A billion downloads

which is, of course, my noticing that Apple's iPod download service has sold a billion tracks. That's a considerable number of dollars transferred by the magic of e-commerce to someone's bank account.

We were financially very tight in the lead up to Christmas last year, so tight that we had to severely limit the number of chrissie pressies. Easy for me to understand; easy for my wife; less so for Andrew. But he sucked it up and didn't pine too much for the iPod we couldn't quite manage to buy him.

Things got quite a bit better in mid January; enough so that I could afford a Home Theatre PC and we could buy new computers for Shelby and Morgan. If we were spending money on computers for those that wanted em it seemed only fair that we buy Andrew an iPod, which we did, on the strict understanding that he didn't bankrupt us buying songs. I suppose I should spend some time investigating the whole iPod thing but given that I doubt I'd be much interested in the songs available for download I haven't felt inclined to invest the time.

Andrew's quite enthusiastic about his new found interest in music. To be honest, it's a delight to see him showing such enthusiasm about anything. His music isn't to my tastes to be sure; but then, mine wasn't to my folks when I was 14 either. As his kids music won't be to him.

Morgan may have many complaints about me but the one thing she will never be able to complain about is how I handle the music she wanted to listen to. Again, not to my taste. I've asked her to turn it down at times but I've never done the 'this ain't music' thing with her. Tastes vary and I'm sure the music I enjoy would drive her nuts. She hasn't heard it; I use headphones.

So I'm not inclined to pour anything even remotely resembling cold water on Andrew and his music.

Andrew was quite excited about the upcoming billionth download; an excitement prompted by the prospect of being the lucky billionth and recieving the hundred thousand free downloads attaching to that status.

On Thursday evening he sat at his computer eagerly hitting refresh every few seconds and watching the numbers approach ever closer to the magic billion. Perhaps a trifle too eagerly and too often; as often happens when one does repetitive tasks one becomes sleepy. And so it was that he dozed off and awoke just after the magic billion occurred.

Poor bastard! :-)