Thursday

[susandennis]

This morning there was a girl in the middle lane (3 lane pool) I'd never seen before. She had a cap from a popular open water swim held in town every year - only serious swimmers need apply - and a passel of swim toys - board, hand paddles, crotch float and training snorkel. And she was fast. I mean fast. She had nice routine fabulous form and was very fun to watch. She had the nicest, sleekest, prettiest, backstroke I have ever seen. She was in nearly as long as I was so I had nice entertainment for my whole swim.

I need bread. Why is it that every time I go to a grocery store, I get everything I need, everything on my list, everything EXCEPT that one thing I really do need?

My new Pebble will be here Saturday. When I first got the Pebble, I had a terrible time remembering that when I wanted to know what time it was, I did not have to pull out my phone, That I could just look at my wrist. Now, without it, of course, I look at my wrist a dozen times a day.

I bought a $120 Windows computer because I wanted a second Windows machine, and one with Windows 10 native. My Windows 7 machine has a lot of responsibilities so when I need a non-chromebook, I have to interrupt it. Most often that is to update the little iPod Shuffle I use when I swim. This uses iTunes which always makes my Windows 7 machine cranky as all getout.

So Amazon had this elcheapo little machine that fit the bill - usb/sd card/Windows 10 - small and bonus, powered by small a/c plug - no brick. I assumed it would be ridiculously slow or have some other major out of the box issues - I mean $120! And so I would just send it back to Amazon. But, turns out, it's not a bad little machine at all!

And, I have to say, out of the box, Windows 10 is pretty impressive. It didn't nag or make me do anything I didn't want to. I did not want to log on to a Microsoft account - ok, no prob. I did not want to lock the machine with a password - ok, no prob. I did want to see the other stuff on my network - ok, no prob.

iTunes didn't work very well. Ah... there's the rub. I fiddled with it for a while and then gave up. I decided to see how long it took to reboot. Oh, updates, eh? Why didn't you mention that? On the other hand, nice of you not to nag. When it came back, I tried iTunes again and all the problems were solved. I'm really quite taken with this little thing. I do plan to use it a lot for a couple of weeks to ensure that if it's going to fail, it does so before Amazon's window of return shuts down.

I found a couple of old windows games in my Amazon account and downloaded them. Flash back! And fun.

I got half the dolls/bears loaded into the car and now need to load the rest and make the delivery.

I have a green chair and a purple chair in my living room. When I finish the bears, they go on the green chair and the dolls go on the purple one. No particular reason. It's just handy. Right not, both chairs are empty and boy do they look bleak. There will be doll making this afternoon for sure and the next bear already has legs and a butt.

Comments

[christopher575.livejournal.com]

If you ever get tired of iTunes and want to abandon it, CopyTransManager is a good substitute. Garrett and I both managed to accidentally delete our entire music library a couple of times with iTunes and decided to stop using it.

[susandennis]

Hilariously, the one and only time I ever tried CopyTransManager, it ate up my entire music collection!! I've also tried managing music on the Shuffle with Media Monkey. It kind of does it but it's a struggle so I just go back to iTunes and bitch. (And make sure I have many copies of my music all over the place - outside of iTunes!)

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

We're an apple family and iTunes still doesn't work very well. It's a lousy software...but so hard to switch away from. :(

[susandennis]

It used to make me homicidal - it really is ridiculous how backwards and ugly and difficult it is to use. Apple makes such beautiful hardware and such sucky software. I'd actually be tempted to consider one of the new Apple watches because now they track swimming but NFW am I getting anything else that requires iTunes. I've even tried a bunch of different swimming music players but never found one as handy as the Shuffle so I deal.

[roasted-beets.livejournal.com]

You can actually use the watch without iTunes but you can't put music on it other than from your iPhone which of course, gets it from iTunes. I only hated iTunes in the beginning. I can make it do what I want.

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

I have one of the few remaining iPod Classics, and until the thing dies or someone invents a viable replacement, I'm sticking with iTunes. After that, though, it's breakup time.

[legalmoose]

Could be worse on the grocery store - you could forget you've already bought something and repurchase it on the next trip. And the next one, and the next one. There was one summer I had sooooo much mustard in the house... ;)

[susandennis]

Capers. I have lots of jars of capers. Fortunately, my brain has now taken capers off the mental grocery list.

[onelargecat.livejournal.com]

I avoid iTunes like the plague. (I know you have to use it with the Shuffle.) I never use it.

[susandennis]

It astounds me how many people put up with it. And, how many more don't even seem to mind it.

Periodically, I get on Amazon and buy other waterproof mp3 players in hopes of finding a better one or one that works as well. It does not take long for Amazon to get them back in returns.

But the hunt goes on!

[onelargecat.livejournal.com]

I know...it's so awful! How can they be so good at hardware design and SO BAD at software??

[silverthief2.livejournal.com]

I am gobsmacked by the price of that machine! If memory serves for our first family computer (ordered from the Fingerhut catalog) we financed it and paid $80-something a month for two years.

[susandennis]

It is amazing. I honestly do keep thinking it's going to fail any minute and it keeps not failing. $120. Financed it would be something like $5 a month over two years. And it's probably 10 times more powerful than your Fingerhut one. Just amazing.

[silverthief2.livejournal.com]

I'd wager 100 times more powerful than the poor little (but giant) tower we bought in 1998. The future is grand!