[OT-sorta] Lesson learned

Well, I finally got it together to connect up my computer and stereo
so that I could make digital recordings of my cassette tapes. This past
week I've been making MP3s from my old favorites on tape, some of which
I haven't listened to in over ten years - fun!

Last night I discovered something rather interesting. In retrospect, I
should have figured out that this would happen, but I didn't. I recorded
an entire side of a tape, about 25 minutes of music. So I busied myself
with other activities on the computer while that was recording, such as
reading my email and RPCA, and so forth.

This morning I was going to take the big audio file and chop it up into
song-length MP3s. My hope was to burn a CD before leaving for work, so
I could listen to an old favorite album during my commute. But first, I
checked out the audio file to make sure there wasn't anything weird on it.

Hmm... what are those odd-looking spikes right after the end of the
second song? There are a bunch of them, all the same size, one right
after another. Some glitch on the tape? So I listened to that section
of the song, and what did I hear? Pop, pop, pop. And the pops continued,
interspersed in the next song, and the next one as well. Quite audible
even with the music.

I had been playing Bubbels while recording!!!!!

Only the first song was bubbel-pop-free, so I kept that one, but I had
to dump out the rest. I'll just have to find something else to do while
waiting for a long recording!

Joy...

LOL! That reminds me of something I learned recently. When you call tech
support or a service person, and they say your call will be recorded, they
mean *all* of your call, from the time you first speak to a service person,
everything is recorded. If you are put on hold, and talk to somebody while
you are on hold, that is recorded too. I learned this when a client of my
word processing business had me transcribe a recording of some calls to an
insurance company (the recording was provided by the insurance company).
She was put on hold for quite a while. I could hear her talking to her
husband and her dog while she was waiting.

Adrian A...

That needed a beverage warning. :-)

Matthew...

See what the addiction did to you ;-)