I don't know how that exclamation mark got there. But I'm leaving it.

the most expansive article on the topic to date

I misread that as "expensive," which would've required another kind of congratulations entirely.

How are soundtracks written?

There's a great featurette on the Dead Man DVD about Neil Young's composition of the soundtrack, which seemed oddly like the way they used to do MST3K: he watched and played along to the film a couple thousand times, then picked the best bits from various takes.

I read an interview with Johnny Greenwood that he did a similar thing with There Will Be Blood, only it was a matter of improvising along to the film on electric guitar, then turning it into a full-fledged composition. Granted, neither of these is probably typical of the John Williams mode.

Sometimes the cues are written before the movie's shot.

Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass' favor.

Zune and iPod: Most people compare the Zune to the Touch, but after seeing how slim and surprisingly small and light it is, I consider it to be a rather unique hybrid that combines qualities of both the Touch and the Nano. It's very colorful and lovely OLED screen is slightly smaller than the touch screen, but the player itself feels quite a bit smaller and lighter. It weighs about 2/3 as much, and is noticeably smaller in width and height, while being just a hair thicker.