Friday, January 6, 2012

A Paucity of opportunity

Seriously, I don't see a whole of good new music in the next few weeks, and it's been a few weeks since I've heard anything new to turn my head. I'm definitely open to any suggestions, but I'm doing just fine as it is. I've got TV - a new episode of Portlandia, even tonight. I've got books- I've got a backlog of about 15 books. I've got movies on DVD- I just got Richet's Mesrine epic, both 1 and 2, no less. If that isn't enough, I've semi-converted from Apple for my music technology. After the Itunes epic fail, I started checking out other options, and, in doing so, have tried out alternatives to the Ipod, as well. Where I'm at now is this- I've kept my 16gb Nano, and have doubletwist to maintain that, but I've also got a Sandisk Sansa Clip+ to supplement, and I'm really happy with it. Sound-wise, It's as good. More bass, but the treble is a bit mushy, whereas the Ipod always had weak bass, and good treble. Size and function are a bit better than the Ipod, as in, the size is a bit smaller, and the actual buttons are more intuitive, and I do not miss the picture screen at all, actually preferring to have as minimal a display as I do- but still having a display, unlike the shuffle. The interface with the computer is so much better than Ipod- it's drag and drop. I haven't yet figured out how to copy from CD, but I know there must be a way. The tech support is awful, but the possibility of expanding the memory is exciting- you can add up to 32 gb by adding a micro SD card. The player cost about 30 us dollars, and more memory would be about another 10-30 depending upon how much I wanted. So, for 60 USD I could have 18 times the memory of a shuffle, with better functionality. Considering the Shuffle costs about 50 USD, I'd say I know which way I'm leaning. I'm not all the way sold, but it's certainly keeping me entertained.
So the lack of new tunes is mildly annoying but only mildly. There's not as much to blog about which is why the blog might seem a bit...desolate. Over the next day or two I'll try to put something up about what I've been reading and watching, because I'm not much for writing about straight tech. There's been a lot of that lately for me- stuff like new headphones, and clock radios, and software suites (Sennheiser, Panasonic, and Open Office, a modern man's shopping list) but while I like all that stuff, I'm not very good at conveying what's good about it. So this'll be the last tech-heavy post unless there's something truly inspiring...