Of Pink Shirts and the Digital Players Race

Christmas Day is just a few days away and each day it seems getting up early for work is getting difficult. The trains seem a little bit more crowded than usual and traffic seem to get congested within and just outside the malls. Even the lines and queues leading up to the cashier counter keep getting longer and longer. Two things I did notice, Metro Manila seems to be flooded these past few weeks by pink shirts and digital players. In the mall, in the train, in food court, along the road it would be impossible not to encounter a man or a woman wearing the colour sons and daughters of red and white. They even have pink Christmas Caps called Pink Panthers. Red and Green seem to have been displaced as the colour of this Holiday Season. Another ubiquitous object today seems to be the digital audio player - whether it is the ipod or any player that is used to listen to mp3, wma and even ogg. The Digital Player seems to be gift of the season. And there seems to be a race to get the players with the most advance features. I too have a digital music player. It is a small item from Samsung. The player fits my needs - be able to record, listen to a number of music (or audio files) and FM radio stations - and is easy to carry, it is around the size of my thumb. Quite practical when riding the shuttle service to Makati, especially when you do not want to hear the daily tirade of AM Radio commentators. It is also handy when one is waiting for someone inside a coffee shop. Or to pacify a child who is getting impatient. I had already justified my purchase of the digital player and was quite happy. Until, only briefly though, I saw a more advance model - the techno lust had set in. The new ones even had viewers for video, pictures and e-books. Although in the end, I reasoned I still bought what fit my needs and I did not see the wisdom in getting a player with a screen smaller than the standard Peso bill. No need really. I think its practical to be a monogamist when it comes to gadgets. Only a few days to go before Christmas... hopefully less pink shirts. An Additional Post Jackson's King Kong