On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Joe Petrow wrote:

> Anyway, the tests were to try and tell the difference between:
> 
>    The sounds of a $75,000 flute and a normal one.
>    The taste of a $2,000 German dessert wine and a $15 bottle.
>    The walk of a supermodel and a woman who's never modelled before.
>    The taste of a soup made with rare matsutake mushrooms from instant.
> 
> She got the flute and the soup right, but missed the wine and the walk.
> She claimed that the $2000 wine smelled like a drunken salaryman...(^_^;)
> So she ended up as a "Level 2 geinojin"

Given the laws of probability, couldn't most people be a Level 2 geinojin
without even appearing on the show?

In any case, I sort of doubt the authenticity of those tests.
   The price of a flute won't make a bit of difference in the sound unless
you can play like some musical prodigy.  This is like saying that if you
gave a weekend duffer the exact same golf clubs as Tiger Woods, then he
should drive farther than if he used some clubs that I found at a garage
sale.  I wouldn't even bet with my pocket change on that.
   Wine tasting is even more biased.  Now that they have blind taste tests
in competitions, wine connoisseurs are forced to admit that there's really
not that much difference from a fancy French wine and a cheap California
wine of the same style.  The price tag comes from the name of the winery
rather than the quality of the product.  Plus, let's be honest.  A *German
dessert wine*?  When the hell did Germany become famous for their
wineries?  Beer, maybe.  But wine?!

-- 
Kevin "Grouchy Bear" Lew -- #1 Fan of Denko (Tokyo Denryoku): "Jan!"
   kasumi@eden.com   --=-=-=--   Don't mind the Lai-Lai Boy.  ^_^
Akane's Kitchen of Pain: http://mir.med.utoronto.ca/akane/akancook.htm