Big Hand to EMI , Apple, Steve Jobs, and Jim Rome!

Looks like Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry didn’t fall on deaf ears. I wrote earlier in Feb about Steve Jobs’ letter and how EMI had plans to follow through with developing the ability to sell non-DRM protected music. Looks like they’re actually going through with it!

Good for you EMI. Better for you Apple. EMI will distribute their songs through Apple’s Itunes store. You can buy a NON-DRM protected song for $1.29. About as much as a 20 oz. soda. And you can play it on any device you wish. You can copy it as many times as you like. If you buy the whole CD, you get a discount. If you’ve already bought the song through Itunes before, and you want to upgrade to the NON-DRM’d song, it only costs the additional 30 cents. This is a great great deal. Hopefully, Apple and EMI will make tons of money this way, and this will provide a gateway to other companies making music like this available as well, either through Apple or any other downloading service.

Still…gotta hand it to Apple. The rich get richer. This is a great deal for them. It’ll get the Itunes program on any number of more computers for those who don’t even own an Ipod. Apple still gets their cut of the profits, all because they came up with a satisfactory business model that could easily be tweaked to allow for NON-DRM’d music. That’s awesome.

By the way, here’s some thoughts from the weekend:

Blades of Glory (not Blades of Steel, thanks Jeff) was a funny movie. Amazing just how many figure skaters they got to be in it. It seems they’re letting Will Ferrell play a Ron Burgundy type character every time out now…I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Children of Men…good movie. Not groundbreaking like it was built up to be, but a very interesting take on a hopefully not going to happen near future. I’d give it a 4 out of 5 though. Great Performances all around.

Never thought I’d see a “celebrity” while going about daily life in Southern Cali…but I was wrong. The girlfriend and I went to Javier’s in the Irvine Spectrum Center to have dinner before Blades of Glory. Halfway through the meal, I scan the crowd and notice that someone looks familiar. None other than Jim Rome himself was eating there with some friends or family. My first thought after “Holy Crap! That’s Jim Rome!” was similar to all my other thoughts upon seeing celebrities…”Gosh, he’s shorter than I thought he’d be.”

NCAA Basketball Tournament…Men’s. I pick Florida. But I’m ignorant…I don’t typically watch college hoops. Still…Florida looks to me like the more complete team.

Noah is going to be a good NBA player…not great. He’ll be a great complementary player…not dominant. I’m thinking along the lines of Antonio McDyess.
Oden’s got a chance to be something, I don’t think we’ve even seen him scratch the surface of his potential yet. I’m thinking he’ll be a Ben Wallace type player…with a little more polished offensive game.

Durant’s got the ability to come out and dominate right away, like Carmelo Anthony did. He’s got a higher ceiling though. He could be the next Garnett, if he wants to be. I don’t see the desire though, which is usually what separates the Paul Pierce’s from the Kobe’s and the Dwayne Wade’s from the Lebron’s.

Next weekend is a Hot Fuzz sneak up in LA! I can’t wait. I’ll have a review up by Monday…and I’ll also be submitting it to Aintitcoolnews.com…although they don’t seem to ever put my reviews up.

Oh, and as Opening Day is today...

Go Tigers!