It takes a significant amount of effort and time to rip a CD.

What software are you using? iTunes is teh win. Downloading the album cover art is the most time-consuming part of ripping a CD as far as I’m concerned.

I must admit I haven’t listened to all of the CDs I’ve bought recently, but I still listen to CDs at home and in the car (disc rotation in the car takes a while, and I prefer to mix the new with the old). When I find a decent mp3 player that can plug into a good component sound system and not look like a lump of crap [hint: it should look like a modern slimline DVD player, not a vertical beige box], and I find the right way to listen to mp3s in the car, then I suppose I’ll never have the pleasure of prizing a CD loose from its transparent plastic prison again. On the plus side, I won’t worry about the broken tines, hinges or cracks in that plastic either.

By the way, if you ever see an mp3 playing alarm clock, that would make my day. No longer would I have to put up with other people’s lousy DJing abilities. I’d only have to suffer my own.

Well, at least it’s not a effect/affect spelling fuck-up. Here’s a simple explanation for those who might be confused. Reading a review can affect my purchase, because the review had an effect on me. Handing over the money effects my purchase, because the exchange of money directly affects the sale, and it is the only reason for the effect. Using effect correctly may just be an affectation, but a tip you may find effective is to use ‘affect’ first, and only when that sounds wrong, switch to ‘effect’.

The OS X Dictionary app has a relevant usage note which I will now memorise:

USAGE Flaunt and flout may sound similar but they have different meanings. Flaunt means ‘display ostentatiously,’ as in: tourists who liked to flaunt their wealth, while flout means ‘openly disregard (a rule or convention),’ as in | new recruits growing their hair and flouting convention. It is a common error, since probably around the 1940s, to use flaunt when flout is intended, as in | the young woman had been flaunting the rules and regulations.

That counter-example sounds vaguely familiar! (Strange punctuation theirs)

(As you know) I purchased three reasonably recent CDs on Friday and all three came in crappy nonstandard cardboard boxes. Pet Shop Boys’ Back to Mine was so poorly made that the two CDs were wedged into the glue in their slips and almost required me to break the discs to get them out of, and back into, their post-ripping cardboard mausoleums.

The iWallboard would dispaly random artist, song, album, your rating and date added to collection to stimulate the music-taste discussions of years gone by.

Now what would be the modern day equivalent of lending a friend a CD? Hmm…