Somewhere Over In Rainbows

As everybody under thirty forty has heard by now, the English band Radiohead released a new album this week, culminating a stunning ten days which began with the band's shocking announcement that they had a new album, peaked with an orgy of discussion over their decisions to release the album over the web and permit fans to name a price for the download, and ended for many of us with (so far) three days of blissful listening. At about 8:15 on the morning of the release, I went to the band's website, paid about $10, and downloaded the files. Click click and I was listening to "15 Step," no more than five minutes after starting the process. (That's only slightly more time than it took me to cut through all the packaging of the last compact disc I bought.)


Ten minutes later, Shannon called to tell me that VISA had called about a possible fraudulent charge. Erk? I dialed the customer-service number, hit "1" to talk to a rep (in this age of phishing, why would an actual credit-card company ask its customers to enter their card number when they call?), and in short order learned that VISA had flagged my $10-something charge for the Radiohead album as possibly fraudulent, largely because the charge was listed as "WASTE/RADIOHEAD LT" - which is totally what a scammer would use, as opposed to, say, "HOME DEPOT" or "AMAZON.COM." I guess VISA's fraud algorithms don't factor in the name of the best band in the world.


Having straightened this out, I couldn't help but think - in line with the general thrust of Radiohead's music and ideology - that while the band might be sticking it to The Man with the name-your-price download scheme, The Man might have his own ways of getting back at us. So be it - I can listen to "Bodysnatchers" any time I want!

Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.