I never really understood why people would rip large quantities of music onto their computer. That was until I found myself without room to unpack my stereo and the small mountain (very small, compared to some people I know Mr McIntyre) of CDs to go with it.
I suppose I could put the stereo on top of the filing cabinet in the corner, but my in/out/deal-with-next-year trays are there at the moment. And I truly have nowhere to unpack the boxes of CDs, my shelves being already full of, er, boxes and Welsh dictionaries. So instead I find myself opening each box, ripping the essentials to my spare hard drive, then packing them up again. It's a strangely therapeutic activity.
So far, I've got through one box and ripped about 3gig of music. And before you ask, no I won't be sharing these gems in the net – my connection currently has a hard enough time downloading email, let alone downloading music. Poor thing chokes on fresh air as it is.
The advantage of all this is that I now have a 'various' playlist that comes in at over 14 hours and which, when set to shuffle, provides me with the unpredictability of radio combined with the happy knowledge that I'll never have to sit through some dirge that I detest. Although I miss XFM, which I used to listen to every day on satellite, I have found a reasonable facsimile.
Of course, I do feel horribly out of touch as regards new music, as the XFM playlist did usually pander to my own taste. I've discovered several new/new-to-me bands because of them, and even enjoyed most of the DJ banter. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. Even if I came across some new band, I can't afford to buy singles, let alone albums, right now and can't even begin to think about launching SlSk with this connection. I'd be back to the 1k/year download speeds.
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