So I’m back in the New York again, this time with a disgusting cold that I picked up in Downingtown. I got about 5 hours of sleep last night after laying in bed for an hour not sleeping, so I feel pretty awful today. Lots of tissues and jackets, for sure. I’m getting really good at Bach’s 8th Invention on piano, though, as that’s one thing that it’s easy enough for me to do even in my current state. I actually just got kicked out of one of the studios because apparently my practicing was too loud. I’m still going to classes today, even though I completely don’t feel like it. It’s ok, Mondays are my easiest days. I’m going to keyboard harmony in a few minutes, and then it’s back to my dorm to do some laundry and sleep.
I learned a lesson about Windows Media Player yesterday. Noticing that my book of Bach’s inventions came with a CD, I wanted to put them on my iPod. My laptop doesn’t have a working optical drive, though, so I had to use my family’s desktop (which runs Windows 7 and doesn’t have iTunes installed). Instead of installing iTunes, I saw that WMP can rip from CDs too, so I just did that. Turns out, though, the format they rip to isn’t one that iTunes supports! So I had to use VLC to convert them to .mpg, which is still not very well supported by iTunes (you can’t make AAC versions or apply album art). It’s really dumb, and I should have just brought the CD back to the city with me. Anyway, lesson learned. And I have the recordings, it just required a lot of manual transcoding on my part.
Lord of the Rings is awesome. I just watched the first two-and-a-half movies this weekend and they are still so good. I did notice, though, that after just eight years they’re already starting to show their age. The CGI and greenscreen effects are obvious and clunky in a lot of instances, and there are a lot of sets (Isengard at the beginning of ROTK, Fangorn forest interior, etc.) that look totally fake. I love these movies to death, but I really think they’re going to be complete cheese in a decade or two. Even compared to something that’s visually top-of-the-line today (hate to say it, but Avatar), they’re already clumsy and artificial looking. I mean, we’ll see. I love Lord of the Rings so much, don’t worry. It’s just an observation.