July 2009 Archives

This flower is from a shrub somewhere in Sacramento -- either Midtown or heading toward Old Sac.

Clues, anyone?

I'm lazy. What more can I say? I have not yet fully devolved to encapsulating my thoughts in 140 characters or fewer -- in fact when I do Twitter, I have to find ways to abbreviate my more normal inclinations. Yet I find it simpler to pop out a quick update or a comment on Facebook than to blog. Expository writing takes more effort. I need to think about it a bit. Chew on it in my mind. Research it a bit. My days of simply blatting out whatever thought percolates to the top of the swamp of my mind and letting it spill onto the screen are, well, not precisely over, but they have been reduced.

Nevertheless, I do have a collection of random thoughts I could sort of collect here, for the one or two of you who bother to visit this abandoned forum.

1. Starbucks is getting some competition. McDonalds started offering sugary coffee drinks for less a few months ago. In response, Starbucks has announced a scheme to reduce the prices of some of its beverages in some of its markets. Obvii, those markets would be the ones where Mickey-D's is beating them out. I'm sure. Still, a strategy I have not seen, but which would help Starbucks with their "We Are So Too Not Overpriced" image is to sell refills. Bring in your <environmentally friendly> mug and get a refill of their best burnt brew for only 99 cents! Here's the upside -- Apple and iTunes have proven that peeps generally don't think 99 cents is too much to pay for something. Heck, the Dollar stores proved that out, right? Starbucks also gets to promote itself as being "green." Yes, they're doing their part to reduce the waste from all those plastic lids, cardboard snuggies and plastic-coated cardboard cups. Cool, or wot?

2. Seriously. Chad has to go. He just must. I mean, he seems like a nice boy, but his oozy friendliness and bland charm has been suffered long enough. I was hoping, once Verizon took over Alltel, they'd have their geek chew Chad to pieces and I was way looking forward to the blood match but it just hasn't materialized. Now I'm simply hoping for a little quiet disappearing, you know what I mean? One day, Chad's there advising some kid not to put a used orthodontics retainer into his mouth, and the next, we're all not noticing he's even gone.

3. Let's go back to the 99 cent price tag for a moment, there. There are actually people -- tightwads, curmudgeons, grumps, or practical, however you want to name them -- there are people who think that 99 cents for a single song is too much to pay. Really, they're right but it's been shown to be what the market will bear. So grind your teeth if you must, and even vow to never spend that one-penny-below-a-buck on a song, but think for a moment about this: your kid, someone's kid has shelled out maybe up to $2 for only 30 seconds of that same song. Not even a hi-fidelity clip, that kid paid actual money AND air-time for download to get a fuzzy sounding snippet of the most annoying tune imaginable and you get to hear it repeat as that kid stands behind you in line and ignores his ringing cellphone. So you think 99 cents is a rip off? I've been caught between amused and outraged that the cellphone companies and the ringtone "providers" have been getting away with worse!

4. Which brings me to ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which asserts that that 30 seconds out of 3 to 4 minutes of a song constitutes a public performance of the copyrighted piece and they wants their royalties. So. You may have grudgingly paid 99 cents for the full song and you may play it on your boombox out at the park. Your kid, however, just might end up having to pay royalties every time someone calls him -- not sure yet if they're going to go for a percentage per ringy-dingy, or what. Sure, sure, they're going after the big guys -- Verizon, AT&T and you're probably all "yay! They're getting those rat-bastards who charge me too much!" but think it through first. If Verizon is going to have to pony up royalties for ringtones, they're going to pass that particular buck right on to you.

'nuf for now. Back to Facebook.