I found an album that I had been looking for since forever on CD Baby back in December. The usual suspects like iTunes and Amazon didn’t have it, and neither did any local brick-and-mortar stores. Reluctantly, I decided to order the CD from CD Baby. They indicated it would take a few weeks to actually receive the album, but the confirmation e-mail they sent was so awesome I didn’t even care.

Curtis- Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

(1) Oakwood College United Student Movement: Nothing To Fear

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, December 22, 2010. We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…We miss you already. We’ll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

– CD Baby The little store with the best new independent music

I’m currently reading Engadget’s liveblog from Apple’s iPad 2 presentation. After working on a BlackBerry PlayBook application and looking at the tablets announced at CES, I couldn’t help but think that everybody is way behind Apple when it comes to tablets (and pretty much everything as well). The Harvard Business Review published a very relevant article today on Apple’s ability to get things right the first time.

Unfortunately for their competitors like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, Motorola Xoom and the aforementioned PlayBook, Apple has once again proven that they have a knack for delivering what the market wants, when it wants it. The iPad 2 offers a great combination of price, technology, design, and utility that it seems nobody will able to match this time around. The few tablets that come close will still be missing a major selling point: the Apple logo.