I might have mentioned it before. Ohh, all those lovely Conrad quotes I’ll type on my new machine! And the posts about my new machine! Glorious 43T times ahead!

I spent a heap of money, but that’s exactly what I saved it for.

I LIKE IT! I’ll let some time pass, and as soon as I feel really secure (it’s still very new) I’ll draw some golden lines on its cover. I want golden lines. Yes. Mine! ALL MINE!

coz the flimsy cheap thing I got at the moment is already bent in places. Seems this is something I gotta spend some real money on. And then, if I take good care of it (which means: make sure I’ll be taking it home again every time I take it out) then it shall serve me for ever.

ARRRRGH!

Me Mum got a trial subscription of the Financial Times, and with it came an iPod shuffle, 1GB. She gave it to me for x-mas.
I have never had an iPod before, and I thought it was a nice looking mp3 player. And I thought, an mp3 player works like a memory stick (you open the explorer and drag music files on it) which is able to actually play those mp3 files.
I thought so, I don’t know, I never had an mp3 player, either.

I do know now that an iPod doesn’t work that sweet and simple way, oh no. To use it you gotta install iTunes. For that you gotta be online. Now, I got internet at home, all hail the Goddess, but for many years I didn’t, even though I was online a lot. For that I visited OT school (mostly for that, yea), friends’ shop and me Mum.
Ok, now I am online at home, but a year ago I still wasn’t, and I vividly remember that time, and the fact that one can only use the iPod if one’s got an internet connection did annoy me.

But what the heck, I installed iTunes.
That procedure also installed Quicktime, even though I had gotten rid of it just recently. My Firefox uses Quicktime alternative instead, and it works beautifully.
And btw, for some reason getting rid of old Quicktime was not an easy task! I had to google and visit some forums and download something from MS until I could do it. Uncool, Apple.

Anyway. Thinking I didn’t need Quicktime I deinstalled it again _{this time without any problems. Phew!}. Which resulted in iTunes not working. So I reinstalled Quicktime. After which iTunes still wasn’t working. So I deinstalled everything, and then reinstalled the whole bundle again. Now iTunes worked, but for some friggin reason while installing it hadn’t asked me which files I wanted to affiliate with iTunes (none - zero - GAR keine). It just went ahead and affiliated every friggin media file it could worm its greedy sticky, um, code into. Meaning I had to manually reset Comp to play my music and playlists with Winamp, and my movies with VLC. No, don’t play them with iTunes, no thanx.
Not cool, Apple.

But what the heck. So let’s run iTunes, so that I can finally get some music on that pod.

No, I don’t wanna visit your store, no I don’t wanna register, no thanx. No, don’t remind me again.
Ok, here we are. So, now I open my folder and drag … no? I gotta add my music to iTunes? Ok, I’ll tell you which folders to watch, and you scan them, like Winamp does… no? I gotta add them manually? Either the whole folder or one song at a time? No marking of, eg., 13 songs? Each one manually, one by one? Or the whole folder?
Oh wow.
NOT COOL, APPLE.

Ok, while iTunes takes its time to add the folder with some good songs and mostly full of music I definitely don’t want on the pod, I have time to inspect the program. Oh wow, it creates its own playlist, with totally random stuff in it! And I can’t delete that playlist. Oh, I love programs which know what I want! A totally random playlist! That’s marvellous! That’s so fantastic
for me to poop on.
At least I can delete that “Music of the 90ies” playlist. Small favours. I’ll have to wait though, until the folder adding is done. Which takes AGES. And makes everything else lag like hell.
So not cool, Apple!

I finally find out how to turn off the also lag producing, ages taking search for CD covers—why the friggin heck can’t programs ASK if I want that and wait for my answer, and only start if the answer is “yes”?!?? Coz in my case the answer is friggin NO! I friggin don’t phookin want the bollocking bloody CD covers!
Gosh.
Still very very uncool, Apple.

Whatever. iTunes finally knows I got music on Comp, and I start adding it to the pod. Each and every single song takes AGES.
Ok, iTunes, ok. I’ll do it your way. I’m a kif_{“Kif are very ... adaptable.”} when it comes to Comps. I can do this. I create a playlist, give it a name (behold: the “May Cthulhu eat you, Apple!” playlist) and add the songs to that list, which goes fast, and THEN add that playlist to the pod.
Which takes AGES.

And then I got some music on the pod! OH WOW! It actually WORKS!
I could have burned a CD in half the time, and use my old discman. But now I got a working iPod! Amazing!

But what zum ornanogeshakten Pestknödelbeutler is THIS? A “MyMusic” folder!! Full of some friggin phookin Apple whatdoIknowcheezcode on MY Comp!!!
I know I am a bit silly, but I just don’t want any “MyMusic”, “MyVideos”, “MyPictures”, “MyPr0n” or whatever “MyBS” folders on MY COMP.
I JUST DON’T WANT THEM!!!!
So, in my furious anger, I delete “MyMusic”.

Angels in Heaven:
NOOO! Don’t do it, Vetch! OMG, why did you do that?!? [weep]

Satan in Hell:
Harharhar! Baaaad mistake, Vetch! HARHARHAR!
Ah, here, minion! I got a great idea! Free iPods for everyone! HAAAARHARHARHAR!

For next time when I want to add more music to my pod iTunes tells me that pod was synchronized on a different computer, and thus it can’t be used with Comp, unless I wanna synchronize it with this comp, which means the music which I already put on it (which took, if you remember, AGES) will be deleted.
Ok. I shouldn’t have deleted that “MyMusic”-folder. My bad.
BUT!
So you’re telling me I can fill this iPod on only one computer?! That means, if I had started to fill it on me Mum’s comp I wouldn’t be able to use it on my Comp?!?
Oh, but I probably could, if I copied that “MyMusic”-folder on a memory stick and import it on the other comp, and I could also nail a meat loaf to my knee and turn it until I receive BBC radio
^{as we say in my country, only, we say SWF3 instead of BBC, but that’s irrelevant here and now}
That’s… that’s… that’s really really really UNCOOL, Apple.

Anyway. Ok. Whatever. I am adaptable, and I do learn. Ok, I can only fill that pod on Comp. And there’s gonna be a “MyMusic” folder on it. Argh! and woe, but ok. If you must, iTunes, have it your way. I don’t know when you became king of my Comp, but king of my Comp you seem to be, so your will be done.

So, this time I’m not bothering with the music folder on Comp’s harddisk, which isn’t up to date. This time I’ll add the REAL thing, my real, big, beloved, filled to the brim mega music folder on Cargohold, my external harddisk.
iTunes takes several ages and aeons to add this mega folder. But it’ll be worth it.
Then I take my time and add the music I want to the “May Cthulhu eat you, Apple” playlist.
Then it takes iTunes several ages more to add the music from “May Cthulhu eat you, Apple” to the pod.

Some days pass, while I use my iPod and kinda like it.
Then I find the whole RE4 soundtrack online. I want that on my pod. Cargohold is stored away by now, I don’t need it, the music I want is already on the pod, I just wanna add the RE4 tracks to it. So I plug it in, start iTunes (waaaait a while till it runs) and then add the RE4 tracks to iTunes, then to the “May Cthulhu eat you, Apple” list, then to the pod. iTunes tells me something like “Can’t find tracks, will synchronize pod”, and I think nothing of it.

Till I use the pod and wonder why I hear only RE4 tracks. Where’s the other music, which I added before?!?
Then it dawns on me. All tracks on the pod, apart from the RE4 ones, came from my external harddisc, Cargohold.
With the Cargohold not connected to my Comp iTunes has decided I don’t own the other tracks and has deleted all of them.

Ok, I’ll adapt. I’ll make sure the Cargohold is always connected to Comp when I use iTunes. I’ll then add songs to iTunes, then to the playlist, then to the pod, and then I’ll wait ages and ages and AGES while the Tunes and the pod do their things, eg. trying to find covers (coz you have to tell it you don’t want it EVERY TIME), and synchronizing and whatever the king of my Comp likes to do with my resources and my time. Yea, seems a great deal to me.
What was that whack? Ooops, I threw the pod against the wall!

Here and Now:
Seems the pod is still working, so I’ll try and find a way to use it without the iTunes. I got everything deinstalled already; first thing I did, before I went and picked up the pod from the floor. I had to calm down a bit, otherwise I would have stepped on it real hard.

something like a bull terrier in Comp format. A real cuddly cutie.

I do love my Comp. It’s not a cutie, it’s a beauty. A lean black big beauty. It’s a notebook, too, with a wide screen, quite heavy, 3 years young and doing all I want it to. Great for watching movies. Too great (or rather, big and heavy) for carrying around. Too heavy and too preciousss.

For roaming the city I like a small machine. When the time is right I’ll find it. And the means for it.

500 GB for 70.- €, that’s cool, less than I thought.
It (or its bus… yes?) is slow, though, I guess that’s the reason for the rather low price.
Now I am very busy with sorting files and copying.

Still, now I can afford quite decent, beautiful bed linen. (I guess. That stuff is EXPENSIVE, but I want something eco—if I can find it, and one has to sort one’s priorities.)
I actually have enough bed linen, but some of it is REALLY ugly, and most of it doesn’t have buttons. And I HATE my pillows swelling out of their cover.

Sorry for the many caps, but this is a VERY EMOTIONAL subject for me. _argh

As I sold my TV I have some money to spend. What on?

First thought was PRINTER!
I have been thinking about this for a few days now, visualising the thing in my room. Fact is: there is no room in my room. Not for a printer. It would be lovely not to have to ride a klick down the street to Mum’s to print; would be lovely to be able to print things on a whim and not having to copy them on a memory stick; but there are worse troubles in the world.
Worse would be to have that huge chunk of plastic standing somewhere (where?!?) here, collecting dust, looking ugly.

So: printer got cancelled.

.

Second thought: ANSWERPHONE

Meaning: I would have to call people back. But I love the fact that people are calling me! My phone bill is minimal. As it has to be in my actual Here and Now.
I have been giving me Mum’s number to people (she has an answerphone) and it works fine.
Ok, I sometimes feel a bit stupid, because I am a grown up woman and should have my own answerphone.
But—heck, who says that every person on earth must own their personal copy of stuff, when it is so easy to share things and use them together?
Who says so?!? Why, the industry of course.

So. answerphone got cancelled.

.

Leaves: HARD DISC.
Anything else on this list costs more than I can afford (or isn’t that important).

And that’s what it’ll be. Another hard disc and also a set of bed linen. YAY!

my old one died a violent death—but not a sudden death, because it was really really old. Worked with a mini tape, like the old dictating machines had. Until I moved and connected everything again, and then it didn’t work anymore. And then I think I kinda kicked it.

Erm.

Anyway, I need one. Got no mobile, need an answering machine.
I’ll get one next month, for the price of 4 Bollywoods. This month the budget is already spent
on 4 Bollywoods.

a colour printer? Without a scanner. I already got a lovely small scanner, which works with diodes and doesn’t need much energy (Canon’s LiDE 90).
And I want an equally small and ‘green’ and not-too-expensive pretty (colour) printer.

in 8 colours: white, yellow, green, red, turquoise, orange, lavender and dark blue.

That’s a wish I’ll fulfill step by step when I got a job and earn money.

Heh, and I want matching towels, too.

and a water proof jacket, to stuff into my bag when I ride my bike. Because two times now I’ve set out for a small ride and arrived at my destination totally soaked.

I asked in a trekking shop for trousers and they told me 100,- € (ca. 156.- $) was the cheapest.
Gosh!

BUT!
Today I went to the cheap food shop Aldi, and there I found trousers and a jacket for 13.- €
YÖH!
Drees duh yet°, trekking shop!

So, this goal is not a goal anymore, though I was going to make it one. And now I’m so happy I found the cheap suit that I have to write it down here. :)

I am also sure that as long as I got those trousers and the jacket in my bag no drop of rain will fall.