19 July 2001
I spent some time yesterday burning CDs. I copied a bunch of classical music MP3s to a CD, and made another CD of all the other music that couldn't really be classified as rock or popular music - my Broadway collection, and assorted other things along those lines.
I'm trying to decide now if I want to remove those MP3s from my hard drive, or some of them, or most of them, or something like that. I'm also debating whether the next CD to burn should be the stuff I don't listen to much - so I can delete it from my computer and clear up space - or the stuff I listen to the most - so I have it backed up in case of a crash.
Both, probably.
Then I decided I should back up all my photos and journal entries. I started this journal in January of 1999, and I got the digital camera in June that year. I'd spent some time last week making sure I had all the photos copied over to my hard drive and organized, so I was ready to go.
To keep things neat and organized, I decided, I should put each year's stuff on its own CD. But after assembling everything, each year's worth of stuff was less than 50 megs... To burn to a CD that can hold 700 megs. Sigh. I thought about at least putting 1999 and 2000 on the same CD, but for some reason that didn't really appeal.
Well, heck. The CDs I bought cost about 75 cents each, I rationalized. Not enough to worry about. So my anal-retentive side - the one that wants everything in its own neat little container - won out, and I burned two CDs. You can barely even see the data-ring on them, but that's okay.
One thing to be said for burning a CD with less than 50 megs of data: It was quick. Even with a simulated test-burn before and the verification scan afterwards, the whole process took about two and a half minutes per CD. Which left me plenty of time for playing Baldur's Gate.
Jeremy loaned me Baldur's Gate so I could see if I liked it. I'm still deciding. I'm not usually very good with these games. And I had some trouble with it right away. It's on five CDs, and the first time it asked me to put a different CD in the computer, I did so, and it told me it couldn't read the file it needed.
Well, poo. I fiddled around. I ejected and re-inserted the CD. I rebooted. No dice. Bah!
Jeremy suggested that I copy all the files from the CDs to my hard drive - then I'd only need one CD in the drive, to reassure the game that it's a legal copy. He said it would drastically improve game speed, as well. So I did that... Only I couldn't copy some of the files. Every CD except #3 had at least one file that didn't want to copy. The recalcitrant files on #1 and #4 copied when I tried a second time, but three files on disk #2 (including the original file I'd been having trouble with) and two files on disk #5 absolutely refused to copy.
I thought about asking Jeremy to just e-mail me the files, but one of them was nearly 30 megs. He'd have to burn them to CD, or put them on a Zip disk or something. That's when I got weird. I put the CDs in my CD-ROM drive on my work PC, and tentatively opened it, not sure if the PC would even recognize the made-for-Mac disc. But there they were.
So I put a Zip disk in the PC (have I ever mentioned how much I love Zip drives?) and copied the files to the Zip disk, keeping my fingers crossed... That worked. Then I took the DVD-ROM out of my Mac and put in the Zip drive (hot-swappable things are Good, too) and shoved in the Zip disk. The files copied from the Zip disk to the hard drive with no problem at all. Weird, but it worked.
So now I'm playing Baldur's Gate a lot. I haven't been sucked in to it quite as hard as Jeremy predicted - for one thing, it insists on spinning up the CD at random intervals, and while it's doing that, the whole system locks up completely for as long as two minutes. That gets kindof irritating after a while.
Also, as I said already, I'm not very good with these kinds of games. This one is better than most, since you can set it to pause when significant things happen, but I get killed every few combats. It's a good thing I already knew to save frequently. And there are certain things that I simply can't figure out how to do - like get the druid to memorize more than one healing spell a day! I don't need to remove fear nearly as badly as I need a couple of extra healing spells!
On the other hand, it's got a very nice interface (for the most part) and - unlike most graphics-intensive games - is willing to run in a window so I can check my mail or chat on IM at the same time that I'm playing. I like that. So I'll keep playing it for a bit longer, anyway, and see if it gets better.
I understand that most of you are so bored with this entry that you're ready to drop into comas. But it was either this or another poem.
I thought you'd see it my way.
Word of the Day:
hierophant - a priest in ancient Greece, specifically the chief priest of the Eleusinian mysteries; a person who explains, a commentator, an advocate
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Hall stuff
- garden