I hope everyone had a good weekend. The weather here was superb but the act of going outside to enjoy it was more than I was capable of doing. I did get a little reading done on Javascript (when I wasn't being interrupted). It's a language that has always fascinated me. And with more Web 2.0 apps using it, it means more to me now than ever. But all didn't go as planned. The laptop was having some sort of DPC (deferred procedure calls) error. It would be pegged at 100% all day and searching for the sympton and cure proved to be elusive. I decided that this was the moment I would give up windows and switch to Linux (Fedora or Ubuntu). Magically, Windows knew I was going to take my frustration out on it, because the next reboot everything returned to normal.
I was participating in a chat room on iTunes Music Store. I like the catalog and the layout. The DRM will hopefully be removed from the rest of the catalog. Some participants felt the store was doomed by the way the labels were ignoring Apple by giving DRM free music sales to other resellers. The behavior of the labels looks like they don't want Apple to have the influence it has over the sales of music. Apple didn't want to go album only (because some just suck). Apple didn't want to go to a more flexible pricing. The labels want to raise the prices of their music to $1.99 in some cases.
If you remember what a music store used to be then you'll remember how the record labels destroyed the business. While the cost of media, computers, and mp3 players were getting cheaper they jacked up the price of CDs to incredibly stupid rates. I remember when Notorious BIG "Life After Death" double CD was selling for $25 in most stores and $30 in others. Normal CDs were selling for $18 and it was the cheap non moving stuff that was in the $10 bin. I remember the times when I thought I got a bargain when buying a CD for $12-$13. Some of those cases still have the price sticker on them from stores that no longer exists (Camelot, Sam Good, fye, and Peaches). These stores were being put out of business by online stores (CDNOW and later Amazon) and Napster (before it became part of the borg). The customer was put off by the sticker shock of paying more and more for music and getting less (buying a CD with 15 tracks, 5 of them interludes, 2 hits, and 8 fillers).
There was a time I loved the music store and would spend hours in there. I was in love with the local Peaches (Ft. Lauderdale) and I tried to get a job there repeatedly. Really, who wasn't in love with the music store as a teenager. But, Peaches was developed around and finally developed over by a city with space problem. RIP Peaches RIP.
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