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Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

What's Barnes & Noble up to?

Is the huge book retailer quietly starting a new Web sales strategy?

An e-mail today to customers announces lower prices across its site: "These are not limited time promotions." Comparing a current Amazon cart of mine, Barnes & Noble — after losing my own price comparisons to Amazon for years – now has the best price by $8. Smoking them.

Something bigger is going on. B&N pages no longer display member prices today, famously (to B&N customers) out of reach to most users in the past. The announcement e-mail also touts free express shipping similar to Amazon Prime among new benefits for members. A release says members are getting a yearly coupon boost as well. Okay then.

Just how much money is at stake here? Must be a ton. All members, whom you have to figure are buying and shipping more than average customers, get a previously premium add-on for free. Every other Web customer is paying significantly less money for purchases. But, on the other side, B&N gets money from me now that was headed to Amazon. If people catch onto the differences… ? Does Amazon move to match?

It's odd to see a price war so far-reaching and so quiet.

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Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Somewhere, Homeboykris is still running

The Internet claims my Derby horse finished 16th in a field of 20, but I don't believe it. Not seeing the horse during or after the race (a horse near the early lead I believed was him was not), I know Homeboykris is still out there and galloping, likely on the slim shoulder of Interstate 64, racing from Louisville to Washington to pay me back my damn $2. Last time I bet the horse with the awesome name, I tell myself again.

What you see here, of course, is not a horse race. It is friend Jim with backyard cornhole, official beer-holders and a scoreboard. He and his wife Katy know how to throw a Derby party. Mint juleps, lyric sheets, never-ending food (Steve: "Those little chocolate balls pack a punch," just as bourbon punches to my brain), $2 bets, a Daily Racing Form, a bunch of good people (glad to see Mackenzie and Jenna outside our usual Shiny towers), and weather to make Churchill Downs jealous.

(more…)

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Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Lala, gonna miss you

I don't want to count how many times I've embedded Lala on this site. For every time I've used Lala, now an embed will die. Apple is shutting down the service, months after buying it. No more lone, free streams.

News reports expect Apple will build Lala's streaming technologies into a cloud-ish, Web-based version of iTunes. Fair enough. You buy it, the oldie Circuit City ad reminds us, and it's your responsibility. Whatever future version of iTunes will likely be better than what we have now.

But that lone, free play. The sound quality was so good. Maybe even better than iTunes. You could turn it up and like it even more. You only got one play, sure. That was rough, getting to the end and realizing you could hear 30-second plays after. But that one play hit right.

Various one-plays from this blog:

12/1/2009. "One more U2 remix: 'Kick the Darkness.' "
12/10/2009. 'What Christmas Means to Me.' Stevie Wonder, album.
12/12/2009. The four songs I liked. Julie Doiron, When Brakes Get Wet.
1/2/2010. Love as a con. Faces, Open to Ideas.
1/9/2010. Little things with Elvis. Alicia Keys, You Don't Know My Name.

So, last one.

As we're discussing them–

The Clash, Clampdown, Live at Shea Stadium. "Anyone feel like being a biological experimentation?? Along these lines… So we take 72,000 guinea pigs, and we put them inside Shea Stadium. And then we let it raiiiiin… And then we turn up the sound system. So, it goes like, 5,000 watts! 6,000 watts! 7,000 watts! 8,000 watts! Still climbing…"

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