Ah, conflict-- that magic Mrs. Dash without which all of life would taste like cold flour soup. By extension, conflict is also the very essence of entertainment, because as any ancient Roman can tell you, it just wasn't nearly as much fun when the Christians and lions sat down and played a friendly game of Pinochle. Deep down, the human animal craves the sight of two opposing forces, preferably ripping each other to bloody shreds. It's not a pleasant thought, to be sure, but there just isn't any other way to explain cockfights, boxing, Quake, or that hideously savage and uncivilized bloodsport known as curling.

Sometimes, though, the matchups are so lopsided as to provide no thrill whatsoever. Consider, for example, Mike Tyson's 1994 bout with the late Katharine Hepburn; everyone knew that Kate would kick his kiester in the first round, so it was no surprise whatsoever when her vicious left ended the "fight" in a mere twelve seconds and put the so-called "champ" in the intensive care unit. TechTV should have held that lesson firmly in mind when it was casting about for a couple of things to pit against each other in a steel cage match from which only one would emerge with more than half its teeth and the use of both arms. Unfortunately, it didn't, and so we wound up with an article pitting the iTunes Music Store against BuyMusic.com. Talk about your foregone conclusions, right?

But wait, since the outcome of a bout of this nature is determined solely by the judges' ruling and judges are notoriously fallible (fal li ble: adj. 1. Making judgements attributable only to the deleterious effects of a lifetime of substance abuse), maybe there's a horserace here after all. In the first round, "Finding What You Want," TechTV declares the iTMS the winner for offering "better lists, suggestions, and song-quality descriptions" and a "more robust" search engine. Round 2 ("Comparing Prices and Selection"), however, goes to BuyMusic, at least for price-- supposedly because "some" of its songs are as low as 79 cents, despite the acknowledged fact that some are "as high as $1.14" or "even more." Apparently TechTV wasn't bothered by the fact that only one song of BuyMusic's Top 100 cost 79 cents. Call the foul, ref!

We have to admit that TechTV was perfectly fair in giving the iTMS the win on selection, though; we fully expected to hear that BuyMusic has more music, since it claims 300,000 tracks and the iTMS launched with 200,000. But instead of going with the press release numbers, TechTV actually searched for a list of 21 specific songs on both services and found that the iTMS won 16 to 13. Small wonder, since BuyMusic's alleged 300,000 songs is apparently a big myth; you've probably noticed that a whole lot of them aren't actually available for purchase. In fact, BoycottBuyMusic.com reports that the service only has a hair over 200,000 songs that are ready for download, which, given the amount of music that Apple's been adding each week, is almost certainly fewer than what the iTMS has to offer.

Unsurprisingly, the iTMS wins big time in rounds 3 and 4 ("Which is easier to use?" and "Limits on Burns and Transfers"), leaving price the only category in contention-- and now we're starting to think that TechTV glossed over the specifics of BuyMusic's sketchy pricing "advantage" just to throw Scott Blum a bone because otherwise he would have been smacked three-quarters into next April by the iTMS, sans most of his internal organs. (After all, we may be bloodthirsty, but we're talking "meatgrinder" here.) Was it a pity point? We don't know. But we do know that TechTV's next matchup will be a lot more exciting if the opponents are more evenly matched. Like, say, a fluffy bunny with a Wiffle Ball bat vs. Predator.