Bandmate promised to do music with me this evening, so naturally when I went round he was OUT. >:(
MediaMonkey's playback and playlist functionality is so far beyond broken, it's brain-damaged. I can't deal with it at all. For example, if Shuffle is turned on and you tell it to play a particular track, it will play a random OTHER track. Does that seem right to you? Yes, shuffle, well done, but "Play this now" should clearly have priority in its stupid media playering logic. So, while I very happily use MM to catalogue, tag and organise my music collection, I hate trying to listen to things in it.
Of course, just when I'm most irritated by it, MediaMonkey does something like put The Toymaker's Story on and completely draws my tooth. This is probably the single greatest instrumental (synthesised and without words) non-soundtrack (i.e. not a video game remix or similar) piece of music I own.
*puts on HMS Pinafore*
Oh, and I'm trying out FoxyTunes for Firefox, but it's not honestly very useful. If you use it to skip forward in MediaMonkey, the usual little tooltip balloon doesn't come up to tell you what's playing now. ... ... ...Of course, I could just have found the option that shows the now-playing title in the browser status bar. Idiot.
I have my E500 earphones! So far I'm agreeing with the criticisms in the various reviews I read about the clunkiness of the PTH module, which is a shame, because I'd love to wear it if it was usable. The earphones themselves are pretty easy to screw in and wearing them with the wire hooked over the ear isn't too weird at all; I've about got the hang of it after three goes.
I'm not sure how to evaluate the sound, except that I do seem to be hearing things much more clearly - picking out parts I might not have noticed in the past, perhaps that sort of thing. More when I've worn them for a longer period and listened some more. They do isolate more sound. They are also VERY VERY LOUD on my weedy Aspieish ears, necessitating the inline volume turnwheel module.
My cowardly ears are actually the object of the exercise: of necessity, for comfort's sake, I always listen to music so low that background noise is often louder (that's even excluding when I'm on the rattly tram). So, in theory, noise isolation and clearer sound seems like the good shiz. I'll let you know more after I've taken a couple of tram journeys (well, and when I've had my iPod returned from its hospitalised borrower).
I also discovered that despite having pathetically tiny hands and feet, my ear canals are so generous that I need the largest silicone-plastic ear-tip thingies. I tried the foam sleeves, which a lot of people seem to prefer, but hated them. They're exactly like foam earplugs, even down to the yellow colour (why? Hides the wax?), but then again, I don't much like earplugs, either. I'm not sure what about the feel of them is unpleasant.
My fingerless bikarrrgh gloves for my aforementioned stupid tremor-wracked hands arrived! With those and leather coat I look stunningly good, or would if I weren't wearing my brother's Reebok tracksuit bottoms like a stupid chav, and were also thinner and taller and you get the idea.
Finally, I went in to see my mother today. Then, afterwards, I sent some things she wanted in with one of her friends who was visiting her during the second lot of visiting hours. Come to think of it, I hope she remembered the icepack. *twists mouth* Today and yesterday I've been telling all the friends and family I can think of that she's out of theatre and well. Didn't remember her sisters until today. (They do both live far away, and I remembered people in the vicinity first. Damn.)