Having purchased a Creative Zen Xtra 30GB (oh, I don't know why, leave me alone!) I'm now 'ripping' my CD collection. This is a bit tedious, but not unbearable. I'm currently up to ~1200 songs, or 80 albums. I've about five times that left. I now find myself doing silly things like listening to all the songs beginning with Y (23), or with titles containing the contraction n't (29) (only one song fills both criteria). This throws up odd juxtapositions (The Bee Gees and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs) which is interesting, but a bit random. I have noticed that The Ramones contribute five songs to the n't list, which is pretty high.

I'm pleased to see that Creative and Audible are working together to make the Zen Audible compatible. Oh, and I was so glad to get rid of the infuriating Musicmatch Jukebox, which I was using to rip stuff.

Update: Having spent the day listening to me new toy, it's been fun. I have the whole lot (we're up to 1616 songs now) on random, and no matter what earworm you end up with, there'll be another one along in a minute. The device came with a couple of albums on it, including The Dubliners greatest hits (or similar) so it's a bit of a shock when I had Luke Kelly bawling in my ear just after Beethoven (also included). It's those wacky juxtapositions again.

On the domestic front, we're reaching equilibrium. Sally still can't drive, but Roisin is well behaved and sleeping well (touch wood, fingers crossed, turn sideways and spit) and so we can cope. Sally's mum is out of hospital, although her sight isn't restored and they don't think it will ever be. So she has to get used to that, but that's just a matter of time.

Folk have been very supportive, coming with dinner on a number of occasions and coordinating school runs and such. Tis much appreciated.

I'm finding it hard to get back into the work thing. I just loved being off. I was going around with a big silly grin on my face and it was hard to escape the conclusion that I was happy. Even now, I'm looking out the window at the two older ones and watching them play in the garden and they're just lovely.

And, in order to end on a less saccharine note, have you visited http://hugeurl.com/ ?