One of our wonderful commenters posed this question in the wake of finding out that people were actually plunking down money for digital copies of Michael Jackson albums: What are people doing with their CD libraries these days–keeping them, transitioning over to digital storage, shifting to vinyl, or giving up on the whole idea of “owning” music altogether and switching over to a streaming service?


It’s an interesting question for me at this precise moment, because I’m actually apart from my physical-music library and am relying on a hard drive of stuff to take me through the next few months; I’m supplementing the occasional purchase on iTunes and Amazon, and my eMusic downloads, with a Rhapsody subscription for the purposes of test-driving new things that haven’t been marked down to a “I’ll give this a whirl” threshold. It’s definitely strange, because I’ve been collecting CDs fairly obsessively since I got my first five-disc changer in ninth grade (which was when I also worked two doors down from a used-CD store that gave me a nice discount on its wares… and I got paid in cash).


I haven’t sold any discs off yet; I wonder just how much money I’d get for them, because I’d imagine the used-CD market has softened as people either go digital or just allocate their spending resources to non-music-related purchases. But at least if people won’t take my old copies of Resident Alien and Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, I have options:





[Thanks to Throwdini! for the inspiration. Photo via fabbriciuse.]
Recycle Junk Cd’s - Make A Disco Ball! [Metacafe]

Two items that have been dumped into the news cycle right before the holiday weekend here in the States really kicks in: Eminem’s video for “Beautiful” and Whitney Houston’s new single “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.” Feel free to post your first impressions here; I just wanted to make sure that they got mentioned before I skedaddled.

Oh, Mexico. Land of sand and ruins. Place of history and blood. Of vines and mountains. Mexico: where you can get drunk at a laser lightshow nightclub and then spit in your roommate's taco and no one bats an eyelash.

Yes, the Real World: Cancun had its first obligatory The Roommates Who Hate Each Other/The Roommates Who Fuck Each Other episode last night, and it just sort of farted into existence, all quiet and smelly, as if MTV was splayed out on the neighboring bed, our hotel room ruined, that cruel beach sun slanting in through the curtains, reminding us that day has arrived but our hangovers have not left. These kids are just sort of dull, the half-baked sorta people you'd see on a show like Fear Factor where personality doesn't matter. You just have to be trashy and scrappy and thoughtless. And these kids have that in spades!

So the two couples were:

Those That Hate
Swoony rockerbilly Joey likes to antagonize girls because he's a little pissant punk-wannabe with that kind of sitting-at-the-back-of-the-class bravado that's, oh you know, catnip to some of us. The girl he most likes to antagonize, because she is ridiculous, is Ayiiiiiia. They fight about basically everything. She walks around like she owns the place, he has mysterious herpes on his lip, he says mean sarcastic things to her, she yells about cigarettes, and then he spits in her taco. Yes m'am JoJo done up and spit in that girl's damn taco when they had been out there after the club tryin' to get theyselves some food. This was in retaliation for Ayiiiiiia running down the street and shrieking "Herpes on your lip! Herpes on your lip! You've got herpes on your lip!" It actually turned into a little song and I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a pot and a wooden spoon and paraded around the house banging them together, as if Ramona Quimby were a sad lonely 26-year-old in Brooklyn, sing-chanting "Herpes on your lip! Herpes on your lip! Everybody's got herpes on their lip!" It was a fun song, and a fun moment, until my roommate came up and spit in my taco. Well, I actually didn't have a taco and she didn't spit, but she did give me a withering look that seemed to say Only one more month..., but on the show Joey did, in fact, spit in the lady's taco. So that started a whole clusterkaduddle and everybody was yelling and Fuckface from UMass got involved and started getting upset.

So the girls were out on the balcony complaining about Joey and eating the tacos that had not been spit on. Those bitches really wanted some tacos. I mean, that's commitment. Inside the other roommates were just unsure what to do. Hilariously, the girl from Cadillac Stevens' Foodhut, Jonna, was sitting on a couch-bed eating rolls of ham of cheese. Like taking deli-sliced meats and deli-sliced cheeses and rolling them up into little cylinders and eating them. It was very funny because we've all been there, or at least I have. Points to you, Jonna. So everyone was confused and eating ham and cheese and Joey still wasn't done being in attack mode so he strode out onto the veranda playing a song called "Nobody Cares About Your Spit Taco" and the girls got so mad that they threw water at him and some of the water went into his guitar. His thousand-dollar guitar that is partly electric and now it's ruined. So Joey went to another balcony and cried and Derek the Gay tried valiantly to take advantage of him in his time of need (someday, Derek! believe in yourself!) and everyone was sad. Well, the girls didn't care. Ayiiiiia thought it was funny. Because Ayiiiiiia is annoying. I think I hear Joe Rogan calling, m'dear. Go be on that show.

Anyway, eventually the next day or whatever Joey apologized to Fuckface and she was all "Aw, I love everyone," and then later he took a walk with Ayiiiiiia and they brokered a tentative peace accord. Derek unzipped his fly and unleashed the doves from his pants and there they fluttered and flapped, into the silver-streaked azure sky, looking like souls should look, dancing. Then they decided it would be funny to pretend for the other roommates that they'd just gotten in another fight and she'd hit him so they ran back home and put on a show where Joey raged and Ayiiiiia threw things and all the other roommates were like "Ohhh, she's going home" and hilariously no one seemed to be unhappy about that but then oh ha ha, Ayiiiia and JoJo gave each other a hug and the roommates said "Aww, we're friends again!" and Derek unzipped his pants and instead of releasing more doves he just looked plaintively and expectantly at Joey, though he looked in vain. Everyone just sort of cleared their throats and said, OK, yeah, and slowly walked out of the room and Derek stood there alone, bare feet on the cold marble, a clock ticking off in some other room.

Those That Mate
Binky and Jonna are in love. Binky and Jonna are in love but there's nothing they can do about it because Jonna has a boyfriend back home in Sunstain, AZ and she's so loyal to him. She's so loyal to him that when she's grind dancing and spooning in a hammock and gratuitously hugging and talking about making out with Binky, all her thoughts are on her boyfriend. Every one of them. Every thought other than Man I want to fuck this roommate, every single other one, is about the boyfriend. Binky is upset because he broke up with his lady, and c'mon it's Can-fuckin'-cun, let's partay down. Invested in this whole lovers' duet more than more than the actual lovers is creepy Bronne. Creepy Bronne looooves to call Binky "the Heartthrob" and he's always smirking and leering while Binky and Jonna dance or flirt or dry hump in a vestibule, staring right at them, with intense bleary eyes. He's a creeper. At one point when Binks and Jinx were spooning in the hammock Bronne walked out wearing a wig and tapped out Jinkies and got next to Binky and Binks, thinking it was Jinx, pulled him in close and said "Mmmm..." You'd think that would be one of the stupid things I make up to entertain myself while writing these things, but it's not! It actually happened! Bronne walked out wearing a Jonna wig and spooned with Binky. He will murder someone. And he will murder them hard.

Anyway, at the clurrrb Binky tried to kiss Jonna on the mouth-hole and she was all "Nunh unh!" and later she called her boyfriend and said "Why would you think that I want to be with anyone else?" while her foot massaged Binky's crotch and she sat there naked drawing an arrow on her tummy that pointed down to her unmentionables.

So, they're totally gonna do it.

All Those Other Things That They've Done
Oh, and, they got their jobs! Yeah yeah yeah! They'll be working for Student City, an underground luxury travel agency for sex tourists and date rapists. They met their boss, the dimwitted Christina, and she told them the rules. And the Rules, my friends? The Rules are pretty goddamned strict. The Rules are:

- No drinking in front of clients.
- No sexing the clients.
- No smoking near clients.
- If you murder a client, make sure you dispose of the body in a manner befitting Student City's new Go Greeen! initiative.
- If a client murders someone, give them the $700 cash you have in your emergency pouch and point them towards El Salvador.
- Fridays are casual.

Now the whole murdering thing ey'body was aight with, but not that DRINKING RULE. Holy fuck, if I want to go out in Cancun and get shitfaced, that is my right as an American abroad on a television station's dime. That is my RIGHT. Ayiiiiia was especially adamant about this and it was truly beautiful to watch. It was like watching Harvey Milk come speechmaking out of his mother's womb. Like seeing Malcom X first clench his fist. Like stumbling by accident on Susan B. Anthony in the bathroom and her swatting her hand at you or at the door you can't quite tell and yelling "Hey, get outta here!" It was truly something. She brought a little soapbox with her to the Student City interview process, where the kids had to talk to Christina about what they wanted to do for the sex tourists and semi-professional Roofie-appliers. Christina just shook her melony head and said "Sorry, babe, no can do. We can't have anything reflect badly on the company." Which was... wait, what? On the company that organizes low-rent trips for horrid sunburned assholes from Ohio to get drunk and sloppily fuck and do horrible things they'll forever regret? That company? What, exactly, could possibly reflect badly on that company? Accidentally decapitating an old Real World cast member while just trying to get them to shut the hell up? Oh Paula, we hardly knew ye.

So that's gonna cause a problem and everyone will get drunk and several will die. At one point during the Christina Interviews, Fuckface said "I'm a leader." Fuckface works at Hooters. If that doesn't spell leadership, I don't know what does.

I don't know how to end this. So, here:

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, MEXICO.

Microsoft has heard your pleas: it's pulled its "Worst Tech Commercial Ever," which tried to use a puking theme to sell Internet Explorer. And you'll never guess who the director was! You will never guess.

The spots did not come from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Microsoft's edgy ad agency of record. Instead, they were from an agency called Bradley & Montgomery. And they were directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Who said earlier this month:

I think they were trying to do something that was a little less mainstream, and I think that's (what led to) my involvement. Normally the corporate world is very frightened of hiring the dude from Police Academy to direct their stuff

A fear that was well-founded.
[Media Memo]

You've read about the features, you saw the invites going out, but you might be wondering what, exactly, Google Voice could do for you. Here's our guide for the curious and uninvited on whether your phones need some Google juice.

We're not going to explain every feature, quirk, and option in the Google Voice service, which is slowly giving out invites to those who request them. We've already taken a first look at Google Voice, and Google Voice's own Getting Started guide does a nice job explaining the service's ins and outs. We're looking to answer the question we seem to hear most often from commenters, friends, tech pundits, and just about everyone: What would I get out of it?

The wild card: number portability

If the rumors prove true, Google will, at some point this year, allow you to "port," or at least integrate, your existing cell phone number with its service, requiring none of the millions of phone numbers the search giant is supposedly securing. That would eliminate three of the service's biggest barriers to entry:

• Having to call Google Voice, and then dial a number, to place a call "with" your Google number, so it shows up on caller ID as such
• Having to store and reply to a separate SMS number for each of your contacts so that, again, your Google number shows up
• The time and hassle of getting your contacts to call you at your new Google Voice number, despite the fact that your old numbers still "work"

You might like Google Voice if you:

• Regularly use two or more phones: If you've heard about one feature of Google Voice, or its GrandCentral predecessor, this is it—and for good reason. Google excels at giving you one phone number for others to have, then letting you fine-tune which phones that number rings to an OCD level. If you want your wife to ring through to your work line between 9am and 5pm, but not your chatty, unemployed friend, you can do that. If you want your home landline to ring along with your cell during the hours your carrier charges for minutes, you can do that, too.
• 
  
• Loathe standard voicemail: "Please enter your passcode, followed by the pound sign!" "You have ... two ... new messages. To hear your"—You know what we're talking about. Using cell minutes and precious time just to hear your friend say "Try you again later" is almost as annoying as trying to wipe the voicemail icon off your phone screen. Google Voice makes it easy to play voicemail audio and read semi-correct transcriptions from a single web page, and it's a good bet it'll be integrated into Gmail for even easier access. When you're away from your browser, Google Voice sends voicemail notifications through email or text message, making it easy to know that you really don't need to step outside and call your sister back just to confirm you prefer Diet Dr. Pepper to Diet Coke.
• 
  
• Enjoy text messaging, but not phone keyboards (and fees): For anyone whose friends chide them about short or nonexistent text message replies, this is a game-changing feature. When sent to your Google Voice number, text messages are organized on the Google Voice site like chat conversations, with back-and-forth dialogue and options to reply or mark as read and archive. Writing a new message is also easy—hit "M" or click the SMS button, start typing a name or phone number, then choose the contact and type away. You'll still be charged for texts you receive on your phone, but it can be a real money saver when you're near your plan's limit for the month. Those with iPhones, Android handsets, or other smartphones can also make use of Google Voice messaging on the go with apps like the previously mentioned GV (Android) and GV Mobile (iPhone).
• 
  
• Want better filters on who reaches you, and when: Google Voice has four levels of annoyance resistance available to weary phone hostages. You can activate "Call Presentation" to have every unknown caller say their name to Google's servers, which then call you and ask if you want to take the call. If the annoyance is someone you know, you move them into a particular group (like "Annoyances") and make that group always go to voicemail. If they sometimes call about something important, Google Voice's ListenIn features lets you send them to voicemail, but hear what they're saying and pick up, if necessary. If you absolutely can't get a telemarketer or semi-stalker to take the hint, the video at left explains how you can simply have them hear something that sounds like an old-school disconnect notice.
• 
  
• Are down with Skype-like VOIP calling: Want to make calls over a computer-connected headset and not pay a dime for them? Google Voice allows you to add a phone number from the Gizmo Project and control when it rings through. Make a call through Google Voice's web interface, set it to ring your Gizmo number when it's connected, and the other party just sees your standard Google Voice number—you're effectively making an outbound call for free that Skype and the like would charge you for.
• 
  
  
• Make a lot of international calls: We haven't done a price comparison, but Google Voice's rates to international landlines and mobile numbers are said to be competitive, and you can call from your own phones without having to hunt down the right calling card.
  
• Record calls regularly (and legally): Just hit the number 4 during a call and Google's robotic queen announces "Call recording on." Right now, it only works with incoming calls, but the finished recording is ready for playing, downloading, or embedding in your Google Voice inbox in a matter of minutes. It's how I recorded my Jonathan Coulton phone interview for later transcribing and audio clip pulling.
• 
  
  
• Have or want an Android phone: iPhones, BlackBerries, Symbian-based models, and Windows Mobile devices will likely get Google-built apps for integrating Google Voice into their dialing, voicemail, and SMS interfaces. But Android phones already have an impressive third-party app for doing so, Evan Charlton's GV, and would be a pretty good bet on being the first, or at least among the first, platforms to get the Google Voice team's attention. Fully integrated Google Voice means free, conversation-threaded SMS, fewer hassles with your one-and-a-half phone numbers, voicemails that don't require talk time, and much more.

You won't like Google Voice if you:

• Rarely use your cellphone and/or text messages: Unless you're that rare breed of VOIP headset lover who doesn't ever talk on a cellphone, there's not a lot to recommend Google Voice to landline-focused folks. Your office's phone system offers (hopefully) most of Voice's features, and residential internet phone providers can fill in the other gaps. It could be a help to those who absolutely won't type out a text on a phone—but, then again, so can email.
• 
  
• Think Google knows too much about you: There's something to be said for breaking Google's personal data monopoly, and the tinfoil hat crowd have a whole new set of worries with Google Voice—your voicemails, calling history, and text messages are, after all, right on Google's servers, for who knows how long. It's not all that different from Gmail—Google breaking one user's trust could collapse the whole system—but it is something to think about.
• 
  
• Dislike Google's Contacts handling: Google Voice uses the same contacts database, so if its auto-inclusion of names you've emailed a few times drives you batty, well, you'll get the same results from Voice's Click2Call auto-completion. Only the names you've stored phone numbers for show up on Voice's dial feature, but we'd like to see a way to set a "primary" number that's the default when you're typing out a name.
• 
  
• Get annoyed at voice delays: Early Google Voice users (myself included) are noticing an audio delay on certain calls. Sometimes it's ever so slight, like a wonky cell phone connection. Sometimes you and the other party are toppling over the ends of each other's sentences. Google is certainly aware of it, but since it's a service that inserts a server as the middleman between parties, there might be an inevitable bit of latency on Google Voice calls, as there is with most international calls. If you've ever switched carriers because of voice quality or connection problems, you might find a new antagonist in Google Voice.
• 
  
• Really don't want to write another "New number" email: As noted above, Google's rumored to be working on offering number portability/integration for Voice. In the meantime, Voice users have to ask their friends, acquaintances, and business contacts to save a new number, figure out how to deal with the stragglers, and, in all honesty, hope the service isn't abandoned by Google anytime soon. If you live and die by your availability and can't stand the idea of being late to return even one call, switching numbers just won't fly. Everyone else has to make the call.

I don’t have many of the details on this cigar. It is the latest cigar from Canimao and Mel was kind enough to send me a few samples. As with the last Canimao cigar I reviewed the cigar is rolled in Miami and the construction is great.

The original Canimao was a good mild to medium bodied cigar while this maduro is definitely medium to full bodied. No issues with the burn on the samples I got to try.

I picked up some cocoa and coffee in the background with a spicy finish the leaves the tongue tingling a bit. If I was going to try and place the spice I’d say it was close to a milder red pepper. It makes the cigar interesting but doesn’t over power the senses.

Verdict: The new maduro from Canimao balances out their line giving them a fuller bodied smoke. Put this one on your list of cigars to seek out.

Sponsored By: Camino Viejo Tabacos The standard for excellence in imported handmade cigars.

• Cigar Review: Isla de Cuba Aged Maduro
• Cigar Review: Kristoff Maduro Churchill
• Canimao Torpedo Cigar Review
• Cigar Review: Tabacos Baez
• Hoyo De Monterey Excalibur #5 Maduro Cigar Review

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

We have the original cut DVDRip of the movie “Watchmen” released the other day, and here is the director cut verion from group HNR. WHAT? Isn’t it some private tracker’s rule, HIT AND RUN? No, it stands for HONOR Anyway, it’s a 2CD release with sub included, however, not AC3 audio. Pick it up if you like.

PLOT: “Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” - which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?”

Genre: Action | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller
IMDB Rating: 7.9/10 (74,990 votes)
Directed By: Zack Snyder
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson

Release Name: Watchmen.DC.DVDRip.XviD-HNR
Size: 700MB x 2
Video Quality: XviD 23.98fps 608×256 850kbps
Audio Quality: MP3 VBR 192kbps
File Name: hnr-wdc-xvid-cd1, hnr-wdc-xvid-cd2

Links: HOMEPAGE - IMDB
Video Sample: Here
Subtitle: Here
NFO: Here
NewTorrents Search: Here

more at RLSLOG.net

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

Remeber, next Friday, the second part of “Eureka” season 3 will return, and this is the DVDRip pack for season 2. I have just started to watch the show lately, and I do think it’s fun to watch it. This pack include complete 13 episodes of season 2 and was released by FoV.

Sheriff Jack Carter, accompanied by his teenage daughter Zoe, is stationed in Eureka, a picturesque little burg somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Eureka is hardly Anytown, USA; indeed, this is the place where “the world’s greatest thinkers” live and work, most of them at Global Dynamics, “the most advanced scientific facility in the world.” It’s also a place where exceedingly strange things happen on a regular basis. In Season Two, those happenings include people spontaneously combusting, becoming invisible, turning into gold, or simply disappearing; a “personal force field” that’s growing so large and so fast that it will soon engulf the whole town, and maybe even the whole world; freaky weather that changes by the moment; and even an experiment to re-create the Big Bang inside a Global Dynamics lab, leading to some unexpected side effects……

Links: HOMEPAGE - TV.com - NFOPACK

Eureka.S02.DVDRip.XviD-FoV
XviD 23.976fps 624×352 | MP3 VBR 128kbps | 350MB x 13

SiNGLE FiLE DOWNLOAD
EP01  EP02  EP03  EP04  EP05  EP06  EP07  EP08  EP09  EP10  EP11  EP12  EP13

For Other Seasons:

Eureka.S01.DVDRip.XviD-TOPAZ (CHECK HERE)

more at RLSLOG.net