Last month, I blogged about a story on Bloomberg.com about “The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will adopt rules barring Internet service providers such as Comcast Corp. from interfering with their customers’ ability to share videos and other online files.”

In yesterday’s New York Times‘ Technology section, it was reported that Comcast will now place a cap on monthly bandwidth. The article states:

Beginning Oct. 1, Comcast will put a 250 gigabyte-a-month cap on residential users. The limit will not affect most users, at least not in the short-term, but is certain to create tension as some technologies gain traction.

A Comcast spokeswoman, Jennifer Khoury, said 250 gigabytes was about 100 times the typical usage; the average customer uses two to three gigabytes a month. Less than 1 percent of customers exceed the cap, she said.

The article goes on to state:

According to Comcast, a customer would have to download 62,500 songs or 125 standard-definition movies a month to exceed the caps. But high-definition video and video gaming require a higher amount of bandwidth. S. Derek Turner, the research director for the nonpartisan media policy group Free Press, said broadband caps could create a disincentive to view online video.

So while the FCC isn’t going to chase after peer-to-peer sharing, ISP’s may begin the practice of metering, or limiting, the amount of monthly bandwidth one can use.

What if you had just months to live and you had not reached your 29th birthday?

That’s the tragedy New Zealand’s Simon Toomey is enduring as he battles a rare cancer in his shoulder, neck, back, lungs and liver.

In this recent article about Toomey, it is mentioned that he’s writing an online diary to share his thoughts on death, and the life he will lead up until his passing, which he’s been told will be within the next year.

No funeral plans have been solidified, but Toomey made a point of saying “there will be some U2 played.”

My heart goes out to this fellow fan, who is facing so much.

(Illustration of Adam Clayton courtesy of Scratch & Kerr’s The Legend of U2 And Other Things Besides, published 1989)

If you’re into astrology, then this article is for you. Californiapsychics.com has charted Bono, Edge, Larry and Adam with their “star” power. Specific emphasis on Bono’s Neptune, Larry’s “Mercury and Venus in Libra,” Adam’s “Neptune-ruled Pisces” and The Edge…well “The Edge’s Sun conjuncts Mullen’s Moon in Leo, while Mullen’s Sun conjuncts Bono’s Moon in Scorpio.”

Here’s more analysis:

Neptune, which rules mysticism, compassion and divine inspiration, is all over Bono’s chart. Neptune opposes his Mercury and Venus in Taurus and conjuncts his Moon in Scorpio, making him an unusually imaginative, sensitive artist. He’s also a bit of a mystic when it comes to music - his spiritual beliefs inspire his work, and he’s often referred to U2 as a priesthood. “I believe there’s a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe.” That was Bono at his Neptunian best during an interview with Rolling Stone in 2005.

We’re still giving away free CDs, and last week we invited blog readers to write about @U2 (good or bad) for a chance to win. After reviewing all the entries, we’ve chosen the winner … make that winners.

The original plan was just to pick one winner and give that person the full set of remastered CDs — Boy, October, and War. We’re still gonna do that. But in addition to the Grand Prize, we’re also going to give away a few extra CDs because we liked some of the blog posts so much. Sound good? Here we go:

Grand Prize Winner: Mimi

Mimi had us LOLing with her LiveJournal post, Hello Mimi - @U2 Whore. And it’s really not because she listed yours truly as her favorite thing about @U2 — srsly, it wasn’t that. It was the style and panache she wrote with, the “I am the normal one” line, and the fact that she refers to her friends/readers as monkeys.

Great stuff, Mimi! You win the set of three remastered CDs sets.

Runners-Up

Rather than write a missive about why these were chosen individually, let me just say that these writings as a group were just fun and/or interesting to read. Thank you for putting your thoughts/stories into this little contest we did. Congrats to:

Anna
Fernando Castro
White Noise
Fauzan Adam

You each have a choice: You can pick ONE of the remastered CDs, or you can pick the rare collectible promo CD, U2 Remasters: 1980-1983. It’s a 6-track CD not available in stores. This is what it looks like:

Warning: We only have a couple sets of the remastered CDs left, so if 3-4 of you want the same CD, we have a problem.

To All Winners

Email me (matt … atu2.com) with your full name and mailing address, and tell me which CD you want, and we’ll sort it from there.

Thanks again to all who participated.

Who among us hasn’t wondered what would happen if you combined U2 and Shakespeare???

Well, the Troubador Theatre Company in southern California has an answer to that question. They’re putting on a show called As U2 Like It for the next few weeks at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, California. It’s a comedy that brings together Williams Shakespeare’s play with the music of U2 and lyrics changed to fit the bard’s storyline. They recently got some news coverage on ABC-7 in Los Angeles:

In addition to that good review, Variety magazine gave the production this praise:

Director Matt Walker keeps the energy high and the laughs consistent, and he is a welcome presence onstage as the court fool Touchstone. There is no credited writer for the show, yet mention must still be made of the cleverness of many of the altered U2 song lyrics and the brilliance of the scene in which it’s pointed out that many U2 songs sound the same, whereupon multiple song stanzas are sung simultaneously to the same backup tune to prove the point.

Hmmmm. The old “all U2 songs sound the same” stuff? Okay. Yawn.

In addition to the TV report above, there’s also a video collage showing what the production looks like:

If you think this is right up your alley, the production is running through September 14. Visit the Falcon Theatre web site for more information.

As everyone has probably heard, Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has selected Senator Joe Biden as his choice for Vice President. It should be of no surprise that Bono has already met with Biden over the years. Here is Bono with a handful of US Senators when he visited the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on October 3, 2007:

Here’s a photo from the same meeting, courtesy of Comedy Central:

Bono has also said of Senator Biden on One.org:
“America’s global AIDS plan has proved to be a smart investment, paying dividends in live saved, communities stabilized and America’s reputation in the world growing a little bit brighter. This stuff works and leaders from left and right — leaders like Senators Biden and Lugar, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen, President Bush, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid - put aside their differences and agreed to do more.”

Ironically, Bono sat next to Senator Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast and has met with not only him, but also Senator McCain earlier in the year. (Although I can’t seem to find a photo of Bono with McCain. Odd!)