We’re all sick of spammers. Unsolicited e-mail costs nothing to send, so junk e-mail makes up a higher portion of my e-mail than junk snail-mail ever made up of my real mail. Still, I don’t think paying someone to stop spam from reaching my mailbox is the solution. I shouldn’t be getting the stuff in the first place; why does someone else get to make money for taking out the trash? (Trash that I have no problem taking out myself simply by clicking delete; it’s just annoying to see “Receiving message 3 of 3″ only to find I got nothing interesting.)

Why is it that major news sources insist that the N-Gage is a viable entry into the world of handheld gaming? I read an article somewhere in which a Nokia official said people would be “ashamed to get out their Gameboys in public,” and asserted that their N-Gage would be a socially acceptable gaming platform. Any gamer who is ashamed of his Gameboy… well, he’s not a gamer. If the N-Gage gives the SP any competition at all, I’ll… well, I won’t eat my hat, but we’ll pretend that I said I would, okay?

Also: THE PLAYSTATION IS NOT THE NUMBER ONE CONSOLE. If you’re going to say that, clarify that you’re talking about units sold, not quality. Wal-Mart has more stores than, say, Macy’s, but no one asserts that Wal-Mart is better. Same with the Playstation and either of its competitors. There may be more of them, but really, it doesn’t deserve to be in the same market. I own a Playstation. I even sort of appreciate it for what it does. But let’s face it — it does nothing that the X-box can’t do better. Plus, I can take one ‘Cube game and put collective Playstation (1 and 2) library to shame. There are lots of PS games, and lots of systems out there. I won’t deny that. I also don’t deny that the public, as a collective, is stupid.

I’m avoiding reviews of Revolutions until after I’ve seen it in a little while (and until I write my own review), but if anyone cares, it appears to be getting bad reviews. After the travesty that was Reloaded, my expectations are low… and I still expect to be disappointed.
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I’ve mentioned this on my Deadjournal, but I feel obligated to mention it as often as possible. I’m even putting a link over on the sidebar. Magnatune: The not-evil recording company. It’s an interesting concept, and one that I wholeheartedly endorse.

I’d love to see more things like this — small, independent companies making smaller bands’ music available to people online. Because I’m sick of paying $15 for CDs containing one or two good songs, and because I think there has to be a better way to get music, I’ve stopped buying new CDs from normal record companies. Not to mention the fact that record companies seem to cater to the lowest common denominator — thus, little bluegrass gets played on the radio, and country is slowly morphing to be indistinguishable from pop.

Seems to me that, if you reduce distribution costs by distributing on the internet, some of the less popular genres would be easier to support.

So, anyway… if you have the chance, take a look at Magnatune.
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