Q: What does a New Jersey girl have in common with litter?

A: Most people won't pick up either one.

Microsoft released their newest (only) MP3 player a few weeks ago with mild fanfare, two screaming fat chicks, a scottish chimp, and a real creepy dude. The Zune looks like a stylistic copy of Apple's iPod, with a larger screen to suck down batteries and functionality that captures the familiarly frustrating Windows Experience (tm). The Zune even comes with a new Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme to keep us from enjoying our own music. This flies in the face of Microsoft's own Plays-For-Sure technology, which doesn't Play-At-All on the Zune.

The whole thing reeks of a "me too" copycat mentality showing that Microsoft has no shame when it comes to making a buck. Oh, but the Zune can "squirt" songs... up to about 3 feet I hear. Now that's squirting! According to some of the nice people at CNN, it can also be used for email.

So, to give Microsoft their much wanted attention, I have compiled this list of the top ten reasons why you should NOT buy a Zune MP3 player. Enjoy.

10. A software company that believes you should click on "Start" to Exit an application shouldn't be trusted with anything more complex than hole digging, let alone MP3 Players.

9. iPods will always come before Zunes... alphabetically.

8. Do you really want to own something brown that says its best feature is in its squirting abilities?

7. "Zuned" doesn't really mean what Microsoft wants you to think it means.

6. If you go around squirting friends, your popularity is likely to decline. Just the possibility that others could be squirted by you will affect your social life dramatically. And no... not for the better. Definitely not for the better.

5. Bill Gates implants a secret listening device in everything he touches. Don't believe me? Just ask the Office Hobo.

4. A portion of every Zune sold goes to fund the underhanded scuzz of the music industry so they can sue old ladies for listening to music the ladies have never heard of... on computers that don't exist... old ladies that wouldn't know how to use the computers if they existed anyway... but the ladies will give you a fig newton if you ask nicely. And some of them like prunes. By buying a Zune, you fund the lawsuits that take away their prunes! I hope you are happy.

3. Zunes are for Prunes.

2. Can you think of any reason TO buy one? A good reason?

1. Brown products of any type should NOT "squirt" anything. Period. End of story.

My dead dog taught himself a new trick today. He's been teaching himself a lot of new tricks lately but I think it mostly happens when I have some boomshine. Like today, I had some of my wicked bad mouthwash (tm) and then my dead dog started dancing after he went to the bathroom. Like a super happy dance, with music and everything!

I think my dead dog is always dancing, but sometimes he's too heavy and needs to take a potty break to lighten the load. He's getting lazy in his old age but boy can he dance when he wants to! And this may explain the change in his leapfrog abilities. What a good dog!

Later on, I took my dead dog shopping for a new skateboard. My dog needs a skateboard for moving around so we went to Cracky's shop since he always has good stuff. He had some more information brewing for me but I think I'm still sick from last time so I passed. Cracky didn't have a skateboard but he did have a rope for dragging things. My dead dog didn't like that idea, even though the rope was only a nickel!

So finally we bought a half broken basketball and the rope. I tried to tie my dead dog to the ball but that didn't work very well. So we tried again, this time with some extra stink.  It still didn't work so my dog gave up and I tried to get a refund from Cracky.  He didn't like the idea but at least he gave us two cheetos in credit.

What a good day!

Registration of second level .US domain names (ex/ xvc.us) has been open to the public since early 2002. But until the last year or two, 3-letter .US domains haven't had much attention. This seems to follow a similar trend in short domains from other extensions. They go un-noticed for a while until the pros have taken all the good names and then the bandwagon quickly gobbles up the rest. The short domains get "bought out" and can no longer be freely registered. This drives the price of shorter domains up as the demand has increased on a limited supply. It has happened with several domain extensions and it has happened with the 3-letter .US domains.

Not long ago I had trouble selling 3-letter .US domains for more than $15 or $20. That's if I could even find a buyer. Now it's a different story. The word has got out and these domains are on fire. Note that I am specifically talking about 3-letter .US domains and only these type of domains. No numbers and no hyphens. An example used earlier, xvc.us IS a 3-letter .US domain. If the domain had a number or hyphen, it would (could) significantly reduce the value of the domain.
Now, it seems everyone wants a 3-letter .US domain. The number of 3-letter .US domains has remained the same, but the demand has increased. Demand has increased considerably. The minimum price seems to be $100 each, and they sell like hotcakes at this price. That's a far cry from not being able to find buyers at 15 bucks a pop.
I have been watching a few that are currently for sale and in the time I have wrote the first two paragraphs of this post, I have seen eight 3-letter .US domains sell for $100 each. The demand is there.

When I made my prediction on 3-character .Com domains doubling in price, I should have included 3-letter .US domains. They are currently around the same minimum price so it would be interesting to see how their value appreciates over the next year. Right now I would wager that 3-letter .US domains will be the price leader in one year. 3-letter domains are generally more desirable than 3-character domains (think ABC.com vs. X9Q.com), and the 3-letter .US domain market just "feels" like it's being pushed by a larger bandwagon.

I stand behind my domain predictions, so I am adding a 3-letter .US domain to the Money Where My Mouth Is page. I purchased xvc.us while writing this post and it will be added to that page shortly. If I had more money, I would add more. Whether I am right or wrong, we will find out soon enough.