Music For Free, Sort Of

It's getting late, and I've spent way too much time tonight sitting at the computer. I really shouldn't have, because I've got to work in the morning, and it's not like I'm doing anything that can't wait for the weekend, but it's like this:

My wife set up a music file sharing server on our computer. Some of her co-workers recommended it to her, and the other day, when I got home, I found it all set up, and downloading.

That was it, for me. This wasn't the sort of thing I'd've set up on my own, but now that it was there, on the computer, it was too good to pass up. So I asked my wife to show me how it works, and I set it to start downloading some of my favorite songs. This would be a big day.

You see, a few years ago, I lost my CD collection. It was in my car, we were in an accident, and the car was totaled. When I went to the junk yard to sign over the title and collect our stuff from the wreckage, I didn't see the discs. I figured they must be a home somewhere. About six months later, when we moved to our current place, I still couldn't find the discs. Now I think that the guys at the junkyard got themselves a music collection. But I have digressed....

eMule isn't the fastest system, but works reasonably well, and after a few days of patience, I found that I had half a dozen of my favorite songs back, and available to listen to. And if you ask, yes, getting the music was worth the wait. After all, free is definitely a better deal than a record store can offer.

Well, almost free. It's polite to keep the downloaded files accessible to other eMule users; after all, this is a file sharing service. But I don't think that sharing is too high a cost.