That song will be stuck in my head all day now.

It’s odd. The memories this video brings back are painful, but also worthwhile. A lot of what made me the man I am today was learning how to overcome the sense of loss and rejection that came from having a relationship break up. I had my fair share of girlfriends over the years before I got married and all of them, save for one, broke things off with me instead of the other way around. In my younger years I often failed to see the end coming and was thusly taken by surprise, but it taught me how to recognize the signs that things weren’t going well for later relationships.

As painful as they were, I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. Well, maybe one or two of them, but most of them taught me a lot and made me a better person. That makes them valuable and worthwhile in spite of the pain.

During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused.

We will begin shipping LittleBigPlanet to retail in North America the week of October 27th. Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible.

Needless to say I find this silly, but it’s probably in Sony’s better interests to cover their ass and avoid the controversy that would otherwise result. The song itself is Tapha Niang by Toumani Diabate and can be heard on his MySpace page if you’re curious. I thought it was rather pleasant myself.

Despite all of that even I can admit that it’s a bit early for a radio station to be broadcasting Krismas music already, but that’s just what WMVN 101.1 in St. Louis is doing:

KSDK—It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas, thanks in part to a local radio station.

WMVN 101.1 FM made the switch to Christmas tunes over the weekend. And listeners have had mixed reactions.

NewsChannel 5 asked the station’s programming director about the switch. While he could not talk about why the switch was made now, he said Christmas music has been popular, even this early in the season.

WMVN recently announced plans to change formats. After the holidays, it will program sports related material.

It sounds like a “what the hell why not” way to cut costs in anticipation of the format change by laying off all but a skeleton crew. I can recall more than one format change here in Detroit that resulted in all manner of weird music being played without commercials or DJs for weeks until the change actually happened. And, in all fairness, last year WNIC started broadcasting Krismas music on November 1st, the day after Halloween, and was the first station in the country to do so. They started off only playing it on weekends, but it was only a week or so before they decided to go full-time with it based on feedback they got from listeners. Which is surprising to me because most of the feedback I heard was pretty negative. I suspect they’ll start on November 1st again this year.

But yeah, my personal habits aside, mid-October is definitely too soon. At the very least they should’ve waited until Halloween had passed.

It’s an odd kind of fame, built from the ground up, and strangely contextual. At some locations, Coulton is treated nearly like a god, but in most places he’s roundly ignored—just another guy with a beard. “It’s actually… I’ve always felt like I don’t want to be a super-famous person… that doesn’t sound so nice to me,“ Coulton told me. He described an angry moment at a car rental place. “Thank God I’m not famous enough to worry about someone seeing me all pissed off… I’m glad it’s a niche thing. I get to come to a place like this and feel like a rock star, but most of my life is still normal. As great as it is to feel like a rock star, it’s not something I’d like to feel like all the time.“

It’s a good read so go check it out.

From: Walmart Music Team
Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Subject: Important Information About Your Walmart.com Digital Music Purchases
To: xxxxxx@gmail.com

Important Information About Your Digital Music Purchases

We hope you are enjoying the increased music quality/bitrate and the improved usability of Walmart’s MP3 music downloads. We began offering MP3s in August 2007 and have offered only DRM (digital rights management) -free MP3s since February 2008. As the final stage of our transition to a full DRM-free MP3 download store, Walmart will be shutting down our digital rights management system that supports protected songs and albums purchased from our site.

If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer. This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free.

Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer.

Thank you for using Walmart.com for music downloads. We are working hard to make our store better than ever and easier to use.

Walmart Music Team

There’s not much to add, is there…

It’s nice that they’re transitioning to a DRM-free store, but can’t they just give the suckers who music crippled by DRM the unshackled tracks? Just another example that buying anything locked down by DRM is not a long-term investment, but a short- or medium-term rental.

Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers. Instead, Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer. Sure, you’ll lose a bunch of blank CDs, sound quality, and all the metadata, but that’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to listen to that music you lawfully acquired. Good thing you didn’t download it illegally or just buy it on CD!

There’s probably some software out there on the Interwebs that’ll rip that DRM out for you as well, but those are technically illegal for you to use under the DMCA. Still, it beats the hell out of the Yahoo! approved method of securing the files you legally purchased.

Well apparently there was enough of an outcry that they’ve changed the mind and will be keeping the servers up through the end of 2011.

Dear MSN Music customer,

On April 22, Microsoft notified you that as of August 31st, 2008, we would be changing the level of support for music purchased from MSN Music, and while your existing purchased music would continue to play, you would no longer be able to authorize new PCs and devices to play that music.

After careful consideration, Microsoft has decided to continue to support the authorization of new computers and devices and delivery of new license keys for MSN Music customers through at least the end of 2011, after which we will evaluate how much this functionality is still being used and what steps should be taken next to support our customers. This means you will continue to be able to listen to your purchased music and transfer your music to new PCs and devices beyond the previously announced August 31, 2008 date.

Microsoft continues to recommend that you back up your music on CD or hard drive along with other important data.

Sincerely,

MSN Music team

Which is nice and all, but just postpones the problem to a later date. Perhaps they’re hoping you’ll be sick of those songs by then and won’t care if you can’t use them any more. Or, if they’re smart, they’ll just release a tool that strips the DRM right off the files in a future update of Windows Media Player.

Yeah, as if.

This small bit of ear bleeding was found over at Kotaku.com.

I don’t know if I’m more disturbed by the fact that I’m watching old Star Trek cartoon clips or that I actually enjoyed that song…

Found via Boing Boing.