Oh, great, this is just what I needed...
Another way to get hooked on computers...

It''s already hard enough to get to bed at a decent hour...what with e-mails, blog postings, computer pinball, buying stuff on Ebay, then another round (or 2 or 3) of e-mails, computer postings...well, I just found something else that could end up taking way too much of my time, and that is, going to "YouTube" and watching videos of some of my favorite bands from way back when. It's always a little disheartening to see a "reunion" of an old group, because they, well, look OLD. Ah, but with the magic of "YouTube", I can see them as I remember them from the album covers...and some of the groups I checked out last night were Grand Funk Railroad (my first favorite heavy band), then Chicago (I saw them twice in concert in the '70s); then I saw some footage of Badfinger, The Beatles, and Arthur Lee and Love...I spent close to 4 hours viewing old videos last nite, and all I can say is, "waaaaay coooool".
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A Different Body of Water: I moved to Oregon to be near the ocean. And every time I enjoy an ocean view, I think to myself, "this is why I came here". And I have sat, like a bump on a log, on a bumpy log, and watched the tide come in for hours. I used to live in a town on a lake, though. And, there are two lakes right here in the town I live in; there is no high country around the lakes, so I wondered, "where does the water come from?", and one of the locals told me the lakes were spring-fed! These lakes, which are just off the main drag, are surrounded by lush forests and PAVED pathways zig-zagging all over the place. Honestly, you would never know there was a town 4 blocks to the south and another one several blocks to the north. And the fish were jumpin' in this lake. Best of all, it's all public. No signs warning people to stay off the beach. Now, that's just nice. And, today, I found the quiet calmness of a small lake very soothing. The ocean's always there if I want it. But today, being by this little lake was quite nice. Kids were out there fishing; that made me think of long ago when I used to catch perch off the dock. A good memory.
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I am totally out of the loop: I'm watching ABC's "Nightline" program as I'm typing this. A promo announcement just came on saying how, if I wanted, I could go to ABC-TV's website, and I could watch previously aired full-length programs of "all of (my) favorite ABC shows". How nice of them. There's only one thing wrong with this scenario, and that is, I have not watched any prime-time programming for several years now. Whenever I've seen a "current" show, usually by accident, I end up thinking, "I've seen this story line before, but with different characters." Yep, I've seen it all before. (Aside: I must be getting old if I'm thinking that!) I honestly don't know what any of the hit shows are. I don't know who any of the actors/actresses are, so when I see a program promo for "Conan" or Jay Leno or whoever, and that promo says, "Tonight on Conan...(this actress)...(that actress)...and other assorted stupid stuff!", the names of the featured guests ring no bell whatsoever. Actually, I am watching old episodes of "CSI: Miami" broadcast on Court-TV. "CSI", to me, seems like a re-run of Court-TV's "forensic files" type TV shows I choose to pollute my mind with.
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Varying degrees of "randomness": I used to have a 3-CD player which I really enjoyed. I could put it on "random play" and I never knew what would play next. Typically, it would play a couple songs from one disc, then one from the next disc, then 2 or 3 from the third disc. True random; I never knew what disc would play next, and I never knew what song would play, either. But that player gave up the ghost long ago. Well, I just bought an Emerson 6-CD player. Aha, I thot, "true random over 6 discs!" Ha. I think Emerson Corp. has a different idea of "random". The songs play at random, but according to the owner's manual, all of the songs on disc one would play randomly, then it would play all the songs on disc 2 randomly before going to disc 3, and so on. "Random", in a sense, but not "random all the way". I was prepared to live with that, though, because the manual said all six discs would play automatically when in "random" mode. Hah...that doesn't happen. All of Disc One plays randomly, then STOPS. I have to then tell it to play another disc. So the owner's manual LIED to me. The only way I can play all 6 discs automatically, is to play them in "regular", not 'random' mode. Good job, guys. Let's hear it for Corporate America. Pffffffffft!!!
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Just out of curiosity, I went to a couple of merchandise sites that listed reviews of the abovementioned Emerson player...one guy sent in an angry review saying, "STAY AWAY FROM THE EMERSON PLAYER". Obviously, he's a wise man. And, in retrospect, I should have titled this post, "Blogging At Random". Because I never know how these things are gonna turn out.