2/25/2004 01:10:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Emptying my mailbox yesterday, I was greeted with the normal Tuesday pile of pizza adverts and coupon books. In addition to these, and the weekly missing persons notice, there was a piece of mail that I initially judged to be junk mail. But recalling some recent close calls wherein I nearly discarded important documents, I decided to take a closer look. Much to my surprise, the enclosed document was a letter and a check, from whomever was charged with handling the disbursement of settlement money from the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement. I remember submitting my application, but I also remember thinking that with the number of people sure to sign on to this thing, that I would probably see no more than a few pennies. $13.86 isn't a great windfall, but neither is it a trivial amount. That figures to about $0.035 per CD for me. I'm of the mind that I was overcharged more than three and a half cents per CD, but according to the notice of settlement, the record companies had to dish out $67,375,000 in cash and $75,700,000 in Non-Cash Consideration. I'm not sure, without reading further, what non-cash consideration might be. But the 67.4 million is a pretty hefty sum. Anyhow, here's the letter and the check with the important info blocked out: |W|P|107773265217554582|W|P|Dear Kentucky Music Purchaser,|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com2/23/2004 04:33:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P| ... picture of Bjork, ever. I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at her the same way again. For shame. |W|P|107757203193875089|W|P|The Worst ...|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com2/18/2004 10:25:00 AM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Out of the blue last Friday, my friend Ben, who I know from the Wednesday night Bluegrass jams at the BBC, asked if I'd be willing to come play a few songs at some sort of benefit. He didn't have the details, so not knowing exactly what kind of benefit this would be, I gave him a conditional commitment. I wasn't going to play a 'Dean for President' benefit, or a 'Support the Federal Ban on Gay Marriage' benefit. So I told him to call me when he had the details. He didn't get the details until about 11:30 Sunday morning. It turned out that it was a good cause indeed. Stories about the benefit are here and here. The four people who volunteered to play gathered at Ben's house around 12:15 to put together a set. An hour later we had roughly ten songs down solid. We drove down to the River Road Country Club and packed our instruments in. The room filled quickly with people wanting to help the family for whom the benefit was organized, and their children. We played a short 25-30 minute set, but it was a very good time. The kids all really seemed to dig it, as they were either dancing around or standing hypnotized right in front of us the whole time. The older folks were browsing the items at the silent auction, and seemed to enjoy the music as well. Most were probably just relieved that there was something to keep the kids occupied. It's the first time I've played in front of people (jams excluded) since the old Rockabilly band broke up. I certainly wouldn't mind doing it again sometime soon. Ben did mention some sort of Alcoholics Anonymous get-together which we could probably play, but I don't know if they'd want this band of miscreants at their party: Click for the big picture. Left to right, it's Aaron, Mike, Ben and yours truly. God bless the Sepia tone.|W|P|107711794135827975|W|P|Pickin' for a Good Cause|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com2/16/2004 02:11:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|A Flash Presentation --via Jonah Goldberg of National Review|W|P|107695869828772110|W|P|RANDIAN HYPNOPROP|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com2/11/2004 02:45:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|As it has become clear that Kerry wants to make an issue of Bush's National Guard service, I've been looking for the best one-shot rebuttal of the argument. I've read many different explanations of just why Kerry and McAuliffe are full of it, but none that put it quite as well as this one. I really hope this isn't the level of debate we're going to see for the remainder of the general election, because I'd actually like to hear some of the important arguments that should be made about Bush's domestic policy. After that awful State of the Union speech, I'm ready to vote for someone who doesn't think the Federal government should be in the business of defining marriage. Or someone who doesn't want to spend a bunch of Federal money on drug testing kids in school. But that person should also be someone who I think will finish the work that needs to be done in the Middle East. Unfortunately, I have yet to see such a person step forward.|W|P|107652870608810240|W|P|AWOL Bush, McAuliffe the Snake and Truth|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com2/07/2004 01:16:00 PM|W|P|Jackson|W|P|Here's a little story about my recent trip to Virginia to visit a friend and see a couple of My Morning Jacket Shows. Enjoy!|W|P|107617777675456610|W|P|Sliding off a Mountan in West Virginia|W|P|jacksoncooper@gmail.com