Excellent man-purse, now with extra Japlish

Even before I moved to New York City, where packing and toting a briefcase or backpack around town is de rigueur and in fact a minor art form, I was on a quest for the perfect shoulder bag.

The amount of stuff that you have to tote around as a working geek in the City is daunting.

Consider the bare necessities:

• Cell phone
• PDA
• USB thumbdrive
  
• Various building passes and login token cards
• Business cards
• Case holding eyeglasses or sunglasses, depending on which you're wearing at the time
• Checkbook, notepad, pens
• Small bottle of water.
  

Now, let's add in a few extras. Like the diabetes-related crap I have to carry with me (glucometer, lancets, test strips, sugar tablets in case I overshoot the runway with the meds and get hypoglycemic), the various fetish objets (e.g., Moleskine notebook, MP3 player) that give meaning to my mundane existence, and the cables to hook all of this gear together. Plus a magazine or two to leaf through in case I have to time to kill in a waiting room or on a subway platform.

And, ever since I read Douglas Adams as a youth, a small clean handtowel. (I always know where my towel is.)

That's quite a set of requirements, and if you're not careful you're going to look like you're attempting an assault on Everest when you leave the house. (By the way, I'm not even mentioning what I've got in my pockets - wallet, cash, keys, small sharp knife, etc.)

My friends, I present to you the aptly named Wise-Walker, from the Nomadic Corporation of Japan.

The Wise-Walker WR-10
"The Brand Talken On The Street" (sic)

It's got pockets, zippers, Velcro, and mesh to beat the band. Lightweight, tough and water-resistant. Like Sophia Loren, it's padded in all the right places, so it nestles the various expensive and fragile electronics I carry around like a custom-designed egg carton.

In short, it is as thoroughly design-workshopped and over-engineered as an iPod.

And at 5700 yen... um, about fifty bucks... a total steal.

I found it in our neighborhood fancy-luggage boutique, Flight 001 on Greenwich Avenue.

I didn't notice the Japlish on the packaging (and sewn into the labels) at the time, but if I had, I might've bought two or three in different colors.

After all, it's "The Brand Talken On The Street," y'all!

Related site: "It's Not a Purse! A Buyer's Guide to Man Bags" (Joe Ganley)