Longtime readers of this site (that would be Will and John) know that there are consumer products to which we’ve never been very kind. These products include Microsoft’s Zune, anything from DuroSport Electronics and of course SpiralFrog, the major label-sponsored website that allows you to download DRM’d music for FREE! All you have to do is ignore some ads.

After first making fun of the concept, then making fun of the amazingly long time to market, and finally, making fun of the thing itself, I figured that I was done with ever writing about it ever again. Hell, I thought I was done with ever thinking about it again.

Until last night.

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On Black Friday, the incongruously named day-after-Thanksgiving I rang up Amazon.com and joined the middle class. Yes, I plunked down $1999 for a Samsung LNT4671F. (I know, I’ve railed against idiotic naming conventions for consumer products in the past). It’s a 46″ LCD TV, 1080p, 120 Hz, HMDI 1.3 with built-in spicto-blango-color-correcting-carousel blah blah blah. Suffice it to say it was the top-of-the-line product from Samsung when it first came on the market in October (which of course makes it now hopelessly obsolete by the standards of the consumer electronics industry. It’s the second-highest rated TV in Consumer Reports after the Sony XBR4, but my wife Vicki didn’t approve of the floating glass bezel around that one so we settled for a (very close) second-best.

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I’ve just finished a big project: I recently bought a 1TB network-attached hard drive and put nearly every single song I own on it. I even finally finished ripping all of my CDs.

I set the hard drive up so that it automatically backs itself up, and so it’s the third thing I grab in case of a fire: Rox, my laptop, and that hard drive. Of course, maybe Rox can grab both laptops while I get the hard drive, but I’m guessing she might have other priorities.

In any event, the current count is approximately 68,000 songs on 4700 albums by 950 artists. This crazy-ass number reflects 30 years of being, well, a big dumb rock ‘n’ roll guy. It’s what I do, it’s who I am.

And between eMusic, iTunes, Amazon, Amoeba and the life-long friends whom I’ve been trading music for two decades, I have a pretty steady pipeline of new stuff that I’m looking forward to, older stuff that is reissued, new stuff that is suddenly huge super buzz, and older stuff that I missed in the past.

It. Just. Keeps. Coming. World without end, amen.

Stop yer complaining, you’re saying: this is not the worst problem for a music geek to have. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the best problem for a music geek to have. So shut up and stop whinging, already!

No doubt, my 15-year-old self who rode his bike to Tower Records to buy Who’s next, my 25-year-old self who was resigning himself to getting the CD version of Who’s next and my 35-year-old self who was downloading Who’s next outtakes from dodgy websites are all looking at me agog.

But it’s still a problem. And the problem is me.

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I’m a minimalist by nature, which is why it’s so unfortunate that I share office space with the Booksquare lady. I live in fear that a long overdue earthquake will hit Southern California, triggering a catastrophic bookshelf collapse. When that happens, I will almost certainly be crushed to death by Kassia’s “to be read” shelves.

Nothing would make me happier than replacing every book in my life with a single digital device capable of accessing every book ever published through a high speed wireless connection. If anyone wants to see ebooks succeed, it’s me. And yet, I am deeply skeptical about Amazon’s new ebook reader.

On a superficial level, the Kindle looks almost perfect. Amazon has obviously spent a fair amount of time engineering an electronic device that affords readers something approximating an analogue reading experience, while seamlessly connecting with Amazon for book purchases on-demand (a dangerous feature that really should be accompanied by the sound of a ringing cash register).

Unfortunately, there are more than a few problems with Amazon’s initial product offering. Those problems will almost certainly limit the appeal of Kindle, making it a niche product for early adopters and gadget freaks.

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My birthday is in four days!

Normally that statement would be grounds for a demerit since it might be seen as a blatant plea for gifts. But really it’s just a friendly reminder to my 3.42 billion fans that I have a HUGE Wish List available for perusing on Earth’s Largest Store. OK, no it’s really just an opportunity to give mad props to my newest infatuation, which IMHO deserves a sniglet of its own, something that combines wistful longing with online shopping. (We have a “Comments” section folks so try your own hand!)

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This week the long anticipated Amazon digital music store finally launched. Unlike recent efforts from the likes of Wal-Mart, Amazon’s DRM-free store could pose a substantial long-term challenge to iTunes. While that may sound like bad news for iTunes, it could prove to be a good thing for Apple.

Here’s why I think Amazon will pose a serious challenge to the iTunes music store:

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It’s pretty much Apple week here at Medialoper, and why not? So I figured that I’d add my perspective on the new iPods, as well as the Universal’s wholesale abandonment of iTunes for Amazon’s Unbox.

Everybody I know seemed to be keeping at one browser tab open on the press conference yesterday, and until the drastic price drop of the iPhone, it pretty much went the way that most people had predicted beforehand. Without going into any deep analysis of What It All Means, here are some of my thoughts.

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Saturday, July 21, 2007 3:00 AM PDT

It’s still not here yet.

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Amazon has promised — promised! — me that they will delivery my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this Saturday, July 21, 2007. But when? And can they come through?

Will it be early enough on Saturday that I’ll be able to finish it before the actual spoilers from people who have read the actual, physical book come spooling out of the ether? Or will it be right up against the 7:00pm deadline that Amazon has promised?

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Several reports today that Apple has started its experiment with offering music that isn’t restricted by any Digital Rights Management. They are calling it iTunes Plus — I guess that the “Plus” is the freedom to do whatever you want with the songs you download.

Which, of course, shouldn’t really be a plus, but rather a default. But “iTunes Default” or “iTunes As It Shoulda Been In The First Place” probably wouldn’t have gone over too well with the marketing folks, so “iTunes Plus” it is.

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