sigh ... flac vs. ogg

Every time a new computer comes along, with a shiny big new harddrive, I start thinking about how to store music. I made the decision to use ogg vorbis several years ago because it was superior to mp3 and the quality I got sounded fine.
Then a while back, Machinae Supremacy started hosting their music in flac format, and as it turns out, it sounds so much better than the oggs they used to offer, especially when using a decent stereo system (like the one in Nummi's BMW).
So I think I'm going to start to use flac as well for most stuff. I started off with Porcupine Tree's Arriving Somewhere DVD, which, after some hassle, I managed to rip the audio track from, cut it into individual tracks, and then encoded them to flac.
The only problem I see here is storage. The resulting audio tracks from this single concert DVD are around 750MB. I should be fine for a while, but I'll probably need an additional hdd eventually.
And the 16GB my Sansa has don't seem like all that much room anymore, either ...

Oh well, anyway. Thank God for Rockbox, or I wouldn't even be thinking about these things ... How many portable music players have native flac support anyway?

meinvz

Ich hab' übrigens meinen Widerstand überwunden und stattdessen meiner Neugierde freien Lauf gelassen, und mich bei meinvz angemeldet.
Wer dort ebenfalls präsent ist darf mich gerne suchen und adden. Mein Name und wo ich wohne sind ja kein Geheimnis d;

Wetten, dass?

Also, der Plan sieht so aus. Steffi und Bine sind im Parkhaus, wenn sie anrufen fahr' ich da hin (Steffis Auto hab' ich hier), hole die beiden ab, und fahr' sie nach Hause.
Dann fahr' ich morgen gegen Mittag Steffi wieder abholen, in den Laden, da nehm' ich mein Fahrrad und fahr nach Hause, weil Steffi fährt ihre Schwester in Hamburg besuchen.
Laut Dienstplan hab' ich morgen Abend Bereitschaft, Steffi hat Dienst.

Nun meine Wette: Ich wette, dass Steffi mich morgen zwischen 16:00 und 17:00 anruft und bittet, in den Laden zu fahren, weil sie nicht rechtzeitig zu Dienstantritt da sein wird.
Mal sehen ob ich Recht hab' ... d;

Nicht dass es mir was ausmachen würde wenn's so wäre - zu Hause wird mir eh schnell langweilig, und ich hab auch nicht mehr wirklich was hier zu erledigen ...

Eieiei ...

... bin gerade wieder zur Tür 'rein. Hab Bine nach Hause gebracht, und Steffi, und irgendso einen Typen, den die beiden aufgegabelt haben.
Hat 'n bißchen gedauert, so mit zwei Zwischenstops, um "frische Luft zu schnappen" ...
...

So. Jetzt ins Bett, um 12:30 soll ich bei Steffi sein, vorher noch duschen, also ca. 11.00 aufstehen. YaY!

grah, I say ...

I picked up a very hungover Steffi around 1pm, followed by Sven, then we drove to work so I could collect my bike.
Before heading home I remembered that the new Farin Urlaub single was released today. I'd planned to bike to Pressezentrum and spend all the cash I had in my wallet (~ 50€) on that single, and whatever Porcupine Tree CDs I'd find.
While waiting for a traffic light to turn green, it occured to me that I was right next to Saturn. That's basically on my way home anyway, while Pressezentrum is in the city. So I decided to go there instead. Went in, took a look at the mp3 players (The Sansa E280 is up to 120€ again from their sale a few months ago, when they sold it for 70€), then headed for the PorcTree CDs. I found 3 overpriced CDs, one of which I already have. So I didn't even bother to grab the Farin Urlaub single, and instead decided to go to Pressezentrum after all.
Once there though, it turned out that they're still redecorating, or something. Half the store is closed, and the rest is small, crowded, and not a lot of stuff is actually available. I couldn't find the single at all, and the PorcTree CDs were the same that Saturn had, for the same high price. Oh, and the latest EP (that's basically four tracks that didn't make it onto the album), for the price of a full album ...
Yeah. So I didn't leave any money there either.
Desperate, I tried Karstadt, but unsurprisingly, their media sections sucks big time. Not a single Porcupine Tree CD, and the only Farin Urlaub single I could find was Nichimgriff. The one released today was unavailable.
Well, at least I remembered to buy a pack of amarays which I'd meant to do for several months.

Now I'm back home, and kinda waiting for Steffi to call.
And I want PorcTree CDs dammit!

Something I noticed on the way home ... Lots of empty shops lately. There used to be a baby shop in my street (which, as it turns out, never sold any actual babies, just used clothes, toys etc for babies). That's empty and available for rent now. Same goes for the flower shop next to the super market. They're not closed yet, but there's a sign saying that it's for rent too.
And the second hand CD / vinyl shop in the city is gone too ):

amazon.co.uk ...

... I ordered some PorcTree CDs from amazon.de. Some were too expensive, so I thought I'd order those from amazon.co.uk. They're being weird though. A search for Fear of a blank Planet turns up the album priced at 6.98 pounds. Sound good, but when I go to checkout, it's suddenly at 7.22. Same goes for all the other CDs. They're listed at a decent price, but when I actually try to order them the price goes up.


Ahh right, I've figured it out, though I don't think they've always done it like that.
The price they list appears to include 15% UK VAT, but when they deliver to Germany they need to charge 19%. So that's where the difference in price is from. 6.98 / 1.15 * 1.19 = 7.22

I wonder if amazon.com do it like that now as well. I'm pretty sure they used to leave it up to local customs offices to charge VAT ...