Month: June 2007

Categories
gadgets

iParty

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Last Updated on September 9, 2022 by stlplace

(Update June 30, 2007) I read today’s St. Louis Post Dispatch and found the guy in front of me bought the new iphone, and his picture appeared on the first page! He paid $200 for the No. 14 slot. Neither of us received the 30 tickets handed out to the top 30 people lined up. It’s interesting because the guy and the store manager discussed the scenario such as people who have the tickets may not pass credit check, or may want 8GB only (thus forgo the 4GB version). Now we are talking about persistence. I will put up the photo if I could 🙂

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Categories
gadgets

Who wants to be guinea pig ?

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Last Updated on June 19, 2009 by stlplace

Of Steve’s new phone, I mean, the phone without key pad, the highly hyped iPhone?

On my way to work, I already seeing people camping out side of the Cingular (sorry AT&T) store at Olive and Craig. Actually I checked last night (at 9PM) nobody was there yet. I saw on TV in New York people started to line up on Monday! Here is what I read at eBay:

“I am at the front of the line at the Oklahoma City Apple Store. I will overnight ship this new, unopened 4 gig iPhone tomorrow afternoon to the lucky bidder.”

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Categories
Fun

Yi Jianlian Goes to Milwaukee

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Last Updated on June 29, 2007 by stlplace

(Update June 29) It’s not surprising that Team Yi (Yi Jianlian, his agent and advisors) are not happy with being selected by Milwaukee, accoring to this Chinese news. They even threatened “not come to Milwaukee”. Duh? Please note in this business of NBA, even super star like Steve Nash does not get to choose the team, he was traded from Dallas to Phoenix couple years ago, unwillingly. My advice to Yi is “be professional” about this basketball thing.

(Original June 28) That’s a city 80 miles north of Chicago. I saw the short interview after NBA draft at ESPN, it appears Yi can speak some English. I did watch couple of his games in this April (CBA final, against Wang Zhizhi’s Ba’yi Rocket), Yi’s team Guangdong tiger lost to Wang Zhizhi and Co. Yi is a few years younger than Yao, more agile, and Yi is power forward (7 inches).

I bet most Chinese are not familar with Milwaukee. It’s a decent size city in Wisconsin, the diary land of USA (so consider it as Inner Mongolia or Hei Long Jiang of China). It has two products kind famous: Harley Davidson motor cycle and Miller beer (the No. 2 US brewer after Budweiser). So in a way it’s very similar to St. Louis, which has Budweiser and used to make McDonald Douglass aircraft.

harley davidson

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Categories
Fun

Fail to launch: Heelys withdraws secondary

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Last Updated on June 29, 2007 by stlplace

(Update June 29) Motley fool ran an article on this. I agree what they said.

(Original June 28) Yeah, they decided to withdraw the already-cut-in-half secondary offering, according to Business Wire.

This is the first time I saw a company withdraw a secondary offering, because of lack of interest (from buyers). I did see some companies withhold IPO due to market conditions.

Categories
Fun Life Stocks

Getting Married: US version

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Last Updated on June 28, 2007 by stlplace

In about a month, I am going to come back to China and get married. Since I have been in the US for almost 10 years, attended couple weddings, I have some ideas about the financial side of the wedding here.

Registry: when I first heard of it in 2000, I thought this is probably one of the best ideas about “giving gifts”. Here is how it works: the bride and groom made up a “wish list” of the things they want, give it to Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s or Amazon, also they notify their friends about this. Their friends will buy the stuff from the list. But on second thought, after I made to couple weddings, I feel Chinese way of giving “red envelop with money inside” is better. Because sometimes the couple really don’t know what they want, also they can not expect everyone pay $100 for gifts, so they end up with many $20 things which are not really useful. On the other hand, with the cash (small amount putting together), a couple can do the things they want.

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Categories
Fun

Deal at Shoebuy: 20% off

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Last Updated on June 27, 2007 by stlplace

Follow this link to get 20% off at shoebuy.com, I believe it does not have restrictions on the type of shoes (hint: Crocs) you can buy. This is not an affiliate link (a.k.a., I am not receiving any referral fee from this).

Categories
Fun

T-Shirt Refresh

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Last Updated on June 28, 2007 by stlplace

Got some new T-shirts lately. My current T-shirts are mostly a few years old, some can even date back to my college years at Rolla, that’s almost 8 or 9 years old! I decided to retire some of those that no longer fit.

I got my first new shirt shortly after I came back (in May), at Banana Republic. It was $9.99. It felt very comfortable. While I stop by BR after that, I intentionally hold it because I saw plenty of same shirts there and they will further discount. Today (a month later) I went there the same thing cost $5.99, so I bought two more. It’s made in Singapore, by the way.

Last few weeks I also bought some shirts at Aeropostale (ARO), for $5.99 a piece. This evening at Galleria I stepped into Jimmy’Z the first time, they have some nice shirts on sale, so I bought 2 again, at $9.99 per piece. Note Jimmy’Z is subsidiay of Aero, while Aero core customers are 11 to 18, Jimmy’Z focus on 18 to 25 years old (as you can read the Summary of Aero at Google Finance).

Aeropostale logo

Categories
Business Fun

More about Nike NKE

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Last Updated on June 27, 2007 by stlplace

I wrote about Nike (NKE) a while ago during NBA finals. I joked about Nike is the loser in this NBA finals because their super star James’ team lost. Obviously in the real world Nike is doing very well, especially internationally (Europe and Asia, specificialy China). Here is their quarterly report. This is not surpising consider my mom, who is not into fashions or sports, asked me “buy a pair of Nike shoes” for my 12 years old niece. Note when she talked about the Nike shoes, she was referring to the shoes in sneakers category. Just like when people talked about “google something”, they are referring to “search something on the web”.

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Categories
Stocks

Blackstone, Crocs and Starbucks

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Last Updated on June 27, 2007 by stlplace

People who bought the Blackstone (BX) at its IPO debut (around 35), will regret “chasing hot stocks” now. I don’t know how the Chinese State Investment Co. (who took 8% stake at around $3 b) felt about this. Oh well, they are in this for long haul.

Crocs stock (CROX) got a hit today. Barrons ran an article on weekend reminding people taking some profit now, I did it on Monday. But I’m still bullish on the company’s business, especially interntional front: hope people don’t just buy knockoffs?

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Categories
China

Dream come true: Hangzhou Bay Bridge

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Last Updated on June 26, 2007 by stlplace

The Hangzhou bay bridge, the bridge connects Ningbo (my hometown) and Shanghai, got completed (the structure). This will cut the travel distance (and time) from Ningbo to Shanghai dramatically. Here is a picture taken at Ci’xi, the bridge starting point at Ningbo side. This is the longest sea crossing bridge on the world as of now (36km, or 22.5 miles). The new bridge will not open until next year (according to BBC).

Hangzhou bay bridge
Picture curtesy of AP.