Monday Personal Notes

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• French vitriol... Last week I talked to a few American businessmen who were very ANGRY with French companies. These were two separate incidents - one with a helicopter manufacturer, another with an LCD manufacturer - but both businessmen had absolute hatred for the French businesses that they were working with. Each contract was in excess of $100,000 - so we are not talking about just a bad restaurant or hotel experience. Hmmmm... People were talking about this whole EU vs. USA thing...
• I had a great customer experience in NYC a few weeks ago that I forgot to mention. I had two spare keys made at a hardware shop near Zach's apartment in record time. I figured this task would take at least an hour - that's how long making copies of two keys would take in the suburbs, driving to Home Depot, etc - but the entire experience in the city was over in 15 minutes and I walked the whole way. Immediate service at a great price - only $1.50 total.
• Anyone have advice on medium-sized color printers in the $1,000 range? Or a large office multi-function device. We need something to print out about 13,000 color pages in the next month. Currently we have the Konica Minolta 2430DL - great, but we outgrew it.
• Had another great experience I want to mention, this time with Intuit Customer Care. I wrote an email within Quicken asking how to do something. Usually companies NEVER reply to support questions via email. It is just not affordable - it is too easy to ask an email question. But Intuit Customer Care replied to me a few days later with a very thorough answer. Kudos!!
• My only favorite TV show, The West Wing, is going to be cancelled soon! Darn.
• BOLLYWOOD movie reviews... Taal was a good love story, but about 1 hour too long. I especially liked the beginning scenes in the mountains. Hum Saath-Saath Hain, good family movie with wedding themes. It had amazing traditional Indian fashion and featured six or eight lead Bollywood stars. Very Bollywood but not too captivating in the long-term. Pardes was my favorite Bollywood movie of the three, starring the lovely Mahima Chaudhry who had some great scenes and songs.
• I remember something from the first few days when I was in India last year. I was using my own pen to sign for things - immigration stuff at the airport, hotel receipts and money transfers - and desk people kept saying, "Nice pen." This was a phrase that I heard almost any time I signed for something. I lost the pen a few days later, so I stopped hearing it. It wasn't any special pen to me. I had just grabbed something ballpoint before boarding the plane - nicer than a standard Bic, but not by much. Anyhow, thinking back, I guess it was a pretty nice pen.