A wake-up call to the music industry

Apparently the music industry is up in arms because the Mail on Sunday is to give away free copies of Prince's new album, 'Planet Earth'.

The Entertainment Retailers' Association thinks that it will kill music sales. Well maybe they should have thought of that when they fixed all the prices at ridiculously over-inflated amounts.

Their representative said "It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career." Bollocks! The only people they supported were themselves. That's what businesses do. They couldn't give a shit if a musician succeeded or failed, they just want to make money by bumping up the prices to rake in as much as possible, and the failure of one artist won't matter, because there's hundreds more waiting to step into their place.

Perhaps if they started selling the music at a more realistic price, more people would buy it. I mean, why should I go to a shop and buy a CD for £15 when I can download it from the internet for considerably less?

Wake up, music industry, and smell the coffee. You've overcharged for too long, and now you're getting your just rewards. Fail to evolve and you become extinct.

I have to say, for my part, I have never particularly liked Prince's music, but fair play to the man, and fair play to the Mail on Sunday too.

Arse!

There's a tramp in my town, who wanders around with his arse hanging out of his trousers. In fact he's frequently seen with something else hanging out of his trousers too, and he has been arrested for it at least twice to my knowledge. Thing is, you see, he has a mental illness and there's not a lot people can do about it. I actually feel sorry for him, cos he doesn't appear to have much of a life. I wonder if he knows that he's actually a fashion icon?

It has come to my attention that teenagers the world over are copying this bloke, walking around with their trousers sagging around their arses, and their grotty underwear showing. Every time I see one of these moronic people, usually spotty teenagers, I have the urge to grab their trousers by the waistband and jump them into their trousers, like mothers do with toddlers. For Pete's sake, learn to dress yourselves. I don't want to have to see your scruffy underpants and saggy arse jeans, you remind me of Claude Greengrass! Failing that, don't blame me if you get given wedgies on a regular basis; you're too much of a temptation.

Anyway, Politicians in the US state of Virginia are taking a stand against these scruffy oiks who wander around showing their grundies in public. I'm glad someone's finally doing something about this because it drives me mad.

Democrat Lionell Spruill is obviously missing the point though. He says it is a law that targets black people. Don't be bloody stupid man! Everyone I've seen dressed in this way has been white, and usually pretty ugly. Maybe they do it to take attention away from their poxy boat races.

MySpace

I can't make my mind up whether MySpace is a good thing or not. I mean, I can look in on my friends occasionally and see what they've been up to, and find out where my favourite bands are playing. I get invitations to parties and nights out and stuff like that, and I think that's ace.

However, there are a couple of things that drive me mad about MySpace. First of all there's the people who only want to be my friend so that they can send me their spam, nude photos (yawn) and so that they can say "look how many MySpace friends I have". Get a life! Oh yeah, and if you want to send me nude photos, I'd prefer them to be of sexy blokes with decent bods, not skinny girls, cos they just don't do anything for me, OK? Bruce Dickinson or James Hetfield would be fine examples, or even Jon Bon Jovi, but lay off the anorexic bints with chests like xylophones, willya?

Then there's those 'Spaces' that play music automatically when you open the page. I use Firefox and I'm in the habit of having several pages open at once, so when you've got 5 different tunes all competing for your eardrums at the same time, it's not nice. Most of the time, I have my sound on mute. However, I have discovered some rather excellent bands through MySpace, like Winterstrain and the Deathstars. So, I'm just going to have to put up with it.

Backgrounds - they can be really nice, but some people have such garish backgrounds to their MySpace pages, that you can't actually read the text. Quit it!

The other thing that pisses me off is the bulletin board. I only log into MySpace about once a week, sometimes less frequently than that, and each time I go in there, there's a huge pile of bulletins and most of them are utter shite. OK, so let's deal with these in turn:

No, I won't repost your bulletin about false friends. I get at least one of these messages every week. If you think that, by reposting your message and spamming my friends, it proves to you that I'm your friend, you're wrong. My friends are real people. I meet them in person and we take the piss out of each other, get drunk together, help each other out and generally have a spiffingly good time. I also have friends who live further away, and regular visits are not practical, but we keep in touch by phoning each other, chatting online and occasionally making the effort to meet up somewhere halfway. Friends are not judged by their ability to repost spam on bulletin boards.

Then there's the bulletins in the form 'fill in the answers to these dumb questions' and spam all your mates with them. These just get deleted. They're for vacuous people who have no life. If you really want to find out who I fancy, ask me directly and I'll probably tell you. Generally, when I fancy someone, they'll know about it, and just because I fancy someone, doesn't mean that I'm after them. I'm perfectly happy with my current slave, thanks very much.

Not all of the bulletin messages are bad, though. For example, they've been a great network for publicising gigs. parties and general get-togethers. There's a message out there at the moment asking people to keep an eye out for some stuff a band had stolen and yes, I've reposted that, because it's worth it.

So, do I block the people who are constantly posting shite in the bulletin board, and risk offending them, or do I put up with it and just ignore their posts?

Maybe I'll just turn off the PC and go and ride my bike instead.

Judge orders Paris back to jail.

The poor little rich girl was last seen wailing for her mummy. How pathetic. The way she's carrying on, you'd think she'd been sentenced to death, not 45 days in jail.

I can't help but laugh at her.

Who says money doesn't talk?

So, Paris Hilton has been released from jail after serving only three days, because of an 'undisclosed' medical problem, and will now be under house-arrest at home instead.

Why doesn't Miss Hilton get treated the same as all the other prisoners? Or are you telling me that Los Angeles prison service just sends all prisoners home when they're ill? I bet they don't. Not unless they happen to be celebrity millionaire heiress drink-drivers. I bet some ordinary Joe would get to wait out their illness in their cell, not in the lap of bloody luxury.

And here was me thinking it was just the UK law that was an ass, but no, it seems US law is too.

This lass summed it up right for me, and look at little girl lost's face. She was not happy. Jack Nicholson, however, was laughing his tits off.