07:51 – Barbara and I were watching Inspector George Gently episodes last night. One of them starred a young Australian woman named Ebony Buckle, who performed two Celtic songs called Matty Groves and Silver Dagger. She has an extraordinary voice, classically trained, so I emailed her last night to ask if she has an album or MP3s available for purchase.
We’re doing the usual Saturday chores, and working on building kits.
08:45 – I just shipped a chemistry kit to fill an order that came in overnight. I always check to see the expected delivery date, so I can let the buyer know when to expect the kit to arrive. Here’s the information for this kit, shipped to the west coast.
The kits usually ship in Priority Mail Regional-Rate Box B, except those to zone 8 (the west coast). For those, the larger PM Large Flat-Rate Box costs $15.30, versus $16.13 for the smaller RRB B, which also has a lower weight limit. It makes no sense, but I’m used to that. But the really weird thing here is the delivery dates. I could have sent this kit by Express Mail for $39.95, and it would arrive Tuesday. Or I can send it Priority Mail for $25 less and it’ll arrive Monday. Geez.
12:10 – This “natural” products crap has always annoyed me, but it’s getting worse. Just try finding plain old vitamin C tablets. I don’t want “natural” vitamin C tablets with rose hips or who knows what else crap in them. I want 100% all-artificial, pure white, plain old vitamin C tablets. They used to be widely available and cheap, but I can’t find them now, at least a reasonable price. I used to buy them in bulk at Costco. They don’t carry them now. I used to buy them at Walgreens. They don’t carry them now.
I checked the Walgreens web site this morning, and thought they still carried them. Their generic vitamin C tablets looked ordinary. White bottle with no flowers or leaves or other “organic” crap. They had bottles of 400 for $6 or two for $9. Barbara needed something at Walgreens anyway, so we drove over. They had bottles in stock, but for $10 each with no discount for multiples. I bought one bottle, just because we’re out of 500 mg vitamin C tablets and I need to make up some more packets of them quickly. Oh, yeah. The small print on the label mentioned rose hips. Oh, well, It’s not that having rose hips or whatever in there is a problem. It doesn’t interfere with the experiments. It’s just gratuitous.
When we got home, I got back on the Walgreens website and ordered ten more bottles for $45 total with free shipping. I guess 4,000 tablets will hold me for a while, even though our run rate on kits is increasing fast.
Looks like Buckle only has MP3 downloads on Amazon thus fah.
38 here on the Bay so fah and blue skies. Ice continues to disappear.
Boy, thanks to Stu for the recommendation of MP3Tag some time ago. I have had a huge task of changing IDv2.4 tags to v2.3 throughout a massive library of thousands of MP3’s, because WinExplorer cannot read v2.4 tags.
All I do is set the preferences for the tags I want—ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 UTF-16,—then go to the proper directory, select all files, then File > Save Tag. It reads what the tags were, and rewrites them to what I want it to be as specified in preferences.
Although I can do the same job in Tag Scanner—which I used to use,—I have to do that task one file at a time. MP3Tag does a whole directory in a second—literally.
Thanks, Stu!
Roger that, Chuck! I appreciate the appreciation!
Another tip that I think I left previously, but you may have missed it, MP3Gain:
http://download.cnet.com/MP3Gain/3000-2169_4-10175552.html
It normalizes mp3 files and I use it on each playlist. (It doesn’t bother me that all the songs on one playlist may be a little louder than those on another.)
AFAIK, it is the only normalizer that does not screw up the tags!
Chuck, may be obvious, but then I developed an obsession for the album/cover art. Obvious that I go to Amazon and do the first half of the copy and paste there.
IIRC, you can double click or something like that to enlarge it and get 520 x 520, if you want that much. I am now down to those postage stamp size Sandisk players and I guess the album art is going the way of 8 track cartridges.
Here ya go, OFD. Take your blood pressure medicine first.
Coincidentally, we were watching the same episode over-the-air in Sydney and were also very pleased with her singing. I am not much of a reference point for hearing related commendations but my wife has very good hearing and she mentioned that her singing was extremely good. She seldom mentions things like that. She is also recommended from here as well. I enjoy Celtic music and the Silver Dagger lyrics were just great.
RE: Ebony
After you listen to someone like her, you wonder why rappers, poptarts and so called superstars make so much and have fame.
“Take your blood pressure medicine first.”
I was already aware of this and not too surprised; the armed forces routinely outsource their audio-visual materials and training flim-flams so this ain’t no huge thang. What’s sort of ironic, if one thinks, like I tend to do, in very long historical terms, is that Catholic chaplains in the Great War trenches were always up at the front lines with the troops while other denominations not so much. One wonders if today’s modern Army is aware of that. Doubtful. More worried about PC bullshit as it was starting during my time forty years ago.
“After you listen to someone like her, you wonder why rappers, poptarts and so called superstars make so much and have fame.”
Celeb libtards get all the media attention, even on today’s Drudge, which has all the hoopla about Beyonce and JayZ in Cuber. Who gives a shit? Neither has any talent and will be long forgotten in a few short years like most of the imbeciles over the past few decades.
You can’t go wrong with Bach and Handel.
Ping Dave B/ech!
Is it worth learning enchanting? From the wiki articles I’ve read it’s a very long path and uberexpensive. A lot of stuff created early in the career is said to be basically unsalable.
Secondly, I just had someone pestering me to duel with them. I never do that, and I wish I could find a “decline all duels” setting, like the decline invitations to guilds. Is there such a thing? I considered reporting them (I had about 10 requests within 20 minutes, including some that were only a few seconds apart) but the only things I could report for were inappropriate name (not applicable) and cheating, which it probably wasn’t. I ended up putting them on ignore. Is there anything else I can or should do?
Abneed is a mage who is a tailor and enchanter. I won’t be dropping enchanting as a profession anytime soon. It isn’t as lucrative as tailoring, but it’s still worthwhile.
I always try to do professions on the cheap. For example, most of Abneed’s enchanting rods were made by a blacksmithing alt. He got to level 50 of enchanting by disenchanting cloth armor that he had made as a tailor. Only then did I start using the enchanting mats I had gained from the disenchanting.
Enchanting probably won’t be very lucrative in terms of gold to start with. However if you send the appropriate enchants to your alts, it will give them a little extra edge, and make them a little bit harder to kill.
I’d suggest you consider making one cloth armor wearing toon a tailor/enchanter.
Goodies arrived as promised and in good shape, on initial inspection. My daughter is excited, but unpacking will commence tomorrow when we both have time. We are between homes at the moment, so I will find a nice toolbox to separate, protect and contain everything.
I will let you know how my daughter fairs with everything.
Shipment Activity Location Date & Time
——————————————————————————–
Delivered SAMMAMISH WA 98075 04/08/13 12:53pm
Out for Delivery ISSAQUAH WA 98027 04/08/13 9:53am
Sorting Complete ISSAQUAH WA 98027 04/08/13 9:43am
Arrival at Post Office ISSAQUAH WA 98027 04/08/13 8:12am
Depart USPS Sort FEDERAL WAY WA 98003 04/08/13
Facility
Processed through USPS FEDERAL WAY WA 98003 04/07/13 9:06pm
Sort Facility
Processed at USPS GREENSBORO NC 27498 04/06/13 8:51pm
Origin Sort Facility
Dispatched to Sort WINSTON SALEM NC 27106 04/06/13 6:40pm
Facility
Acceptance WINSTON SALEM NC 27106 04/06/13 3:33pm
Electronic Shipping 04/06/13
Info Received
Glad it arrived safely. Please keep us posted.