Song of the Day: Get Lucky advert loop

Daft Punk featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers

Hope Daft Punk's new album lives up to the hype, because it looks pretty amazing

French duo Daft Punk never really entered my frame of consciousness until I went off to college and discovered, with the help of some schoolmates, some of their earlier music and music videos. The past few years have seemed pretty quiet on the Daft Punk music and news front (I enjoyed Kanye's Stronger and the soundtrack to TRON). Then mysterious ads started appearing for what seemed to be a new album. Finally, a few days ago a longer ad, embedded below, was shown at the Coachella music festival for Random Access Memories. Three "Collaborator" episodes have also been released thus far (embedded below) containing interviews with the various collaborators on this new album. 

I just watched all three episodes and as intended, the episodes have caused me to become very curious and excited about this album. Just watch the Nile Rodgers episode and try not to be intrigued. This is probably the most excited I've been for a new album release since Radiohead's Hail To The Thief and The White Stripes' Elephant, both released a decade ago (omg I'm old). I'm sure I was also excited about a Kanye album along the way. 

I hope Daft Punk's new album turns out to be amazing, because everything points to it being so. 

Even Angry Birds don't like air pollution

Shenzhen Metro.

KFC's newest masterpiece - '2 peppers, 2 floors'

Hot off the heals of McDonalds' double sausage, double hamburger hamburger (which I did see an advertisement for in Chengdu) comes KFC's"双椒双层", a double-decker crispy chicken sandwich with two different types of Chinese jalapeño sauces. Considering I love spicy/jalapeños and I love chicken sandwiches, this could be my most perfect fast food menu item ever to come to fruition. Now I just have to wait for a day when I'm really depressed and don't care about doing what ever this sandwich is going to do to my body. 

Logo of the Day: Greedy Kitty

A small noodle house. Coastal City, Nanshan, Shenzhen.

This is not even remotely attractive

Ladies, if your arms actually look like this in real life, it means you had some extreme birth defect and are currently also severely malnourished.

Shopping Park Metro Station. Coco Park, Futian, Shenzhen.

New KFC menu item: chicken nugget curry

Get it while it lasts. Shopping Park Metro Station. Coco Park, Futian, Shenzhen.

A sneak peak at Pixar's new movie?

"Shoes"

Hongshan metro station. Longhua, Shenzhen.

Logo of the Day: Peace Animal Hospital

Luohu, Shenzhen

So I'm a Shenzhener?

Cute baby by the way. Advertisement in Shenzhen Metro. Grand Theater station, Luohu, Shenzhen.

Excluding the Japanese

No love lost.

I line up, I civilization

Grand Theater metro stop. Luohu, Shenzhen

Windows Phone is still nowhere to be seen in China

Back in September I wrote:

As a side note, Nokia says their largest market thus far for Windows Phone has been China. I saw a woman with one in Hong Kong today (just one), but I have yet to see with my own eyes any pedestrians on the mainland walking around with one. Where are all of these supposed Chinese Windows phones?

Just read this from Computer World about Nokia in China:  

In China, things are even worse. The Financial Times reports that Nokia made a deal with with China Telecom for the carrier to sell a customized version of Nokia's Windows Phone Lumia, so you would expect that to help sales boom. That didn't happen. The Times says that Nokia sold only 4.6 million phones in China for the fourth quarter, compared to 14.7 million in the fourth quarter a year previously. This massive drop in sales occured even though the Chinese market is going like gangbusters, and will be the world's largest for smartphones in 2012.

I will repeat my same statement from September - Where are all these Windows Phones they're supposedly selling? (single digit millions is a small number in a country of a billion people, but it's not an invisible number) I was shocked/fascinated to see a Lumia 920 next to me in the subway the other day. It was bright red and in the possession of a girl about a foot taller than me. Part of the fascination was because outside of electronics retailers I hadn't seen a Windows Phone in the wild for months. 

Guessing it's difficult to sell many Windows Phones when the below is a typical type of advertisement from China Telecom. That's 14 (extremely) cheap Android phones, one lone Nokia Windows Phone, and one I-look-like-an-iPhone-so-believe-me-that-I-work-just-like-an-iPhone phone.

Advertisement at a bus stop in the high-tech district of Nanshan, Shenzhen. 

So why didn't I end up buying a Lumia 920 as I was originally thinking about doing in my September post? The sad fact is the phone is a tank of a phone. I had heard this stated in reviews but when I finally got a chance to see and hold one in person... man, it's an absolute tank, both in size and weight. 

Baby got back. 

Why can't Android and WP phone makers produce high end phones that aren't bricks or phablets. There must be people out there like me who aren't built like the Hulk and don't carry around a purse and want to easily use their phones one handed while walking around. That's the main reason I stuck with the iPhone. 

HTC has a "solution"...

A plumage full of phones

China Telecom office. Futian, Shenzhen.

What exactly about this cereal screams "sports" and "fun"?

Óle supermarket. Holiday Plaza, Window of the World, Shenzhen.