Psychic connection with my mp3 player
I'm claiming a very powerful and (understandably) little talked about feature of my Creative Zen Vision M player. I don't want to say that the iPod can't do it, because I don't know if it can.
I tend to queue up all of my music (about 4000 songs) when I'm heading to work. Sometimes I play a game and say to myself, okay, the next thing I'll hear is classical, and it will be the next song (which is weird, since I've got maybe 100 classical music tracks, definitely no more and probably less). But this morning, I was very specifically thinking about Jonathan Coulton for a variety of reasons, absolutely none having to do with listening to it on my player. I have one album (what is that, like 10 songs?) of his. About 10 minutes later, when I switch from my beloved WERS radio listening to the all-track queue, First of May comes up. How weird is that? Yeah, yeah, I know it's coincidence. But if people can believe in angels and demons, why can't I believe in the psychic connection between me and my player?
Oh and if anyone's reading this who doesn't know me personally, please note that I'm kidding. I just think it's freaky.
pigs are flying, old media is more rational than new media
Universal Studios is complaining about Apple's proprietary slant. Okay so the music industry is pissed that Apple is stealing business from them, but whatever their motivations, they're actually right. So now I have to root for the music industry? I feel so weird about that. But I'd feel weirder rooting for the guys taking up all the online music space. Whatever, I'll keep downloading from eMusic even if they don't have everything (because they're not big enough to compete with iTunes... grrr).
NYTimes article on Universal and Apple
MUSIC DIVIDE The Universal Music Group of Vivendi told Apple that it would not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes, executives briefed on the matter said. Universal told Apple that it would provide music to Apple at will, giving itself the option to pull out of the service at any time.
The two companies have reached a standoff in negotiations. The music industry has been complaining for years about Apple’s influence on the online-music business, its power to set prices on music downloaded through iTunes and iTunes’ lack of compatibility with music players other than the iPod.
Alienating Apple would be a huge risk for the music industry. Apple recently surpassed Amazon.com to become the third-biggest seller of music, behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment recently signed a one-year contract with Apple.
Radio isn’t dead
I just did something I never do. I donated to a radio station. I've had a love/hate relationship with radio for many years, particularly since the downfall of MTV. I love the fact that the Internet allows us to share and learn about music like never before. But frankly, I've got a case of information overload in that department. I'm not an iTunes advocate (they're a monopoly, just as bad as Microsoft, and even worse in the case of music). I have a creative zen video player that I love. One thing that sets it apart from the iPod is it has a radio. (Silly iPod, why do you try to kill the radio?)
As someone who rides the bus every day to work, I rely on my zen to get me to work in a relatively calm mood so I can start my day right. There are times when I'm just sick of all 4K songs on my player. So I listen to radio... I've been listening to it a lot lately, actually. I'm lucky. I live in a college town, so the radio stations are pretty great. I used to listen to Air America, but when Marc Maron was killed off, I abandoned it for a little while. Then Rachel Maddow was on and I liked her, so I started listening again. Then Air America was quite suddenly pulled off of Boston radio in favor of Aye Carumba music. Garrumph. Oh, and I likes me some NPR, don't get me wrong. But who can listen to the death toll of Iraqi citizens every day? I can't. WFNX is great, but repetitive and commercial. By random luck, I stumbled on WERS, an independent radio station run by Emerson. I just learned about Regina Spektor and now I LOVE her. Meg Hutchinson, Martin Sexton, all good. And they play my Rufus and some Ben Folds sometimes. No commercials, beautiful, meaningful, soulful music. I'm not overloaded. I'm at peace.
They asked for my money, so I gave it. I couldn't be happier to donate to such a worthy cause. A good radio station is like a good partner... a constant joy to turn on.
mp3 land
I refuse to be an mp3 idiot
...she whined...
I just spent the past two hours investigating the right mp3 player for me (no, please, don't say get an ipod, I am not a sheep, damnit). I thought I found it... Creative Zen Touch 40GB. Beautiful. On sale, on Amazon. Wonderful. Really wanted to get nice desktop speakers for it. Wow, that took like FOREVER to wade through all the different types and do I go receiver, or just get the speaker, but wait, do I want a remote with it, and I thought Bose was great, but all reviews point to suckage. You get the point. So, I end up at choosing the Altec Lansig MX5021, , which is great, but there's a new one with like zero reviews, so i wasn't sure.
Then I took another look at the creative zen, because after reading some of the reviews, something one person said made a lot of sense... try and go for a system that has proper audio jacks, rather than just using the headphone jack, because sound quality is bound to be better. I go back to the zen, and guess what? The specs don't say anything about proper audio jacks, just a headphone jack (at least that's all i could figure out). So, what, do I have to get a separate docking station? Do they even make one that has audio lines? That's what I had for my fabulous rio karma until I played it to death. Poor thing didn't stand a chance.
Damn, maybe i should just get another Karma. Rio is good. What do you think?