The “death grip” is real to the extent that when I held the phone in a certain way, I did see the bars drop on the meter – but not down to zero.  I went down from 3 bars to 2.  And with a case on the phone, the problem goes away.

The phone feels noticeably heavier than the 3Gs even though the stated difference is just 2 grams.

The display is fabulous, the camera is now actually worthwhile (at least as far as phone cameras go), video quality is decent, the new processor is really fast.

How come I can’t turn on the “flash” and leave it on so that, for example, I could use it as a flashlight?  Or is there an app for that?

In other words, so far I’m quite happy with it.

On the other hand, iTunes is fucking with me yet again.  After setting up the phone and going back to my PC, iTunes tells me that since the account was accessed from a new device, I have to reconfirm my billing info.  I enter all of the info, double check everything, click “done” and within a fraction of a second it tells me the credit card was declined.  Click a second time, same thing.  Third time and fourth time it tells me there was a network time out.  Fifth time, start all over again.   So I can’t download any updates to anything I’ve already got, let alone buy anything new until this is sorted.   I am relatively certain that this is an iTunes error because the credit card is in my hand, the account is current and paid up, I’m double-checking my typing each time.  Argh.

First I go to 3HK’s web site to “register my interest” for a 32 gig black iPhone 4.  A week later they send me an SMS confirming this and telling me that I have registered my interest for an 8 gig black iPhone 3Gs.  I send an email to “customer care” seeking to correct this and of course it never receives a response.

So I call up the 3 corporate sales guy I dealt with back in my Warner days and tell him I’m at a new job and can I still get an iPhone through him and he says “of course.”  Yesterday, the day the iPhone 4 was released in HK, he sends me an email to tell me that the warehouse informed him there are no available 32 gig phones and would I settle for a 16 gig.  Not so much.

Then I see reports on Twitter that many people I know have collected theirs.  I call the guy back and tell him I see all my friends getting one and that I’m a “3supreme” customer and that I should be able to get one right away as well.

At 6:30 PM, he calls me back to tell me he’s managed to get one for me.  However at this point, I’m at PASM over in San Po Kong getting ready for our latest photo shoot and party and don’t have time to go to his office in Quarry Bay.  We arrange to meet on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I make the trip from Sai Kung to Quarry Bay, pick up the phone, grab some lunch, come home.  Plug in the phone and get an “activation” failed message.  I try rebooting the phone.  Nope.  I try ensuring that my other phone is switched off.  Nope.  I restart iTunes several times, unconnect and reconnect the phone, nope.   The phone says “No service” and “Waiting for activation, this might take awhile.”

So I call “3Hotline” and the first few times I try, I just get a busy signal.  I try again half an hour later and get through to someone after 10 minutes of pre-recorded sales pitches.   I tell him what’s up, he puts me on hold, comes back and says he’ll try to figure it out and call me back.

I don’t think this is going to happen today.  It does make a lovely shiny black brick in the mean time.

Now I’m off to see Inception.  Non-IMAX because I didn’t feel like waiting weeks to see it or sitting in the front row of an IMAX theater.  Hope it’s good.

And if 3 is going to get back to me today, I would bet good money they’ll call me in the middle of the movie.

UPDATE:  Came out of the movie, iPhone 3Gs said no service, switched on the iPhone 4 and it came up with the message “activation successful.”  As for the movie, liked it, didn’t love it, maybe more on that later.

Busy at work, busy at home, here’s a variety of updates though ….

Sunday I was shopping in Mong Kok and so of course stopped into some sneaker shops.  Walked past this shop called “Dahood” and saw these in the window:

And I gotta tell you, they look even better in “real life.”  And I thought, “What better way to show my love and admiration for Jimi Hendrix than by wearing him on my feet?  Buying Converse is easy because they run large so I can pick up a size 11, a size most shops here stock, and they’ll fit fine.

But later on, I saw a pair of Nikes that I loved, too.  Nike, I need a size 12.  I went into every shop along Fa Yuen Gai, probably 20 in all, and all of them stocked this shoe but none of them had a 12.  One shop shocked me by having a 13 in stock!

So, determined, Monday night I stopped off at New Town Plaza in Shatin on the way home.  5th floor is loaded with sneaker and sporting goods shops and not one of them had my size in this either.  At least they had more helpful sales clerks – one who told me that the style was a month old so they couldn’t order it any more;another that told me that not only do most shops not stock size 12, those that do just get one pair at that size and once those are sold, that’s it.

I suppose I could have continued my quest for several more nights – Times Square?  Hang Hau?  Ah, frig it, internet.  Found a shop that had it and that also had a web site smart enough to read my IP address and toss up a large banner reading, “Yes, we ship to HONG KONG!” before I even thought to check.  Ordered them last night, got the shipping notice this morning with the UPS tracking number, another quest resolved.

Okay, at the moment, retail therapy is one of the sole (no pun intended!) pleasures in my life and no, I don’t feel like going into detail about it.  Just take it as played.

Speaking of retail therapy, my iPhone 4 order is settled and I’ll be picking it up on Friday night, after I leave the office and before I head to the next PASM Workshop party.  We’ve got a super hot model from China which I guess is why this party is titled, “The Heat Is On.”  If you want to check out the invite on Facebook (and maybe even come over to join the fun – HK$100 all you can drink!), then check the details here.

Yes, I don’t give a poop about “antennagate.”  I’ll shove a case on it and it will work fine.  Incidentally, today I had my first experience with iOS 4′s multi-tasking.  I’d had Skype fired up for some chats with my boss, who is currently out of town.  And even though I closed the app and was doing something else, I kept getting notifications for the next several hours as people noticed I was online and wanted to chat.  (One reason I hate chat software – I find it quite obtrusive at times and so only run it when I need to.)  At any rate, yes, it does work as promised.

Last for now, just want to mention a fabulous lunch I had today in Kennedy Town.  I’d passed this place last week and made fun of their sign:

I’ve never been to Twon before so can’t say if this is truly the best steak there or not.  Anyway, the place is called Al Basrah although the sign in front actually said Al Basrah Cow Pampas.  The menu cheerfully informs you:

I am BAHADUR K.C. SHIVA Founder of the trendy SOHO diniing area in Hong Kongin 1995 successfully open first restaurant Nepal Cuisine & La Pampa Argentinean Steak House, La comida coccina spanol, Bar Club, 1911 Kathmandu!!  Now I have chosen an upcoming new area in western district to open the first Fine Dining Restaurant and Wine Bar serving both middle eastern cuisine and the best Argentinean beef cuts from the FALKLANDS and SUCCULENT LAMB SHANKS FROM PATAGONIAFood of high quality with healthy aromatic spices to suite discerning Diners.

Whether or not this guy really kicked off the Soho dining scene I can’t say but I’m not entirely sure it’s something I’d boast about.  But I shouldn’t make fun because Mr. Shiva was there in the restaurant at lunch time and he turned out to be a very nice guy indeed.

Anyway, I wasn’t too impressed with the look of their $48 quick lunch buffet so I decided to order off the regular menu.  From a section called “The President’s Favorite,” I chose Biryani Laham which the menus says is Iraqi style lamb shank with rice.  And HOLY FUCK WAS IT EVER GOOD!!!!!  The rice was great, the lamb was so tender I didn’t need the knife provided and I wanted to ask for a straw to suck out the marrow from the shank, not sure why I didn’t, what I could get of it was enough to remind me why Anthony Bourdain often tags bone marrow as his favorite food.

The iPhone photo above doesn’t begin to do it justice.  The only down side was that I was only able to finish about half the dish.  I had them wrap up the rest for me to take home, shoved it in the fridge at the office, but by the end of the day I was feeling so frustrated by the day’s events that I left it behind in the office (called a friend who was still there and told him to take it home for dinner).

Anyway, should you find yourself in Kennedy Town or in the mood for something from the middle east, definitely give this place a try.

And, uh, oh crap, 12:30, time for bed!

Finally figured out how to have a halfway decent lunch at Cyberport.  Leave.

Yep, a friend and I jumped on the number 58 minibus, HK$5 and 10 minutes later we were in Kennedy Town, walking around and found a place called The Clay Oven, Indian place with a $45 set lunch that was not bad at all.  I’ll be going back to K-Town often to try some of the other places there.

A couple of doors down was this place named Al Basrah Cow Pampa.  As in “Middle Eastern Cuisine – Argentinean Grill Steak.”  I suppose that’s as fusion as one can get.  A sign there proclaims that they have the best steaks in “twon.”  I got a photo but I’m unable to sync my iPhone at the moment.

Which is really weird.  iPad syncs fine.  iPod syncs fine.  Then I plug in the iPhone – nothing, nada, zilch, the phone doesn’t register that it’s plugged in or charging, let alone start to sync.   So one might think that the problem is the sync cable or the dock connector on the phone, except if I take that exact same cable and plug it into a charger, the phone starts to charge right away.  (I’ve tried two different USB hubs; have not tried the USB ports directly on the computer because it’s a pain to get back there and anyway, as I said, everything else is syncing normally.)  Anyone have any thoughts?

Around 5:35 PM, the Black Rain signal went up with just 10 minutes advance notice.  Yeah, one is supposed to stay indoors when this happens, but I took this as a cue to get out of the office and try to maybe beat some traffic home.  As if.  Actually, things were quite okay on the HK side, but once I came out of the Western Tunnel, the rain was coming down as heavily as I’ve ever seen it.  And this being Hong Kong, people were continuing to drive as poorly as ever – lights not turned on, not signaling lane changes, speeding, etc.

So I get to the place near Shatin where Route 8 merges into Route 9 – 4 lanes going down into 1 and even with the rain, a bunch of brainiacs decide to create a 5th lane to cut through traffic more, further backing things up – and then at the bottom of the hill a huge flood.   Then a mile or two down the road, where I get off the highway, there must have been an accident, traffic on the cross street wasn’t moving and had all but completely blocked the intersection.  I sat there waiting for the light to change while another group of brainiacs figured it was a good time to run through the red light and try to squeeze through the small opening in that intersection – I kid you not.  Sai Sha Road had a spot that was flooded completely across.  And then at the traffic circle in Sai Kung town, a taxi driver who didn’t seem to care that there were other cars (including me) already in that circle, he was a TAXI! and he demanded his right of way.  Ah well, just another day on Hong Kong’s roads.

Anyway, before I head to sleep, let me just alert you that Barnes & Nobles is having a 50% off sale on ALL Criterion DVDs – including boxed sets and blu-rays.  Criterion is the “gold standard” for this stuff – great films, lots of time and care spent on the digital transfers, amazing bonus features.  I’d like to own everything they put out but it’s beyond my budget.  So this sale gave me a chance to get caught up on some of the stuff on my want list.  I counted about 30 things I wanted and then cut the list down to these:

• 3 Films by Louis Malle – boxed set featuring Murmur of the Heart, Lacombe Lucien and Au Revoir Les Enfants – each one a classic
• Burden of Dreams – Les Blank’s documentary shot while Werner Herzog shot the astonishing Fitzcarraldo
• Complete Monterey Pop Festival – one of my favorite festival films, finally getting the blu-ray
• Fanny and Alexander boxed set – featuring the over-5-hour version of Bergman’s final film
• Eric Rohmer’s 6 Moral Tales – My Night at Maud’s, Claire’s Knee, Chloe in the Afternoon and more, more goodness in one box than I can stand!
• Night on Earth – hard to realize I didn’t already have this splendid Jim Jarmusch compendium
• Yi Yi – I love this Taiwanese family drama, again stunned that I didn’t already have it

So 50% off each of the above and I picked the “slow boat to China” shipping option which was just US$20 – after saving around $200 on the above stuff.  The sale runs for another 10 days so you have plenty of time to check it out and I have time to go back and order a few more – Burmese Harp, Berlin Alexanderplatz and the Olivier’s Shakespeare boxed set are looking very tempting.

Aw crap.  I didn’t sleep well last night but somehow made it through an entire day in the office and the drive home in pouring rain, had dinner, was asleep by 10 PM … and then wide awake at 1:30 AM.  Luckily tomorrow is Saturday.

One thing being up meant is that I could follow the live blogging of the Apple iPhone 4 press conference.  When you put things in perspective, the fact that issues with an antenna on a phone merits this sort of coverage is somewhat mind-blowing, and not necessarily in a good way.

If you missed it, Jobs basically said every phone has this, not just ours, but we love you so we’ll give you a free case or you can return the phone (for us to refurbish and resell).  Oh, and that the iPhone will be available in Hong Kong on July 3oth.  Gotta call my 3 corporate sales guy on Monday.

Speaking of putting things in perspective, check this video of an appearance by Louis C.K. on Conan awhile back.  ”Everything is amazing and nobody is happy!”  ”You’re flying! It’s amazing.  Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, ‘OHMYGOD!! WOW!!’  You’re flying – you’re sitting in a chair.  In the sky!”

If you follow this sort of thing, you already know about the uproar surrounding the iPhone 4.  The antenna is built into an exterior band of metal that wraps around the phone and if you touch that metal in a certain way while on a call, your signal strength drops and the call may be lost.

Some people are saying that this engineering error may result in a product recall that could cost Apple more than US$1 billion.  Others are saying that Apple should give the $29 “bumper case” away for free.

Meanwhile, they’ve sold about 3 million of these things and it should be available in HK (not counting the grey market) by the end of the month.  And yes, I’m still planning on getting one.

First, because I think I only use the iPhone as a phone for about 5% of the time that I use it.   And second, 90% of the world goes out and buys a case for their phones and the problem goes away when the phone is in a case.

But either way, it did cause me to wonder:  how come none of the reviews caught this problem?  Mossberg, Pogue, the blogs, none of them spotted this and they all gave the iPhone 4 glowing reviews, some calling it the best smartphone you could buy.  How did they miss this?  And since they missed it, how much can we trust them in the future?

TechCrunch seems to be the only one (at least among the numerous feeds I subscribe to) that has picked up on this.  Devin Coldewey asks that question today.  He blames it on the competition to be the first online with a review.

Unfortunately, the internet is a race. It’s better for your numbers to be first than to be complete, well-written, or even correct. The difference of a few minutes means a huge amount, and the pressure on a reviewer when given, say, the iPhone 4, is enormous.

From there he indulges in some excuses and some logrolling.

But to address the objection more directly: no, even a mighty reviewer like myself doesn’t have time to make a spouse of every gadget that comes my way. But I can do right by the ones that deserve it, and not make judgments where judgment should be deferred.

I think there’s more to it because the internet is prone to panic and headlines like “Apple iPhone 4 Death Grip!!!!” lead to page views.  For decades the media has packaged inflammatory bad news because they know it sells newspapers and gets TV ratings; why should we think the internet wouldn’t be similar.

My response is calm down, put things in perspective, the problem with the iPhone 4 is real but it’s minor in my opinion.

Yes, some of you will say, I don’t have to upgrade to the iPhone 4.   I can stick with my 3Gs awhile longer.  Or I can dump the iPhone and go Android.   Well, I like the new features.  I like the faster processor, the higher resolution screen, the marginally better camera.  So as long as the upgrade price is reasonable, I’m going to go for it.  If everyone else panics and wants to scream “the sky is falling,” that just means the line I’ll have to wait on will be that much shorter.

Somehow I survived the week.  No, I’m not going to bore you with the details.  Instead, here’s a round-up of stuff that caught my eye over the past several days.

First, from Modern Toss, via Boing Boing, The Periodic Table of Swearing:

Next, from Failblog, this wonderful excerpt from a history book.

Yes, it does say, “walking out from his mother’s Patriotic and Revolutionary Vagina.”  No, source isn’t noted, so no idea where this is from or if it’s for real.

How to opt out of Apple’s iAD data collection.  If you’re using a mobile Apple device, you probably want to do this.  It only works on devices running iOS 4.

How Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix grossed $938 million worldwide but Hollywood accounting practices show the film $167 million in the red.

From the SCMP, the China Institute of of City Competitiveness, a non-profit think tank based in Hong Kong that assesses various conditions in cities in the region puts Macau ahead of Hong Kong in government integrity – based on the fact that Hong Kong has “rowdy” protests.  Taiwan ranks ahead of Hong Kong in terms of “competitiveness” (I’m sure it reads better in Chinese).  And Hong Kong is behind both Shanghai and Shenzhen in terms of innovation.  They also say that Hong Kong is not one of the “top ten harmonious cities” to live in – Jinghua, in Zhejiang province, is number 1.  Yet I don’t think I’ll be moving there any time soon.

Speaking of competititititivity,Joyce Lau on her blog posts one of her recent IHT articles discussing how Hong Kong has become a major hub for art auctions yet is unable to produce any world class art locally.    I could probably write an extremely long piece myself on why I think this is but I’ll save that for another time.

Back to Boing Boing, where they have this beautiful photo from JPL of a “Magic Dragon” constellation.  You can see it pretty clearly in the infra-red version of the photo below.  I think I know what my next tattoo is going to be.

Planning a trip to Miami any time soon?  Then you’ll want to read Disco Rick’s Top Ten Strippers Under 40.

Prince declares the Internet is over.  He’s shutting down his web sites and distributing his new CD as a free give away with a British newspaper.  Yes, you can find it online via the usual suspects.

Got an Octopus card?  Ever stop to wonder what they do with all that data they’ve collected about your spending habits?  According to the SCMP, if you’re in the Octopus reward “scheme,” you can opt out of letting them share your data with their “partners.”  This is wrong.  The default should be opt out, not opt in.

A Hong Kong lawyer says it’s suspicious that all the people who bought flats at 39 Conduit Road and then backed out, helping Henderson to inflate the cost of luxury housing in Hong Kong, as if it’s not already high enough, all used the same law firm and all presented documents that used the same words and phrases.  Oh really, Sherlock?  Ya think?  Meanwhile the government has asked Henderson to explain why they refunded deposits after the “sales” of these 20 flats fell through.  Henderscum.

An online gallery of almost all the covers from the great magazine Omni.

Photos and info for the 5 top places for beef brisket noodles in Hong Kong, according to CNNGo.

Last for now, the American Society of Cinematographers polled their members on the best cinematography in film in the past 10 years.  The top 5:

1. Amelie
2. Children of Men
3. Saving Private Ryan
4. There Will Be Blood
5. No Country For Old Men

So how was your week?

Thanks for all the comments on my previous post and thanks to everyone who re-tweeted it on Twitter.  After I’d written that, I paused, afraid that it might come off a bit too whiney.  In the end I went with it because I thought it was honest.  And then, as so often happens, after hitting “publish” I saw about 20 things I’d change.  But I’ll leave it as is and probably return to this topic soon.

By the way, not that I want to be accused of begging for page loads, but it does help me out if you’re on Facebook and you click the “like” icon on some posts every now and then.  It goes into your news stream on Facebook and maybe some of your friends will check it out.

Right now I’m listening to Street Songs of Love.  Alejandro Escovedo’s new album came out today and I didn’t even wait for some pirate download; I grabbed it off iTunes as soon as I got home from work.  Escovedo in my eyes is one of the great American songwriters.

This is the second time he’s been produced by Tony Visconti.  Visconti, in case you don’t know, has also produced albums by Bowie, T. Rex, Iggy Pop, Thin Lizzy, Manic Street Preachers, among others, and Visconti’s work with Escovedo is easily the equal of those.  I know it sounds like hyperbole but that’s how strongly I feel about their last album, Real Animal, and how good this one sounds so far.  There are guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen (he and Escovedo have the same manager) and Ian Hunter.  This could possibly be all I will be playing for the next several days at least.

I’ve got more time for listening to music lately but actually it’s not by choice.  Our office is an open plan – everyone gets a cubicle (except the CEO, of course) and it’s freaking noisy at times.  I’ve literally got no choice except to clamp a headset on over my ears and crank up the music so I can think.  Actually I’ve been going for a lot of jazz lately, thinking that the lack of lyrics and vocals would be less of a distraction.  But when the album is as freaking good as the Dave Holland Octet’s new Pathways, the music just grabs me and I’ve got no choice but to stop typing and listen for a bit, absolutely fierce solos going down there.  Brad Mehldau’s recent Highway Rider has a similar effect on me but for a different reason, the lyricism of his piano.

Last but not least, with all the hoopla in the media surrounding the release of the iPhone 4, I think at least some of you will enjoy this comic, taken from here.

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Sad but true, eh?

I made the upgrade to WordPress 3.0 last night.  All smooth and painless; slowly taking the time to find out what’s new and if any of it matters to me.  So far, not so much.

Whereas I am truly thrilled with the iOS4 update for the iPhone.  Haven’t really tried to do anything with the quick task switching yet, other than seeing how it works.  Folders for apps means I was able to get from 10 screens down to 4.  And for me, threaded emails is a huge improvement.  I’m not using the unified inbox but nice to know it’s there.

The iPhone 4 should be available in Mong Kok by now.  Reports are that the 32 gig version is selling for around HK$10k, which means US$1300.  I think at that price, I can wait a month or two for the HK release.  Just skimming headlines today,  if I have this right, Apple sold 1 million iPhone handsets on Thursday.  I really should have bought Apple stock a couple of years ago.  Well, if I’m gonna go that route, I probably should have picked up some Microsoft 20 years back and asked my parents to get me some GE or IBM back when I was still in a stroller.

Speaking of Apple and being old, I’m bemused by the reports that since the antenna is now on the outside, people are having issues with reception if they are touching the metal band around the phone.  Duh.  Anyone my age remembers TVs with rabbit ears and standing there adjusting them and how the picture always changed depending on if you touched the antenna or not.  So my first thought weeks ago, when Apple confirmed this antenna set-up, was that this would probably happen.   Steve Jobs is around my age, he should have realized this too.  ”Just hold the phone differently,” he says, “or buy a case.”

My car’s in the repair shop today, which meant public transportation between Sai Kung and Pokfulam.  Glad I don’t have to do this every day.  At 6:15 tonight, I sat at my desk wondering if I could find some alternate, all-bus way of getting home.  The problem is, the bus companies’ web sites all suck.  I mean, really suck.  Enter a district, enter the town, enter the building in the town?  Forget entering Cyberport and Sai Kung, the resulting screen told me there was no bus between the two (I already know that) and then presented a dizzying array of connections and options that made little sense.  I tried breaking it down and eventually kinda sorta found that there are some buses between Central and Shatin but by then I just wanted to get out of the office.

So down into the bus interchange at Cyberport.  I don’t know what the temperature was today, but combined with the high humidity, standing there waiting 15 minutes for the 30X bus to Exchange Square felt like an hour.  That may have been the reason that by the time I got on the bus, my stomach felt as if it was going south while I was traveling north.  And that meant this was one of the few times I was actually grateful for Hong Kong’s plethora of shopping malls.  I got off the bus at the IFC, where I knew there were plenty of toilets – clean ones, with toilet paper.  I’ll spare you further details.  Almost two hours to get home, not counting that pit stop.  Bus from Cyberport to Central.  Two trains.  Mini-bus from Hang Hau to Sai Kung town.  Taxi from Sai Kung town to my village.  It made me glad that I don’t have to travel this route every day.  My driving commute is expensive but rather than 2 hours each way it’s just 50 minutes – more than 10 hours per week saved, and that makes it worthwhile for me.

I suppose you’ve seen that Lord Donald “Boom Boom” Tsang’s “reform” package has passed.  Is anyone surprised?  Lord Bow Tie, surrounded by police and security guards, announced, “the effort you have made has helped create a more harmonious city.”  I’m not sure how having 400 more hand-picked goons voting for Chief Executive or extending the functional constituency nonsense does that.  And any time Hong Kong’s increasingly sadder Democratic Party is in agreement with the, ahem, Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, is surely cause for concern.  The only political party in Hong Kong that makes any sense to me is the League of Social Democrats, aka the LSD Party – I’ll spare you the obvious jokes.

Anyway, not much planned for the weekend, at least as of now.

Not much time so not much commentary ….

I liked Life as a Bon Vivant’s review of this congee place in Jordan.

A very cool wristwatch, looks like a cassette tape (daddy, what’s a cassette tape?) and the little reels actually spin.

Americans spent $168 million on virtual mobile goods last year.   That’s a lot of nothing!

Taste test of Japanese curry mixes.

Round-up of the “big” reviews of the iPhone 4 so far – Pogue, Mossberg, etc.   In a nutshell, they all pretty much love the phone and hate AT&T.

Kubrick vs. Scorsese – Wonderful montage of the two filmmakers I feel most connected to.  (Kubrick’s from the Bronx and I worked for him for a short period.  Scorsese & I went to the same school several years apart, had the same teachers, each got our first gig at CBS sports – never met him although when I lived in Manhattan, for some reason location scouts came to look at my apartment as a possible location for King of Comedy.)

Rolling Stone mag puts its controversial profile of General McChrystal online, something they rarely do.  But in this case it was being excerpted in so many other places, I guess they had no choice.

The iPad has sold 3 million units in 80 days, putting it on track to become the fastest selling mobile device ever.  And with so many territories still to roll out, it should maintain or even quicken its pace.

Last but not least, via CNNGo, this piece at Lonelee Planet highlights Japanese ads featuring beautiful girls in bikinis holding up mugs of beer.  I know at least one of my steady readers is gonna enjoy this one.