d2r: "About two years ago I was walking through Dublin and I noticed that the then-new U2 Best of... collection had gone on sale. So I got it (of course). I don't even look at the price, something that happens to me with certain categories of goods which my head apparently refuses to consider from a financial point of view..."

I bought "Elevation" blind and absolutely loved it. Remembering back, at that point U2 had sucked for at least ten years and, in my mind at least, this was their last chance. On the other hand, their "Best of..." CD underscored their suckage and made me realize that "Best of..." really meant "NapsterPack: Tunes for the Technically Disinclined"

At that point I stopped buying CDs blind. Everything got a first sniff on Napster or WinMX or whatever - which I'll remind you is quite legal in this country :-)

"Vertigo" ain't getting bought.

WinMX sampling did get me tuned into Eminem. His last disc really had me hooked. From start to finish it was a story. It had a hook. It was a unique.

Podcasting grabs me in the same way. It's unique, it has a great hook. It is a story. It ensures that I'm in my local Futureshop on a pretty regular basis. My latest trip was to pick up a few extension cables for a new MIC that I'd bought on eBay. On my way out the door, I noticed a whack of copies of "3ncore" sitting on what I call "the sucker stands" - you know, those tables of crap that they stick within arms reach of the unnaturally slow checkout queues?

So of course I grabbed a copy. The Napster-cheapskate slice of my lizard brain checked out the price which scanned in at $12 CDN (like...$0.34 USD or roughly $12AUS).

The girl at the counter felt compelled to tell me that it was a cool album. I felt compelled to say something that didn't inculcate me as a 33 year-old buying hiphop music beyond my years.

"I'm the same age he is damnit!" I remember thinking to myself.

When I got out to the truck I tore off the cellophane, stuffed the CD into the deck and waited for the first track to start.

Suckage.

I live about ten minutes from the Futureshop, so I hit "FF" and waited for something good.

More suckage.

FF. Suckage.

More FF. More Suckage.

FF. Suck. FF. Suck. FF...

I got home before I heard anything good.

Two lessons here:

1) Pre-listening prepurchase rules.

2) Falling into "Trained Consumer" zombie mode sucks.

Wanna buy a slightly used Eminem CD? Eminem is a lot more like Iron Maiden than I initially thought. Washed up. Sucked out. Old...

He could probably kick my ass in a big way though.

I sincerely hope his next effort is more meaningful...