Day: November 22, 2012

My Music @ Play

- Roshan

Does anyone still have music cassettes anymore? I can’t find a single cassette anywhere in my belongings as I remember chucking out all my old tapes, the last batch being sold to scrap collectors back in September of 2011 (which was just about 20-30 tapes). I used to have a huge and I mean huge music cassette collection. No idea on the actual numbers as I also had mixed tapes a plenty. I filled a huge shelf and two cupboards with my tapes, in alphabetical order (as much as I could). During the move from our old houseĀ  to the apartment back in 2006, I had discarded several tapes into an old box and given it to a guy who collects scraps of stuff and sells them at really low prices. I did feel funny throwing them out; if it wasn’t for the move and the lack of space in the new place, I might have had those tapes forever!

Around 2004 I started buying more cds and that has become a big collection in it’s own right – however I now face the same issue with the cds that I once faced with the tapes. If I buy a cd, I rip the songs into mp3 format and burn them onto my laptop and save another copy into an external hard drive that I maintain just for music. All the cds are collecting dust, most of them that I have bought since September 2006 have never even been played – not even once!!!! Rip and play as mp3s on my computer? yes many times over. So now I have a steel cupboard with the bottom big shelf filled with cds collecting dust and just taking up space. I dunno what I will do with them. Do I sell them and create some space for books andĀ  other stuff? I will think about what to do with it next year when I do my annual cleaning in January.

Meanwhile my mp3 collection is now 62 gb strong. I have stopped getting new music for a while; got a bunch of stuff that I need to listen to and review first. 62 gb is not bad, not bad at all.

Arsenal 2 Montpellier 0

- Roshan

Arsenal reached the Champions League knockout stage for a 13th consecutive season as they outclassed Montpellier and Schalke beat Olympiakos. The Gunners struggled for momentum in a disappointing first half that saw Laurent Koscielny head against the bar. But they improved after the break and Jack Wilshere scored his first goal since returning from injury with a chipped finish from close range. Lukas Podolski sealed the win with a stunning volley as Montpellier faded. It was an unstoppable strike that will be replayed many times over – a fitting way to secure a place in the last 16.

Schalke’s home victory over Olympiakos keeps the Germans top of Group B on 11 points, one clear of Arsenal with one game left. Olympiakos, who host Arsenal on 4 December, are third on six points and will drop into the Europa League, while Montpellier remain bottom with just one point from five matches. But in the early stages Arsenal struggled to impose themselves or establish rhythm, misplacing a number of passes. They looked nervous at the back and after Thomas Vermaelen was easily beaten by Remy Cabella on the right, Wojciech Szczesny flapped at Geoffrey Jourdren’s cross from the left. Arsenal almost took the lead when Koscielny rattled the woodwork with a thumping header from Vermaelen’s left-wing centre, but that was their only chance of note in the opening half hour.

Wenger’s side came out for the second half with more urgency and their reward soon arrived. Vermaelen crossed from the left for Giroud to cushion a header into the path of Wilshere, and the 20-year-old dinked a neat finish over Jourdren for his first goal since November 2010. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain worked his way in from the right and fed Podolski on the edge of the box. The German found Giroud and then met his lofted return pass with a stunning volley past Jourdren.