Our dog killed (as far as I know) it's first bird today.

I heard her barking strangely and peaked through the window to see what see was doing and I spot a bird struggling across the lawn with a puppy sprinting after it.

I run to the back door, unlock it, shouting big-owner-angry-"NO!" the whole time, open the door to see our dog sniffing at the bird in the corner with it peaking at her. I watched as it took it's last breath and died (probably) from shock.

So I had to bag it. In a poo bag. Dignity. Poor thing.

Glad I was home to catch the dog in the act so she knows she's done a bad thing, but I doubt it would stop her doing it again.

Parental theory is the bird probably stunned itself banging into a window and the dog took advantage of it. I seriously doubt the dog could have caught a bird. Not a smart bird anyway.

I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been a rat. A rat full of rat poison.

It's funny because today I was reading about "green" good pet advise and one of the ideas was to ensure your cat has a bell to prevent it catching birds. I immediately thought Mogwai could do with a bell, then caught myself.

Crazy brains.

Lala’s Spectacular New Music Service [technologizer]

It, like all good things on the net involving music, is US only.

But it's so awesome I'll talk about it anyway.

• Songs are MP3 and $0.89 each.
• You can buy good quality "streaming only" versions of songs for $0.10, which then comes off the price of the MP3 if you buy it. Typically that means you can "try" an album as a streaming only version for $1.
• The first web streaming listen to any track is free.
• It's also apparently smart enough to search your music collection to see what you already have, and then not try to sell you something you already own.
• Also, if it identifies you already own a song, you get the streaming version of that for free. How it knows your version isn't a pirated version I don't know...
• All four labels are involved as well as "170,000 independents."

Something about $1 try before-you-buy does appeal to me, as does the acknowledgement that if you own something you should be allowed to listen to it.

I'd love for this site to link in with something like Amazon, giving you discounts on real CDs you have already bought as a streaming version, and of course, giving you access to streaming versions immediately after ordering the real CD on Amazon.

I'd be far more likely to spend my $ on a site like this than eMusic, which I've almost subscribed to so many times...

Oh yeah, and "LOSSLESS PLEASE!"

It's been a year since the end of the dodgy TV saga.

TV still going strong. Now that we know the rules:

• Turn off at the wall when not in use.
• Do not use the on/off button on the front, always leave switch in "on" mode, stand-by mode causes zapping sounds and bad bad smells.
• Do not play Venture Brothers DVDs without first turning down the brightness.

Otherwise, awesome.

That all probably sounds complicated but my computer won't actually turn on half the time (dodgy power supply) so the TV is great in comparison.

A few months after our disaster of a customer service experience I noticed the TVs were reduced in price to $299. I'm not at all surprised as the only TVs left at our stage were all broken in some way. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end they were paying people to carry them away.