I’m a bit of a music snob. It’s not that I listen to snobby music, but that I’m very particular about what I want in music playback. Back in February I bought my new MP3 CD player for my car audio deck and I’ve been loving it ever since. I mentioned in the post about it that I was then looking for the right MP3 player for my PC. I thought maybe MediaMonkey was the answer, but the one thing I really disliked about it was the database format. Databases crash. And usually when I’m counting on them not to. But it was better than MusicMatch, so I went with it. Unfortunately, I started having troubles ripping my CDs to MP3 format with it, and so still needed to have MusicMatch on board. Hmmm, I needed to do a rethink.

While reading through the extensive MediaMonkey forums, however, I came across a program title that I remembered most fondly. Five years ago, before MP3s were even a glint in my eyes, I used Quintessential CD as my CD player. It was small software, skinnable, and free. Just what I needed for playing my CDs on the PC. Someone on the MediaMonkey forums mentioned QCD and I thought “I wonder if that’s my old program?” Well, since QCD was a CD playing software, I didn’t really need it anymore, so I didn’t think anything of it. Until last night when I read another post mentioning it. And I got to thinking “what if they updated it to play MP3s?” They have! The initials are still QCD, but now the program is Quintessential Media Player!

Well, I downloaded the program, virus checked it, and installed it. I’m currently playing with it now, checking out the features. And I think this is gonna be The One! It’s doing, so far, everything that I want in an MP3 player.

• small skin footprint possible (song title/artist showing)
• stays in system tray while playing
• works with .m3u files
• works with subfolders in playlist folder
• rips & encodes (so far, only see .ogg encoding – will look for MP3 plugin)
• free

There are still some things I need to do to see how it works. I haven’t tried ripping a CD with it yet. If it can do that, and as MP3s (to be compatible with the rest of the MP3 players I own), then I’ve finally found my MP3 player software. And it’s an old favorite of mine anyhoo! Yay!

In other news, today is gregmce‘s birthday! And in an odd case of serendipity, it’s also marathongreg‘s birthday! Who’da thunk it?! Heh heh!

Happy Birthday, Greg! Hope you have a blast!

In other, other news, today is the premier of the new Doctor Who. WOOHOO! (Or should that be Woo Who?) For those of you in the UK, ENJOY! For the rest of us – hopefully we’ll get to enjoy soon enough!

It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya… First off, judiang manages to keep me playing City of Heroes from 7pm until 4am last night. (Well, I did wanna do an all nighter, but I was shocked when I looked at my watch and saw 4am!) And then Leo works on getting me up at 6:30am. And then he sits on my alarm clock and manages to change the hour. Did I notice this at the time? No. So when I looked at my clock and saw it was 11:30am, I rocketed out of bed and got ready. (I’m having lunch with papa at the Chinese Buffet and didn’t want to miss out on that.) It wasn’t until I sat at my computer to read my e-mail that I saw it wasn’t even 9am yet!!! Damn cat!

So, I worked on my coursework for this week’s part of my 4 week online class. I’m doing 3 of these online classes in order to get enough contact hours to move my teaching certificate into licensure. I needed 20.5contact hours more (20 contact hours = 1 semester hour). Each of these 4 week classes is 12 contact hours. Since they were a set of 3, I decided to sign up for all of ’em. ($45 for the first course, $20 for the other two. Pretty cheap if you ask me.) The course is over physical science teaching and the Ohio physical science standards. I’d say over 60% of the students in this class are special education teachers, because thanks to No Vendor Left Behind No Child Left Behind, all of the special education teachers in the state of Ohio (OK, so maybe not ALL) are not “Highly Qualified Teachers.” What the??? People are creating new jobs so that teachers can jump through more hoops, you know. Bah!

Still, the class hasn’t been all that bad, and I’m realizing that maybe, just maybe, I do have enough discipline to do an online class. I have one more week of this class to go, and I’ll probably do all the coursework before I go to Chicago. (If not, I can easily do it while on vacation! I love online stuff!) If it’s true that I do have the discipline for it, I might look into some online university classes – maybe even a Masters degree program.

Leo’s excited to have me home (and up) today. He’s showing his affection by sitting on my class book while I’m doing my online homework and playing with my (dwindling numbers of) paper clips and all sorts of fun “Yay! Trina’s home!” things. 🙂 I love my damn cat. 🙂

As of 3:30pm EST today, I am on Spring Break! Woohoo! First, I’m off to BW3s for an amaretto sour & some eats. Then back home to play City of Heroes with judiang for as long as I can stand it. And then, who knows? No other real plans until Tuesday night when I drive up to elsaf‘s. We’ll then drive off to see Judi on Wednesday. Woohoo! And we’ll be getting together with miz_em too, I believe! It’s good to see my friends. Yay!

Today’s the first full day of spring! We’re in the early spring weather too. Cold mornings, chilly days. And rain. But that’s just a precursor to the lovely spring days with cool breezes, flowering trees, (bad sinus headaches – bleh), and lots & lots of green stuff. (Of course, if you’re in the southern hemisphere, it’s autumn. Since I love autumn just slightly more than spring, I say “wehey! Autumn!” to you!)

Doh! I’ve forgotten to use my Sylv as Leprechaun icon in the build up to St. Patrick’s Day! So I shall use it now and wish all of you, whether you’re Irish, Scottish, German, or whatever a Happy St. Pat’s! (I’m Scottish & German but still wore green today. Why? Cuz if I dressed up in my tartan and killed all the Celts, I’d probably get fired. And also, since I work in a building where kindergarteners are, I’d best have green on today!)

Well, Mapserver and I weren’t seeing eye to eye just now, but when that happens, I can turn around and view the front of my Hero. So, since Icy Hot Man finally got a new costume, I decided to take pictures of it. When I first created IHM, I didn’t know how to separate out colors in a costume design – I wanted both blue & orange to symbolize cold & hot. I got to change that, finally, with my costume upgrade.

Icy Hot Man’s New Costume

Once you’ve checked the new costume out, check out my LiveJournal Pix Gallery of City of Heroes captures. I have one of each of Magyss’s (judiang‘s) costumes. I think she’s in it for the costumes. 😉

Not much of the day left for her, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY the_ladylark! Hope you had a lovely day and that you have many more happy birthdays!

And to get a jump on tomorrow, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to redstarrobot! Beware the Ides of March, unless it brings presents!

These past few weeks I’ve been watching my Monkees DVDs. I’ve been a fan of the show and the group since I was a kid (I probably caught the repeats in ’76 and I know I caught the repeats 10 years later). I’m about halfway through season 2 now and I’ve noticed something interesting: most of my favorite episodes happened during season 2. “Fairytale” (where Mike plays a beautiful princess), “The Christmas Episode” (where they sing “Riu Chiu” at the end), “The Devil and Peter Tork” (my second favorite ep and it features “Salesman,” one of my favorite songs), and “The Frodus Caper” (the last ep and my favorite – damned strange story and it features “Zor & Zam,” another favorite song of mine). Another thing I’ve noticed is that there are some season 2 episodes which I barely remember, but often have expressions that I remember well because my sister and I used them often as kids. (Amy, just saw the “Save the Texas Prairie Chicken” bit…) And a third thing – Monty Landis sure was in a lot of episodes in season 2! And a fourth thing – where on earth did Mike Nesmith go on those eps that he wasn’t in?

BTW, does anyone but me remember when Father Dowling Mysteries did their own version of “The Devil and Daniel Webster“? Always liked that story, too. 🙂

Since the New Doctor Who is going to be so rockingly cool (and hopefully it’ll eventually be broadcast here in the States) I’ve decided to make an icon just to honor the show. It’s taken me ages to do this so that it would be under the requisite 40kb, but I managed to get it out the way I wanted it to. 🙂 Enjoy! You’ll probably see it around.

Haven’t written in a couple of days. Just not been in the writing mood. (Haven’t been in a bad mood or anything, just not in a “writing my LJ update” mood.) Had a weekend sans the folks – they were off in California. I picked ’em up from the airport late last night. And so this evening, they took me out for supper to say “thanks.”

We went to the Outback Steakhouse and I had steak & those lovely grilled shrimp they have. Plus creamy onion soup – that’s a new one for me. It was all yummy. And we followed that up with a quick trip to Meijer where I picked up Columbo Season 2 on DVD. Woohoo! Once I finish watching The Monkees season 2, I’ll watch Columbo. 🙂