Free Stuff!

If you're like me, you like free stuff. Free stuff like:

Free Pancakes!

Join IHOP to celebrate National Pancake Day (also known as Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday) on Tuesday, February 20, 2007. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., we’ll give you one free short stack (three) of our famous buttermilk pancakes. All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network, or other local charities.

and

Free Music!

Greg Kot of your Chicago Tribune told me about this one:

One of the best albums of the new year can't be bought.

Tim Fite's "Over the Counter Culture" is both a critique and a celebration of hip-hop. It's packed with crackling beats, wicked humor and "did he just say that?" audacity. But it won't be available in any store. Instead, it will be distributed as a free download through the artist's Web site (www.timfite.com), starting Tuesday. ***

"I had the magical experience of being turned on to hip-hop before it was totally mainstream," says Fite of the late-'80s heyday of Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy and De La Soul. "Everybody has their first musical love, and rap music -- and especially the politics of it -- were what turned me on and what got me excited, that there could be a form of music that was socially conscious and untainted seemingly by big business. But along the way it stopped being a voice and became a product. Now it takes the worst stereotypes that society has to offer and amps them up to ridiculous caricatures of what a population can be and then uses those characteristics to market a product that is a mockery of itself."

FREE!