After reading that webpage I mentioned in the Tao, one of the points caught my attention. To "write about why something is important to me". And when you've got an hour drive to get home, peppered with plenty of stop lights and cell-phone using idiots, you've got time to think about stuff. At least I do. Another thing I've been reading about on the web is the massive effort the RIAA is putting into stopping online file-swapping, especially music and movie files. I'm not really interested in movie files. Who wants to watch the latest movies on a 15 inch monitor with a cheapo graphics card? But music files are a different animal.

A little history: I first bought a CD RW drive when I found it was easy, and common place to copy audio CDs to digital files, then turn them around and make your own mix of music on a CD. At the time I had close to 350 CDs, many of them with one or two songs that I liked, and a whole bunch I just didn't care for. So, I thought I could consolidate some music, and free up some room in the CD racks. And that's what I did when the mood struck. It's time consuming. And then there's cover-art to create. So, like several of my other toys, the burner collected a little dust. Then along came the mp3 format and Napster. I thought this was a cool thing. I wasn't real interested in participating, but out of curiousity I installed Napster and went looking on the networks. Thing is, I'd hear an old song on the Oldies station, or on the Rock station and think to myself that it would be a good thing to own a copy of that tune. Usually I'd go buy a CD. If I could find one. Then along came Sinbad on Comedy Central and his show "Son of a Preacherman". Talk about bringing back old memmories! So off I went looking. Couldn't find it in any store. Out of curiousity, I checked Napster, and there it was. 20 minutes later it was on my harddrive. About 2 weeks later, Napster was off the 'net and in deep legal doodoo. So, I uninstalled it. Flash forward almost a year, and a new machine with a 56k modem. The Napster legal woes raged on. But other file swapping programs appeared. I tried Morpheus with some success. Then their infamous upgrade disappointed a lot of users. Then I found WinMX. By this time, I've heard lots of songs on the radio that I'd like to have. And, believe it or not, Raleigh NC has a much better radio selection than did Atlanta GA. But, downloading 6-7meg files over a 56k modem connection is still a tedious process. And the radio selection isn't really what I'd prefer. Like I said, I have an hour commute now. There's NOTHING on the radio during the drive in, but talk, TALK, talk. Lewd and crude, news, NPR, and good ole boys. There was an 80's station for a while, but they hired two morning talents that prefer to hear themselves talk. And evening drive time? Blecch. Mostly new noise with afternoon announcers that like to hear themselves talk. And sports news. And the fricking commercials! I know at one time, I sat in the car and had to listen to 15 minutes straight of commercials and station identifications. And some damn contest or another. And it never fails. On those days I have stops to make on the way home, I either catch the beginning of a song I like just as I turn off the car or the tail end of a song just as I get back into the car. And crap all the time in between. I don't even bother using the radio at home. Not only are the commercials annoying, but they've borrowed from television and upped the volume on the commercials. You may say "chunkking, why not just make CDs for the car?". My car doesn't have a CD player. But it does have a cassette player. What I did for a short time was make a CD, then carry it over to the stereo and tape it. Mostly I'd just rip tracks off of CDs that I have, mix them up, and then record them. But that's even more tedious. Sometimes I'd go direct from CDs I have to cassettes in the stereo.

Now on to more current events: Earlier this year I purchased a shiny new 20gig harddrive, specifically for collecting mp3s. I had come across a bit of freeware called FreeRIP MP3. The old way, I had to rip to a wav file, then convert it to mp3. According to the "experts" that is the best way to do it. But FreeRIP rips directly to mp3. A little less tedium in my life. The next thing I did was buy an adapter cord to plug my cassette recorder directly into the line-out jack on my sound card. Now I can go straight from PC to cassette, at least in theory. I haven't done it yet. One advantage to this set up is that I can make sure all the sound levels are about the same before I commit them to tape. That was a problem with the CD to Cassette step. So, I get better quality, too. One night I was grumbling about having a wireless solution to connect the PC to the stereo. An online friend pointed me to the US Robotics Model 6003 Soundlink Wireless Audio Delivery system. At the time, it had a suggested price of $105. But Buy.com was selling them for $52. Dammit, by the time I decided to go ahead and buy one, the price had gone up to $72. But you know? it's damn well worth it. I had it connected and running in under 15 minutes. It comes with all the cables needed. And, I still have the cassette recorder inline, too. Over the last couple of months, I've been slowly ripping the CDs I have to mp3 format. I started with all the onesy-twosey CDs. Once I've ripped what I want, I take them to a used CD re-seller. Now, I've moved on the collection albums that I will keep. AC/DC, ZZ Top, Led Zepplin, etc. And, with this equipment setup and the magic of WinAmp I can point to a directory and hit play. And hours of uninterrupted music pour forth. At home anyway. No getting up and down to change CDs. No annoying commercials. And it's a random play so it's not the same artist all the time. It's the greatest thing!

Now, on to the thievin' bastard question: Yes, occasionally I fire up WinMX and go searching for songs I don't have. Mostly old stuff. Mostly one-hit wonders. If I believed that the artist got any money for these songs in the first place, I'd feel bad. But from all the arguments I've read, it's only the music industry, not the artist, that is hurt by this. Screw them. 15$ for a CD that may have one song on it that I like? Give me a break. Do I make all my mp3s available? No. I keep about 50 songs shared. Usually just stuff I downloaded in the first place. Yeah, yeah..I'm a leech. But people have downloaded from me. And I don't stop them. Matter of fact, if I've already got what I wanted...and someone is downloading from me, I'll wait 'til they're done before I shut it down. So I'm not a complete leech.

So, there you have it. I feel completely justified doing what I do. The majority of it is from media I've bought and paid for so theoretically the royalties have been paid. What I do download is so old, I'm sure the artist gets nothing for it anyway. Now all I have to do is expand my library of cassettes for the drive to and from work. Or buy a CD player for the car. Or buy car with a CD player in it. *wink*

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I changed this page on: Thursday Sept 9 2002
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URL: http://chunkking.home.mindspring.com