how real is it?

"REAL ESTATE GOLD RUSH"

that's the cover story of FORTUNE's may 30th issue.

the US real estate market - just picked this up from the mailbox and didn't even have time to flip through the pages but these four little words on the magazine's cover are catching all my attention already. what's so eye-catching? we've got six very nice pictures on its cover, showing smiling faces of young men and women, full of confidence with one of them seemingly yelling "i'm king of the world!" with his arms reaching high in the air!

can't keep thinking about this. the investment guru said, "when an investment turns up as THE best buy in the media, it's time to sell and go away." effectiveness of this theory carries a very high positive correlation with the media's own (or magazine/press) industry standing. on this aspect, fortune commands a respected position in the financial/business world, no objection. when it talks about stories on people getting rich from real-estate (my guess up till this point as i've not gone through the pages yet but you can probably tell from their smiley faces), i'll bet it's not far from a major market top.

the world just can't be that perfect.

Toys for the big boys

Very soon, pocket PCs will be capable of doing your laundry. Colleagues and friends around are all reaching for the latest mobile phone, or not actually a mobile phone but a technical device capable of sending emails, taking pictures, reaching friends online in the other side of the globe, downloading songs, handling spreadsheets, doing a small presentation and well, making phone calls. Lovely idea, in fact and it’s so nice to imagine having one of such in my jacket’s pocket, putting every little bit of information inside and you are just walking around with a PC in your pocket. Have been thinking of getting one for long but the next second, I’m thinking how many times I’ll be using it during a typical workday, not to mention weekends. With this span of computer screens in front of me right now and a fat one at home, it will be better to keep a little distance from anything coded by 1s and 0s, for a couple of hours.

These fancy machines are selling for 5000 dollars and you’ll have to line up for the batch arriving next month (of course, you pay up-front). Hm….. tricky, maybe, it’s another sign of getting outdated. My notebook only costs me 6700 dollars and it feels like a real-computer to me and it has a bigger screen!!!!! Yes, it can’t do my laundry, you may say and I don’t expect it anytime soon. The salesman didn’t tell me it’s waterproof.