does anybody else remember these? they used to put emblems like this on LPs (those things on which people bought music before compact disks) to dissuade people from copying them onto cassettes (which people used to make music more portable before the ipod). did anybody else believe them? apparently not, because music is still being converted from one format to another with great abandon, despite the fact that "it’s illegal", and as far as i have been able to tell, music isn’t dead… at least not yet. along the same lines, i modified my master license application so that now, $20 later, i own the trade name Rent-A-Geek, but i found out that there are two other businesses in king county that also use that name, not to mention the one in philadelphia, the one in maine, and a few other places i found thanks to a $6 business name search… so now i’ve got to consider getting the name trademarked, so that nobody else can use it, because if i don’t then someone else may do the same thing, and despite the fact that i’ve been doing business under that name for 10 years, i may not be able to use it any longer. if anything is killing the creative person’s ability to do business, it’s that kind of thing.

how much inside is another example of a guy who, if he’s making enough money doing things like that (which may or may not actually be happening), then there’s a good chance that i can do it too… on the other hand, he could be making enough money at it by being in the primary business of nepotism, i’m not sure.

mahasivaratri is next tuesday. happy mahasivaratri everyone.