武侯祠的边上新建了一条街叫锦里，是模仿老成都的样貌修的。今年国庆时回家走了走，确实还有些老成都的感觉。

成都代表性的建筑风格就是青石瓦房。

窄窄的街道，有点云南丽江的味道，连酒吧也取名叫四方街，最能体现成都人最赶潮流的心态。不过，皮影戏和老烟枪还是保留了老成都的味道。

这次回成都，发现最最传统的成都风味小吃确实是大不如从前了。最令人失望的龙抄手、钟水饺和赖汤元，找遍全城，找不到当年令人垂涎的味道。究其原因，大概是因为老成都们已经不再追捧传统，而来成都访问的游客们又比较容易糊弄的缘故吧。但是我在陈麻婆豆腐的一席饭还是让我大快朵颐，忍不住把这些好吃拿来和大家分享一下。

最最正宗的麻婆豆腐：豆腐上的花椒面足以让你头皮发麻，但是这正是这道菜的妙处。

夫妻肺片：最正宗的吃法是肺片夹锅盔，类似陕西的肉夹馍

最好吃的宫保鸡丁：鲜香和麻辣的至尊级统一，连每个花生米都酥到了骨头里

还有的就是我热爱的凉粉、凉面和煮凉粉。所谓煮凉粉，就是用水把大米做成的色泽金黄、形似豆腐的、看似凉粉的东东煮过，然后加以佐料伴着吃，热乎乎，辣嘻嘻，冬天或阴雨天吃着是莫大的享受。阿姨身后那一摞摞的碗里就是煮凉粉了，凉粉在她身后的电饭锅了烫过后，加上她身前碗里各种佐料一拌，就成了美味可口的佳肴。

大快朵颐的样子：

The Long Tail explains why the new internet era means comsuming less of more and why the 80/20 rule doesn’t hold for a lot of goods distributed through the web. The forming of the long tail is dependant on three (3) conditions:

• the democratization of tools: e.g. the blogging tools made personal publishing easy and affordable for a lot of individuals;
• the emergence of internet: the internet makes marginal  cost for storagenegligible and dramatically decreased the distribution cost;
• the filtering capability provided by search engines: the search engines made it possible for web consumers to find what matters to them efficiently and effortlessly. When there is an easy way to separating the wheat from the chaff, we become less concerned with the mounting chaff.

The question to me seems like which tool I would like to democratize most if I still have the chance…   

One thing really cool in China is that some books can be bought at half the price or even cheaper than in the book stores in US. The book I am currently reading is Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML. I bought it at Rmb 98 (about $13) at Shanghai Book City, while oreilly.com sells it at $34.95 online.

This is a classic elasticity case. The publisher wants to maximize its profit by selling as many books as possible. To achieve this goal, the publisher prices each book differently based on the elasticity (the purchasing power) of each market. The more inelastic (insensitive) the demand curve is (against the price change), the higher the price the consumers are going to pay. For publishers, as long as each book sells above its marginal cost, the publishers make money. However, this model only works if the consumers in less elastic market have no access to the same goods sold much cheaper elsewhere. Otherwise, the more expensive books will never sell.

Thanks for the internet and the modern means of transportation, consumers are much more powerful to reach goods sold worldwide than in, say, 60’s or 70’s in the last century. So, students could always go to amazon.com.uk to buy text books to save 20 to 30 bucks for the exactly the same books and people like me can buy the exactly the same book in book stores in China for half the price or even cheaper.

Books I am reading now. Reviews at http://www.slashdot.com/.

Once moved to Shanghai, I noticed that time spent on commute becomes almost unbearable. Taxis are hard to find during peak hours and even if you are lucky to find one, the hours you could end up spending on roads could easily drive people crazy. The roads are usually a parking lot with cars coming from all directions and people honking, cutting lanes or making stunts to get ahead. The subway are quick and punctual; but, first, it is very, very crowded and secondly, when a beggar or junk mail spreader turns up, they could make me easily regret for a whole day for deciding to take a subway.

Then, I found audio books at www.audible.com. With less than $10 subcription fee, I could download the latest audio books and put them into my ipod instantly. it is my saver!! I suddenly could not be bored to death when sitting in the car in vain. (I tried newspapers, but they could only make me dizzy after 10 minutes. And I want to relax my eyes if I could). The site has more than 25,000 titles and I could find books easily by genre, awards or by popularity ratings. It enables me to keep track of what’s most popular, sensible or controversial in US and the audio technology helps me to continuously improve my English skills. This service seems to satisfy all small, but important desires in my heart. I just can not stop raving the service and the business model!! (BTW, it could be a destroyer to Focus Media too. When people could make use of their idling time well, will Focus Media be disappeared in China? Maybe…)

Thought this site would be a great candidate for another copied-by-China idea. But, first, we need to create all the audio books and secondly, we need to fight for copy-right breachers. I know how to do the first. Not sure how to get the second right???