I heard on the radio this morning about Apple opening a store for Kiwis. The story mentioned that songs would be available for download as of 7 or 7:30 this morning, at a cost of $1.79. So I tried to create an account to see what was there. Apple has an online store, but iTunes is still listed as not available according to iTunes 7.0.2¹.

Aside from that, I think that $1.79 per song is too much. I was hoping that iTunes would be a cure for the overly-inflated CD prices here. There doesn’t seem to be a remedy, and Apple is not our musical saviour. Even though the shipping costs become negligible, we’re still going to get ripped off for music. emusic is still a very viable option. And for those of us who want some Canadiana, there’s also MapleMusic, offering both CDs and mp3 files.

As for Apple, I’m tempted to say, “don’t go there”, but that would be silly – I can’t get there anyway.

¹ Prompting iTunes to check for updates indicates that it’s up-to-date.

Edit 06–12-2006: After fiddling around with the country settings several times, I finally got New Zealand to appear.

On arriving home last night, I noticed my favourite chef’s knife on the counter in two pieces. A broken knife is a sad thing to look at, and having finally brought it back to New Zealand with me on my last trip home, I didn’t get a lot of time with it. So the next thing on my wish list:

• A new chef’s knife. The last one was a Henckels, but I can’t claim to be a knife-snob. I just want something with a comfortable grip, good weight and holds an edge for a while.