Illegal Music Downloads Fall Below 10 Percent - AVRev.com

Illegal Music Downloads Fall Below 10 Percent - AVRev.com

Interesting. People choosing to pay for services they can get for free, albeit illegally. I am not so sure that pirates are finding Jesus or some "peer to peer" (P2P) moral code, but rather downloading illegally is just more trouble than downloading the way your mother taught you too. *wags finger* Peer to peer services like LimeWire may be losing due to the difficulties inherent in using their software. You never know if the song you are downloading from a P2P source is a legitimate copy, or some MP3 audio track telling you to "drink more Ovaltine." at the Apple Store, it's easy. You find the song, click to buy and you know you're getting a good copy. With peer to peer, so much other junk gets thrown in. I guess, when it comes down to it, people like what's easier, not what necessarily less expensive.

In a related matter, P2P software downloading also occurs and is even more riddled with problems. Viruses can easily be written into executables, especially because the software packages are sometimes manipulated. This can be a good thing, the manipulation part, but you can only tell by reviews whether somebody got a bunch of viruses from something they downloaded. it's kind of like how America looks to see what flu and cold viruses are affecting the Chinese people and then we build a vaccine often that. In this case, you just don't go to China…err… Peer to peer software.

Carpe Diem

take advantage of those split-second opportunities… Han Solo could have been played by Al Pacino and Indiana Jones, Tom Selleck. Good going Harrison Ford!

Egypt

I hope the best for Egypt. Their future is uncertain, just as ours is uncertain. Hopefully, they can learn from their newfound freedom, as well as their past.

Where does that leave me? again...

How do you become a writer? How are you to write about things you know when, all you do is right in snippets. I heard about a documentary, rather watched the documentary on "Digital nation." In it, they talk about generations (more recent generations, the ones that play with computers all the time) that are used same things in small sentences and most likely more than a paragraph is impossible. They just don't talk long. We talk in snippets. We saying things like "LOL" and "WTF". We just don't speak in any sort of language that any previous generation generally does. They speak in sentences and paragraphs, formulated words and meanings that make more sense than "LOL."
How do you become a writer? How do you become a writer in a world that speaks in "LOL WTF OMG". I mean, OMG! Seriously, I'm having a hard time here. I don't know how to communicate to the world, so how I become a writer? I just write? I just put words down? It doesn't matter what they are? Can I write "LOL"? I just don't know. I want romance. And that has nothing to do with becoming a writer.
I'm frustrated.

On how the world sees Christianity

...they won't think anything more than if you were Hindu, Muslim or Jewish. frankly, nobody cares, those whose eyes have not been opened, about what Christians are believing. No matter the truth, no matter the pain we suffer in christ name, it is an opaque view of an astonishing wedding -- wholly lacking ANY attraction to those who see none of it.

This is tough to feel, but...

I think the world of this Susan Boyle and the writers of Les Miserables. i wish I did not feel so much for these lyrics; they are troubling.


There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
(Les Miserables)

I don't like believing God. Frankly, he's been a lot more trouble than I wish to deal with. But what do you do? You've seen the elephant in the room and now it's a little hard to ignore. What do you do when the writing is on the wall and you cannot rub it off? This is a movie along those lines

Depression

I feel love and hate, naked but dignified, raped and comforted; I feel betrayed and my soul stolen. I feel I have so much to say and now, nothing. So many feelings and so much anger, you would think that words would not escape me, but they do. Were I to think of all the things I could say, the page would not be enough. My hard drive was not designed to hold such emotions was it? It sounds jokingly when I say it, but unfortunately words are not enough; pictures hold expressions and videos catch inflections and mannerisms, but still -- I am unable to convey my feelings properly. Deep in my chest a heart beats under stress and through my eyes a mind that, but still -- I am unable to convey my feelings properly.
I went out last night. My caregiver Becky and I went to sushi Laguna on Ocean Avenue in Laguna Beach, California. It's a wonderful place and there's a beautiful Chinese girl there that is sweet to me. Maybe it's just that she remembers my preferences and satisfies them, but it does make me feel special. I should really not read more into it than that. It is unlikely she fancies me. However, maybe she does. I'm such a sycophant. Every time I meet a girl in whom I am attracted, I jump 15 hoops before I even talk to her. Before I get to know anything about her, we are making babies in my head that growing old together. This is stupid.
The meal went okay and we walked by Hennessy's restaurant next door to get some food for Becky's husband. It was so full of partiers, due to St. Patrick's Day. We decided not to go in, but instead to pass and go get some chocolate; we passed on that as well after entering. I guess I just don't have a taste for chocolate THAT much, but I did, because we needed gas, get some candy at the station for later.
Honestly, depression has been taking over my life. I am not suicidal -- necessarily; I do however, get very low. I just want to restart life. "Do over" as they call it, or call a Mulligan which means the same in golf. But how many times would restart over life? I do not think we would ever make it past the age in which we were given that talent and/or discovered it. If for example, we get the talent at age 5 we would probably restart life every single time that day. We would keep trying to get what we could not get the first time. Or the second? It's difficult.
But this is what is happening. I'm hating my life and wishing to start over. I've let this wheelchair take over everything and not let me do much. I do not ski, but I have been told I can; I feel I cannot. I do not surf, but I have been told that I can; I feel I cannot. I've been told I could play the guitar and the piano, paint and sculpt, but I do none of them; I feel I cannot.
Have I become a person who simply, though for good reason, cannot? By Joni Erickson-Tada paints and my friends Larry Singer travels and meet celebrities and lives life as far as I see. Both of them have gotten married and both of them are quadriplegics.
Have I become a person who simply gave up and therefore -- become a person who cannot?
How can I change this? Given my quadriplegia, how can I make my life the life that I wish it to be? What do I want? That's a good starting point

• be creative with something, writing would be a good one -- here's a scenario: I get a job offer from blizzard entertainment to develop a video game, a literary agent contacts me and says they want me to write a novel, and lastly, Steven Spielberg wants be to write a movie. If I could only choose one, which would I choose?
• travel the world
• Romance
• write music and sing
• earn the respect of people around me
• make money, not a huge amount, but enough to pay my caregivers well
• (in suit with the previous item) take care of my family and friends
• write an autobiography or self-help book (haha. That one makes me laugh)
• help cure spinal cord injury

Just checking, but is this thing working okay.? I'm not really sure how many times I can go through that stupid volume check inside the program. It's pretty annoying to do over and over.

What else is going on? I went to Lowe's yesterday to pick up some more hardware. Actually, it must have been Friday. All my days mesh together. Okay, so Friday I went to Lowe's and picked up some hardware to look at on my kitchen cabinets. Yesterday, Saturday, I went to Al's woodcraft look at barstools and a kitchen table with chairs. That girl talked way too much. She was helpful however, so I can forget that. I'm not sure she gets out much; it sure doesn't seem like it. Do I act like that? I don't get out much and sometimes I think when I do, people look at me like the strange guy they generally walk away from. Sure seems like that.

Before Al's woodcraft, though we went to the mall, where I thought I was going to Pottery Barn, but ended up at Restoration Hardware. They had a Pottery Barn there anyway, but it didn't have the chairs I needed. Nevertheless, I'm going to be getting my stuff in Al's woodcraft anyway. I'm hoping, that will be a better deal. raw + I have to go get the stain. Still going to be expensive, but not so much.

As for the house, it's almost finished. They need to touch up on some baseboards and whatnot; they need to paint the walls in the kitchen and after that, plumbing and appliances. Pretty much finished. This makes me wonder... what do I do next? Whenever I quit playing warcraft, I wish they'd something to fill up my time. Writing helps as its something to do and it requires some good hard work. I can never write anything without criticizing it completely. -- That's my biggest problem. That previous sentence explains exactly why I've never got a book out. It's not talent; it's not publicity; it's not friends -- it's just that I cannot get past myself. I'm too undisciplined. I try to work around it and try to fix it as well, but it doesn't seem too happen easy.

Where does that leave me?

I thought I was good at baseball, but then I heard about Hank Aaron; I thought I was good at playing piano in a band, but then I heard Elton John; I thought I was good at writing & poetry, but then I read Melville and Shakespeare; I thought I was good at science and mathematics, but then I learned of Einstein and Hawking; I also thought I coped well with quadriplegia, but then Christopher Reeve became one; and I thought it was good at Christianity but then I met Christ. Where does that leave me?