How music listening has changed
Wow, I was not expecting those notes to the right to be so big! But in one way it's ok because that is the scale of things. This week I have started selling my music collection (and the odd DVD or game) to Music Magpie. The principal is you input the bar-code and it offers you a price. These prices per CD range from 30p to £3 so it's not too bad.
There used to be a time when I would sell music on eBay, however most of these CDs I am selling to Music Magpie are things I just do not listen to anymore, or I can listen to by other means (which I will come to later). The thing is, I have over 500 CDs cluttering the place up, so I was just going to throw them all away, on eBay most of them would not sell, and those that sell I would have to pay various fees to eBay, Paypal etc, and it's all too much like hard work with that many CDs.
Anyway, why sell? Simple answer, the way we listen to music has changed, and the way I listen to music definitely has changed. When at home now I stream most of my music on the wonderful Spotify free service, it has every track I can think of that I would ever want to listen to and there's always a PC on at my home. When I'm on my PS3 console, we have Vidzone which which is the video playing equivalent of Spotify (but with less selection), so of course that is ideal for a nice relaxing half hour. On the PC, Youtube now has a playlist feature which is also an ideal way to listen to any music you want, when you want!
On top of that I have my 80GB iPod only a third filled with over 250 albums, anything I download now goes straight on there and there's lots of room for much much more. The iPod goes everywhere with me and contains all my favourite albums, and then some! If I ever forget that, I have my Samsung Pixon phone with built in radio and an 8GB memory which is also used for my very favourite albums.
So, in general, the way I listen to music has vastly changed over the last couple of years. Of course, I will still keep my Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Jan & Dean, Beatles, Madonna and a few other artists collections on CD, but that will probably total around only 120 Cds or so that saves much more space. Ahhhh, how things have changed!
Personal gaming update
A lot of time has been spent on the Guitar Hero, Rock band and Singstar games lately, basically because they are fun and everyone in the family can enjoy them. Also, to be fair, I enjoy them to, though sometimes I do enjoy solitude and escape to my own world with games just for me.
I spent a few hours on Ford Racing 2 on the PS2, I only paid 50p for it, and to be honest, once I got into the handling of the cars I enjoyed every bit of it. I've unlocked loads, including all the rally stages. On top of that myself and Karl had a session of Motorstorm 2 and Dirt last week, which was highly entertaining... It's all racing games!
I was going to buy Fight Night Round 4 boxing, however, until they add back the buttons from Round 3 I think I will steer clear of it. It looks stunning, is really fast and is probably the closest a game has come to real boxing, however I will stick with Round 3 until they add the button changes or the price drops!
I'm still working on my top 50 games. I've actually typed them all out, I've just not ordered them into the correct order yet.
The best of the rest
I'm still enjoying using Twitter. I think of it as an easier way of blogging, basically I can say my little things, then a couple of times a week I can blog as I am doing now. This makes things a whole lot easier, and I am so addicted to it. People can not understand why I do it, but I know family and friends follow me so keep up with what I am doing, I know other people follow me and interact, and I also learn a lot from some of the useful Tweeters out there.
Time is getting closer to The Beatles box-sets. £169.99 for the stereo set (14 Cds and a DVD) and £199.99 for the mono set (13CDs & a DVD). This is the cheapest I have found them on Play.com. Luckily for me I had a voucher, so it knocked £20 odd off the price. Also, I am downloading "deluxe" editions of all the albums in the .flac format, these versions contain stereo, mono and sessions, however they are just an interim "fix" until the official remastered versions are released on 09.09.09.
My Internet connection is a funny thing. My home in Swansea is just outside the City Centre and my connection varies from 1MB to 2.5MB. It's quite odd, and as much as the government bullshits about making sure everyone has over 2MB lines, I think it will be many years before EVERYONE in the UK gets that. When in Aberystwyth we use a mobile broadband dongle which gives us speeds of around half a meg, it does the job, but it's not ideal.
Until next time, hope you enjoyed this longer than usual blog. More to come soon!
:) Mark
