So Amazon announced a “beta” (ha) of its new Digital Music Store, which looks to be the first honest-to-goodness competitor for Apple’s iTunes Music Store. DRM-free, 256 kbps (LAME-encoded, rumor has it) MP3 files for 89 or 99 cents—nice!

I still prefer to buy CDs on sale, because they’ll never give me buyer’s remorse due to encoding bitrates or DRM/legalese (and there is a bit of legalese for Amazon’s MP3s that you should be aware of), but I’d certainly buy any one-off song I like from Amazon.

Pluses: No DRM; easy to buy; encoding sounds good (albeit, to me and my not-terribly-sensitive ears)

Minuses: Terms of service are still restrictive compared to those for a CD; did not improve my taste in music

Andy called me earlier today, and told me I should search YouTube for “pinkie the cat.” He said that it had him rolling on the ground, and that I would pretty much want to share that video with everyone I knew.

He was right, save for the spelling of “Pinky.”