alayna and i both suffer from canker sores, so i was searching walgreens for some medication. knowing that one of the prime ingredients in topical pain relief is benzocaine, i searched for that to see what would turn up. along with the results i was expecting, i also got a link to Mandelay, which (fittingly enough) prolongs a man's ability to last. that would have been a great time for somebody to walk by my cube and get a good glimpse at what would appear to be my interest.

i'm on a kick lately of buying up some stuff that i've had burned for a while, but i feel i should probably own for real. it had occurred to me that some of my favorite albums i actually own only in the format of a circa 2000 memorex CD-R and often with 128kbps quality primitive rips. i'm much more of an audiophile than i was 5 years ago, and i can actually tell they're shittier quality, especially after i've abandoned playing CDs and rip everything to 192kbps mp3s. so rather than buying my favorite tracks on iTunes or napster (which highly unfortunately lock me into a proprietary format) i pick up the used CD for as low as i can find.

my favorite used CD store i've found so far is SecondSpin. this time around i've ordered the following --

Bush / Deconstructed – $3
Neve / Neve – $3
Caviar / Caviar – $3
Dave Navarro / Trust No One – $4
Silverchair / Frogstomp – $3
Fuel / Something Like Human – $4
2 Skinnee J’s / Volumizer – $3

each of those has at least 4 tracks that i like, which means they go into iTunes and my 20gb player. so for only $3 or $4, i average less than a $1 a track (so less than iTunes or napster) and i get it in uncompressed PCM format, so i can do what i want with it. plus an added bonus: the RIAA sees no profit from used CD sales. ;)

despite my giant lack of playing my PS2 lately, i've decided to go back and get legit copies of a few classics. i'm more likely to pick 'em up and play if i see the box over on the rack, heh. plus at this point a lot of 'em are pretty damn cheap.

as an example, i saw grand theft auto 3 on ebay with like 42 minutes left to go, highest bid at like $3.75. so i put one down with a max of $4.50 and had the winning bid at $4.25 till like the last second, when somebody won it for $6.50. i figured i had lost a good deal, but then i checked gamestop and saw they have it for $4.99 used anyway. vice city is only $8, beyond good & evil is $10. so i decided fuck ebay and half.com, i'll just buy 'em through good ol' gamestop. this seems to work for the older games, but newer stuff like god of war and gran turismo 4 is still like $40 used, so you're better off bidding on those probably.

a rare workday post, eh?

--j