Bruce, I think you correctly detected the irony of my post and were mainly
just using the opportunity to give your perspective. However, just to remove
any possible ambiguity:

1. I do occasionally purchase CDs at Best Buy, if I happen to see something
there that I want, I'm in the mood for an impulse purchase, and the price is
good. This has become an exceedingly rare situation, and I always feel kind
of dirty afterward.

2. All other things being equal, I vastly prefer online shopping. I was
buying stuff from CD Connection (remember them?) even before the Web
existed, using their telnet interface and a 2400 bps modem. Some of our
subscribers were still in elementary school at the time. New-fangled?
Hardly.

3. If I could buy every CD on my wish list from Not Lame, I would. There is
something terrific about doing business with a company that has such a human
face, where you know the people there are doing what they're doing mainly
because they love it. Do they ever make mistakes? Sure. When I ordered the
Davenports CD a few years back, I was accidentally sent an EP by a band
called Davenport instead. I e-mailed Bruce about the error, and he not only
corrected it immediately but also told me a little about Davenport, which I
hadn't previously heard of. This experience *raised* my opinion of Not Lame
rather than lowering it.

I don't mean for this to sound like a Not Lame commercial. I have had
limited experience with Parasol, but all indications are that everything I
said above would apply to them above. In my opinion, companies like these
are the future of music retail. At least, I hope they are.

Robert Berry