That's right, it's one more chapter in the Coz vs. inanimate objects category, but hey, I take my wins where I can get 'em.

I spent a good portion of yesterday fighting with my computer. The initial plan was to burn a disc of MP3 files, but Roxio decided it wasn't going to help in this endeavor. In fact, it decided it was going to act as if I didn't have a CD burner hooked up to my computer at all. Now, I installed the Sony drive a few weeks ago on my own, and I'm a bit sensitive to what I would call the larger category of "home improvement" mishaps, so I was a little worried that I maybe did something wrong, but I've burned audio CDs in the past. The fact that it wouldn't even do this now made me think something else was tweaked.

After a bunch of failed diagnostic attempts and subsequent reboots (and that sounds familiar...why are so many of my PC problems audio-related), I found that it was the program and not the drive. Fortunately, Roxio's installation program has a convenient "repair" option, which obviates the need to uninstall and reinstall the whole application, and that did the trick. Of course, the MP3-format option in Roxio is clunkier than I'd like, as it won't let you just import an existing playlist and burn the disk that way.

Why is any of this important? Well, I'm on one of my convergence kicks. After using one (actually, several over time) of those cassette adapters for a portable CD player in the car, I finally figured that it was worth it to buy a new car stereo with a CD player built in rather than shell out $15 or $20 a year for a new adapter. The weird hangup I had on this in the past was that I wanted the flexibility to play tapes AND CDs. What I then realized was that some of the CD players have auxilliary jacks on the front, so rather than have a tape deck that I have to tweak to play CDs, I've got a CD deck that I can tweak to play tapes. That works out much, much better. Of course, while I was at it, I decided that the other important feature is the ability to play native MP3 files, so I can start burning massive mix CDs for driving, or at the very least, not be limited by the 80 minute ceiling of audio disks. Ultimately, I'll get a DVD player so I can play these disks on my main stereo system as well, although I'd rather just have the PC and stereo talk to each other directly, but that's in limbo while I wait for another KVM switch and possibly other hardware (damn those Audiotron ads on EMusic).

This is what the kids call "geeking out," natch.