Winners and Losers

Thank you to everyone who entered my wheel-naming contest. I have decided to call my wheel Cecilia. (Everyone: Ce-ceeeeel-ya, you're breakin my heart/You're shaking my confidence lately/Oh Ce-ceeeeeel-ya, I'm down on my knees/I'm begging you please to come home...)

Now, no one suggested Cecilia, but I chose that name after having two songs stuck in my head for the week. First off (and winner number one), Meg got Sweet Caroline stuck in my head. And then, Christine's vote for Sweet Pea had the squeaky voice of Tommy Roe ricocheting through my brain, and earned her pressie numero dos. Ladies, send me your snail mail addies at the following email: kali -at- bgb -dot- cc .

All of the names were fantastic and I loved reading about the different divinities and myths that folks so kindly sent my way.

If you didn't before, check these great links out:
Shakti, the female divine force (from Lara)
Arachne, a weaver from Greek mythology (from Margene)
Isiri, inspiration in Yoruba (from Denise). I looked this one up on my own, because it sounded intriguing.

Now, the only losers in this post are the chumps who tried to keep my Sarah M CD from me (you know, the recording companies who think they don't get enough of my money already). I got a few concerned emails and some good suggestions (Tortuga posted some great links for ripping music, but the program never showed up in the add/remove panel for me to uninstall... It was a tricksy hidden driver) after my pissy post.

I did solve the problem Friday evening, and was able to get the CD tracks into my iTunes before Criminal Intent was over. I didn't have to pay any money, and I didn't expose my computer to any unnecessary threats. Here's how I did it:

1. To get rid of the questionable software, I followed the steps here (scroll down past the rant). Don't let this happen to you! Before you click "OK" to an End-User Agreement, know what you are downloading.

2. Then, I followed the steps here (instruction "B") to get the music tracks off of the CD and onto my hard drive.

A couple of notes about step two... I had to download CDex to rip the tracks to my computer. This is software I have used before, and it seems to be reliable and safe. (As always, your mileage may vary.) I could have skipped my first step and just burned a CD, but that seemed like a lot of work--after all, I already had a CD. Lastly, once I got the tracks into iTunes, they had no ID3 tags, so I had to manually type in the album, artist, and trackname for each song.

All in all, the process (including download time for CDex and ripping time from the disk to iTunes) took about 45 minutes. I did not have to sit at my computer that whole time.

By the way: I will not be returning the CD. And there will be no temper-tantrums thrown at Target (today). I paid for the music, and since I can now listen to it the way I want to, I will be keeping it. I do not in any way endorse, recommend, or condone using the above instructions to steal music.