We'll be honest-- life's awful busy these days 'round the AtAT compound, and we're starting to get stretched pretty thin. Truth be told, we were tempted to take today off, what with it being Bunker Hill Day and all. Bunker Hill Day. No, honestly, it's a real holiday out here in these parts, commemorating a pivotal battle in the U.S. War for Independence; government workers get the day off and everything. Personally, we just dig that people celebrate the occasion even though a) the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on, strangely enough, Breed's Hill, and b) technically, we lost. But that's no reason not to party down.

But we're not taking the day off, Bunker Hill notwithstanding, just like we didn't take yesterday off for Bloomsday, or even broadcast the last scene sans punctuation or anything Yes. Why? Well, we're not actually sure, but it sure ain't a work ethic, believe us. Must be some sort of viral infection or something. Whatever the reason, don't complain, because we're passing the savings right on to you!

Of course, that doesn't mean we aren't still going to slack off something fierce. For instance, instead of coming up with something witty and original with which to entertain and delight you, we're just planning to milk this whole Clash of the Downloadable Music Stores topic so dry it'll need four gallons of Jergens just to make it back to "dessicated." And why not? After all, when you've got Coke's downloadable music service (no matter how many times we say that, it still sounds stupid) claiming in the wake of the Euro iTMS launch that it's "still Europe's biggest online store," how could we possibly pass that up?

Now, MyCokeMusic.com may technically be correct, because we have no clue by what criterion it's judging itself to be "biggest"; it might conceivably offer more songs (we doubt it), and it's certainly sold more tracks (considering that, at the time, Euro iTMS has been running for all of two days), but we get the distinct feeling that it's making the claim now just because in about five days it may no longer be able to. Euro iTMS undercuts Coke's per-song price by a full 20 pence, and the UK's been a huge market for iPods-- which can't play Coke's tracks at all. In other words, the iTMS is, more likely than not, preparing to deliver MyCokeMusic an arse-kicking of biblical proportions. Mind you, that's just a guess-- although, since MyCokeMusic is crowing about having sold 500,000 songs in the past two months while the U.S. iTMS sells that many in a day, it's not without basis in fact.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Napster has just launched a U.S. promotion whereby new subscribers who shackle themselves to a year's worth of monthly fees get a free 128 MB MP3 player-- because, as everyone knows, the way to get a fundamentally money-losing business to turn a profit is to give away free electronics equipment. Also of note, Napster reports that it's sold "over 10 million tracks" in the 233 days since it went live. Gee, Apple sold the same number in just 128 days-- and that was only to Mac users. And the icing on the coffin (final nail in the cake?) is that one analyst estimates that Napster will have to post annual revenues "close to $300 million to break even," while Napster's official forecast this year is for revenues of (cough) $40 million. Whoops.

So there you have it: yet another cheap scene of all-too-easy iTMS superiority. It's kind of like eating tuna casserole for dinner every night for two weeks, isn't it? Never let it be said that we aren't mind-numbingly consistent...