Real Men friggin’ DO eat quiche.

In yet another attempt to be all responsible and stuff, Jul and I have recently decided to go ahead and try to learn how to cook. For us, cooking has long meant one of a few things:

• Breakfast for Dinner
• Stuff I threw on the grill
• DiGiornio
• PBJs
• A plate of random brown stuff

So, you can imagine our general shape. (The word you’re looking for is “lumpy.”)

Anyway, we’re going to try to cook better. That’s not to say my wife can’t cook. Quite the contrary, if she has time to do it well. Enough time to make, say Thanksgiving dinner and I assure you…her turkey kicks ass. But cooking a turkey the Julie Way™ means rising at 6:15, also known as “way too fuggin’ early for me” to start the prep. You can imagine this doesn’t work for your average Thursday night meal.

Tonight, however, we tried something new: we made a quiche. And it was excellent. And it was easy to make, and didn’t take all that long, which is important when you don’t start making dinner until after 7 p.m. This may also explain our aforementioned lumpiness.

We have a lot left over, though. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as two people can take several days to eat a whole pie, and four-day old baked Egg Beaters sounds like a good breeding ground for salmonella.

Microsoft Enters the Digital Music Player Arena

Tomorrow I’ll be getting my hands on a Zune. This is Microsoft’s new digital music player, their long-awaited *ahem* iPod killer. We’re looking at it, along with other mp3 players, for a show we’re working on.

I don’t know how much I’m going to like the hardware. I’m sure it’s fine, and I don’t expect it to have the polish of an iPod, but it looks rather clunky to me. I hope it’s slicker than it looks. Sure, the first generation iPod was that way too. But Microsoft has had the benefit of watching five years of continuing iPod improvement. Granted, they can’t put a click wheel in their player because of those pesky patents, but they should have done better. The worst thing of all? They make a brown one. BROWN. And not a good brown, either. Insert your scatalogical jokes here.

The worst part about the Zune is the DRM (digital rights management) nonsense.

Microsoft has set up an store much like Apple’s iTunes store, which they call the Zune Marketplace. The Marketplace sells music files only for use on the Zune or in the Zune player on your PC - much like music and videos purchased on the iTunes store only play on iPods or in iTunes for Mac or Windows. But the two begin to diverge fairly quickly.

Apple’s model works like this:
You pay .99 for a song. You can choose to buy just one song from Apple, charge it to your credit card, and never go to the Store again. The song is yours to play forever (technically, you don’t “own” the song, you own the rights to play the song). You can elect to share that song with four more computers - each of which would have to be validated over the net via your Store login. You can load that file on numerous iPods. You can burn that song to an audio CD. You definitely should burn it to a data CD or save it to a hard drive somewhere on the change your computer’s hard drive dies, or you’ll lose your purchased song for good.

Zune’s, on the other hand, works like this:
You choose from one of two purchasing models. There’s a plan much like Apple’s, though you don’t use money to buy songs. You use “points,” which Microsoft sells in $5 increments. Songs start at .79 and go up from there. So if you only want the one song, you’re out $4.21. Okay, this isn’t a deal killer for me, since I’ve paid $70 to hundreds of dollars for stock music to use in client projects. But I’m surprised at Microsoft’s goofy points setup.

The other purchasing model is a subscription. Pay a monthly fee, and Microsoft will give you the right to download as many songs as you like - 10,000 in a month, if you like. Sounds like a good deal until you read the fine print.

These songs cannot be burned to audio CDs (those purchased with points can, I’m told). You cannot play them anywhere but in Zune player or on your Zune. You have the right to listen to these songs forever…as long as you keep paying that monthly fee. Stop paying, and the songs stop playing. I called Zune support today to ask a few questions about the device and the licensing agreement, and the tech came right out and told me the points system was a better deal for the consumer.

Screw Your Partner, Microsoft Style

Microsoft’s earlier attempt to define the online digital music business consisted of DRM called “PlaysForSure.” On their site, it’s marketed like this:

Sounds great, right? As long as I buy music using Windows Media Player and the PlaysForSure system, I’ll be able to load it on most of the Windows-based music players. Right? Sure, as long as the player isn’t a Zune.

See, Microsoft hooked all their “partners” into adopting this DRM model. Then they decided to hop in with the Zune, but start using different DRM that only works with Zune.

This not only screws the music player manufacturers, it screws the consumer. If I had a Creative Zen or one of those ugly-ass Dell players, I’d have been loading it up with PlaysForSure music. But those songs won’t play on the Zune.

I realize Apple’s DRM is restrictive as well, and I know the RIAA has much to do with all these draconian anti-theft measures, and I’m certainly not surprised that Microsoft figured out ways to make it worse. Having rambled on this long, I’ll finish by saying that I’ll type some more after I’ve had a chance to play with a Zune tomorrow….