Topic of the day: Progressive Insurance lives up to its name

Kudo to Progressive for being brave enough to go against conservatism in the States by making a commercial that feature a gay couple (not explicitly stated but a lot of people think so):


It's sad that so many businesses either pretend gay people do not exist or bow down to the extremely conservative/religious groups. I would sing more praises for them if the marketing guy at Progressive admit that's a gay couple (instead, he said they are modelled after Joey and Chandler from Friends but Friends expert like me know they are not) Besides, I really find that Progressive ad lady very annoying (my buddy agreed with me too)

Topic of the day: It's hard not to like SF

The title sounds like an old jazz standard but it's not (That would be "I left my heart in San Francisco") For one thing, you could always count on hearing live music somewhere. I went to Fishermen's Wharf earlier this week. Saw a guy playing classic tunes on violin and another guy playing blues guitar and harmonica. It was good entertainment. And during one of my regular bookstore trip, a gentleman saw me skimming through Michael Lewis' latest book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" (about the current recession and its cause: sub-prime mortgage) and started chatting with me. He was a teacher and had met Lewis in person at his school and gave high rave about this book.

The only disappointment in SF this week was actually not its fault: my buddy, a visitor, wanted to buy a Sony product so Sony Store immediately came to our mind. The Metreon (a complex with shops and movie theater) had a big Sony presence. It was a "flagship"-type of store that showcase Sony's great products (like TVs, camcorders and most prominently, video games) Too bad they were all gone! What a pity! There was a time that people flock to Sony Store. That's when people ridicule that Apple was trying to open its own retail stores!