruit" and she brought me an orange juice. Now I like orange juice, but that kind of makes vegetarian feel like on abundance of food choices.  After checking more than five different pubs for fruit choices, I decided on a bean stew in one place. It also had sweet potatoes, which is kind of cheating, but I wasn't willing to just sit there for one hour while my friend was eating his huge chunk of dead animal. Smokers can't smoke in bars because they're smokers, and I can't eat in restaurants because I'm trying to be a fruitarian. I guess that's the way it works. Luckily I never go to restaurants at home, so it will only be a problem when I'm on vacation.

Still unsure

I'm still not sure about nuts and seeds. Up to now I haven't eaten any, but they're nice, and supposedly very healthy. Some Fruitarians eat them.

Wow, this one is really going to be a challenge. I'm only on day one and already miss eating "regular" stuff. It's not a craving. Yet. But I think about eating lots of rice and beans. Actually I'm not sure if beans aren't fruits. Tomatoes are, and I don't mind the rice too much. So if beans are fruits I can eat beans and tomatoes! I will have to investigate this. But let me start at the beginning.

Why Fruitarian? There are 213 other stupid diet ideas out there!

Exactly. Being a Vegetarian for half a year now, I feel unchallenged. But going vegan sucks. I'm not sure why, but eating vegan is extremely difficult for me. How do people do it?  Having to check the ingredients of EVERYTHING is annoying as hell. I went to the supermarket and even TOFU had eggs in it.  Fruitarian is easy. You know if it's a fruit. Fruits don't have ingredient lists - they just sit there. Also I like many fruits, unlike vegetables. Most vegetables are not really my thing. Except for carrots and lately onions. Making a list of great tasting and fun to eat fruit is easy:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Mangos
• Papayas (actually I haven't eaten that many)
• Melons (Water and Honey)
• Pears
• Tomatoes (since they're technically a fruit)
• Plums
• Figs

Vegan is too much grey area

There's too many rules being a vegan. If there are more than three rules, I won't follow them. I'm too lazy. Fruitarian is perfect in this regard: what you can eat is very, very easy. Only the beans give me doubt. Also it's supposed to be really healthy, yadda yadda yadda, but they say that about every single kind of diet. I don't really mind the ethical side of Fruitarianism much, because killing plants doesn't feel so bad. They don't have a central nervous system, right? They can't feel pain.

Disadvantages of Fruitarianism

Wow, I've only been at this for 21 hours and already I discovered two huge disadvantages. You can't eat a warm meal. I never thought this would bother me. And maybe in the summer it wouldn't but in the late fall in cold and rainy Germany, "coming home to a warm dinner" suddenly seems like a nice idea. Some Fruits (which is what I call Fruitarian people short) report drinking tea helps. Maybe I'll look into that. I've never been much of a tea fan, but this seems like the perfect opportunity. Second disadvantage: eating fruit is a huge fuss. Yea, you don't have to cook and not wash the dishes. But you have to peel a lot. And believe it or not: eating apples until you're full is actually straining. To go from an empty stomach to a full one I needed 3-5 slices of bread with cheese, a big plate of rice and beans or maybe two tofu burgers. Now I need 5 apples. Eating five apples is a lot of work. Eating five oranges is too much. It just took me at least two minutes to peel one orange. Hopefully I'll be getting better at this.

Advantages of Fruitarianism

Health. There are no hidden bad foods any more. As a vegetarian, I drank about 2-3 liters of milk every day, ate lots of cheese and eggs, pizza, white bread, lots of fast food. Even vegan you can eat very unhealthy while perfectly following the rules. And I didn't even eat sugar any more, which many of the vegan recipes use lots of. As a fruitarian, there are no hidden foods. No white flour, no sugar, no fats, no bad chemicals from diet sodas. If it's not in the fruit, you don't eat it. If it's a fruit, eating it takes a toll. I suspect fruitarians lose weight because eating so much fruit is a lot of work. Physical work. Tasty. Every fruit is tasty. Period. The ones I'll have to get used to are avocados. Also, here in Germany lots of fruit is sold unripe. I'll have to learn which ones to eat immediately and which ones take their time to ripe at home. Supposedly avocados take up to six days to ripe after purchase.

Biggest Challenges

 First big challenge: I'm flying to Dublin for a few days tomorrow. Being on the plane and in a foreign city, staying at a hostel, I'll have to see how I'll get my fruit. I'm guessing there are not many fruit stands on Dublin corners, but I may be wrong. Also I'm going with a friend. Maybe he'll support this, maybe him eating regular food makes me go crazy. Time will tell. Also, I suspect that the cravings will definitely come. Maybe not today, but I think after a week I'll kill for a rice and beans or some nice... anything. Hopefully my willpower is sufficient. I guess it's a nice training for my willpower if nothing else. It needs training.

Help me!

I hate calls to action in blogs. But this time I'm serious. If you see me eating anything but fruit, kick me in the nuts. I mean it. My name is Bleicke. So you'll know it's me. Also, if you have ANY information about Fruitarianism, tell me in the comments. There are like 3 websites on the entire internet about this topic. Until next time, Eat an apple.

The book arrived in the mail Saturday. I finished it today, Sunday, around 12 AM. So it's a pretty good read. Actually it reads more elegantly than most books I've recently read. I kept looking down to the page count and think to myself: fifty pages already? I went through the whole thing in about 24 hours, including sleep, two meals, watching one Google Tech Talk (Everything is Miscellaneous) and so forth. The writing is typical for Steve. There, I keep calling him Steve although I've never even been to the same continent. That's how close and intimate his advice is. As he writes in the book, you can feel like you've known someone for a long time when you really just know his creative self-expression. And this book is Steve's pinnacle so far. The writing is simple, elegant and even self-evident. Most of the time after I read a chapter I thought: yes, of course. It's so obvious. Phrasing something so complex as the whole concept of being in all it's facets in terms simple enough to make them seem obvious is a very difficult task, and Steve does it effortlessly. There you go, I just made a sentence with 33 words, one of them "effortlessly". Sentences like that are not in the book. The writing is just amazing. But what about the content? I admit I'm biased, because most self-help books just suck content-wise. They introduce their key concept at length in one chapter. Then they fill the remaining 300 pages with fluff, repeating over and over how great the idea is and how person X and person Y love it and it changed their lives for the better. Not here. Steve knows he doesn't need to convince us with his ideas. The ideas themselves convince us. The book is separated in two parts. The first part explains the abstracts and fundamentals of, well, being. The three core principals are Truth, Love and Power. Truth and Love form Oneness, Truth and Power form Authority, Love and Power form Courage, all three together form Intelligence. The second part of the book divides life in Habits, Career, Money (notice the difference between Career and Money), Health, Relationships and Spirituality. If you're a atheist-gone-cynic like me, don't worry. Spirituality has nothing to do with crappy New Age agenda, nor does Steve dictate what to believe or which religion to join. It's more of a step back: what is a religion, what does it for me, and how can I optimize my "use" of faith? While all of these ideas and concepts have been covered in some book or the other, Personal Development for Smart People is the first book I've read that puts them all together. Steve builds a framework of being, gives you easy methods to analyze your current situation and build a path towards your goals. It's almost a meta-book of self-help, since you find every useful concept ever mentioned in the genre condensed into one congruent and self-evident big picture. After finishing the book I feel like I've been given read access to the source code of my own class. If you're fed up with "pump yourself up" selp-help and are looking for a simple, universal and objective look at yourself and other people, get this book. It's also only 17 Euros, and Amazon charges no shipping for books. If you liked this review and live in Germany, please buy the book using my Amazon.de partner link: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development for Smart People Also note: the book is already available, no matter what the Amazon page says. I ordered it right there on Amazon.de and it's already been shipped.

Today is the 21st, my sugar-day. It means I break my no-sugar-diet and eat as much candy, chocolate and sweets as I like, drinking coke and cocoa and stuffing myself with the shit. Of course it makes me sick. And this time I realized, having recently been drunk, that the symptoms are exactly the same as with alcohol. It feels toxic having all that shit in my bloodstream. I'm physically sick. I can't walk straight, my stomach is still straining to cope with all the crap even 10 hours after I stopped eating. I feel like puking and the thought of sugar or the taste of sugar makes me sick. The only thing drunkenness gave me that sugar doesn't is double vision. It is blurred, though. I can't concentrate, I can't hold a straight thought.  The whole experience feels like a very bad idea. I feel intoxicated. Let me use that word one more time - toxic. As in poison. Because that's what sugar is. Poison. Like any good drug. It may be widely accepted, but there is no reason to eat any sugar at all. Tynan has a nice post on why to avoid sugar. So just quit eating sugar right now. Forever. I have monthly cheat days and they just make me realize how bad and poisonous the white stuff really is. I think about quitting my cheat days.

Hi gang, Last night I had a nightmare. It was about an alien invasion and pretty unrealistic, so I figured out it was a dream. I've been interested in Lucid Dreaming for a while and have had some, so the transition from realizing I'm in a dream and becoming lucid happens quite often. 

Nightmares have lots of dream signs

Nightmares are a great chance to become lucid, because they're very unrealistic. This gives you very good chances of getting the "dream signs" and becoming lucid. Most people have a typical nightmare scenario. These reoccurring elements make nice dream signs. For example I often dream about driving cars and losing control. I slide, crash or do something else. In reality I'm probably a pretty normal driver, I never crash and rarely slide. But in my dreams I lose control of almost any car I drive. This has become a nice dream sign.  Maybe your typical nightmare involves you running from a monster and getting stuck to the floor or not being able to move? Guess what. This is a great chance to grab the nightmare by the balls and turn it into a lucid dream.

How lucid dreams work

You become lucid and grab (some) control over the dream when you know it's a dream. But just like in reality, knowing is complicated. The pure intellectual information does not give you control. It's more like confidence. Our perception of reality depends on the underlying beliefs we have. If you're insecure, everyone will seem to pick on you. If you're poor, everyone else seems to have more money. This way, we form our reality ourselves. It's the same in dreams, except that it's much stronger. In the dream you not only make up the interpretation, you make up the whole dream. That means you can turn a nightmare into a nice lucid dream by believing you are in a dream.  How do we get the belief that we're dreaming? The same way we get any belief. We get exposed to it, think there might be something about it, get exposed more, look for proof and finally it's just what we know to be true. So it's all about repetition and practice. Like most things. I'm still not a very skilled lucid dreamer, but I'm getting better.  Identify your dream signs. If you have nightmares, you already know a few dream signs. This is a great chance to improve your lucid dreaming skills and have less nightmares. Dream on!

Yes, I know. There's a migration assistant that does everything for you. But I wanted a clean start. A Mac doesn't fill up with crap and die of suffocation like a Windows computer, but it's still getting slower with age. Also there was a bug in my QuickTime I couldn't get to. And some of the concepts of Mac OS X I wasn't really using look very interesting now that I've used a Mac for almost two years. I didn't get them back then, so it's really time to "Mac up" a bit. 

Why the BulimyBook?

Because it's sexy. There's currently no other piece of electronics as sexy as the MacBook Air. I nearly  cummed in my pants watching the keynote in february, but I didn't have the need for a new computer. I still don't have the need, but I had the chance: my sister just came back from the US and brought me one. They're very cheap over there.  Won't I miss [insert feature the Air doesn't have]? I don't know yet. I've only used it for a few days, and migrated a few hours ago. When I do, I'll write an update about the missing things.  Common concerns: 

• The CD drive: I have used the CD drive in my MacBook less than 10 times in almost two years. Really no need for one.
• Only 2 gigabytes of RAM. Are you kidding? 2 gigabytes is more than enough for anything but hardcore video editing (no, you're not one of those people who need it. You're wrong.)
• Only 2 usb ports. My MacBook has 2, and if I put my MP3 player in one the other one is blocked. I use a cheap 4 port usb hub. My only usb devices are a mouse and a backup drive. 
• Expensive: not so much. Compared to other small and light laptops it's a gift, of course, but even in absolute figures it wasn't expensive. $1700 is about 1075€. Also the student discount gives you a free iPod of choice (touch in this case). I gave this to my sister in exchange for her old iPod nano, so I either have one nano or I can sell it. That's about 100€ off I guess, so I'm at 975€ for the lightest laptop with the best looks with more power than any sub-notebook. For comparison: the absolutely cheapest MacBook costs 999€. The cheapest IBM/Lenovo sub-notebook costs around the same as my air and is significantly worse hardware-wise. And of course you have to deal with one of those stupid PC-operating systems.

Migration time

Step 1 - buy an external backup drive, 300GB on 2,5 inch for 80€ from Amazon The Air is about mobility and reducing clutter. So it's time to get rid of my old brick backup drive with external power and get a small one. The new 2,5 inch drives don't need the ridiculous 2-in-1 usb cables anymore. I got the Fujitsu Handydrive 300GB, mostly because it looks cool. I guess any other will do. A great thing about Mac OS X is that you can install it from an image mounted on any drive, not just the install DVD. This is quite useful when you don't have a CD drive. I made three partitions on the backup drive:

1. Boot: 10GB - for the Mac OS X install DVD image. Let's me boot and restore without a DVD anywhere
2. Backup: 100GB - for Time Machine, which automatically backs up the whole computer every hour
3. Space: Rest - just free disk space to keep movies and stuff

Have you ever been in an amateur fight? Or published any writing? I'm guessing in any "business" where you want to have an impact on someone, be it the opponent or the reader, there is a common skill needed.

You have to set them up

There are several tools to be used in kickboxing. Alone, every tool is worthless against a skilled opponent. If you jab someone's defence for two minutes, you're not going to do any damage. You're only gassing yourself out. The left hook is one of the most powerful punches, but only left-hooking isn't getting you anywhere, either. You have to set your opponent up for a knockout punch. A common technique in beginner kickboxing is to jab high with the left hand, then kick low with the right leg. The jab pulls your opponents defence high, leaving his hips open. You then exploit this gap you created and kick right in. This is a very simple combination, but it can be very powerful if used correctly.  You could combine more punches, but it's not very common to chain up more than three techniques into one combination. Two punches are enough to set anybody up when used correctly. Think about it: when you hit someone from behind, it doesn't matter how often he turned around. The only thing that matters is you're behind him. Of course hitting someone from behind is not allowed in most combat sports. But opening his block will have the same effect. The third attack will come unexpected. That makes it powerful.

Cross-over to writing

In this case, writing. I realized this when re-reading the best book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The author constantly sets you up to look one way, then hits you from another. It's brutal, and it's exactly why the book hits up emotions so hard. You're sympathizing with a character, two sentences later he does something horrible and you want to hate him. The main characters father, for example, is painted as an evil drunkard for most of the book, being hated upon by basically everyone else and causing his family great unhappiness. Then we witness one evening of his life, completely changing our view of him and making him the hero a father is supposed to be to his son. This doesn't change the fact that he's been a monster most of the protagonists life: it makes it even more powerful of a feeling, because now he's not just "that drunk evil guy", but someone we know could've done better. The phenomenon can be witnessed in basically any story that works. Let's take The Dark Knight, because many people know this movie. Also there are some very well set up moments. Oh, yes. This will ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it. So if you plan on seeing it, don't read this spoiler! Remember the beginning of The Dark Knight, where they rob the bank? Remember the second guy that gets shot? No? Neither do I. Just some guy, we didn't even know him, I think I remember him wearing a mask. I also think he was the one who opened the safe, but I'm not even sure of that. Now, remember the scene where the Joker has set up Two-Face and Batmans girl in two different places, each one strapped to a bomb? Remember how they talk over the radio, saying goodbye, knowing that Batman is NEVER coming for Two-Face, because he loves the girl? We've already accepted Two-Face will die, he has accepted it, he's making his peace with the world. But then - Batman rushes in the door. Two-Face is furious, and so are we. We've been tricked along with him. Instead of him dying a heroes death, he'll have to live and his girlfriend has to die. In both cases, one person dies. But in the case of the faceless robber we don't give a shit. In the case of Batmans girl, we scream for revenge. Why? Because we were set up. Our emotions had already accepted the death of a hero, and the saving of a "princess" (cause that's what she is). But then we get hit by a left plot-hook, and we're devastated.

Other uses

This is not only useful for fighting or writing fiction. It's a great tactic whenever you have to make an impression (literally or figuratively) on someone. Random uses that come to my mind right now:

• Job interview - feign geek, hook with traveller
• Date - set her up for the most exclusive thing she's ever been invited to (make her wear a ball gown), then take her to McDonald's
• PvP - fake sword/shield, then pull out your dual spears and throw him dead
• Arguing - make him prepare for a two-hour argument, then admit it's all your fault

This one is embarrassing. I'm not even sure it's their fault. Maybe I suck as a consumer. Ok, so today at work I decided to buy an X-Box 360, a 720p High-Def deamer (=video projector, I don't know if they call it beamer outside of Germany) to put the picture on the wall, some headphones for the sound and Call of Duty 4. I was excited all day and rushed over to the next store to get my stuff and play and be a happy consumer zombie sheep. I figured they would be happy to take my 800€, give me my stuff and that would be that. WRONG! The first store didn't have the new X-Box. They had some old models, with 1/3 of the hard drive for the same money. Oh, and they didn't have any beamers either. So I go to the next store. This is an electronics store. They HAVE to have that stuff. I get in and they indeed have X-BOX stuff. I see Call of Duty 4. What? That's 20€ more than on Amazon! Well, who cares. I'll have it today instead of tomorrow. Now get the X-BOX.  They don't have a reasonable X-BOX for sale. They have a huge WALL made of X-BOX cartons, but not the one I want. They have the 199€ one that says "I don't have a hard drive, most games won't work on me!" and the 369€ (!) one that says "I have a hard drive, but for 30€ more you can get a PS3". Now the only reason for a PS3 is Gran Turismo 5, and that'll be another 2 years I guess. But only 30€ cheaper? And I'm not even talking about a stripped down PS3 or anything. Full featured. I originally chose the X-BOX because it had the same games, but was cheaper. Now it's not cheaper. What the fuck. Of course there is - in theory - a reasonably priced X-BOX. The "Premium" version, priced right in the middle with 269€, 60GB of hard drive (half of the 369€ version). And some cables. But of course, they don't have that one stocked, as opposed to the >300 boxes of arcade/elite versions. So I'm really thinking about getting the PS3 for 399€. But then I see that there are NO good games for the PS3 that are on sale. There are of course great games, since most games are published for X-BOX and PS3, but the good ones are all sold out. So I can buy an X-BOX that won't play anything, or an X-BOX that's 100€ more expensive for being black, or buy a PS3 with no games out. Ok so there were a few games for the PS3, but my hate for the retailers has rubbed off on the poor thing. Instead of the black paint on the X-BOX, I could be getting two games! Or a better beamer! How dare they? If there is ONE rule in the world of mindless consumerism, it's this: "I give you my money, and you make me happy for a while." How dare they refuse me?