Rule Of Acquisition Number 168,894*: Garage Sales Are Good

On almost any Saturday morning you can usually find me cruising by at least one or two garage sales. Hey, I gotta do something since they got rid of Saturday morning cartoons.

I tend to find the sales I want to check out by using iGarageSale or Garage Sale Rover on my iPhone. Both of these apps parse the Craigslist database and display pins on a map representing the sales near your current location. You can tap the pins and view the listing details.

Today, I found two. A garden variety garage sale and a pawn shop that was selling everything except guns and ammunition at 50% off Friday and Saturday to make room for a U-Haul center. I thought it was rather clever of them to advertise in the garage sale section of Craigslist.

After enjoying our traditional Saturday morning breakfast at Hardee's/Carl's Jr. we popped in at the first garage sale. Not much there, really, but I managed to snag a copy of the original Halo for the XBox. We gassed up my car then stopped by the pawn shop. Given their location, lack of inventory and minimal variety, it's no surprise they need to bring in another business type to stay afloat. We learned they will also be selling scooters and ATVs as well as used cars. They have the lot space for all of that but can you say, "all in?"

Anyway, the pawn shop sells DVDs for $2 each, making them $1 each on sale and I picked up The Man With One Red Shoe and 300. Not on the top of my must-have list but worth a buck to have them in my collection. I also spotted a copy of Left 4 Dead for the XBox 360. While I was meandering about looking at other things I didn't need or already owned, the wife asked me, "Did you see this?"

She handed me a white box. It was The Star Trek Original Motion Picture collection. It has the first 6 movies plus a bonus disk. It was still in its original shrink wrap with an $89.96 Wal-Mart sticker on it and a $60 pawn shop sticker on it. Today, it would be $30. Now, I've never been a big fan of the odd-numbered films so I took a look at the spines to remind me of the titles. They're in thin cases so I start squinting at The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for... "Ooh! These are Blu-Rays! I want." So, that's another one of my Christmas presents I already know about.

The wife had mentioned during our morning planning session that she wanted to go to Tulsa to return some items to K-Mart and redeem her "Turkey Bucks," which garnered us an $11 coupon for a Butterball turkey. I had a small pile of items I had decluttered from my office, including an inkjet printer, a stereo received and a 6-disc CD changer I haven't used in six years, and decided it would be a good time to take them over to Goodwill. Finally, we wanted to swing by a Kohls to look at a waffle maker they had on sale - she's been into waffles lately for some reason.

We made the trek to Tulsa and got everything squared away at K-Mart and dropped off our items at Goodwill. As is our habit, we popped in to see if there were any goodies worth taking back with us. The wife picked up a blouse and I walked out with a Sister Hazel CD and the Barenaked Ladies greatest hits disc one.

The big score of the day, however, was at Kohls. Many years ago my wife gave me a nice leather wallet as a gift. It is a tri-fold wallet with an extra pocket in the back of the middle section of the cash area. Over the years I have found this space invaluable for storing FSA cards, corporate credit cards and other items I don't want to accidentally utilize.

About a year ago we noticed the wallet was starting to look a little past its prime. The black dye had faded from the corners-in so that the wallet now looks to be black with green highlights. I started looking for a replacement, even from the same company, but never found one that had anything like that extra convenience of that separate pocket.

It being (almost) holiday season, Kohls had their wallets prominently displayed. I started looking at them and, as usual, was getting disappointed with what I was finding. Around the back side of the display there were wallets from the company who made my wonderful extra-pocketed model. Wouldn't you know it, the very first one I picked up was exactly like the one I carry - extra pocket and all. Joy filled my heart and I was more than willing to pay the $20 to obtain this gem. I looked around a bit more and found one in a deep brown that eventually made it home with me.

Add another good Saturday to the list.

*Can anyone tell me where my Rule of Acquisition number comes from?

Why I Still Hate iTunes

I admit it. I drank the Kool-Aid™. I didn't just sip it, either. I took huge gulps. I have more products in my house that start with an i than I ever thought I would. The only one I really don't like, though, is the piece that, in the darkness, binds them: iTunes™.

iTunes is up to version 10 point something and it still, in many ways, sucks. I realize they give it away but Microsoft gives away the Zune software, too, and it puts iTunes to shame. It's put iTunes to shame from day one. So, what is it about iTunes that's so horrible? Let me count the ways...

1. It's a resource hog. At least it is on the PC. For as much as Steve Jobs complains about the resource usage of Flash™, iTunes is pretty bad in this department. The only difference is that it sucks resources only while its running. It doesn't slow down the PC just because.
   
2. It doesn't track folders. If I add music to my collection I have to manually add the track(s) or rescan the folder(s) to get them to show up in my collection. What's up with that? How hard would it be for me to tell iTunes which folders to keep an eye on and have it automatically add new content? It can't be too hard. Microsoft figured it out. (I should note that I do not let iTunes manage my collection. I'm picky about my naming scheme and "01 title.mp3" isn't it.)
   
3. It changes the title in the catalog from "title" to "artist - title" and creates a duplicate entry. Why? Why doesn't it just read the ID3 tag and leave it at that? Where is it getting that information to combine it, anyway?
   
4. It's extremely easy to duplicate tracks on your device and unnecessarily take up space. If you've ever browsed your iDevice you'll notice that the audio tracks are not named in any way you can recognize. iTunes and iOS, apparently, work some sort of file name voodoo and your tracks end up in an indecipherable code. The way around this, from what I've read, is to manage your device through playlists. I got news, it's still easy to duplicate tracks.

For all its iterations and all its bells and whistles, iTunes can still be very cumbersome to use. Hey, Apple. Why don't you study the Zune software and alternative music management software like MediaMonkey and put some of the conveniences of those products into iTunes. This may be a gilded cage I voluntarily climbed into but it could still use a little polish here and there.

UPDATE: I've just added #5 - "iTunes has stopped updating this podcast because you haven't listened to any episodes recently..." What the hell? Why don't you let ME decide when you should stop updating the podcast, you dictatorial bastard.

The Musical Stylings Of John Erling

I never really developed a musical preference until I was in high school. It wasn't that I had no interest in music, I simply didn't have much exposure to music.

When I was growing up in Tulsa, OK my father would always listen to radio station KRMG as we had breakfast. KRMG is a news/talk station that had a couple of different morning personalities that I recall. (I would later work at that same radio station but that's a different story) The first morning personality was a guy named Watson Jelks. In the grand scheme of my life, he was not there very long. The one I recall most was a guy named John Erling (as far as I know he might still be there).

John Erling was like a cross between Johnny Carson and Rush Limbaugh. He liked to have fun with things such as encouraging everyone to ski the Tulsa mountains and he handled phone calls (which were often part of the show) with courtesy and professionalism. But he also liked to push buttons (thus the Rush Limbaugh reference).

To give Mr. Erling an occasional break that was longer than commercials could provide, KRMG would play a song, maybe two from time to time. The music they played could best be described as adult contemporary. Keep in mind this was 1973 to about 1980 so I grew up listening to such greats as Neil Diamond, Chuck Mangione and James Taylor. Not a bad lot but a little weak for a young boy trying to formulate his musical style.

By the time I got to high school the opinions of my peers were beginning to matter more and more and I started mimicking their listening habits. As such, I am a true child of the 80's. My musical preferences at that time switched to artists like Duran Duran, Rick Springfield, Tommy Tutone and The Thompson Twins.

I got into the "alternative" scene during the late 80's while I was in college. I listened to The Cure, R.E.M. and The Smiths. This was mostly because of the influence of certain members of the opposite sex. I was also cultivating an affinity for Jazz thanks to my Father and started becoming familiar with true classic rock. As we moved into the 90's I pretty much lost touch with the contemporary music scene. I just couldn't get into bands like Nirvana and some of the others.

I think in the last 5 years I have really hit my stride and found a preferred musical genre. Remember that classic rock I talked about? That's it. I really enjoy The Who, Eric Clapton, Boston, and a little bit of AC/DC. It only took me 35 years or so but I think I finally settled in to what I really like in music.

I Didn't Know It Could Sound So Good

My car does not have an auxiliary input on the radio. For those who don't know, it's (usually) a mini plug built into the radio that allows you to connect and play portable media devices. The sound comes from the headphone jack so you double amplify the signal. I have friends with these inputs and they actually do a pretty good job.

Because of my lack of input I have been using FM transmitters. These get the job done but they take on a lot of interference. You also have to find a relatively clear frequency and if traveling any distance this can become nearly impossible. They're considerably worse than cassette adapters.

In exchange for resurrecting a computer, someone recently bought me a module that plugs into the back of my radio giving it an auxiliary input. It makes the radio think it has an add-on CD changer. Along with this input module you can also get iPod and Zune modules that allow you to charge, play and, to some degree, control the device through the dock connector. (I installed it on Sunday)

Using the dock connector gives you the additional benefit of a line-level signal. For those uninitiated in audio signals a line-level signal is unamplified. This means that the only amplification of the signal is coming from the radio head unit which should be the only place the signal is amplified - right before it goes out to the speakers.

As I said, I have heard what a headphone-out auxiliary input sounds like. It does a really good job. What I didn't realize was how much of a difference a line-level signal would make. My Zune HD sounds FANTASTIC! I want to drive somewhere just so I can listen to it.

(BTW - 5 more posts to post 1000!)

Ed, Farrah, and Michael

It's been a rough week in the celebrity world. First, on Tuesday, Ed McMahon passed away. This wasn't much of a surprise. After all, he was 86, Johnny Carson, the person to whom he was most closely associated, died a couple of years ago, and he'd disappeared from the public eye a long time ago. I figure Dick Clark isn't too far behind.

Yeasterday, we lost two of my generation's icons. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Just last month, NBC ran a documentary Farrah had put together about her long battle with cancer. I didn't see the actual show but I did see some pre-show interviews with Ryan O'Neil, her long time partner (I don't believe they ever married). Ryan had said that they set out to film a survivor's story but that it wasn't looking like it was going to end that way.

I never had the Farrah Fawcett poster. Frankly, she just didn't do it for me for some reason. But it weas that poster that made her famous (oh, and that Charlie's Angels thing). I can't say that I'm torn up about her passing.

I'm not torn up about Michael Jackson, either, but that one did surprise me. I remember my first thought was, "Finally, that poor, tortured soul is at rest." Jackson was, without a doubt, a superstar. He rode a gigantic wave in the 80's (Thriller is still the best selling album of all time) but in his race to outdo himself his life kept taking major turns toward the weird. I get the nose job he had some time in the late 70's or early 80's that appeared on his album "The Wall" but in his mind, in his struggle for aesthetic perfection, he ceased to be black (I kinda get that one too), his nose became razor thin, his jaw line was a characature... in essesne, he ceased to look like himself... completely.

My prediction is that we'll start getting information that Jackson's death was more than the result of an illness or some congenital heart defect. The rumors have already started that it was linked to anorexia, Anna Nicole Smith had nothing on Michael Jackson, and I bet we hear news similar to when Elvis died.

Unlike some, I probably won't remember where I was, exactly, when I heard he died. In my world the children won't scream, the lovers won't cry and the poets won't dream. I'm just not that affected by it. I do, however, understand the significance.

I'm A Pod Person

I borrowed a sync cable from one of my student employees last night so I could see about getting some music onto the iPod. It was still being a bit flaky so I decided to try and revive it. It took me about 3 hours but I think it was worth it.

I downloaded some utilities and set to running a health check scan on the hard drive. Sure enough, it failed but it was still spinning pretty well so there was hope. I attempted to format the drive using Windows but it kept hanging at 5-7%. I finally did a full low-level format. I wiped out EVERYTHING - even, supposedly, the partition information.

The little iPod must have done something to the drive itself because when I plugged it back in, it showed up with a drive letter. I proceeded to format... and it still had trouble. I switched to the Vista machine and it seemed to be doing better and I thought it was oging to work but it said the format failed. I eventually did a quick format (which doesn't scan the drive as it formats) and got signs of life.

I went back to the recovery instructions and, after all that work, read that the format doesn't have to finish, it just has to destroy enough information to let iTunes think that there's nothing on the drive.

I fired up iTunes and plugged in the pod. Sure enough, iTunes came up with, "It looks like this unit is in recovery mode... let me fix that for you" and it did. I haven't had a lick of trouble with it since then. I know the hard drive is still going bad and could croak at any minute but, hey, it was $10.50. I've got nothing to complain about.

The other positive is that the battery appears to be in great shape. I let it charge overnight and started playing tunes when I got to work at 8:00. It made it to noon and still has a little over half a charge left... not bad. Not bad at all.

The RIAA Will Eat Itself

Picking on the elderly. Going after children. Terrorizing the average consumer. Is this the work of Atilla the Hun? No, it's the RIAA. In its efforts to justify its existence and save a near-extinct, obsolete business model, the RIAA has made some hi-profile faux pas. The backlash has apparently begun on these gaffes and the RIAA's draconian tactics. According to a Slashdot Article, The Motley Fool investment Web site warns investors to beware of several music companies. Referring to the RIAA's pronouncement that the copies a consumer had ripped from his CDs to MP3s on his computer were 'unauthorized,' writer Alyce Lomax said 'a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value.'

Will Streaming Media KILL The Recording Industry?

I was listening to CNet's Buzz Out Loud podcast the other day. During the show, they mentioned that Universal Music, hailed for releasing their library without DRM (Digital Rights Management), had placed restrictions on artists use of streaming media. I really really REALLY wish the recording industry would quit whining and get over themselves.

Around the turn of the century, there was this invention called radio and you could listen to music for free right out of the air. The music industry panicked, saying the broadcasting of music over the radio would kill the music industry because why would people buy records if they could get the music for free. History tells us that radio is, perhaps, the single greatest boon to the recording industry.

When cassettes gained popularity in the 80's, the recording industry panicked once again. They feared that cassettes would kill the music industry because people could make duplicates of their records on cassettes and give them to all of their friends. Turns out, it made the music portable and, once again, actually helped the music industry.

Then came CDs. CDs were good. They maintained the portability of cassettes but increased the fidelity of the recordings. But the CD revolution eventually gave birth to affordable, consumer CD recording. Time to panic once again. This time the contention was that recordable CDs would kill the music industry because perfect, digital copies of the albums could be created and handed out to all of your friends. Actually, this was a somewhat valid concern because, for the first time, the copy was just as good as the original. But did the music industry collapse because of recordable CDs? I don't think so.

Enter the MP3. Eh, that'll never catch on... Oh wait, it did... The toothpaste is out of the tube (and has sat on the counter and gotten crusty) but it's time to panic because the MP3 will kill the music industry because it will be so easy for people to copy the music en masse and album sales will plumet into nothingness! Not so! Turns out, MP3 sharing actually helped boost sales. Plus, when the recording industry finally caught on to the pay-per-track model, they actually started see direct revenue from this new fangled music format.

Now we've come full circle and they are complaining about streaming media just like they did the radio.

Give it a rest, guys. Instead of panicking and trying to fight new forms of distribution, can't you just once try to embrace it and see it for what it is - a way for you to make even more money... but only if you play your cards right.

Why I Don't Own An iPod

I admit that I lust for an iPod because of its proven and slick hardware design, its ubiquitous acceptance (iPod is (almost) to MP3 player as Kleenex (tm) is to facial tissue), automatic loading of podcasts and other content, and its wide range of plug-and-play accessories. Aside from price, there are several factors that keep me from buying an iPod. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

1. The iPod does not support drag-and-drop loading. You can't simply highlight several music files and drag them to the iPod icon, which brings me to point number...

2. You MUST use iTunes to load music onto the device. There have been workarounds and I have heard of other software supporting the iPod but Apple keeps closing those doors.

3. Backlash. Several services are dropping support for the iPod or their content simply will not play on the iPod.

Yo Steve! Steve Jobs. Do you want me to buy an iPod? I would LOVE to but you're going to have to make it a little more open than it already is. Of course, I'll gladly accept one should someone decide to give me one.

What's In A Name?

Notes from a song titled "March of the Uncle Bubby's" by Tim Laughlin:

For some musicians in New Orleans, the term "Uncle Bubby" is an endearing reference to any older New Orleans gentleman set out to having a good time. He's the one usually dancing with the best looking girl in the place and never hesitates to buy you a beer on your break. After writing this one, I pictured twenty or thirty of them coming down the street, dancing. Now, that's funny!

I think I would fit right in...

The RIAA Will Kill The Music Industry

A long time ago, seemingly in a galaxy far away, a man named Marconi discovered that you could detect invisible electronic impulses floating around in the air and, if you modulated the amplitude (and later the frequency) of these impulses, they made sound. It was called radio. Thanks to a man named Edison, who had figured out how to capture sound on a wax (and later vinyl) disc, there was something to share using this new invention.

As it grew, one of the primary uses of radio was to sell records. Artists, managers and record companies knew that if you weren't on the radio, the records didn't sell. They also knew that if you were on the radio a lot and the DJ told all of his listeners over and over that the music was good, the records sold very very well (today, we call this the boy-band effect). This led to its own set of problems but the basic truth was that if the general public heard the music, they would buy the music.

Today, the recording industry has changed as have the delivery methods for recorded media. But that basic truth still stands: If you play it, they will buy.

Recently, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group consisting of a large number of private corporate entities such as record labels and distributors, who create and distribute about 90% of recorded music sold in the US*, went after internet radio. "[A] new royalty structure was enacted by the Copyright Review Board in March" under which "webcasters will have to pay a flat fee per song streamed on a per-user basis, along with a $500-per-channel annual administrative fee. In addition, the royalties are retroactive to January 2006 and are scheduled to double by 2011."**

Let's add that up. Let's assume you have a listener base of 200 people at any given time and the fee is 8 cents per song per user. For every song you play, you have to pay the artists $16.00 (.08 * 200). This is on top of the licensing fee you're already paying to the composers - the same (and only) fee traditional radio stations pay. Now, let's assume you play 10 songs per hour. That's $160.00 per hour you pay in royalty fees. The system is completely automated so you're on 24 hours a day which comes out to $3,840.00 per day which translates into $1,401,600.00 per year. The fees are due October 20 and are retroactive to 1998. It's no wonder that several radio stations that used to stream their content have stopped doing so and several small and public stations have shut down altogether.

Remember the rule? Airplay = Profits. By imposing this fee structure - which I have to wonder about the ethical, legal and moral implications of letting a trade group dictate public policy - the RIAA and the Copyright Royalty Board are reducing the number of outlets where people can listen to music.

Now, it appears that the RIAA is going after satellite radio.

When does it end? When does the RIAA finally stop ignoring the constitutionality of due process and the legal copyright issues of fair use and home recording? When will this trade group be told they are no longer allowed to create laws - only Congress can do that? When do the McCarthyistic tactics of the RIAA, whether attacking private or commercial interests, finally cause enough of an outcry that the world finally says to them, "Have you no sense of decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"


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* Source: Wikipedia
** Source: ars technica

Argue With Me, I Dare You

Paul McCartney is a LOUSY lyricist! Billy Joel is infinitely more talented.

Paul McCartney:
"Everybody gonna dance tonight, Everybody gonna feel alright, Everybody gonna dance around tonight."

Billy Joel:
" All the servants in your new hotel, Throw their roses at your feet, Fool them all but baby I can tell, You're no stranger to the street."

You want another example?

I give you, Wings:
"Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun,
And the first one said to the second one there I hope youre having fun.
Band on the run, band on the run.
And the jailer man and sailor sam were searching every one

For the band on the run, band on the run, band on the run, band on the run"

Ummmmm... what?

Billy Joel:
"We met as soul mates, On parris island, We left as inmates, From an asylum,
And we were sharp, As sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho, To lay down our lives
We came in spastic, Like tameless horses, We left in plastic, As numbered corpses."

John Lennon was the brains behind The Beatles.