the price of things to come

[William LeFebvre <phil@rice.edu>]

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.....

I decided to visit one of my local record/disk stores today
just to thumb through the compact disks.  Actually, I was looking
for one specific disk (which, of course I didn't find)
but in the process I had
the shock of the month.

This particular place is better stocked with KaTe Bush CDs
than most any other store in Houston (which,
unfortunately, isn't saying much).  So,
when I found myself in the vicinity
of "B", I decided to see what
they had.  I was pleasantly
surprised to find that they had
several copies of "The Whole Story".
I looked again, and sure enough, there
were the gorgeous eyes of the heartthrob of
most everyone on this list staring up at me from the front
of this compact disk!  I was elated.  Not having seen ANY
KaTe Bush disks recently, I thumbed through the remainder of their
collection to find, much to my continued surprise, that they also had
several copies of "Hounds of Love"!

"Oh happy day" said I.  I began to think about just how much money I
could get away with spending today.  That prompted me to look at
The Price!
I about shook the building off its foundations with my thunderous
roar of "WHAT?!?".  Picking up
"The Whole Story", I discovered that it was stickered at a whopping
$21.99.  "Well
maybe, just maybe, this disc has more music on it.  That
would explain the higher price."
Nope.  No chance.  "Well
maybe, just maybe, this specific disc has, for some insane reason,
a consistently higher price."
I looked at "Hounds of Love",
and my unbelieving eyes saw a price tag that said
$20.99.
Now I KNOW that I have, in the past, seen that disc for the standard rate
(on the order of $15).  "Well
maybe, just maybe, this store has raised all its prices to the
ridiculous figure of $20+."  Nope, most other disks were their customary
(for this store, at any rate) $14.99.
I left the store with empty hands and heavy heart.

So what gives here?
Was what I saw a bunch of
imports with some insane import fee
appended to the regular price?  Or was it,
in the style of certain nighttime soap opera writers,
all a dream?  Just what does EMI think its doing?  These discs
are more expensive than the ones from DMP!!!  (DMP = digital music
productions; they put out Flim & the BBs, among others).  I am very
distressed about this.  I do not yet have my own copy of "Hounds of Love",
relying on the occasional borrowing of a friend's disk.  And I was 
quite seriously thinking of getting a copy of "The Whole Story".
But at that price, I honestly don't want to.  It's not
that I don't think its worth it---it is.
But why encourage such outrageous
behaviour on the part of
certain record company
executives?

Has anyone else experienced this great travesty?

Has anyone else noticed that IED doesn't hold a monopoly
on weird line breaks?

			William LeFebvre
			Department of Computer Science
			Rice University
			<phil@Rice.edu>