Update Your iTunes for DRM Free Music

According to Mashable!, iTunes has released version 7.2 which includes the ability to purchase DRM free tracks for $1.29 a pop. Read iTunes' DRM-free Music Now Available.

Rain.

Bring rivers in this wasteland
Clouds into this sky
Bring springs of life into the wells that have been run dry

Rise up in this city
Gather in this light
Fall down on your people
Your glory and your life

Rain
Lord we thirst for water
Rain
We are desert Land
Rain
On your sons and daughters
Rain
Bring your rain again

-Rain Song by Day of Fire

I'm sitting here listening to the rain, and I'm reminded of how refreshing it is. It never fails that the dead brown of West Texas turns green and grows a foot taller after a good rain.

Sometimes we need God's rain. Sometimes our souls are thirsty, and the only thing that can refresh us is the raining down of God's grace and strength. Especially when our spiritual wells have run dry.

Perhaps this is why I love a rainstorm so much. It reminds me that the dry spells don't last forever. Eventually the rains come, clean the air, and revive the land.

Steve Jobs is lobbying for DRM free music

According to this article in PC World, Steve Jobs is lobbying for music publishers to release DRM free tracks. EMI has already agreed to sell DRM free tracks on iTunes, and according to this article, Jobs is writing letters to the rest of the big record companies to persuade them to follow suit.

For me, one of the most frustrating things about purchasing music online is the lack of portability of what I buy. If I could easily convert songs to MP3 format (which I prefer) or even buy those tracks as MP3 files (which I already do at eMusic) it would be awesome. I think getting rid of DRM is the first step in the right direction, and if the record companies offer consumers more choice with less restriction I believe it can only help their bottom line.

Update: Yesterday's Bomb Threat

According to the Abilene Reporter-News, several juveniles are being questioned regarding the bomb threat phone call received yesterday, which was deemed to be a hoax.

"the airport go boom boom when I get there with my bomb."

Today was an interesting day at the office. There was a bomb threat for the Abilene Regional Airport called in to the Reporter-News this morning, which resulted in delayed flights and the evacuation of the airport.

After listening to the audio, I am of the opinion that it was some dumb kid put up to a crank call by his friends. Listen to the audio, and let me know if you disagree.

Either way, it's retarded.

God's Love

Sometimes I really think that I have a hard time understanding, or maybe that I can't understand, the love of my heavenly Father.

I grew up from the age of eight essentially without my father in my life. He could have easily been a part of my life, but for whatever reason, he chose not to be. Because of this, I think that the whole idea of a Father's love can be hard for me to grasp. I haven't experienced that here on earth, and that makes it hard to relate to, and at times I find myself intellectualizing God's love for me and not really feeling it, and not really being open to feeling it.

That's not to say that I've never felt God's love---I have---it's just been a while. And perhaps that is of my own doing.

Sometimes I have to sit down and be brutally honest with myself, and the brutal honest truth is that I suck at being a Christian. I consistently act selfish and prideful and greedy, and I fail miserably at being the perfectly good Christian woman that somehow some people seem to think I am. I am a complete and utter failure at this whole thing of "acting the part" of being a Jesus Freak. And it is completely my fault, because I get prideful and think I know what's up, and forget that I'm not supposed to be in control.

It's time to stop, reflect, study, pray, and let God make his amendments in my life. Instead of feeling guilt and shame for not living up to supposed expectations, and trying to control my behavior and my life to fit a mold, I need to let God be in control.

Yet that is so very hard to do.

Sanjaya Should Have Waited a Few Years to Be on American Idol

Initially, I liked Sanjaya Malakar. I think he has a decent voice.

However, that being said, he's 17, and that shows in his performances. He doesn't have life experience (or performance experience) to draw from to help him sell a song. He does do daring and...uhm...interesting...things with his hair. But that's about all he has going for him in my opinion.

So I was a bit flabbergasted that he wasn't even in the bottom three on last week's Idol.

The combination of Sanjaya being the first Indian-American on Idol, and therefor getting votes of the Indian-American community, his appeal with 10-13 year old girls, and Vote for the Worst is proving killer, and could be a credibility nightmare for Idol if he wins the whole deal.

Perhaps if he had waited until he was, say, 20, to audition for the show, his performance abilities wouldn't be such an issue for him. I actually feel sorry for him in this regard, because he's always going to have this hanging over his head, and he's going to have to work harder to prove himself. But then again, maybe that will help him become a better performer, and it won't be such a painfully boring experience watching him sing a song.

A picture, just so you can be scarred for life...or something...

(Photo via AmericanIdol.com photo galleries.)

Breif Thoughts on Celebrity Drama

The last several weeks have been a three ring circus in the world of Hollyweird.

But the question is, why are we so insanely obsessed with Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears? Why do we care so much about the drama? Why do we feed it?

Why is there such an intense yearning of teens and twenty-somethings in Hollywood to take the partying and everything else they do to such an extreme? I just don't understand it.

But perhaps, since I've not lived the life of one who is famous and rich, and I've not had things handed to me on a silver platter, and I've come of age in a fairly normal fashion, I can't understand.

And it makes me thankful that I have had a normal life, with normal struggles, and normal boundaries. I can't say I'd have turned out differently had I been in their shoes.

Messy is the New Neat

A little messiness can be a good thing, say experts behind a book entitled A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder.

I guess this means that I've been doing it right all along. (If you could see my bedroom right now...)

On Time Magazine online.

This Blog...the One You're Reading

It's been a while since I've written a decent blog entry worth publishing. Not that many people read it, (if you do, show me some love and comment. :) ) but not that it matters. Writing is an outlet for me, and I feel better and more at peace for doing it, regardless if it is read by the masses or not.

I've been doing some thinking about the direction I want to take this blog in. So far I've written six posts about faith in my life, revelations I've had of a spiritual nature. (And I know those of you reading this on Facebook are going, "What the??" I have this blog feeding into Facebook via RSS, which is really cool.)

Being a designer, and one who reads design blogs, I know that it is best to keep a blog on one topic, but I'm starting to think that perhaps I should expand to other things that interest me. After all, this blog is titled Confessions of a SmileyFreak, so why can't it be about several things I like or enjoy? I mean, Mark Lee writes about anything and everything he's interested in on his blog, so why can't I?

So I have decided, in the interest of possibly posting more entries, and in the interest of showing more than just one part of myself, that I'm going to expand my blog to cover current events as I see them, design, music, or anything else that I feel the need to write about. And now that Blogger lets you label posts, I can categorize, which makes multiple topics easier.

So look forward to more from me in the future.