Dreams Of Noise

My buddy Benji in Louisville notes that, for the next three months, British Telecom users can send text messages to and from landline phones that will be read by Tom Baker.

If you could have Tom Baker read a message for somebody, who would you send it to and what would you/he say?

The new iPod has a larger hard drive, a smaller profile, and a 2-1/2" video screen. You can order episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, and other ABC/Disney shows, as well as music videos and short films (such as from Pixar), at iTunes.

Okay, that is cool. I can't afford to get one of the little beasties yet... but I can get all this stuff at iTunes, and that's all I really want.

Now, I realize that, with the $1.99 price point per episode, this rapidly can become quite expensive, both in cash outlay and hard drive storage. DVD sets of a comparable price would have much better visuals. And many people pay for cable TV already.

But. You could get the episodes now. Your own broadband TiVo. Get one or two as a test, see if you want the rest. And, if you've got the iPod, you can carry 'em around with you until a good time to watch.

So, here are the questions: If you could buy individual episodes of TV series -- or subscribe for a season -- would you? If so, which shows? And, how much would you pay?

Let me give a practical example: I'd pay $1.99 to see a a high-quality-video (MP4 or DviX) episode of the new Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica, and, if I liked 'em, I'd subscribe to a season for as much as $30.00 (although I would hope that between cheaper broadband and more plentiful server space, $14.99-$19.99 would be a practical price).

And, if, for instance, The SciFi Channel wanted me to pay $50-100 a year for all their content online, I'd sorely think about it. (It'd be nice to have a free low-fi video option of everything as well, as a teaser.)

Fifty-five gigs of data.

About six gigs of gaming files. Several more major downloads. And about forty gigs of arrangements, vocal tracks, sound effects, commissioned songs, and everything from The Last Hero On Earth.

And, as I am wont to do now and again, I took a chance and paid a hundred bucks for a program that said it could save my data.

( And, so, now what...? )

A few months ago, people started telling me that they were getting "message undeliverable" notices when they tried to e-mail tom at tomsmithonline dot com. Thing was, I was (and am) receiving those messages. Which is what's supposed to happen, as I've got it set up to do nothing except forward to my Yahoo account.

It's gotten more fun. Over the past three weeks, I must've gotten two hundred messages from Admin, Sysadmin, Account Services, Sales, and a dozen other permutations of somebody-or-other at tomsmithonline.com. Needless to say, I haven't got a spambot that's gone berserk.

I kinda need to reiterate this: [a] If you're trying to send me e-mail, please use filkertom at yahoo dot com; [b] if you're getting anything from anybody at tomsmithonline.com, it's not me, and I apologize for the trouble and flood of stuff in your inbox.

Hahhh.

So. Apart from that, how's your weekend? What's the best spam subject you've seen lately? ( Today's is.... (not work safe) )