Dad's only been home less than a week and he's already saved me loads of insurance money with his magical organising skills. Thanks Dad!
Right arm is hurting a little worse than usual today thanks to all the guitar playing / mouse work with editing tracks. I'm thinking I won't record next Thursday but will hang out with friends instead. Might hang out in the city, take some photos, check out the new park across from Federation Square.
Looks like I'm off to see the Queen / Ben Elton stage musical thing "We Will Rock You" in October with a bunch of friends. I'll bring my cheese raincoat.
George is trying to sell a track he bought on iTunes to test the right of secondhand sale. His auction has been pulled by eBay. They have a policy against selling downloadable goods. Why don't they pull all the pirate Invader Zim DVD/VCD auctions thats what I want to know.
Universal are cutting the wholesale price of CDs (via scriptingnews) in the US from US$12.02 to US$9.09 (thus dropping CD prices in theory to around US$13) in the hope to pull people back to CD shops. Many years ago people said they'd buy more CDs if they were cheaper. I think that time is over.
To answer Dave's question as to whether this will effect CD prices in Australia... I don't think so, except of course US imports of Universal CDs. We have parallel importing and I don't believe the US does, although I base this fact simply of the fact of a half-remembered report of George Bush complaining that our parallel importing laws were a sticking point in the free trade agreement discussions between the US and Aus.
I notice most Australian (band) release CDs these days are around $20 anyway if you look hard enough (the latest Powderfinger CD was anyway).
Three years ago today I thought Digital Rights Management sounded like an OK idea (must have been on drugs) and thought Powderfinger's "new" album Odyssey Number Five sucked. Still do.
Two years ago today I asked bloggers if they cared if their work read their blog. I know for a fact the guy that rights my review reads this blog (hi Alex!) but it doesn't really effect what I write except that I'm not going to come right out and say my place of work sucks. Oops. Except then.
I hold the opinion that any idiot can tell the difference between my attitude here and my professional work attitude but these thoughts tend to get me in trouble. Like my thoughts of having to wear a suit and that anyone who thinks the guy in the suit is better than the guy in casual clothes needs their head read, preferably with a brick.
RIAA offers amnesty to file sharers [via slashdot] who "promise" to delete copyrighted material (and destroy CDrs) from their PC. They have to fill in a form and send a copy of photo ID to RIAA. Reminds me of those advertisements they send to know criminals saying they've won a free car then arrest them all when they turn up.
Dave probably already knows there is a new Neil Gaiman Sandman coming out [via slashdot]...
CD sales in Britain are up, with most of the credit going to recent wholesale price cuts. I wonder how much less artists are getting now?
New Ween album out. I loved White Pepper. Add that to my list of purchases (with new Fantomas).
Speaking of Fantomas, it may just be art that their latest album is 55 minutes long and one single track, or it might make it a right pain in the arse to pirate. Or... easier if you are interested in getting the whole album. It definitely forces you to listen to the whole album, and means Mike doesn't have to come up with rubbish names for his songbites (as seems to have been forced on him for the FantomasMelvins Big Band live CD).
Apparently there is a difference between "music" and "data" CDs. The difference is evil and 99% of real CD players don't care. It's a case of try-hard early DRM it seems.
New MP3 CD player on the block, same as the ever popular Panasonic SX420 however this one has ID3 tag display. XPZV77 AIWA (who are apparently part of Sony). Only $200. Although I've seen the Panasonic SX420 around for $170. Must burn a CD-RW full of crazy MP3s (including some 48hz ones) and see how they run.