Its good for you!

i checked. the mag i was reading all the time was hifi news. a far cry from the "stereo something" title that i initially thought.>_<  anyway, i realised one common occurence in all these UK hifi mags. they seem to give fantastic ratings to their own homegrown products.

A LOT.

Sure, there is the occasional mention of Chinese brands such as Shanling, Consonance and stuff, but its more like to create an appearance of impartiality amidst the sea of British products. I see the same thing in those Japanese car audio mags. The japanese speakers and amplifiers always seem to get fantastic reviews ALL THE TIME.
now i can't really read japanese(know only a bit of it) but i could tell that you don't give 5star ratings to duds. and it seems none of the duds are Japanese in nature. ditto for the UK mags as well.

What i find strange is that some of my friends really lap it up. they believe what they read wholeheartedly. Its like "woah, this person knows stuff, if he says so, then it must be true". it seems strange to me that they don't seem to believe that there is always some sort of vested interest, especially in any media that needs advertisers. Actually, i think this sort of thing happens everywhere. Everybody's telling you something's good for a reason(except your best friend.lol).

i remembered about 2 years ago i was looking at car amplifiers. every time i asked about the availability about the one i was interested in, the sales guy will almost immediately start to extoll the merits of this other model. it seems that suddenly that one has become the one to get. well, long story short, i guessed i got suckered into the deal. >_<
later on, when i became a bit more savvy about the subject, it dawned onto me(yeah, i know i S-L-O-W) that that model is 'good' cos the dude has got only 1 left and he needs to clear it. what he doesnt carry=>not good. simple as that. i guess thats still the way it works.

its very easy to see this for yourself. Just wait for any IT show or something to come along. and then take a walk down all those laptop counters. suddenly you'll see Acer>Toshiba>Fujitsu>HP>Acer>NEC and so on. everyone's suddenly better than everyone else.lol. you should hear some of the sales pitch some of the part time promoters use. i know, cos at one point, i was doing that too. though i would like to think i live on the moral highground. i never really succinctly imply competitors' products are 'bad'. sometimes, i even reccomend people to buy from my competitors. lol. i guess that wouldnt seat too well with my employers,if they knew.(which they don't ^^)

anyway, no changes for me for the past week. been spending most of my sane hours trying to study(keyword:trying). the times when i am not trying at all, i am reading above-mentioned mags or spider solitaire! damn, it is addictive!