Me and iTunes

Okay, by now you probably know that if anyone can somehow manage to make things twice as difficult as they should be, it's me. Take last night, for example.

The grandkiddo is already demonstrating great taste in music -- he gave me a Saffire- The Uppity Blues Women CD for Christmas. (Okay, so he was barely two months old at the time; his father had to help him place the order.) Unfortunately, it was in the form of a download from iTunes.

I have dial-up, remember. It takes for-freakin'-ever to get anything done.

So I have, like, five hours before bedtime. I get online, open up the iTunes store and click "Redeem Now" in the email from Grandkiddo via iTunes. And nothing happens. Over and over and over. Finally I copy this honkin' long code, prepared to sign onto the iTunes site and see if I can go from there. As I slide the mouse away from the unworking "Redeem Now" button, it works.

I put in my password (my user name is my old email address from something like four years ago, but I can't get iTunes to let me change it), and the download starts. It goes and goes and goes and, voila, two hours later, I've got TWO freakin' songs downloaded.

Another hour, I've made better progress; I've got five out of twenty.

And I lose my connection to iTunes.

It won't let me reuse the same "Redeem Code," so I dig my way through the iTunes' site and finally figure out how to resume the download. After five hours, I've got fifteen songs. I go to bed, leaving my little computer and my blasted slow dial-up working away.

Eight o'clock this morning, there are still three songs to go.

Aaaarrrrggghh.

In fairness to my provider, the Internet connection got terminated at some point during the night -- probably several times -- and when it reconnected automatically, of course, it couldn't restart the iTunes download.

After another hour this morning to finish those last three songs, I finally have my Saffire CD!!

If you like blues and aren't familiar with the Uppity Blues Women, get thee to iTunes (though, frankly, I prefer a music store these days!). They have some of the best songs -- "Middle-Aged Blues Boogie" is a hoot, "Bitch with a Bad Attitude" might be my new favorite song, the Liza-and-the-insurance-man song is great, and "(No Need) Pissin' on a Skunk" is a goal I've been striving for a long time.

Only I could require thirteen hours to download a single CD. But it was damn well worth it! Rachel7:11 PM