Tigers and Cranes

i used to live in a wasteland some people call “las vegas”. it’s not a bad city to live in, what with round the clock booze available and video poker machines in grocery stores and gas stations. and you certainly can’t complain about usd $1.99 steak lunches at the local pub.

on the other hand, during summer, the entire city is a boiling cauldron, and i stopped counting how many times i burned my palms on the steering wheel of my car. as well, since it’s fairly high up in the elevations, during winter months it would be freezing. i’ve even seen a snow flake or two.

it may be a fun place to visit for a party or to get drunk and gamble, but to actually live there, well, it’s kind of a desolate place, with only rocks and more rocks as part of the scenery.

a friend of mine had this brilliant idea of opening a store in vegas, kind of a shop to attract mainly tourists that flock to the city. many of the visitors are from japan and korea, as i’m sure the allure of gambling legally is a novelty, as officially, table games and such are outlawed in both countries(of course, as a foreigner in korea, you can legally gamble).

my friend’s store? he sold “boblbees”. what are these boblbees you ask? here’s a picture of one:

yes, this is a backpack.

yeah, at first i thought they were some type of misshapen sled you sling on your back too, but actually it’s a hard-sided backpack that retails for something like usd$300. i suppose it was me who planted the idea in the guy’s head. at the time i was reading “rich dad, poor dad” by robert kiyosaki, who preaches that any schmoe can become a millionaire, only if one had the gumption to open up one’s own business.

i enthusiastically told my friend about this idea, and lent him my book, and upon reading it, he resolved to invest his money into opening a boblbee store in one of vegas’ many new casinos. is he a millionaire? i really don’t know, as i haven’t spoken to him in a long time, but i did see his store once after i’d moved away from vegas. i wonder if it’s still there.

isaburo bags are similar in concept: very high end backpacks for dudes and dudettes who have a very discriminating taste in what a backpack should be. no jansport for these dandies.

here’s a description of these uber-rucksacks:

Isaburo is a boutique Japanese leather goods maker that applies century-old craftsmanship to modern design. Isaburo was established in 1889, and is headquartered at a small but pristine venue in Tokyo’s exclusive Minami-Aoyama fashion district, around the corner from Herzog & de Meuron’s famous Prada “Bubble-shaped” store.

Isaburo’s City123 rucksack is the ideal, exclusive accessory for downtown Manhattan. It has taste without emphasis on brand, and an urban style without trying too hard.

hm. i wonder if boblbees are trying “too hard” to be edgy and urban. while boblbees go for somewhere around 300 bones, these custom made(in batches)isaburo rucksacks ring the till for about usd$700. for that price, you get some mighty fine exclusivity, and you get to look all hip and urban and stuff. i admit i’ve never really salivated over a backapack before, but these definitely seem to be droolworthy.

i found these backpacks while cruising around dynamism, a purveyor of imported notebooks and electronic jive mostly from japan and korea, stuff you can’t easily get in the US or UK.

to find out more about isaburo rucksack, go here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 4th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under tech, japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.