Sony, I weep for you

The shock of how ugly your new HD Network Music Player is still hasn't completely worn off.

You said you were gonna come after

Apple's iPod with a vengeance.

But Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's knowledgeable tech columnist, said your new Sony Connect music store is a disaster, worse than any of the others already futilely trying to best Apple's iTunes.

And now this, a design flop that's so D.O.A., you don't even need to get out a mirror to see if it fogs up.

You can diagnose this one from the doorway.

Yikes.

How did so many talented people at Sony produce such a full-blown disaster?

Joan Brady, the author of the superb Booker Prize-winning novel "Theory of War," once wrote to me, after we'd exchanged tales about the dreadful jacket designs of each of our first books, that the secret of a successful book jacket is that it must make the prospective purchaser feel good about being seen with it.

Same for music players.