Music

Many people are annoyed with Apple right now.  In my opinion, there is no better reason to be annoyed with them than this:

This is an automated message. Please do not reply.

Dear jonmower,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala's Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

Apple buys a fantastic service and then kills it.  Presumably Apple is preparing to launch their own version of a cloud-based music service (your music files stored on Apple's servers and stream-able to a variety of devices on the net) and basically had to kill Lala after purchasing it because it's licensing deals weren't transferable to Apple.  If and when Apple launches a comparable service, I'm sure my annoyance will subside.  For now, I'm annoyed at Apple. If not for the fact that the firewall at work has been blocking it for the last few months, I'd really be peeved.

Last night Elliot played the theme from Star Wars at his piano recital.  Here is a video and are some photos:

Here are a couple videos from the 2009 edition of Midland High's Rhapsody Rendezvous featuring a friend of ours in these two numbers:

Here is video of Elliot participating in Keyboard Fest back in January:

The Carpenter Street School talent show was Friday night, and Elliot and his pals performed The Stones’ “Paint It Black.” 

Here are a couple photos from a practice session:

Here is video of the performance:

Here are a few pictures from the talent show: