MusicOnline?-- I'm just curious if online music is ever going to work. I'm sure that people were saying that when CD's first came to market too. I was an early adopter of MyMP3.com when you could load a CD into your drive and "Beam it" to them to prove that you owned it. Then they would unlock it for you, and let you play it from anywhere. Now you've got services like Rhapsody and Pressplay that are testing out similar subscription services.

I think my problem with them is not their offering, it's the state of current music devices. For someone to feel like they "own" music right now, you've got to physically have it on one of many different harddrives in your digital music life. I've got one at work, one at home, one on my MP3 player.Then I still have my car CD changer, and my home stereo components that aren't hard drive based. I'll get used to paying 99 cents per song when I get to the point where I can have it in my own online harddrive, that isn't owned by any particular music service, it is owned outright by me. It is my physical hardware that is broadcasting my music collection to me only, to any of the devices in my privately purchased world. The music quality can't be like today's "streaming" sound either (unless it is today's broadband variety which sounds pretty good). Anyone have a better idea?

CanYouHearMeNow?Good-- In my quest to have a completely redundant home computer, and actually surpass my PC with a far cooler Mac, I added another component to my G4 that I got from my dead dot com. I added these bitchin' speakers. They sound incredible! $99, and worth every penny of my Christmas money. Now I can actually hear the sound in my iMovies, and I'm going to move exclusively to iTunes from my WinAmp PC crap.

Work=Hell-- Do you ever have so much to do that rather than work you just sit there with a blank blood-shot-eyed stare and ask yourself whether your computer is a loyal friend, or the abusive, wife-beater wearing root of all of your psychological torment? Nah, me neither.

BonJovial-- Monday night in NY with all of my homies from the NY office was great! Here's the best recount of the events, and specifically of karaoke to too many Bon Jovi songs. I love NY. Thanks guys! And thanks Dana, for coming out. It was great to catch up!

Tuesday I came back on a 3 hour delayed plane to a mountain of crap, then yesterday my train was way late getting to Union Station because of busted brakes. So here I sit today, normal, and finally reccovered.

MiLife-- Yes, I have almost acheived computing Nirvana. The other day I installed a DVD burner on my Mac G4. I got it mad cheap from Staples.com - only $170 after rebates. It's the same drive as the Apple SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-105) and even though Apple itself doesn't allow you to buy a SuperDrive and put it into an old G4, they kindly put up the world's greatest user forums where other kind souls helped me pick out the right drive. To find the best price, I used Dealmac.com, another lifesaver. which required an upgrade from Mac OSX 10.2 to 10.2.3.

And last night I installed iLife. Now I could care less at this point how they tweaked my iMovie, I assume it will rock, and iTunes, and iPhoto too. But I really wanted to use iDVD. So I did. And it crashed, and crashed again, and crashed again. But in the end I did get the tutorial to burn. And man, iDVD is a lot of fun.

TheJacksonShnozz - It's just too bad Michael Jackson is such a freak. He really is talented, and his early 80's music is my favorite. Especially when I hear it play on the radio of my "Banshee" in GTA Vice City. But, I am so over his plastic face, and his reculusive lifestyle. For a guy that sings (sang) pop-music, he is awfully alternative.

TeenAngst-- Our poor (well not really, more like well-to-do) Youth Group kids. I swear, kids have more problems growing up in a well-off area than some in poorer neighborhoods. Parents are medicating their kids, and putting them into mental institutions for no reason. I'm extremely disturbed. I don't remember high school causing the kind of serious problems that I hear around here - depression, suicidal tendencies, anxiety attacks. I really think that there ought to be some more formal training for being a parent. Since there are no longer tribes, nor extended families living near each other, people really don't know how to raise their kids. Kids really need to talk about what's going on, and the last thing they need is to have some pills shoved in their face, or to be shipped off to a mental health clinic. This has got to be the best way of starting kids on chemical dependencies and a life long counseling program. I hope that Tricia and I can raise Mason without these crutches.

VolleyBastard-- That's what you get when you drive to Palos Heights from Aurora after getting up at 5:30am only to find that one of the players on your volleyball team decided not to show up. There goes the tournament fees, there goes my Sunday. I haven't had this happen to me since high school. Grown men can really suck.