Mildly annoyed

Yuk. It's pouring down in Joburg this morning. It's dull, grey, miserable. I detest this weather.
I've just been reading brandchannel's most influential brands results for 2005.
I'm not surprised that Google came out top overall, followed by Apple. If ever two companies were changing the face of the earth, it's them. What's also interesting is that I'm currently working on a Design feature, and when chatting to some of SA's best design companies, Apple's iPod is always mentioned as the icon of design. As for Google, what can you say. It's my homepage, I have Google Earth, Video Player, and I'm a Google addict. I check every so often to see what cool new products they've added, and I often spend hours just typing in words to see what's out there. Sad, I know.
It would be nice to see a South African brand on the list someday but the top three Europe and African results were: Nokia, Ikea and Skype - more Euro-centric than Afro-centric me thinks. It would also be nice to see Africa finally treated as a category on its own, instead of always being lunped with Europe or the Middle East, or both.
Anyway, visit http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=298#more for the full survey results.