amatyultare

Oh hey, it's my LiveJournal! I haven't used this since January, for the annual year-end meme! But I have a lot of FEELINGS about Les Misérables, specifically the movie musical version that came out recently. So I return to LJ to, as I have so often in the past, vent.

Oh, and I assume that anyone interested in my thoughts on the movie probably has a pretty good idea already of how the story goes, but just in case, warning: yes there will be spoilers.

( At the end of the day... )

Earlier this evening, for reasons I now cannot recall, I became obsessed with finding a copy of an audio-book. I rarely listen to audiobooks, but this was an exception - it was a recording of Thumbelina that I had on tape when I was little and listened to every night before going to sleep for months (maybe years). The reading/acting is great, and the music is lovely, and it's just one of those childhood-nostalgia things, you know? So I decided I needed a copy. (If you're curious, it's the Kelly McGillis and Mark Isham version.)

An audiobook created fifteen years ago - you'd think that the publisher would make sure to make it available as widely as possible, right? I mean, it's not like the latest Top 40 song where potential listeners might be willing to use a specific vendor or format to find it, so it'd make sense to put in up for paid download a bunch of places, right?

Hah.

After an hour of searching, my options came down to:
1. Buying the CD from a third-party seller on Amazon. Unfortunately, this would have meant waiting days for it to be shipped to me, and I was in full instant-gratification mode by this time.
2. Buying a video version from a kids-book website, which was the audio+illustrations. I would have had to pay more for this than the CD, and then figure out how to split the video and audio so as not to burn out my iPod battery even more by 'watching' a 'video' every time I wanted to listen to it.
3. In theory, find a BitTorrent download for it. Unfortunately, ethical implications aside, there are a couple of audio-book versions of Thumbelina and I couldn't tell whether any particular file was the version I wanted. Also, you know how many people are seeding Thumbelina audio-tapes? None, that how many.
4. Get a subscription to Audible and then download it there. This is the option I eventually went with; eh, I'll cancel my subscription in a few days.

And now it's way, way too late and I should have gone to sleep hours ago. I'm off to bed...but I'll listen to Thumbelina first. :)

So things are going well here in the DFC. Work is fine...a ridiculous amount of drama for a place with only about 8 employees, but I am keeping quiet and out of it. Since I'm only part time, I get to intern at the Center Theater Children's Camp again this year! The last time I was able to help was summer 2004, so it's been a while. (For those of you who don't remember, our local theater sponsors a day camp for kids; with the help of their director--Middy R., who was two years ahead of my in HS and is awesome--and the interns, they try out for, rehearse, and put on a play in two weeks.) The crazy part is that we have 39 kids, which is HUGE. Middy gave up with just adding extra parts and added an entire extra scene in the play ('The Velveteen Rabbit') just to fit all of the kids in. They are an extremely rambunctious group, but it's still going to be a blast.

I was thinking about writing a rant about the LJ-wide drama, but half of my f-list probably doesn't pay enough attention to these things to even know what I'm talking about, so any rant would require many long explanations of ridiculous events. Let me just say, for backstory, look at news back entries, and specifically the comments on those entries. With that in mind, three things.

1) I understand why so many people were so upset about Strikethrough 2007. But, it was months ago, and it's clear that LJ regrets what happened. Let it go, at least enough that you don't mention it every time LJ does ANYTHING.

2) The fact that LJ feels it needs to provide compensation to its paid users for EIGHT HOURS of site unavailability (through no fault of LJ, mind you)--and the fact that they're right; if they didn't provide said compensation, many users would be screaming for blood--is a sad commentary.

3) Anyone who is upset that Vox was reinstated 15 minutes before LJ (after that power outage), is mentally ill. Sorry, but it's just too ridiculous. Fifteen minutes means that SixApart hates us? Persecution complex, anyone? (And how do these people even KNOW this? It's fifteen minutes, for goodness sake!)

Anyway. Bedtime. Later, all!

Edit: On the plus side, the ridiculousness of certain members of LJ brings out the hilarious snarkiness of other members. Re #2 (the compensation thing), see Can't sleep, LJ will eat me