Ramsayings

Tomorrow I’m headed back to the Apple Store at the Cherry Hill Mall to fix a problem that began late last year when my hard drive cooked right inside my Macbook. I went and got the disk replaced in April, but I haven’t really recovered from the experience. Sure, my computer works and has a brand spankin’ new OS, but you know what, that’s not good enough.

I went in there and got great service, no question, but it didn’t go above and beyond. While my computer was being repaired, the keyboard cracked for the third time. The third time! I know this is a design flaw that was fixed when they rolled out the new Macbook. You’d think if they’re replacing the hard drive anyway, they’d notice the crack in the keyboard and just toss the whole thing. There’s nothing to save, right?

That’s my aim when I go in tomorrow. I’m going to be upfront with them and let them know that the issues I’ve had with this computer were never problems with the PCs I’ve owned, even the cooked hard drive. It’s frustrating to pay a premium for a superior machine, love it, and have so many issues. Wish me luck!

Helen and I are going to see Erykah Badu June 8th at the Tower Theater. Janelle Monae is opening. Am I excited? Hell yeah! Just picked up Erykah’s latest LP at AKA Music. Love her music so much. She’s also one of my favorite entertainers these days. Doesn’t hurt that she’s playing fast and loose with the great sounds Parliament Funkadelic introduced either.

I know I haven’t posted anything music-related here lately. I got myself wrapped around the axle there for a bit about the future of music and couldn’t find a way to unwind. Pretty sure I’ve put that behind me and will happily be posting more stuff that I like here.

So Free Energy? I’m really into their lead single, “Bang Pop.” I know it got a whopping 8.1 on Pitchfork, yet it’s failed to really catch fire online, at least from where I sit. Does it reinvent rock music? Nope. Is it still a ton of fun? Yup! If I weren’t on baby duty tonight I might’ve snuck over to the First Unitarian Church tonight to see them in person. If you were looking for a summer jam that’s not by Ludacris or Katie Perry, you’ve probably found it in this gem.

I work for a television company. When I started at Comcast three years ago, I was really in the dark about just how competitive television and film would become. Sure, lots of people were beating their chests, rooting for Hulu like the G.E.-owned product was some kind of underdog, but then Comcast bought that. Aside from Netflix’s efforts with streaming video — something I love watching on my HDTV via my Xbox 360 — there weren’t really any other companies really trying to make hay online.

How times have changed. Just as Comcast jumped in the pool with Fancast Xfinity TV, so has everyone else. The basic concept was always simple, but how do you get your television to play nice with the Internet? There are pesky rights issues! That seems to be changing, too. Now that companies like Google and Apple are involved, you can bet that it’s going to be all out war and consumers may come out winners.

But is it too much noise? Let’s talk about music for just a second. Think back about, oh, two years. Remember when every Tom, Dick, and Harry jumped into streaming music online. It was a veritable bonanza. The services may have been wonky and were likely incomplete, but users could cobble together a pretty extensive online music library that as totally legit. Flash back to the present: effective this weekend, the number of full length free streaming on-demand music services will be zero.

Maybe it’ll be different this time and we’ll all be living in a la carte utopia in just a year or two. It’s great that some of the big technology players like Google and Apple are in the mix. You know them for their most products, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that both of them have armies of lawyers who are trying to gain any toehold they can against the big cable providers. Ultimately, it pushes everyone in the right direction and we will all reap the benefits.