New Brentwood Micro Center and new Casting Crowns CD

Since I am never one to pass up a free deal, I recently received a mailing at work for a free 4GB USB flash drive or SDHC card from a place called "Micro Center" which just opened up in the Brentwood Promenade. I was then not too surprised to receive a similar (but not exactly the same) mailing from the same place at home. This sounded too good to be true, especially since it is located directly on my way home from the Brentwood Metrolink station to our house. So I thought I would stop by yesterday and use my first free coupon to check the place out. I was not sure how big it was going to be, if it was going to be smallish like the old "InkStop" places that just closed down, or more like a Radio Shack/Apple Store or what. I was surprised to see that it was over half the size of a Best Buy type "big box" store, and half the store seemed to be filled with accessories, cables and computer parts -- items of which Best Buy usually carries only a small selection and at inflated prices. Their prices on accessories and components were more in line with NewEgg or TigerDirect online prices instead of the more typical retail pricing of stores that carry computer accessories as an after thought (Wal-Mart, Target, etc.) And their selection was huge, with a whole aisle of RAM, another of hard drives, another of UPS's and surge protectors. This place was geek heaven for hard core geeks! They happily accepted my coupon, telling me to select either the flash drive or the SD card, and they even gave me a free Micro Center mug. I did a quick Google search to see what people think of the place, and it sounds like most people complain about the customer service and technical service of their "knowledge bar". Looking at this place I would guess a non technical customer should probably ask the customers of the store for advice, not the paid "experts" there. This place will attract serious techie professionals like myself who will never use their "knowledge bar" and already know substantially more than the low paid help they can find to staff their store. I can already tell this is a place to go and buy stuff at a good price with a good selection (think NewEgg). Skip any pricey extended warranties and get your technical support elsewhere. Since their prices are competitive, I can even see buying accessories and supplies for the university here since it is so conveniently located. This will be a great place for Wash U students to shop since it is so close to a Metrolink station.

The other new items I have been checking out is the new Casting Crowns CD, "Until the Whole World Hears". I had heard the title track and it sounds like more of the same from Mark Hall and company. Many of the critics continue to bash the band about being as musically and lyrically artistic as cardboard, but even Hall admits in this CCM Magazine article that is not what they are all about. They write and perform songs that are not intended to be seen as a cohesive, artistic masterpiece, but instead as individual messages to enhance a worship service, much like Chris Tomlin (who receives similar critical bashing.) They seem to be very successful at it since their CD's all sell very well and their songs are very popular and commonly performed in churches. Can't we all be happy they are producing new material with slightly different and specific messages for churches to use for their services? Does it really matter if they all sound the same? Personally, I think the new album does indeed sound like "Casting Crowns, Part IV", but I do not have a problem with that at all. We purchased it and will most likely purchase "Casting Crowns, Part V", too!