the weather is abnormal.sea the wave is big and flowing rapidly. sea swimming of prohibition against

[odycee]

I've got some Christmas shopping done! Not all of it, but a large chunk. I've also got some Christmas cards, and I've got my brother's birthday present. \o/ And on the subject of Christmas, seshat1 made me this Santa hat icon! It's a bit early for holiday icons yet but I had to use it!

I've been spending quite a bit of time recently converting my old cassette tapes to mp3's (that's what I was doing when I wrecked the sound card in my laptop). They're not any old cassette tapes - they're my Story Teller tapes from the early 80's and I don't want to lose them forever when the tapes finally give up the ghost, so I thought I'd get them onto CDs. Did any of the UKers on my f-list have them as a kid? (I know my anonymous lurker friend did.) They were 'a collection of the world's best children's stories' which were out fortnightly and they came with an illustrated magazine so you could read along with the story. I'm sure that my love of reading and stories came from having these from the age of about two. They were my first exposure to loads of classic stories - Gobbolino, the Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Heidi, the Happy Prince, the Anansi stories and so many others. Grogre the Ogre was my absolute favourite though - when I was three, the nursery nurse asked me what I was painting and I told her that it was a slime monster with tentacles. Hee! I'm having such fun listening to them again.

And finally, a hilarious Engrish sign about swimming at the beach.

Comments

[thrupenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish I'd had those tapes, they sound fun. How are you putting cassettes onto mp3? I've got a load of tapes I'd like to save in case my tape-player eats them.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

I may have had The Happy Prince... that story made me so sad!

That Engrish is some of the worst I've ever seen! It's hard to make out what on earth they're trying to say in most of them.

Now, in case you haven't had a chance to check your flist, be sure you've seen this. ;)

[odycee.livejournal.com]

Hee! It is very cool! My friend's children are loving them! Do you know, one of the only places on the internet I can find that mentions them is ebay.

[odycee.livejournal.com]

They're really fun! They have quite famous people reading stuff as well like Joanna Lumley.

How are you putting cassettes onto mp3?

I've got a cable (from Dixons) that's got a headphone type attachment at both ends. You plug one end into the headphones port on the stereo and the other into the line-in port on the computer (for the love of god don't plug it into the microphone port of a laptop because it fucked mine up!). Then I use audacity, which is a free program, to record the sound from the cassette and convert it into an mp3. The program even has a noise reduction function so you can get rid of tape hiss.

[odycee.livejournal.com]

The Happy Prince is so sad. The Selfish Giant is too. Did you ever read that? A lot of the stories are really gruesome actually! The Gingerbread Man ends with the words - 'but the Gingerbread Man didn't say anything ... ever again'. He's been completely eaten!

I did see that - I commented on your post actually. LJ is obviously still fucking around! But great photo isn't it!!

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Selfish Giant is so sad too. Oscar Wilde wrote heartbreaking kids' stories. I don't think I had the Gingerbread Man, but ouch! What an ending!

And yes, LJ is still being arsey. I see your comment now. But those photos are worth repeat viewing!

[odycee.livejournal.com]

The Selfish Giant always used to make me cry. And it still does in fact!

The Gingerbread Man gets eaten by a fox but not all in one go. First he realises that he's a quarter gone, then half gone, then three-quarters gone. It's quite horrible actually!

Yes, many repeat viewings of those photos are necessary!

[blackgarden.livejournal.com]

BOO at people who start shopping early! Thanks for making the rest of us look bad! :P