Crime pays

So I've got this new mp3 player, and I'm filling it up in advance of our road trip in France. I'd spent many a wet and wintry afternoon copying CDs I'd paid for onto the old PC and I wanted to retrieve my music. Meanwhile, we got a new PC. So I got the Vol-in-Law to hook up the old PC again and I duly downloaded my vast collection onto the new player.

Well, it doesn't work. Turns out I'd recorded almost everything in RealAudio format or agreed to have it convert the files from Windows Media format (.wma). My mp3 player doesn't support .rmj files. RealPlayer doesn't support my particular brand of mp3 player (though just about every other brand I've heard of and those I haven't). I spent a fruitless morning trying to find free downloadable converting software. Arggg.

The funny thing is - all the music that I stole off the internet using peer to peer file transfer software is all in mp3 format already and plays perfectly well in my machine.

Crime does pay. Music wants to be free. And I feel like a chump for using RealPlayer.