In Brevity: Some Enchanted iTunes Evening
It goes like this: “You give me money and I’ll give you ABC.”
Rarely, however, does ABC live up to the hype. Rarely is it even a dim shadow of what you were led to believe. This is the essence of the art of selling: Always Be Cheating.
Even better is when they say: “Give us money and we’ll give you something we can’t be bothered to define.” That’s when they cackle with glee. You don’t even get the false promises and lies.
Take iTunes for example.
Rockin’ Around The Christmas What What?
Background source: eclair (Flickr)
There I was, in my office, headphones safely ensconced over my grimy ears, listening to music that made blood trickle down my external auditory meatus, minding my own business. Those are the conditions under which I work the best.
Suddenly… what’s that? Brenda Lee?
There goes my toe a tappin’. And I just lost the ability to properly nest my code. What was I working on again?
Yep. Christmas music in April. What’s wrong with this picture? My wife knew something was up when she heard me in the kitchen. “And we’ll do some caroling.” She just shook her head.
Little did she know it wasn’t my fault. I’m here to tell you about the feature that time Apple forgot.
It’s an idea so simple and elegant that Apple probably worried it would make them a bit too cool. Apple knows there’s a law of diminishing returns on coolness.
The missing feature I’m talking about, of course, is a “Festive” system that tells Shuffle to omit music flagged as “seasonal” during certain months of the year. If enabled, for example, seasonal music would only play Nov. 15 through Dec. 27th or so. (The actual dates could be adjustable.)
While I hold my breath and wait for Apple to get right on this humble request, who wants to lend me a hand? These halls aren’t going to deck themselves! It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas around here. And, baby, it’s cold outside!
Wrest Buy Drive By Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Shortly before Christmas the online store known as Best Buy had a sale on iTunes cards. Twenty percent off. A $100 iTunes gift card was only $80.
What? You mean I’ve been paying full price this whole time in iTunes when I could have been getting my balance at a discount? Idiot… idiot… idiot…
I had never heard of such a thing. Of course, I’m always the last to know.
So I did something I rarely do, maybe a handful of times per year. I went on the information superhighway and made myself a purchase. I spent $80 on myself. “Merry Christmas to me!”
I figured Best Buy would link me to the code and I could punch it into my Apple device and the alternative death metal would soon be music to my ears. Sure, the order said “free shipping” but why would they spend money on that when they could be all digital up in that grill?
Boy, was I wrong.
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Blankity blank blank Dixieland blank Rock
I've got too many women after me. No worries. I wrote a song about it!
In this game, your humble blog host finds himself with jack shit to post about. So he loads up iTunes, with 5,244 items contained therein, and says, “I’ll hit random and write a post about the next thing that comes up.”
Trust me. This is no matter to take lightly. I’ve got some pretty sick shit in my collection. On the other hand, there is a lot of goodness and light, too. Like most things in my life, this is a crap shoot. My collection is very, very, very eclectic.
The fun thing about this sort of self-challenge is seeing what you get. Then saying, “No, not that one” and clicking next until you find something you can live with.
Just kidding. This little nugget is what really came up. And now we all have to live with it. Hey, just like life.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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