Thursday, May 14, 2009

A Musical Journey, or, More Complaining Part MCMXVIII















An enchanting tale full of magic pixie dust and funny talking animals and strangely effervescent elixirs and pots bubbling over with gold and silver and platinum and six-ring circuses (don't forget the bread n' butter n' raspberry jam) and dreamy adventures in faraway drug-addled cosmoslocked dimensions and artfully conceived pickup lines of a sexfully erotic nature was what I had in store for you all today but I changed my mind for national security reasons so now I will tell you about the weirdness that is Windows Media Player.

Why have I reverted to using that MICROSOFT CAN HAZ SATAN! product instead of iTunes? Because Apple, who make the Hippest Commercials Around, also make a product that, in addition to other carefully documented problems, at least 15-20% of the time [ed. note: compared to a measly 5-10% of the time with WMP, all of this proving why I prefer physical CDs to this technocrap because unless they've been horribly axe-murdered, CDs never fucking skip] leaves the freshly ripped sound files with randomly placed scratchy noises and various other sonic fuckeries regardless of how pristine the disc is or isn't without rhyming reasons for I've had early generation, visibly gouged albums from 1985 be smooth as Smoove B and brand spanking fetish new stuff go rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat.

"That's what the shit you dig sounds like anyway."

So, after the work computer got infected with a virus originating from online porn sites the swine flu, I decided, in anticipation of The Great Re-Rip of 2009, to tell the Book of Jobs to go to hell so now I will tell you about the weirdness that is hell.

Dear Windows Media Player,

A CD that conjures up images of this


















really shouldn't be labeled 'World.'


















That's what happens when you outsource your programming to countries that don't even have rock and/or roll.

Love, Randal

16 comments:

Ubermilf said...

You're surly.

Unknown said...

I have shitcanned and redownloaded ITunes about a dozen times.

I use cd's now..fuck Windows Media Player AND Itunes..hard.

Kvatch said...

Randal... The answer to your ripping dreams are:

For OSX: Max (http://sbooth.org/Max/)
For Windoze: CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/)

All the bits, formats, and flexibility you could ever want.

Never use iTunes or WMP for ripping (only for playback) they both suck.

Tom Harper said...

"CDs never fuckin' skip" -- so true. And my CD player hasn't yet been infected with any viruses or spyware.

susan said...

We haven't messed with Popcorn and Max the Ripper for a good while now but there was a time when somebody who lives here made a very determined effort to copy our rare videos to dvd without much success. Does this make sense to you? I'm way behind the tech curve.

On the other hand, that photo at the bottom conjures thoughts of very strange music.. balalaika, oboe, base and bongos? oh my..

Commander Zaius said...

My son had major problems with iTunes himself. That is until his iPod was dumped in the washer after he forgot to remove from his pants pocket.

Chef Cthulhu said...

Oh shit...I thought it was my CD's (cuz they're old)...turns out I'm old, and complacent to boot.

Life As I Know It Now said...

[ed. note: compared to a measly 5-10% of the time with WMP, all of this proving why I prefer physical CDs to this technocrap because unless they've been horribly axe-murdered, CDs never fucking skip]

nail meet hammer

Christopher said...

I love CDs.

I used to love albums and I still prefer an album for the cover art but alas, I must concede the sound quality is better with a CD. Plus, I like the small, lightweight, size of a CD over an album.

What I used to do -- a million years back was, buy an album, and record it on tape, to preserved the sound quality of the vinyl. Some of the albums I had (I sold them to a dealer in Los Angeles as a lot) had only been played one time.

With a CD, I don't have to do any of that and I'm free to play them over, and over, and over. I've never worn out a CD.

The music file thangy, well, truth be told, I have the program to do it but I don't have an MP3 player or IPod, so I've never downloaded a music file. I guess I need to get with the 21st century, huh???

Anonymous said...

I've had CDs skip, but that was after my youngest son decided apple sauce would make a great optics cleaner.

Randal Graves said...

übermilf, only Monday through Sunday.

dusty, let me get an amen for those statement.

kvatch, dude, if ever I am in San Fran, the next round is on me. That program worked beautifully, and on some of my most stubborn CDs.

tom, now there's an untapped crime market!

susan, make sense? Hell, I don't even know how to make a video to upload to YouTube.

As for the picture, I thought it was funny when I typed in "world music" and one of the first non-album cover photos was of a bunch of white chicks in psycho-bright colors.

BB, did the thorough cleansing help with the problem?

chef, unless there's a deep cut, which never happens unless some nefarious bastard gets his or her hands on my stuff, I've never heard a scratch impacting standard playback. It's these infernal counting machines!

liberality, I could go for an Office Space moment.

christopher, I'm with you 100% on all that. Vinyl is still cool aesthetically, but CDs are merely shrunken versions of that.

I will say that the idea of loading most of my stuff in one small box sounds nice for bus trips. And if you do go iPod, use kvatch's program. Worked like a charm.

spartacus, silly children, mayonnaise is the preferred cleaner of choice.

lisahgolden said...

Well, first you'd have to try listening to some real music.....

Distributorcap said...

i dont have any cds - i have an ipod, not bad for an old guy

Dr. Zaius said...

Jeepers! I think that my computer got the kind of swine flu. You should see what it did to the keyboard!

Kvatch said...

kvatch, dude, if ever I am in San Fran, the next round is on me. That program worked beautifully, and on some of my most stubborn CDs.
Randal... You're welcome! It's all in the encoder. Both use the LAME encoder which stands head and shoulders above whatever-the-f*ck iTunes uses for MP3s. WMP? Bhah! Wouldn't even consider it. Now if only I could rip to FLAC for my iPod.

Dean Wormer said...

Yup. That's how the world looks.