First: Whee! At last. I've been waiting with not exactly baited breath, but looking forward to an NZ iTunes store nevertheless. So I got in last night and had a rummage around. Bit disappointed that you can't really 'browse' the store and that there's sod all NZ content there but found the purchasing process went pretty smoothly. Hopefully more NZ content will come on stream over time - well maybe not, cos I'd rather have that at the best quality I can get it (see below). But in the meantime I'll stick with amplifier or my local Real Groovy for that kind of thing.... Nothing like having a collection of NZ discs, is there?

Second: I was a bit nonplussed to discover the bit rate of the tracks available at iTunes is 128kbps AAC? What the...? Isn't that just a bit low? Is there anyone out there that can offer a qualified judgement on whether this is a bit sub standard or not? I mean, if I'm going to be paying for this stuff, should I not be able to get it at CD quality? Isn't the iTunes store meant to be an alternative to a physical store?

A friend sent me a link to a petition to Apple on just this issue: it's at http://www.petitiononline.com/apple128/petition.html

Anyway it was kind of fun to rumage about in the store and re-acquire some old faves that somehow I'd lost all those years ago when I took the plunge and let my vinyl collection go (Wish I'd kept all those pre-label flying nun discs I'd collected though).

Nice to see New Order's 1988 Substance compilation there. I also saw they had The Cure's 1984 live Concert album. I wonder if it still sounds as cool as it did in the mid 80's when I was a wide-eyeliner-eyed-psuedo-goth just starting uni....? Actually, I never wore eyeliner and i was never a goth, but I did like that album.

I thought it was great that you can now buy (Product) RED iPod Nanos at the Apple store too. If you buy one of those apple will donate money to get help desparately needed medicines into Africa to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The red nano's look cool and don't cost any extra, but it helps make a difference.