I am about to move my website to a new server. No big deal expect for my past posts on this blog. The plan is to dump all the posts to a script then run the script on the new server. Hopefully I will not lose any data, but you know how it goes… sometimes Murphy’s Law gets its way!

On the weekly Fabio & Grooverider Drum & Bass show this past Friday Grooverider played a new killa track, “Oy” by Dillinja. Right now I think it’s a white label and I don’t know when or on what label it will be released but hopefully it will be soon.

If you want to listen to “Oy”, you can check it out in this week’s archive on the Fabio & Grooverider’s Drum & Bass section of BBC’s Radio 1 website.

Last Friday, I was looking at one of the books I needed to buy for my Price Theory class. As usual, the first thing I did was to logon to Amazon.com to find out the price of the book and see if there are any good used copies. I have been able to buy even brand new books at less than half price this way. There was no real price advantage to buying this book used, but I noted the price of the book and the ISBN number.

I then called around to the major bookstores around town, none of which had the book in stock but were willing to order the book for me. The shortest time between ordering the book and receiving the book was going to be 4 to 5 business days, and since it was late on Friday afternoon, the first business day was to start today (Tuesday) because Monday was MLK day. One of the bookstores however, the waiting period was 6 to 9 weeks!!! What on earth?? In addition, this particular bookstore, their online store said the same book, if ordered would ship in one to two days! There is an amazing disconnect between this bookstore and its online store which is truly mind-boggling!

Eventually I went back to Amazon.com, ordered the book, selected two day shipping which guaranteed the book would arrive by Tuesday. I could have chosen the option to have the book come in yesterday, but I didn’t want to pay the extra shipping.

This story illustrates why online retaliating, if done right can really one-up the traditional bricks and mortar stores. It comes down to convenience, ease of information and logistics.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As an African living in the US, I often reflect on how the 60’s and people like MLK changed the direction of America during the Civil Rights Movement. If people had sat back and continued with the status quo, I probably would never have been interesting in coming to the US, I certainly would not be sitting here right now writing this post!

This website’s East Africa Kenya and Uganda 50 Years Ago pages makes me really nostalgic for my home country Kenya. I am looking forward to visiting later this year after a seven year absence. I realize though, things have changed since I last was in the country, some changes for the worse, but also some changes for the better… but like someone one said, “the only constant is change”