Music from my Life

Thought I'd actually post about music, seeing as how that's sort of the theme of my blog. I love music, with two or three exceptions. I don't like rap or heavy metal. Also, not too keen on organ music. Some years ago, probably when I was about 25, so half my life ago, LOL, a friend (Dana, you know who you are!) turned me onto movie soundtracks and electronic music. At that time the local jr. college was doing a Saturday nite show, featuring many cutting edge artists, such as Steve Roach, Vangelis and more. I would tape the program and I got a lot of great music for free that way. What amazes me is how powerful these influences actually were; I just tracked down the music to Western Spaces, an album by Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny and Richard Burmer, that I had listened to way back then. I still remembered the title of the first song on the album, The Breathing Stone. I found that the album had been reissued, but minus Burmer's work. I actually spent a long time online searching for his pieces, so I would have the complete album. The awesome thing about the internet, well, one of them, anyway, is that a lot of the old music is being made available again. I use Pandora.com sometimes and am even able to listen to praise music on their site. They did a lot of research and set up what they called The Music Genome Project and then made it available to everyone. Okay, I can't find Love Song, a group from the very beginning of the Jesus Movement, but hey, it found Karen Lafferty and Keith Green! In this case I actually bought the songs from Amazon.com, an album for $8.99 and then a couple of individual songs for .99 each. Then I downloaded them as MP3's and could listen to them immediately. Very nice! But I do have to get them backed up, or I'll have to buy them again.

The reason I'm worried about getting things backed up is that I just went through a computer crash. Wow, sure found it hard to deal with being without my laptop. But a couple of good things came out of it. I found out why my external drive wasn't working, for free. I also regained a function I'd lost, which allows me to copy pictures more easily. I'm wondering if I got it back because the reload of XP gave me what I think is IE6. If that is the case, Don says IE6 is hackable and I have to upgrade to at least IE7. No one here is upgrading to IE8, it sucks! And, although I had to sacrifice a few documents, I did get back into my Asus EeePC, which I had lost the password to, changing it while traveling caused me to forget what the password was. I also had to reset the connection to our WiFi, which helped me figure out how to connect to it on the Asus as well. The other thing is that Don built an awesome shelving unit and set up the new color printer and my laser printer; the latter is wireless, so I can now print from the living room! I had been emailing documents to Randy or myself, then going online at her computer, opening the darn thing and printing it.

I have a theory. I think cats are secretly IT and computer experts. It started when Tyler was a kitten. She walked over the keyboard and managed to type "TY." Then Skittle typed "puppy." Now here is where it gets really suspicious; one day I was online and had left my computer for a few minutes. I came back as Skittle jumped down and discovered she'd been Googling!

Her results included a number of mathematical equations and a foreign embassy! More recently, she also managed to shrink the browser characters to miniscule, even a magnifying glass wouldn't have helped. It's a plot I tell ya! That's her at Randy's computer, doing who knows what!

Blogging for Cats and More

The kitten has now her own blog at the Hello Kitty Sanrio site. http://blog.hellokitty.com/skittlekitty/ if you're interested. The bed is no longer a refuge from her, as she found me there last night! She scales furniture, it's amazing! Next I need to update Da Tyler Monster's blog.

I found a program that records the music from internet radio as MP3's. Should be a cool way to get more music for my player. Maybe I can get those 2 songs I really want. That, plus the TalkIt TypeIt program and a Sudoku program for my dad, all for just over $40. Am hoping that, since IE7 is a Microsoft program, I'll also be able to use the voice recognition program online. I know it works on AIM. I expect a big jump in productivity once it's implemented. My typing, simply put, SUCKS! I am constantly going back to fix typos, which I try to avoid at all costs, being a perfectionist English major. If it doesn't work online, I can always record it in NotePad and copy it over. It even comes with its own headset/microphone. If it's not here by tomorrow it should come sometime next week.

Went with Randy to her Dr's. appt. yesterday, then we had lunch at Major Market and got a few things there, including dry kitten food and my favorite lo carb ice cream, Breyers LC Mint Chip, as well as some stuff at Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's rocks, as a lot of what we buy there is cheaper than at the grocery stores. Especially cereals, which the stores want about $4 - $5 per box for and we get for $3 or so. They are the only ones with a decent carb reading on tomato soup, which I love and have really missed. Too bad they stopped carrying the lo carb pasta; now the only one that tastes edible is Dreamfield. I'm thinking of trying South Beach, as I'm gaining and gaining although I'm not overeating. It's probably the insulin. But only 20 carbs on Atkins is really hard! We'll see what happens, we'd have to get the book, unless I can find out what to eat and not to eat online. Last time I searched I couldn't find that, the Dr. who wrote it has cornered his own market very well.

I'm afraid I'm going to lose my Food Stamps, because the office that my Dr. moved to can't keep track of things and I believe they've once again lost the form to fill out to say that I'm not able to work. Must also copy the new SSI paperwork and get it off to the lawyer; we ran out of time yesterday. Paperwork is my personal hell. I have a huge mental block against filling paperwork out! A lot of it is an allergic reaction to red tape! LOL.

Darn Blogger Anyway!

I can't believe it! Blogger implemented its new format and has basically forced everyone to reinvent their blogs. I am so not sure I will stay with this blog now. I may have just messed things up, too, because as usual they don't explain things adequately and I might have filled part of the sign-up form out wrong. I thought I still had the Tap My Brain title and used it in signing back up and then it said that the Tap My Brain address wasn't available. Well duh, it's been used by me! So if you need to know, my old blog is at http://tapmybrain.blogger.com, although I don't know how long it will remain there.

I guess the biggest news is that we now have a new kitten. I was hoping, but Randy was pushing for a puppy. Anyway these kittens were found out behind Don's office building. We think they were about 3 weeks old and that someone left them there in the hopes that they would find homes. So we've had the interesting job of teaching the little one to drink from a bottle and to use a cat box. We named her Skittle and she has done very well. She's now eating canned kitten food, supplemented by as much of the big cats' food as she can steal. We think it's because she was without food for a good while before she was rescued. I wanted to put up her picture, but the add a picture function doesn't seem to be working on the "new and improved" Blogger.

We had a fun holiday season. I got an MP3 player and I love it. I feel like it's made my music available to me again. Don just picked up a gizmo that allows you to record from other media, like a tape player or record player and put it in MP3 format on a media stick. From there you can move it wherever you'd like. I plan to reformat many of my Christian music tapes and transfer them to the MP3 player. Mine also plays the Window Media Format, so I can copy CD's to my computer and from there to the player. I have found some good music online for free and have copied many of my CD's as well. There are just 2 songs I haven't been able to find by the original artists that I'd really like to have for the player, The Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler and That's What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick. Both of those songs have strong connections with friends who have passed on for me. I may end up using I-Tunes. I guess that paying around $2.00 isn't so bad.