I hate other people's parents

You know what is terrible? When you're walking somewhere in public and out of nowhere your vision is filled with the chunky lumps of some fat little kid. It follows it's parent (who is not even always fat like the kid) around, picking up bags of candy from store shelves and toys and putting them in the cart without a word from the parent. What the fuck is wrong with these people? How can they live, feeding their kids horrible food (usually from McDonald's) and watching them expand like that? The worst of the two is fat little girls though. They're always wearing Hannah Montana shirts, and those are tight. No one wants to see that much detail in a fat woman, so when it's a little girl, it's just awful. And no one wants to see Hannah Montana anything, but that's beside the point.

I don't know what drives the parents to buy these or even let their kids see anything Disney has made in recent years. But it's just disgusting. 

Then there's the slightly older ones who wear ludicrous amounts of makeup. Again, I blame the parents for letting them. If I ever have a daughter, she won't wear ludicrous amounts of makeup. She won't wear any makeup at all for a while. And she won't be fat. If I ever have kids, none of them will be fat. I'll fill their heads with disgusting facts about McDonalds at a young age to scare them off it for life.

Dear old men who do yard work, put on a fucking shirt

You're fat and hairy and old and wrinkly. No one wants to see that much of you. Not even your wife or the people driving by. At least wear a bra.

To continue the post on iTunes 8...

Genius seems to put "Never gonna give you up" in more playlists than it should. Well played, Apple.

Dear "artists" signed with Disney, fuck you.

Artists signed with Disney need to be shipped to China so they can manufacture all their merchandise and get paid almost nothing for it. Then we should forget to pick them up. Seriously, they are the most personality-free, generic "teen idols" I have ever seen. They all play boring music that supports something important (like friendship or trying to explain to be yourself) and try to convert their audiences to Christianity or something. I mean come on now. At the end of Miley Cyrus's concert at the Kids Choice Awards (I watched it only because Jack Black was hosting it) she thanked her "lord and savior, Jesus Christ." In front of a bunch of impressionable kids. Was that really necessary? They do not need religion to be yet another thing being pumped into their easily influenced minds. "Mommy, we're going to hell because we don't worship God."

Then there's the Jonas brothers and their purity rings. Do you need a ring to tell people you won't have pre-marital sex? No, you could just say it. Besides, it's only a matter of time before nudes of them show up online, probably with other people involved (or each other). It happens with all famous women. Shit, they aren't women. Well they're close enough.

iTunes 8, pretty neat.

So I have of course upgraded to iTunes 8. So far I like it. That new visualizer looks pretty good, though I'm not really feeling that new album art song scrolling thing. It's neat, but I know I'll never use it.

I like Genius though. If you don't know what it is, it makes playlists for songs out of songs that go good with that song. It's neat. It also works on the iTunes store. If you open the Genius Sidebar, it recommends songs that you might like that go with whatever song you have highlighted in the song list. You can preview and buy them right there, and so far, I like Genius. Apparently instead of working by analyzing BPM and other such things regarding the song, it works via the internet. Genius keeps a database of all the music listened to by everyone who uses it. It keeps track of songs, ratings, plays, things like that. Then it somehow turns all that data into knowledge of which songs go with which other songs. It sounds like it wouldn't work at all, but I'm liking it so far. If I have it make me a playlist for a song I like and have it do 25 songs, 20 or more of them will probably be songs I won't skip, especially if I'm in a mood for songs that go with a song. For example, right now I'm listening to a playlist made from Rose Royce's Car Wash. It has a lot of Earth Wind & Fire songs as well as various others that I will listen to. I've also wanted various iTunes store recommendations that it's given me for various songs.

It's also got that visualizer, which I'm liking. It seems to change it's patterns, colors, and other things depending on the mood of the song playing. And that works pretty well.

videoCWK's Rules for going in public

Hey everyone, due to various idiots I have compiled a list of rules for when you go in public. If you don't follow them, you are an asshole and you should stay at your house all the time. Get one of those "at home" jobs and order everything through mail, the public doesn't want you around.

1. Turn down your fucking cell phone. No one wants to hear your ringtone that dictates your shitty music taste blaring and distorting from your cell phone. It's annoying and not everyone likes top-40 R&B/hip hop songs.

2. I don't care if you're with your friends, stop trying to look cool and shut up. This one especially applies to preps who travel in packs. You know they wouldn't do the annoying-as-fuck disruptive things they do in public if they didn't have their pack of cheering friends with them. You people are not cool, your Abercrombie clothes suck, and shut up. I'm not against having fun with friends, I do it constantly, but I don't think everyone around you needs to hear you being stupid.

3. Stop talking loud on your phone. This applies heavily to single women in their 30s, but don't think it doesn't include you. Talking loud on the phone seems to make people feel cool and important. Instead, it makes you annoying and burnable. If you're sitting a few tables away from me in a cafe and I can hear your phone conversation with your girlfriend louder than the two people studying out loud next to me (yes, that happened once), something is wrong. If you can't place yourself outside or away from everyone else to make a phone call, at least try to do it quietly. Believe me, your phone will pick your voice up just fine if you don't talk loud enough for the person on the other line to hear you from where they are.

4. This one's for men, stop fucking up the public bathrooms. I'm sure it makes you feel manly to write your name in squiggles on the wall, or piss all over the seat, or piss somewhere discreet so the bathroom smells like piss forever, but seriously, go get shot in the face with a porcupine. Please. If you've ever been in a women's bathroom due to an out of order men's room or for some other reason, you've probably noticed that theirs was much much nicer. For example, at a local golf corse, the men's room is a small shitty hot room, that smells like piss, that looks like piss, and is always dirty. The women's room (I used it once because I had to crap and the toilet in the men's room was covered in a rainbow of body fluids) looks like your grandma's house. It had drapes on the windows, real towels, it was clean, there was a carpet, the toilet was in it's own separate room from the bathroom, it even had fake flowers in a vase. This is because women have enough respect for their own gender to not fuck up the bathroom for everyone else. So, fellow men, before you continue trying to satisfy feminists (but you don't really have to try, they're always going to be finding something to bitch about), learn to respect your own gender.

5. You're in a movie theater. Get off the phone, stop texting, stop talking to the guy next to you, or just fucking die. If it's an important call, get out of the theater. They put reminders EVERYWHERE for a reason, it's because fucking assholes like you keep bothering everyone with your damn phone calls. I don't care how quiet you're trying to be, we can still hear you. And don't forget to put it on vibrate. Everyone hates your ringtone, especially during a movie. Also, discuss the movie with your friend AFTER it has ended rather than during it. 

6. The people playing DDR do not need you to bother them. Why do you need to bother the people playing DDR? Are they bothering you? No one wants you to step on arrows while they play or get on the other pad and pretend you're autistic, you aren't funny, your mom regrets having you.

7. Don't jam arcade machine coin slots with too many coins. This makes it unplayable to anyone else. Excited about the game? Good, now put them in one at a time. By stuffing the machine full of tokens, you are being an asshole to everyone. Once some idiot threw a basketball behind a basketball machine at an arcade and it happened to unplug the ITG machine I was using. So I wanted a refund. The arcade operator was happy to supply one, but it had to wait because some moron thought it would be smart to cram an extreme amount of coins into some other machine. Since he complained to the operator (all the while acting like it wasn't entirely his fault) and the operator had to check it out, it took quite a while to get my refund. I still got it though. They may have had to replace a part in the machine's coin slot because the  coins were hopelessly jammed in.

8. If you're at a coffee shop, fast food place (hopefully not McDonalds), or other place with service like either of those places, let people cut you if you don't know what you want. If I can't decide on something when I'm at a place like this, I let everyone in front of me until I know what I want. Do not stand at the front of the line and hold everyone up forever if you don't know what you want. It's rude and there's no point in doing it. Why not use the time you're gonna spend in line to find out what you want? People who wait until they're at the counter to start thinking of what they want to get are idiots.

9. Leave your kids at home. Unless you know they aren't going to scream, yell, make sound, misbehave, cry, or whine, leave them at home. No one needs to know they exist and you'd be making the world a better place to leave them at home, or better yet, not have kids at all.

10. Is your kid a bratty asshole? Don't have any more. Ever see those parents with four asshole little kids, all out of control, and the parent is having an awful time? Well, they should  stop having kids. Everyone hates them, one was already too many. Stick a lobster in your penis/vagina so we won't have to worry about it happening again.

11. Have a damn good reason to be an ass to people who work somewhere. I don't even work in retail, I don't sell things to people, but regardless, stop being an asshole to the person at the counter/the friendly salesman who's just trying to help. They don't care if the prices are different somewhere else. They can't change them, they can't give you a special discount, and you're just being a huge asshole. If the store person is an ass to you first, then it's OK. You can have an attitude and seem annoyed because then you have a reason to. If you're pissy because that TV cost less at Wal Mart, don't take it out on the employee. They can't do anything but be annoyed because you're ignorant. Do you know how many of these people loathe you? If you don't like the prices somewhere or they don't have what you want, a simple "OK thank you, but I think I will look at some other stores. I appreciate your help." will do nicely. Do you know how many people's days you can improve by being polite? I do it whenever I can, because it's damn hard to be polite to the customers if you've been dealing with assholes all day, and one friendly person can completely turn the day around.

12. Turn down your damn car stereo (or at least close all the windows that are wide open, you asshole). Do you think the family in the car next to you wants to hear your horrible music? They don't. Playing loud music in your car is fine. People like loud music. But at least close your fucking windows. When you play loud music with the windows open, you go from being a guy enjoying some bad music to an asshole annoying everyone with his bad music.

And turn down that subwoofer. There's nothing wrong with using one, but if you drive by a bowling ally and I can hear the random BOOMs of your terrible rap music, you should be pulled over and have your sub broken over your skull. Plus, the reason the bass isn't loud enough for you in the original recording is because you have destroyed your eardrums with too much of it already. Instead of destroying what was already awful by saturating it with an absurd amount of bass, just don't do that, or better yet listen to a good band like Franz Ferdinand.

13. Stop being an idiot on the road. So many people would be happier if there weren't idiots on the road. Unfortunately, these people feel the urge to drive. You know. The people who drive behind you while you back out of a parking space (and after you look first) and then get angry when you almost dent their car. The people with the mentality of a 1st grader who always have to be in front of everyone else. The parent on a cellphone who just bought a huge SUV for itself and it's single child. People who don't know that pedestrians have the right of way. Retarded drivers should have their licenses revoked for being so stupid. 'Nuff said.

14. Stop using iPod headphones. Not only do they sound awful to the user, but they sound awful to anyone within 8 feet of the headphones. No matter how low they are, everyone can hear the music coming from them, and even if it's a good song, it's annoying.

15. Your bluetooth is for when you're driving. Not for any public place. Have you ever been at the market and all of a sudden, the guy standing next to you while you look for milk starts talking to you? There's a nine out of ten chance he is talking on his bluetooth. It's annoying when you're in public and someone starts talking on their bluetooth because first you think some random person is trying to make small talk, then you try to ignore them as their voice elevates (whether or not people notice it, when they are on bluetooths their voice gets a little louder every few seconds). Your bluetooth is there so you won't be distracted while you talk on the phone and drive. It is not there so you can make random people feel awkward.

16. This one's for the men in the audience. Don't pee next to me. Especially if it's a big bathroom where there are tons of urinal options for you. When there are a lot of them, that is a sign that you should pick the one farthest away from any other people using them. You do not get right next to someone. It's very uncomfortable. If there's only two urinals, then wait or use a stall. Something all men should do is make sure that there is always a distance of at least one urinal between himself and anyone else while using one. The only time it's acceptable to break this rule is if there are dividers between them.

17. This is also for men. Gonna use a stall? Shut the fucking door. Do you think other people like opening a stall door to see that it's already occupied? Well lock the door. There is a reason it can lock. I don't care if you just have to pee, you shut that door or eat some lead.

I went to Denny's today

It's not as bad as everyone says it is.

Dear G4, what the fuck

If you've watched G4 in the last year, you've probably noticed that it's starting to have nothing to do with video games at all. At first it was just one show (I don't even remember which), but now they're running Cops, Heroes, tons of foreign crap, and other things that have nothing to do with video games. AND, they've gotten rid of all their video game related shows. First it was Icons, which bothered me because I loved that one (I love learning video game history, and that show was the best way to do it), then they merged all the others into X Play. Not only did that ruin X Play (they hardly have time for reviews), it also made room for their tons of non-video game related shows. That also meant that other shows I didn't want to see during X Play, such as Cheat (which didn't interest me because they were either doing a game I didn't care about so it was boring or a game I did care about and I didn't want to cheat in).

They did bring back Icons for a little while, only to quickly remove it. And that's a good thing, because instead of being about video games it was instead about tons of random non-game related stuff. I don't even remember what, I watched it once for two minutes, turned off the TV, and never went back to that show. I gave it chances though, I looked in the TV guide to find out what it was, and it was never game-related.

They've still got Attack of the Show, which I think is actually not bad. I watch it from time to time. It's funny, it's sometimes about games, and I just like a show that tells you about recent technology news.

But seriously, G4 is going the way of MTV in the sense that MTV now has nothing to do with music (not like I've watched it more than once, but I only had to watch it once to find that out). I don't think "TV For Gamers" consists of one show about video games and one show about technology. Plus, Cops, Heroes, and their collection of foreign stuff doesn't have to do with them. They really don't belong.

Oh, and Code Monkeys. It's a pretty good show and is tied in with video games which is good, but I'm seeing it on less often. Maybe I never happen to notice when it's on or the people running the network just got bored of video games.

Let's sue AT&T over bad 3G coverage

So anyone heard about people suing AT&T because their iPhone 3Gs aren't getting any 3G coverage? I think it's a little crazy. I mean sure, you buy a $200/3oo phone, you're gonna want to be able to use it. But suing instead of calling customer support makes about as much sense as suing a restaurant because you ran out of ketchup rather than asking for a new bottle. It just doesn't make sense. If they want better coverage, I don't think suing is going to get it. In fact, it'll probably decrease chances. If AT&T starts giving money to everyone suing them because of the 3G coverage, then they'll have less money to use to spend on more towers. That means that more people will have to wait longer to get good 3G coverage in their areas, and that accumulated time can add up to many years when you take into account the hundreds of people who will be suffering. That's hundreds of years of peoples lives wasted not having fast cellular internet, so every time someone sues AT&T, they are also wasting human life. What is wrong with these people? I think if the hundreds of people getting less than decent reception would all just call customer support and have a tower or two put up, that'd work better than suing. In the meantime, they could connect through EDGE. If they don't like it, at least they're getting reception. Think of the starving children in Africa who can't get any GPRS reception. Ungrateful bastards. 

Things I think would make the iPod better

So I've owned an iPod (80gb Classic) for maybe six months now and it's been great. It's convenient, easy to use, and so far I haven't had any problems (other than the infamous problem with the Classics and the click wheel not being very responsive) with it. Great as it is, I think it could be a bit better.

One thing I'd really like to see would be an "Advanced" mode. The iPod as it is, is very user friendly and doesn't present any complicatedness that would cause confusion in someone illiterate. However, I would like a little of that complicatedness. Most specifically I'd like to be able to view statistics of files saved on the iPod. Things like format, bit rate, maybe where you got it from (downloaded on iTunes, from a CD, etc), resolution (in the case of videos and photos) and things of that nature.

I'd also like them to bring back fullscreen album art. Well it wasn't really full screen, but anyone who's used an iPod Video will probably know that among the various functions you can perform when you click the middle button on Now Playing, one of them simply enlarged the album art and made it mostly fit the screen. I thought that was neat, and now they've gotten rid of it.

Another improvement that could be made would be to be able to turn Repeat on or off without going into Settings. It's nice that you can toggle Shuffle from the now playing screen, but I don't know why they left Repeat out of it.

Oh, and DRM kinda sucks. It only happens on iTunes downloads of course, but it's annoying when you want to do something with your downloaded songs. However, Apple has started to do something about it, it's called "iTunes Plus." Basically an iTunes Plus song has double the bit rate of a regular song (256 instead of 128) and no DRM, so you're free to burn it, distribute it, or use it however you want. They also cost the same as a non-Plus song, so everything about it is great. The only thing is, not all their songs are iTunes Plus.

Firewire would be nice too. They slowly started taking away Firewire support a while ago (now you can't even charge with it) and I think that sucks. Firewire is fast. Even though USB has a higher mbps, it can't stay at that mbps most of the time so instead of 480mbps, USB gives you maybe 300 or 200. Firewire stays at a constant 400 (or 800) so it's nice and fast. It's no big deal if you're only syncing over an album or a song, but for big syncs like video and such, Firewire would be nice. And I'm sure that iPhone users and their 2+ hour syncs would also appreciate it.

Anyone who knows iPod history will understand this, we really need more stuff in the box. There was once a time when you got a dock, a remote (it clipped to your shirt and you could control your iPod with it), a case, their awful shitty headphones, and I think an external charger. That was what came with your iPod. And in the day of Firewire you also got both a USB and a Firewire cable. Now you get their awful shitty headphones, a dock insert for your iPod radio, and a USB cord. If the iPod wasn't such a nice player I wouldn't have gotten one for the total lack of stuff in the box.

Bring back the bigger engraved text. On the older iPods (video and before) when you got text engraved it was nice and big. On the Classic it's pretty tiny, and you still have the same size limitations as when it was bigger.

Make the click wheel more responsive. It used to be that you could touch it anywhere and you'd get a response, but on every Classic I've used it's been totally dead in the center and would randomly have other dead spots on and off. Annoying.

Fill the interface with PG-13 content so parents will stop buying them for their spoiled asshole children. I'm being serious.

Give it a radio to shut up the "it doesn't have radio" people. It's not like they'd even listen to it though, since listening to radio somewhat defeats the purpose of the iPod. Then again, those people usually have something against the iPod anyway, so they'd just find something else to not like about it. Maybe we don't need a radio after all.

Those would make the iPod better. Get crackin', Apple.

Fun at the hifi store

Edit: Just to let you know, I found out that the Klipsch speakers I used were RB-61s rather than RB-52s. I don't feel like changing everywhere I mentioned them so I'm just putting this here.

I went to a nearby HiFi store recently. It was a great store, very helpful in my quest to get good speakers. Right now I'm really liking the Paradigm Titan Monitors (they're bookshelves). They sounded pretty good. They also pointed out to me why people are saying new Klipsch products don't stack up to the old ones. The Paradigms did cost $50 more than the Klipsch RB-52 bookshelf speakers (I decided they are good enough to wait 'till I have a job for), but there was a noticeable difference in sound that makes them worth the extra $50. While the Klipschs were also good, the problem was that in comparison to the Paradigms, vocals were less full and the sound muddled together just a bit. I was using Smash Mouth as demo material, anyone who knows them will know that their songs tend to be pretty busy, pretty often having a lot of sounds going on at once. They were more defined and separate on the Paradigms than on the Klipschs. Later on I got to use some of their floorstanders (from their Reference series, it was either the hueg RF-82s or the hueger RF-83s, not sure which, but they're pretty similar) and surprisingly enough, I still prefer the sound of those Paradigm bookshelves. Either Klipsch has gone down in quality (I can't say for sure though since I haven't heard their older stuff, but my friend's uncle seemed pretty sure that old Klipschs sound worlds better than new ones, and after hearing the new ones I wouldn't be so quick to doubt that) or Paradigm just makes a really mean pair of speakers. I'm not saying the giant Klipsch floorstanders were bad, they just weren't super good. I'm actually going to have to wonder if they were set up wrong or something or if they actually sounded like that. It sounded like either the lower mids were coming more from the tweeter than they should've, or the horn was coloring the sound in a fashion that I didn't like. Regardless of what it was, I preferred the sound of the Paradigm Titan Monitors. They also sounded better than some tiny Paradigm floorstanders that they had, though that was kind of expected since the floorstanders had smaller midrange drivers.

Leaning away from Klipsch wasn't the only thing I did there though. I also got to try the famous B&W Zeppelin. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's another one of those iPod docking speaker systems. It's probably the most praised one though. It costs (and sounds like) $500, it's one of the only speakers in the small "high-end" side of iPod speakers. Sadly I didn't get to spend more than about a minute or two with it, but it was great. It didn't sound like any iPod speaker I'd heard before, the sound is like a pretty good home stereo. Vocals were clear and full, instruments sounded real, everything was great about it. Probably the biggest problem with it is that most people who buy iPod speakers only do it for casual listening. But if I had the money I'd snatch one up right away and find a use for it, it becomes much more worth the money after you get to listen to one (as opposed to reading very favorable reviews online).

As well as that, I got a chance to speakers from B&W's 800 series (I believe the ones I used were the 802Ds, but I could be wrong). I can't say enough about them. Music has never sounded so good. He (the salesman) first put on the Smash Mouth CD I'd brought with me. It sounded awesome, I'd never heard Smash Mouth sound that good. That played for a bit, then he gave me back the CD and put on a Beatles record. These were the first speakers I'd listened to that showed a big difference between vinyl and CD. Yes, I know Smash Mouth and The Beatles are pretty different in style, but that doesn't change how good The Beatles sounded, especially through these speakers. Everything sounded very warm and real. The definition was incredible. All the instruments, the guitar, the drums, and of course the vocals, all would've made you look to see if The Beatles were in the room. I can't imagine a pair of speakers being better than those. Unfortunately they were $14000, but now I'll know what kind of speakers to look at when I'm ready to spend that much money. Here's a fun fact, the 800 series floorstanders are used for mastering.

So those were my adventures at the speaker store. Drop me a comment if you've got any comments to drop.

Dear record companies, what the fuck

Today I have chosen to complain about CDs. Awful stupid record companies who don't care about music at all are ruining music, especially CDs, for everyone. So maybe now you're thinking "Well, what's wrong with CDs?" If you are thinking that, you're pretty ignorant. You probably shop at Hollister.

Everything is wrong with CDs. This really stood out to me the other day when I bought a Smash Mouth CD at FYE the other day. It's used, cost $4, and is almost in new condition. That was when it occurred to me that $4 is how much a CD should cost. Alright, maybe a little more, but not much more than that. CDs cost way too much today. I'm seeing some go as far as $19. This would be OK if they were loaded with tracks or something, but they're not. They aren't even always new or anything special, they're just that much because they want to charge that much. In fact, the "low" $12 is still kind of expensive. While fitting a machine with the parts to make a specific CD can be somewhat costly, pressing them can't cost much. Think about it, about $30 buys you a stack of 100 rewritable CDs (sometimes it costs more, sometimes less, but it's usually around 30). That's ¢3 per disc. On bestbuy.com I found a 100 pack for $38*, which is 38 cents per disc. So it's a bit more than 3 cents per disc, but still definitely not a lot. Then I found a 50 pack of jewel CD cases for $28, which is ¢56 per case. That comes out to ¢96 for every boxed disc. Still not a dollar. And of course these blank discs and cases had extra money tacked on for the manufacturer. If I had the manufacturing costs it'd be even less. So where does all the other money come from? Well, they need to have money to run the machines that make the discs and write to them, to make the parts that go in the machines that make each disc the specific disc that it is, and they need to pay workers. So we add to the bare cost of about ¢96 per disc the cost of all that. I'm going to assume just a few dollars, lets up it to $3.96. Doesn't sound like much, but since big record companies are selling millions of CDs each day, it sorta adds up. That'll easily pay for everything involving manufacturing.

Then how about some money for the artist. One more dollar will make the artist rich as long as it's one of those awful horrible bad ones that everyone likes because they've been pressured into liking it. In fact, it'll make any moderately popular artist rich. One dollar is plenty. Then how about some money for the record company. Two dollars, since they're greedy like that and they gotta pay all their marketing people who make the world think that their most popular yet worst artist are good. That brings us to $7 after rounding up from the 96 cents. OK so I was wrong about $4 earlier, but $7 is still not a bad price. However, I do think the record company and artist could live with a little less money.

If you've ever walked into a CD store though, you know that CDs do not cost $7. They cost $7 in heaven maybe. Where's all the money going? Right to the greedy record company and artist. Even if the artist doesn't want to charge a lot, the record company does, and so they do. They're charging you as much as $19-22 (come to think of it, sometimes they do hit 22) now for a CD that costs around $4 for supplies and manufacturing. They don't know what makes it worth that much any better than you do, they just want money. If you look you can still find some CDs that are somewhat less, ones from less rich record companies who can't afford to charge as much for a few pieces of plastic, one CD, and a few pieces of paper.

Then there's special edition type things. These tend to include a second disc and maybe some more bonus material such as album art. OK, so that's ¢38 cents for the 2nd disc, a few more for the bigger case to hold both discs, and almost nothing for the extra album art. Why does it cost $28? There is no logical explanation, it costs so little extra to make one of these that they could leave the price the same as a regular album and they'd take just about no hit from it. The problem is that they are greedy bastards.

And now what's with the lower quality of CD cases? I'm not talking flimsier plastic or anything like that. The other day when I was at a CD store I was flipping through some Parliament CDs (don't criticize me for not looking for vinyl, my record player doesn't work right) and I saw something awful. It was either styrofoam or that paper material they use to make egg cartons (pretty sure it was styrofoam) as the part that holds the CD, wrapped in thin cardboard (so you could slide out the styrofoam part, shrinkwrapped. It was the most half assed, budget cutty thing I have ever seen. Seriously, what the fuck was that? Not only was it clearly just to spend less money on a better case, but it would be much easier to destroy than a plastic CD case. Think about it. It could get squished in a stack of CDs or an overstuffed CD shelf and be forever disfigured, it could bend and stay that way forever (as well as lose it's ability to hold the CD), there's just so many things that could go wrong with something like that. 

Another thing I have problems with is the way stores package the CDs. They seriously need to stop putting price tags on the actual case. Especially since they usually wrap them in plastic after that. After you peel them off you have sticker residue (or worse, the sticker falls apart and then you have some paper stuck to the case that never goes away and turns into a sticky goopymess that attracts dust and hair after a few years that still doesn't go away), or you could leave them on and have an unsightly price tag on your case. Put the fucking sticker on the plastic or price everything at a fair $6 or $7 so the cashier can always know how much something is.

I also don't like those stickers that they put along the top of the CD. They're annoying to remove since they like to shred when you peel them off, then they leave some residue that attracts hair and dust. Plus, if you've got any CDs in your collection with cases made of cardboard, this can stick to that, and if that happens long enough, it can tear the cardboard. 

Speaking of cardboard cases, it's horrible when stores put stickers on them. Cardboard cases are most often used for singles, but I have seen them for full albums (my The Day I Turned to Glass from Honeycut is made of cardboard). I don't really have anything against cardboard cases, because they pose as no problem when you take care of them right. But if you buy one with a sticker on it, it's already ruined. The sticker is going to tear it up, or you can leave it on and naturally have it look awful. This is why it's good to always buy them new online.

If vinyl were easier, I'd switch mostly over. I buy a lot of CDs that also have vinyl releases, and vinyl releases tend to sell used for around $1. Awesome. Thing is, records are easier to screw up than CDs, they require more care, they aren't as convenient, and they're much less easy to put on your iPod. I do like vinyl though, and when I have a good sound system and more money, I am going to get a nice record player and start collecting. New vinyl still costs about as much as new CDs though.

So what can you do to boycott CDs? Not much, mostly just pirate/file share. I don't do that though, for numerous reasons. In fact, I still buy CDs. This is why I don't pirate/share though:

- If it's an artist I like, I still want to support them. Unfortunately though, buying a CD (or using a service like iTunes, which is slightly better, but not by a ton) is just about the only way to do that.

- File sharing and pirating is convenient and free, except you usually get the wrong songnames/artists, so in an automatically organizing system like the iPod, you could have 20 songs from one artist and they'd all display under different artists. On the iPod, all the songs from an artist need to have the artist's name typed, capitalized, and punctuated the same way, or it displays as different artists.

- File sharing and pirating almost never gives you good sound quality, and you still don't get the 1444 kbps of a CD for listening on very high end systems (where digitally encoded music vs better digitally encoded music shows more of a difference). Some people don't mind that, I do.

- I also won't switch to buying on iTunes. I do use iTunes, and while albums costing less money (usually) are pretty tempting, if I'm going to buy an album I want a hard copy. A hard copy can be played on a separate stereo without burning, there's no DRM bothering me, and while some iTunes songs come in a pretty nice 256 kbps (that's the iTunes Plus songs), others come in a measly 128kbps. 256 is pretty nice, but iTunes will never give the 1444 kbps of a CD. I do use it if I want just one or two songs from an album though, since it saves me money and space on my CD case.

To conclude (Jeez this was long), CDs are great. Record companies are just ruining them.

Oh, and before I finish this post, why isn't SACD taking off? It's so perfect. Most SACDs can still be read on an ordinary CD player, but SACDs have better quality on an SACD player. It's the perfect successor (so fuck DVD audio) and will apparently sound better on a moderate system (I confess I still haven't used it myself). The thing is, no CD stores sell them, and they just don't advertise it at all. There's also no SACD drives for your computer (to my knowledge), so us computer listeners can't get SACD joy on our computers. So yeah, let's see more SACD.

* http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8739065&st=cd-r&type=product&id=1201913867194

** http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7950014&st=cd+case&type=product&id=1152229204211