My project got "Qtraxed"

Qtrax is a new music download service that officially launched this past weekend. The Qtrax service is or perhaps was going to offer unlimited free downloads of over 25,000,000 songs. They planned to support the service with advertising revenue and were supposedly partnered with major record labels to then share the advertising revenue to cover the cost of the music.

Alas, just this morning it was announced that apparently Qtrax did not have agreements with the record labels.
A PC World article states the following:

"Originally Qtrax launched claiming to have over 25 million songs, with support from EMI, Universal, and Warner. Now all three major labels are saying that while they were in discussion with Qtrax, no formal agreement had ever been made."

My question is this: How the hell do you F*** that up? Who is the rocket scientist who assumed that the agreements were inked and that the service was ready for launch? If nothing else, there could be the possibility for a new English word to come out of this.

Word: Qtrax
Definition: To overlook fundamental issues that can ultimately end your project or product.
Use: The new night club got Qtraxed when the owner found out right before opening that liquor could not be sold in this county.

Diverted Diversions

I was watching some idiotic commercial this afternoon about a bank that gives real-time notifications to customers via their mobile devices. The commercial showed a woman who was rock climbing with her husband. She was halfway up a cliff when the bank called her to inform her that her checking account funds were low.

Have people completely gone mad? Is it truly attractive to people to have their diversions diverted by calls from their bank or worse yet, their job.

I myself admit to having problems with pulling the plug although living in Appalachia has gone a long way towards helping me control myself. I am one of the minority percentage of Americans who still have dial-up internet service at home. We live far enough into the sticks that we have no options for cable or dsl service. We could use Hughes Net satellite service but I refuse out of principle to pay for $300 worth of equipment and $70+ per month for 128 Kbps uploads and downloads that are something like 700 Kbps.

This often sucks but more often it forces my face out of the computer screen which historically is something I have found challenging. I'm currently sitting at my parents house. They have high speed Internet that quickly returns me to the habit of sitting on a chair with my laptop for hours on end. Sometimes I am working, sometimes just Googling every thought that flashes into my brain.

Since the excruciating pain of dial-up is my only option at home, I actually do things like going outside and playing/working in my yard or my woods. As an additional benefit, I also have very poor cell phone service at my house. I've come to enjoy the isolation so much that I use the "poor reception" excuse even on good reception days as a means of pulling my plug from the world of work, banks and every other coronary causing umbilical cord created by modern living.

Four years ago, the thought of no broadband would have been an unimaginable purgatory for me. Today, the thought of coming home from work to sit down and be sucked back into work is as unimaginable. It's not like I have some immense amount of willpower. I am just fortunate to have been forced by country living into pulling the plug and in so finding at least a minimal amount of balance.

As to the bank that can contact me while I am rock climbing, hiking, camping, skiing, or whatever other fun diversion I might happen to be on....no thanks! You can tell me that I've overdrawn my account when I get back to work.

Marriage Brought to You by Money, Power and Viagra

Let's take a look at the presidential candidates and their wives. Specifically, let's take a look at which candidates have abandoned the more traditional same age marriage norms for the much more exciting dirty old man/trophy wife type situation.

This looks about right.

Sure. I buy this one. He might actually be her trophy husband.

Yep. I wouldn't blink at this very average couple.

Hmmm. I'm on the fence here. Remember, he is a 71 year old man. He could have 20 years on her.

We all know Rudy is a dirty old man. She is not the most striking of trophy wives but nonetheless she is someone this bald short guy never could have landed in the real world.

Were he a poor man, he never would have got her but it looks on the level. She looks as robotic and dull as he is.

Whoa! Now this is something. Clearly a match made from his wallet. I just love their tans.

Here is the motherload of all trophy wives right up (or down if you so please) to the red hair. Anna Nichole Smith had nothing on this young go-getter. She clearly knows how to keep her bread buttered and Ole' Denny there... well...you devilish rascal you!

These two just simply deserve each other.

Scumbags: 1 | Zoo: 0

If after reading the last post you assume that I am not sympathetic to animals, note my utter disdain for the idiots who taunted a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo and ended up with a dead friend.

Sure, the wall should have been higher but there is always a “should have been” in a tragedy where someone dies unexpectedly. If someone is driving down a winding road with defective brakes at 100 MPH and ends up dead, we could state that the defective brakes caused their death. Ultimately however, had they not been doing a dumbass thing like traveling 100 MPH down a winding road, they would also not be dead. Their idiotic, scumbag actions made them dead.

What kind of moron taunts a tiger in cage anyway? Isn’t that a bit like threatening a person in a wheelchair with violence? What do you possibly have to gain from belittling a caged animal? Apparently Paul and Kulbir Dhaliwal had something to prove. Along with getting their buddy killed, they also managed to scare families who were out for an innocent day at the zoo with their kids. It’s too bad for these dipshits that someone didn’t give them an ass whipping before their tiger teasing had gone too far.

No worries though. Apparently their daddy has enough cake to afford Mark Geragos as counsel. While their poor friend gets to enjoy a nice long dirt nap, they will endure a year or so of minor inconvenience and resume the rest of their lives a few million dollars richer with the gains from their lawsuit against the SF zoo. Chalk one more win up for the scumbags of the world.