Ways of the World

"You create your opportunities by asking for them."
- Patty Hansen


How serendipitous that the above quote appeared on my iGoogle the same day I got a very interesting offer. To not reveal too much, it concerns the website idea that I've been working on for the past half year, and how it (and I) would get funded. I was made a very interesting offer that I need to spend some serious quality time thinking about - the main issues being the time-investment required as well as the being accountable to someone else for this pet project of mine.

Then came recent conversations about the future of The Oral Stage - the direction it needs to go and what needs to be done. There's an exciting vision behind it all, so there's great potential and I've love take part in being responsible for it.

And then there's Agel, and then there's the acting. All great opportunities I asked for, and am now learning to juggle effectively and efficiently. Life is madness and I love it.


Funnily, all the above things reminded and led me to search for a book which I'd forgotten about - and to discover another one that I thought I'd lost. It has been said that this book, Conversations With God Book 3, can only be read when you're ready for it and I believe that (I only just found it again, didn't I). It IS a challenging read - mentally and spiritually - but thoroughly enjoyable and mind-blowing. The book I was actually looking for was The E-Myth Revisited, which I read about 2 years ago. I need to read it again now, having learned all I have since that time - and to think I only realised it when I had to look for it for Kelvin.

It's about running small businesses and I think it's a fundamental read for anyone who's looking to start a business or who's running a business.

Amazon MP3 - will it work in Malaysia?

I recently read this article at Mashable.com (which is a good site on social networking and other online news): The Daily Poll: Will Amazon’s MP3 Store Topple iTunes?
A quick gander will tell you that the biggest percentage (37%) think that it will gain some popularity and is a moderate threat to iTunes, the smallest percentage (8%) think that it'd have no impact and an almost-equal percentage (29% and 26%) think that it'd rock up to #1 or it'd be only a minor threat. So it could go any way, really - but there's no doubting that it'd have SOME effect on the online music market.

As you can see in the little picture-link above, they offer over 2 million songs, and they're DRM (Digital Rights Management) free. In English, it means you can LEGALLY play them on your iPod™/Zune™/Zen™/iPhone™/RAZR™/BlackBerry™/PC/etc or even burn them onto CD™. DRM has been one of the more controversial things that the record companies have done in recent years and has been a cause for much grief for them (and consumers too), so it's a big plus-point to NOT have it.

Most songs are between $0.89 and $0.99, and most albums are between $5.99 and $9.99. However, the major advantage that Amazon MP3 has over iTunes is DRM-free tracks from three of the major record labels, versus iTunes who only offers DRM-free tracks from EMI.

Couple of other interesting points from the website:

• MP3 files are encoded using variable bit rates, averaging 256 kbps which is good. Some are at a constant 256 kbps.
• You'll need to have the Amazon MP3 Downloader application for album purchases but not required for songs purchases. It's available for Windows XP or Vista and Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.

Now here's the unfortunate part for us people in Malaysia:

"At this time music downloads are only available to customers using a credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address."
(taken from the Amazon MP3 FAQ)

Unfortunately, I don't yet know of any easy way of getting the above 2 things so... no go. Anyway check it out and judge for yourself - they allow lots of song previewing.