Currently, every 10 year old kid with a computer and iPod is downloading and sharing unlicensed (i.e., illegal) music.

Because it is so easy to download and share music, the music industry is understandably concerned about lost revenue, and everybody with a single illegally obtained MP3 (i.e.,: most of us) is technically a criminal. This is clearly a loose-loose situation.

So, how can we turn it into a win-win situation. The only way that I can see involves two key points:

1. the music industry make the revenue they require
2. people can download as much music as they want – at no (or very little) cost

Here are two suggestions.

Free Music
How about getting the music industry to partner with some of the large social networking sites such as FaceBook or MySpace? Make the MP3’s available at no cost on these sites, but share the advertising revenue that is generated between the music and the websites.

The free MP3’s will drive huge traffic to the sites, and they will allow for highly-profiled advertising to be served to the users (aside from existing profile info they already have).

So, the users are happy- they are getting free music, the music industry is happy – they are getting (advertising) revenue due to the online music, and on top of it the websites are getting revenue due to the additional traffic.

Really Cheap Music
The second suggestion is to pay a monthly subscription for your music. So for example, you pay $29.99 per month, which gives you access to whatever music you wish to listen to. So, you are not actually paying for the music, you are paying for the right to listen to it.

This is similar to a mobile phone contract, in which you are paying for the right to make a telephone call, regardless of if you make any calls or not. You could possibly extend this analogy and say that you pay 10c for each song you listen to – equivalent to paying for each phone call that you actually make.

Whatever option happens, I am convinced that the "goto a retail store and buy a CD" model is on the way out.

Notes
The Global Advertising spend was worth $358 billion in 2004.
The global music industry spend was $12,4 billion in 2005.

"Absolutely, under no circumstance at all are customers allowed to play Stairway to Heaven, Sweet Child of Mine, or Smoke on the Water while trying out guitars. Thank You."

This is a sign I found on Wikipedia. It was apparently photographed in a window in Denmark Street in London.

Denmark Street is where most of the London music shops can be found.

I will be sure to take note next time I buy a guitar in London (Lois bought her Tanglewood guitar in Denmark Street).

Well, at least we can still play "Wild Thing" and "Smells Like Teen Spirits".

Wasn’t there a similar sign in Wayne’s World?

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Denmark_street_sign.jpg

Ok, so I have been stuck in bed for over two weeks now, and while Lois and everybody is being really wonderful, I am board!

So, here are 34 things to keep you busy when stuck in bed!

1. Catchup on your reading
2. Surf the net
3. Catchup on your newsfeeds
4. Phone all your friends
5. Cleanup your mailbox
6. Download and play with virtual lego
7. Arrange your MP3 collection and create new playlists
8. Try to understand what the globs on your MRI scan actually mean
9. Create lists of things to do when stuck in bed
10. Check your e-mail about 100x per day in case anything interesting has happened since the last time you checked
11. Change the colour scheme on your computer
12. Figure out if downloading the 3gig installation for the trial version of Warcraft is really worth it
13. Read more books
14. Play online tetris
15. Google everybody you know
16. Play on Facebook
17. Play on LinkedIn
18. Create Christmas Shopping Lists
19. Research every medical procedure known to man – just in case
20. Write aimless blog posts
21. Update the layout of your website
22. E-mail all your friends
23. Stare out of the window
24. Google your doctor
25. Shout at the cat for "bathing" on the bed
26. Read even more books
27. Wonder which book to read next because by now you have read all the good ones
28. Cleanp your desktop (on your pc)
29. Sleep
30. Play every game that came free with your computer, and realise why they are free
31. Defrag your harddrive
32. Read even more books…
33. Google your pets
34. Order warcraft online because the download is too big

What have I missed, I am sure I will be adding to this list shortly…?

Watch out for the next installment of this exciting drama – alternative treatments recommended to me (by non-experts) for a slipped disc!

Here are two advantages of being married to a blind person:

1. We don’t disturb one other when reading late. If I read late and leave the light on, she can’t see it and does not care. If Lois wants to read late, she listens to her books with headphones, so I don’t care.
2. She can ‘watch’ a movie in the kitchen, and can make tea and coffee while the movie is on.

Enjoy!

Craig

According to the BBC, Terry Prachett has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease. Apparently this is behind a "phantom stroke" that he had earlier this year. He made the announcement on the website of Paul Kidby, his illustrator.

He said that

"All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments."

"I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think."

He did mention that we should expect more books in the future, so let’s all hope for the best.

Mr Pratchett, we are all thinking of you (and there are many of us), and are as usually looking out for those books to keep flowing – many happy thoughts.

Craig

ps: Thanks for the free copy of Soul Music that you sent us a few years ago.

Pictures from http://www.worldbookday.org/resources/4c.asp?orderBy=Publisher&orderDirection=ASC&filter=None

I don’t know when you last had an x-ray done, but until the other day, my last x-ray was quite a while ago. I am sure that you are all familiar with those big and bulky films that they give you. They always end up stored at the back of cupboards or behind bookcases, and can never be found when you actually need them!

Well, two Saturday’s ago as I was unpacking the dishwasher, I heard a click. Yes, my back had suddenly gone into a hectic spasm (and for the record – I often do actually unpack the dishwasher). I stumbled of to bed, and pretty much stayed there until Monday, when I decided to get it checked out by a doctor.

The first item on the agenda was an x-ray. When I had it done, they didn’t give me the bulky film, instead they gave me a CD which contained digital images of the x-ray’s. The doctor could just pop that into his PC and view the images. Yes, it does seem pretty obvious that they would go digital, but I thought that it was pretty cool to get my x-ray’s on CD.

So now instead of loosing a big and bulky film, I will probably loose a small CD instead!

Anyway, it seems like it is just muscular, and all should be ok in time. After more than a week’s bed rest, my back is starting to recover, but I am still hobbling around quite a bit.

Update – still in pain almost two weeks later, I am going for an MRI scan tomorrow. Grrr, I am so frustrated with lying in bed – yes it is really painful (excusing the pun) stuck in bed!

Hapy thoughts please :-)

Feeling a big nostilgic about the 80’s. Well, if you are, you have come to the right place! How about a game of Tetris? BTW: There is a whole lot of pretty useless info about Tetris here.

Hi Everyone-

Happy Christmas – have a really great festive season. Hope you get some time out and recharge your batteries for 2008.

Thanks for all the good times and memories (no, we are not trying to sound like a KFM advert!), but we are looking foward to some more good times ahead!

Enjoy the movie! (if you can’t see it, click here)

Love Craig & Lois

ps: if you are not in it, we are really, really, really sorry!

I was cleaning up my study, and I found the old ticket stubs from our trip up the Eiffel Tower in Vegas. Ok, so this wasn’t the real tower in France, it was only a 1/2 scale model, but it was still 540 feet (164m) tall, and it was pretty impressive.

Walking through the Paris hotel is really like walking through the streets of Paris – complete with sidewalk cafe’s, accordion music & cobbled streets. I really felt like I was back in Paris.

However, what really amused me was the warning on the ticket  – “no unauthorized weddings”.  Where else would you find that warning? I suppose that if you are going to do a Vegas wedding, the top of the Eiffel Tower is as good a place as any  – good thing Lois and I are already married!

I still think that Vegas is a great place to get married – you can have a drive trough wedding, the reception at the MacDonalds drive through, and even see a show afterwards!

Don’t forget – no unauthorized weddings!

(here is our trip up the REAL Eiffel Tower in Paris, France )

Last Saturday, I went to Dial-a-Bed to look at a new bed. Yes, I know that you can just dial and they will deliver, but I wanted to try one or two out first.

Anyway, they had no stock in Cape Town of the bed that I settled on, but the shipment was due to arrive from Johannesburg within the week. No problem, I could wait a few days.

But they phoned me on Thursday to tell me that the shipment was still on Johannesburg, and I had a choice. I could either continue waiting, or buy the other bed that I looked at, which cost R1000 more!

However, for my inconvenience they would discount the more expensive bed by R1000. Of course I was happy with that suggestion (I also got free delivery).

So, I am now sleeping on a brand new top of the range bed. Well done guys for the customer service. I will recommend you anyday.

Ps: It was the Tokai branch.

Update: the salesman personally phoned me today to thank me for the orchids (I hadn’t told them abou this post!)