drewganov

Last night, around midnight, my dad shows up at my house and tells me he's got an urgent project that needs to be finished for the next day. His aunt, my great aunt, passed away a couple days ago and he wanted a song, which he performed, that was recorded on this cassette taped transferred to CD, plus adding another song from a different CD onto it for use at her service/wake. My dad explained that there were some bad recordings at the beginning of the tape, but the last one was the winner. I told him I would take care of it and have it for him in the morning.

Let me now add that I don't have a cassette-to-CD stereo system. But, I do have a computer, a stereo with a cassette deck, and a line-in cable. That's all you need and I've been doing this for years. First of all, you connect the line-in cable from the stereo's headphone jack and run it to the line-in on your computer/sound card. Then you setup your software. Now back when software was really expensive, you make adjustments and do things "manually" by using Windows built-in Sound Recorder, found under Programs > Accessories. When you go that route, you have to adjust the volume levels on the line-in under Volume Properties. But instead of doing it the old fashioned way, I used Roxio Easy Media Creator, which does a decent job. It even has track detection, which is a plus when I don't want to listen to that kind of music. You just push Play on the tape deck and Record on the software, and it automatically converts the audio to whatever format you select. It definitely made life easier for me.

The only hiccup that I encountered was the CD/DVD Burner that I have on that machine is USB. For some reason it has problems burning CDs. I can burn DVDs all day long, but I've yet to get a CD to burn properly. I plan on getting an internal burner for the machine, but it's not a real priority, since I have access to burners on other machines. But that's my "media" center, where I compile Movies and Music.

I ended up making two copies of the CD and dropped them off this morning. He was pleased with it, considering the quality of the original recording. I was glad to be of service, especially since it wasn't a difficult task.

I bought my DS when it was released originally and remembered reading that there would be an Animal Crossing game for it. I have the GameCube version, and thought that having a portable version made more sense. I waited for the release and have been playing it ever since. I only play the game for about 20 minutes a day, and most of the time only two to three times a week.

I named my town the same name as my GameCube version, Nayville, which everyone who has heard the name thought it was original, which it is. Anyways, I've expanded my house and paid it off completely (Damn you Tom Nook). I'm still working on getting all the fossils, insects, fish, and paintings. I don't time travel, so the game still has replay value.

There are only a few downsides to this game. The Friend Code issue is one, but in ways it makes sense. You cannot visit another person's town unless you have their FC, their character name, and town name. There are several sites online that allow you to post your info, but it's still inconvenient. You also don't want weird people talking to your kids if they're playing, or someone with a Golden Axe chopping down all your trees. The other flaw is the lack of NES games in it. The GameCube version allowed you to play several classic NES games, emulated perfectly through the game. Unfortunately, that feature was omitted from the DS version.

All in all, a great game.

Yeah, I realize that the subject is fairly lame, but there is a valid point that I'm trying to convey with the subject matter. There are so many different blog sites out there that it is impossible to weed out which one to use. This is my third site if I remember correctly, and each site is different in content. All sites have the same screen name, thankfully. But how do you determine which site should be updated, what subject matter should each site contain, or should each site be a mirror of the next? Do you truly want each of your blogs to be unique? This causes extra work for something that theoretically will bear no fruit. Well, I think that my approach will be centered around using each site for certain subject matter and directing users from each site to look at the other postings. It sounds good at least.