Netflix is one of my favorite dotcom companies. And one that seems to have survived fairly well. Because of this they’ve been getting more competition:

Wal-Mart cues up a rival to Netflix. The retail behemoth is testing a new DVD subscription-rental program, further clouding the future of Netflix and its Web-based mail-order DVD service. [CNET News.com]

The thing that makes netflix work for me is how easy it is. You don’t need to go anywhere except to your mailbox to get your movies. It just isn’t quite as easy for me to get to a Blockbuster (or a Wal-Mart for that matter).

Abbie Hoffman. “The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.” [Quotes of the Day]

I grabbed a program called Chimera Knight the other day. It is a program that will automaticly fetch the latest build of Chimera every night. Chimera is a Cocoa web browser for OS X that uses the Gecko rendering engine. For a long time it has been really flakey, but I’ve been hearing that the current betas are pretty stable. As a result I thought I’d give it a try for a week.

So far this browser is amazing. It is definitely still pre-1.0 software, but it hasn’t crashed on me yet (knock on wood). It is one of the faster browsers that I’ve used for OS X so I’m really hoping they keep up the good work. It also seems to work just fine with Radio, which is a plus.

Here’s the latest round of CDs:

• Quadrophonia – Quadrophonia
• The Push Stars – Meet me at the Fair
• Public Image Limited – Compact Disc
• PTP – Rubber Glove Seduction
• The Psychedelic Furs – Forever Now
• Propellerheads – Decksandrumsandrockandroll
• Pretty in Pink – Soundtrack
• Pop Will Eat Itself – This is the day…This is the hour…This is this!
• piekoz – narrativestructurez
• Pet Shop Boys – Please (remastered)
• Pet Shop Boys – Nightlife
• Parliment’s Greatest Hits

This feels like it going to take forever. At least I don’t have as many CDs as some people I know.

I love my Audiotron. It’s one of the cooler network devices I have. As much as I love it though, I keep finding myself thinking about just using my G3 as an mp3 machine. There are a few reasons for this. First off, iTunes. Smart Playlists are one of the coolest things out there. I use them all the time for exporting stuff to my iPod. Secondly, there are tons of apps out there that will let me remote control iTunes on that machine via Applescript. Third, as cool as the Audiotron is, at times it feels a little clunky. I’m almost thinking I’d like to move it into my bedroom with a small set of speakers for music in there.

I’d actually love to find a way to get it set up for my parents, but their house isn’t really wired for it currently. I may play around with having both set up and see which I end up liking more. What I’d really love is an Apple made device like the Audiotron that uses Rendezvous. That way it could just run some kind of version of iTunes that I could control remotely.

Seen a number of places, but jenett.radio has the most compact description.

Truth in advertising… NOT!.  Microsoft Tries a “Switch” Campaign. Twirlip of the Mists writes “There’s a new page on Microsoft’s web site that … [Slashdot]
If one couldn’t guess from the text, this is way phony/marketing. See the Stock Photo. Everyone I know here is either extremely disappointed or down right angry about it. [Doubt’s log]

Slashdot updated the original article:  “Apparently, Microsoft has taken the page down, but Google has it.” [jenett.radio]

I read through this and was wondering just what kind of drugs MS is on. This is one of the reasons MS gets the abuse it does. You would have thought they could have found at least one real person though.

Over the weekend I took in a number of shows that had just came out. There’s some good and some soso.

• Haibane Renmei – This is kind of an odd little show, but one I like a lot so far. I’m not quite sure how to describe it yet. The main character is a girl who is born from a cocoon and grows some grey wings. She’s taken care of by a group of girls who also have wings and they give her a halo. The animation style reminds me of Witch Hunter Robin in that it uses a lot of muted colors. I’m really curious as to where this show will go.
• Witch Hunter Robin – Robin has taken a pretty abupt turn with the latest episode. I don’t want to to say too much about it right here, since I have friends who haven’t seen it yet and I don’t want to spoil them. I will say that I was really not expecting things to take the turn they did.
• Saikano – The end. I felt the ending to this series was just right. It was a downer. It wasn’t has harsh as I expected, but it was definitely sad. I think this may be one of my favorite shows, possibly making it into my top ten.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – The first episode of this didn’t quite grab me, but with the second I’m finding myself liking it a little bit more. It feels episodic at this point, but it’s only the second episode in. I’ll keep watching it a bit longer.
• Gundam Seed – The latest in the Gundam series. I’m not sure what I thought of it. It felt like just more of the same. And I think the name is kinda lame.

Still up to watch: Kiddy Grade, GetBackers, and Spiral

H. L. Mencken. “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” [Quotes of the Day]

Wow. I haven’t been in front of my turntables in a few months. Partly because I haven’t had my headphones, but also partly because I haven’t felt inspired to. I just got my headphones back today and spun a few tracks. Beatmatching is a skill you never quite lose, but I was definitely a little rusty. On the other hand it felt good. Really good. I felt all tingly afterwards, the whole thing can be kind of a rush a times. I think I’m going to take a nap then see what I can do. Maybe I’ll do a broadcast tonight.

Tom Robbins. “If little else, the brain is an educational toy.” [Quotes of the Day]