I got The Lord of the Rings audiobook the other day. (*Beams) I think I will finally buy the extended edition movie trilogy – Half Priced Books has a used copy of the boxed set for $30. (*Hopes they are not scratched)

I also built my first rpm this week – so happy, now I can I really contribute. In case anyone is googling “screenlets rpm” (psst that’s a hint google) – you can find it here: http://www.jdeslippe.com/rpms/ – already it looks like several people have downloaded it. Hurray.

I started drinking Sierra Nevada because the bar below my apartment had only a choice of a few beers and two of the others were IPAs (I am not a fan of hops). Slowly, I found myself buying packs of SN at the grocery store instead of the many different types of Brown Ales I used to get. Intrepidly, Sierra Nevada has won me over. That is all.

*=internal monologue

I was just flipping through my Playbill from Avenue Q and found the page where they try to persuade people to advertise with them. This is what the say about the average Playbill reader:

Median age – 45.9

Annual Income (household) – #132,240

74% own 2 or more cars

Median value of residence owned $476,315

*Looks around curiously

After seeing Wicked, I always had a bit of a negative feeling towards Avenue Q, thinking it must have somehow swindled the Tony Award from the former show. Anyway, I went to see Avenue Q yesterday night, and boy was I wrong. It would be a very close call, anyway. The show was pretty hilarious; the knocks on Sesame Street were especially funny and sometime even profound I recommend people go see it.

In other news, I am off to do grocery shopping.

So, I am now only able to play the music I was stupid enough to buy from iTunes on a single copy of windows running on a virtual machine. The other 4 of my 5 authorized ‘computers’ don’t exist any more, either being old and damaged or had windows deleted from them, and iTunes won’t let me reset my 5 computers. So, I have to cling onto this file for dear life. Beyond that, I can’t play the music purchased from iTunes on any other device except an iPod – my sweet new phone for example is not allowed to play the music. Pretty soon, my iPod will break, and I won’t be able to play my music at all, unless of course I buy a new more expensive one or a new $600 Apple phone with a painfully slow internet connection.

Why is all this the case? Apparently because if I actually owned the products I purchased, I would give them away to the world for free – despite the fact the ‘world’ can get the music very easily for free without me either way, and I have no incentive to do so and, in fact, do respect the law.

Grrr… I will never buy anything with DRM on it again. I wouldn’t have bought any in the first place if they were up front about restricting your rights. The good news is that there are several 100% DRM free music stores coming online in the next month or so from the likes of Amazon.com, BestBuy.com etc… The best part of all this is that Universal will sell it’s music DRM free with everybody except Apple, who I have always believed to be disingenuous in their pressure on the music industry to sell music without copy protection (if they really cared, indie labels would not still be encrypted).

On a related note, if you enjoy internet video, you should check out Miro. It’s sharp

The below post is password protected.  If you would like the password, please send me an email or comment below.  I will use the same password for all forthcoming private posts.

The point of the password is not to block anybody (I will send it to anybody who wants it) and the password does not mean that I am too scared to express my views in public.  I have done this because I recognize that this blog is written not to educate the masses or give strangers/future-employers access to my inner mind but is written primarily for my own benefit in organizing my thoughts and as a means to communicate to friends and family.

The particular post below is actually not particularly private or controversial, but I am using it as a test for my new policy.