So the other day I bought a Body Bugg. It's a small device you wear on your arm. The point of it is that it is [supposedly] measuring body functions and reading calories you take in or burn and general movement/action. It's featured heavily in the Biggest Loser and a couple of other programs. At the very least it's a good psychological deterrent at the worst it's a minor annoyance. Either way it's not doing any harm but hopefully will give some good results.

I have been wearing it for about 4 days. You're supposed to wear it 24/7 with the exception of an hour a day and/or when you're cleaning it. Thus far it's been fine to wear. I haven't had any issues with it. It's fairly discreet. You can sync it to your computer via a USB cable (or a slightly more expensive wirelesss setup). My results have been promising. The very first partial day I wore it - it showed that my daily 'recommended steps' was down. But since then i've raised the activity level (via extended runs and trying to be careful or at least more careful in what I'm eating). So we'll see...

From the technology side of it. This one is interesting. It has quirks but is pretty cool. It's interesting that it at least appears to read something from the body (via a few electrode type pads on the back of the device). Whether it's actually really working or not...I don't know. What I would love is unification of devices. My iPhone killed the need for me to have a small PDA - plus it combined my phone and iPod. Bob suggested an app called 'Runkeeper Pro' which is pretty cool. It keeps GPS information about runs. But it lacks the ability to get actual physical readings. Even an add-on device like the Nike+ for iPod only keeps basic readings and does some simple calculations based on time/distance/etc.

My band has been wrestling with a number of issues recently. But one of them which has come up repeatedly over the past year or three is the issue of vinyl. Specifically, releasing an ACTUAL record.

Now the biggest issue is obviously record players. I have one and a lot of other people do as well but how many others do? There has been a growing trend over the past 5 or so years in the surge of records being released - most larger record companies still do offer their artists releases on vinyl (usually through special order or specialty shops).

On the other hand - I love iTunes and my iPhone and various [older] iPods. Without weighing in on the whole digital vs. non-digital audio question - I can't imagine a world now WITHOUT a digital version of some sort.

In our case - we have a 5 song EP which is pretty much ready to go. It's been done for a bit and we've been sitting on it for a little awhile. Our original plan had been to release a 10" record (3 on side A / 3 on side B) PLUS offer a coupon code for the download of all the tracks as high quality audio files (MP3s and/or some other format). The further plan was to make it available on iTunes soon afterward. The economic reality is that unless you're printing thousands upon thousands of copies or have great connections pressing vinyl records has fairly significant cost - technically probably more than CDs. But it's also more of a niche specialized product.

Records take up more space, are more unwiedly to handle (due typically to size), they have the propensity to warp (sorry David Bowie) or melt (sorry Germs). But CDs suffer from their multitude of issues also - occasional audio differences, scratches, skips, and the like. Digital files also have their issues as well digital pops, audio compression changes and of course the propensity for being lost due to a hard drive crash.

Working within the tech industry it's easy to forego "things of the past" for the latest and greatest technology. I love iTunes but I also love records and it's hard to sometimes quantify the two in the same space. I wonder how many other people are in that boat? For our own sake or maybe as the broader question if a band only put out a record (not a CD) with digital downloads available - how would it sell?

As a sidenote and probably my own answer to this - we've decided to go purely digital. The EP will be available ONLY via iTunes and some of the other larger digital music stores (Napster/etc). The economics for us just don't make sense especially during a time as we're not extremely active.