Noj

I get a seasonal cough with loads of congestion just about every year around this time, and I've just gotten over it. I've found the best way to make it go away faster is to cough up the phlegm as gently as possible but as often as I can make it exit (gross, I know).

There's a whole lot of music on my 160gb which I haven't heard yet, but that's what I love about the shuffle all mode. It will play something I've never heard, followed by an old favorite, followed by more that I've never heard. So often I'm craning my neck over to the thing saying to myself, "what the hell is that?." I've made favorites playlists from every genre I listen to, and an "Overall Favorites" playlist so I can just indulge in a listening binge of every song I love. It's also great to shuffle a single genre, and hear a big block of similar styled tunes. It satisfies both my eclectic tastes and inner control freak, depending on which one has the helm.

I too have my files backed up on external hard drives, but I don't like to have my iPod searching for that external every time I hook it up to the computer to edit. I also have over 25,000 songs on it so everything isn't backed up on a single drive... I didn't know that about WMP files, since I'm Mac-only.

The iPod will play any MP3, but won't play Windows Media Files as far as I know. You may have to reformat them to MP3 or AAC (Apple's "lossless" format) before putting them on the iPod. With any MP3s you have downloaded, you can bypass iTunes altogether and drop them directly into the iPod. One important thing, it's best to have your iPod set to "manual" as opposed to "automatically sync with iTunes." The automatic mode means it will automatically update your iPod to only include the files currently in your iTunes library. Personally, I keep nothing in my iTunes library because I don't want the files taking up space on my computer.

Hehehe, I love the weird mixes of stuff that doesn't go together and use the total shuffle mode all the time. My Honda Element has an auxiliary port built right into the dash so I just run a cable to the headphone jack on my iPod. No battling for a frequency!

A CD takes about five to ten minutes to upload into iTunes. Once the files are in iTunes, it's just a matter of dragging and dropping them onto the iPod which won't take more than a few minutes. When you import the audio into iTunes, as long as your computer is hooked up to the internet, iTunes will fill in most of the data about the CDs assuming the albums are registered in the database. I often have to tweak things a little bit to fit my categories, which can be done quite easily by selecting the track/album in question and going to File>Get Info. I suggest getting the largest iPod you can possibly get. I have the 160gb and it's very convenient to have built a representation of my entire collection on one device. Still, you could easily fit 200 albums on an iPod a quarter of that size.

Vampire, methinks.

To quote my favorite Dylan song, "It's easy to see without looking too far that not much is really sacred."

I have the Strazzeri and the Macero but didn't place 'em. Crap. Thanks again, Joe! Great compilation.

i'd strongly suggest to add Desire to that list... Thanks Niko! I downloaded the titles in bold above from eMusic last night.

I never buy into the complaints about how much money athletes make. The athletes make what the owners can afford to pay them. The problem in MLB is not the fault of the Yankees but the fault of the league for allowing for the amount disparity between what teams are allowed to spend. However, the teams which pay the most have fanatical fan bases who pack the stadium all season long. They sell merchandise up the wazoo. They charge exorbitant amounts for admission and concessions and fans fork over the cash. In a single season the lowest-paid baseball players make more than I do in five to ten years. They've all got a marketable gift that I don't. Ultimately, the financial situation isn't on my mind when I watch what happens on the field of play. It didn't make Johnny Damon's clutch at bat and baserunning any less exciting to me. It didn't make Chase Utley's homeruns any less historic. It doesn't affect the fact that Derek Jeter is one of the best baseball players I've watched play.

It's a good idea to back up external and internal hard drives to DVD-Rs.

Looks like I'm after: Another Side Of... The Basement Tapes New Morning John Wesley Harding Love and Theft Self Portrait Blood On The Tapes Thanks again, all!

Donate them all to your favorite organissimo poster, Noj. :tup :tup

Thanks ISBY and Duke.

I own the following albums from Mr. Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home Highway 61 Revisited The Times They Are A-Changin' Blonde On Blonde The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan Blood On The Tracks Nashville Skyline (this one is my favorite) Greatest Hits 1&2 What should I get next, Dylan heads? I've always wanted to hear the one with the Dead, so that's on my radar.

Godzilla = WS MVP. 2R HR, 2R 1B, 2R 2B, 6RBI in the decisive game. Safe to say he came to play.

Congratulations, Yankee fans! Sympathies, Phillies fans.

I'm in! Download, please.

If the Yankees don't win game 6, I think the Phillies take it in game 7.

The Complete Columbia Small Group JJ Johnson Disc 1

"in the Series," OK. I was referring to the '04 ALCS, though I'm actually slightly mistaken in that they choked a 3-0 lead and not a 3-1 lead.

Yeah, if the Braves had never gotten that one title they'd be the Buffalo Bills of baseball. It looks grim, but stranger things have happened. Lee's on the hill for Game 5, Burnett's not likely to pitch as well as he did in his first start, CC's been subject to serving up the long ball (particularly to <ahem> UCLA Bruin Chase Utley), the Yanks have choked a lead this big before...