Vanessa’s right. Fry’s is well known only in the tech world. Mostly the tech world in California but it’s famous enough all over so that even some on the East coast know about it. To its credit though, it isn’t just some electronics store selling an image to geeks. Its main selling points are: it’s huge (think the size of Mars), has everything (heat sinks that are too big to fast food to iPods, software, whatever that a geek could want), and it’s often cheaper than most competitors, even online ones.

What *is* frightening is when I hear that the Sunnyvale Fry’s (right in the heart of silicon valley) used to be the hot friday night hang out spot for the tech geeks. Hmmm….

ooh, congrats and good luck with the i-pod, one day i’ll get mine aswell. Meanwhile my sony minidisc ‘ll do..

Fry’s is something only folks in the southwestern US seem to have. You Merkins need to give more acknowledgement to the fact that not everyone on the Net lives in the US, let alone California.

But seriously, Harvey Norman? They’re an Australian chain, and they have the worst prices and customer service of any electronics retailer I’ve ever seen. Their staff are the most techno-ignorant idiots with the gall to represent themselves as knowledgable ever.

Yeah, I have to admit that Sumajin has a pretty lame site (the designer of the product is really disorganzied, too). Anyway, the SmartWrap is an ingenious piece of dumbell-shaped rubber that you use to keep your headphone cords from getting the better of you. I don’t know about the iPod mini, but the headphone cords on my regular iPod are really, really, long, and I find them always getting in the way or getting caught on things. Additionally, they are always tangled in a huge ball of cable nightmare when I pull them out of my pocket. The SmartWrap does a really good job at remedying this. This article explains it pretty well.

Fry’s is a weird place. Being from Los Angeles, I’ve been to Fry’s many, many times for computer parts, software, and what not. Prices are good and it’s truly an incredible operation–the owners run the store extremely efficiently (they have, literally, over sixty cashiers working simultaneously during the holidays). After going a few times, however, you come to realize that the place is kind of scary; it’s run a lot like a circus, or a swap meet controlled by one person. The thing is, there’s nowhere quite like it, so you have to keep going back for your parts and whatnot.

One day my car was stolen from the Fry’s parking lot in broad daylight and I vowed never to return for fear of theft. I found, however, that there was really no where else to go and I was forced to return. *Sigh*

If anyone wants a free ipod or ipod mini, ive heard many sucess stories from Free ipods.com….– yea i know it looks like a scam and everything, but alot of people have gotten ipods from them supposedly… i dunno. congrats.