September 2007
Needless Guilt
I just cheated on iTunes. The new Subdudes album is out and is $9.99 on iTunes and $8.99 on the new Amazon MP3 service which offers straight non DRM MP3 files and is almost as easy as iTunes. I have always liked Amazon so I don’t feel that dirty… but now I wonder who loses that dollar - Amazon or the Artist?
I could write more but someone already has…
Catholics at it again
My favorite, the catholic league, is up in arms again about Miller Beer being a sponsor of an event in San Fran that ended up doing something that offends the catholic league.
When the organization you are involved with has paid billions of dollars in settlements for child molestation, I hope you will understand when I don’t care what you think. Catholic league… irrelevant.
Hope for Homeless-ville?
Santa Monica Daily Press has an article in 9/22/2007 edition about SM starting a campaign to discourage people from directly giving money to homeless people. In the article a couple of interesting quotes:
“About 80 percent of the time, those who panhandle will use the money for drugs and alcohol or another forms of substance abuse”
and
“giving money directly to individuals...
Fake Steve on NBC
The Fake Steve Jobs Blog has summed up the NBC thing nicely.
NBC End Game
As I predicted a while ago NBC indeed had deals in place already before they bailed on iTunes. First they announced almost immediately working with Amazon Unbox (as much as I like Amazon this is a non Mac capable system) and now their own DRM system (again no Mac version yet).
Meanwhile CBS is laughing and making their shows available to a wide audience to build interest - noticed the new...
More Bleeps
Bleep filled emmys last night. They bleeped Sally Field for saying “goddamn”. For some reason this is a long standing taboo on TV. When I worked in public TV we used to have to “live bleep” network feeds. We’d get a note that at xx:xx into the show please bleep “goddamn”. The program director told me they’d get more complaints about goddamn...
“Drunk birds tell no tales”
– t-shirt (that I of course bought). C’mon, Tommy Bahama can combine booze and theme park ride parody like no one else.
Ringtone racket
I always wondered why people bought ringtones… I bought a couple for a phone I had years ago which has long since been retired. So I bought the song on Vinyl, then on CD… now you want me to pay again to play a short section on my phone??? Here is a great article on the subject from Daring Fireball.
Thanks for stopping by...
I missed this on the anniversary of Katrina… an open letter to America from one of my favorite New Orleans blogs
UPDATE: Just revisited this post and it seems emotions run strong not only on the streets but in the comments.
Well played, Steve
Two months after the iPhone launch you drop the price $200..
and get a lot of press on the news…
then you get a lot of press on the outcry…
and then ride in on a white horse with an apology and $100 store credit and get that press cycle.
And then we get to spend the money (store credit) back with you!
Win, Win, Win, Win… did I miss one… just in case - Win!
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Music Pick(s) of the... when I feel like it
Debbie Davies’ Blues Blast is a great album with Debbie (former guitar with Albert Collins), New Orleans Fave Tab Benoit, Charlie Musselwhite and Coco Montoya. If there was a blues all star collection built for me this is it. Great album!
Rufus Wainwright doing Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”
Amy Sedaris mentioned this on Letterman the other night - Abbey Lincoln...
