Time to push in the CD's. I usually put on Spa music while I am working around the house. Very relaxing to me.

I sort of need the radio so I know what time it is. Even so I often don't know. I won't turn the tv on until after the 6:00 news and then change it before the 10:00 to the oldies channel and watch something I didn't see the first time around. Actually, I almost missed Dead Like Me the last two weeks because I forgot it was Tuesday and the tv wasn't on yet at 8:00.

I am not missing the TV from DISH. I do enjoy the Amazon Prime subscription. I get no TV at all with out it and then have to rely on the library DVD movies. I believe I will continue my Amazon Prime when my current year is up.

I was listening to Pandora and might get back into doing that. I just have so many CD's of spa and concert type music I would never run out of them. One yard sale i think i picked about 20 CD's for 3 dollars. I will listen to the same one over and over until i tire of it them choose another and the ones I do not care for go in the thrift store pile.

I am mostly in the state of "Butt First." Some times I can get a lot done when this sets in. Some times not so much.

The song that's sends me over the edge is 'Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer'. Once it comes on the radio, the radio is OFF for the duration. For some reason, stations seem to think people want to hear that song every hour for a month.

For us, the season starts with the Furman University Christmas concert, this Friday. Absolutely amazing talent, for $10 a ticket!

"but first" is why NOTHING gets done around here. I've gone to the freezer for a pizza, realized the dog water dish was nearly empty, filled it, returned it and remembered there were clothes in the washer to hang out... I've put left overs in the microwave, gone to do something else (the microwave, for pete's sake!) forgot I had something in there and fixed something else. Found the food in the microwave the next time I used it.

I second that song. I have never liked it. No TV for at least 4 years. No radio for 2 months. Guess I'll just be here.

It bothers me that Christmas music starts so early. I do everything I can to avoid Christmas music until the week of Christmas. I have no idea why but I can't stand Christmas music. I don't know if it's because it is always the same songs played over and over and there is never anything new.

Chris, have you investigated prime music? You can stream all sorts of music through your computer or tv with your prime account

I haven't tried it since I'm a long time Zune/Groove user and don't want to start over building a collection. But if microsoft makes it much harder to keep it going I'll drop Groove and work on prime music.

'Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer'

ha! I'm a gma and I love that song! one yr I put it on my answer machine...

"but first" is why NOTHING gets done around here. I've gone to the freezer for a pizza, realized the dog water dish was nearly empty, filled it, returned it and remembered there were clothes in the washer to hang out... I've put left overs in the microwave, gone to do something else (the microwave, for pete's sake!) forgot I had something in there and fixed something else. Found the food in the microwave the next time I used it.

that's me! I've put dinner in the mw and found it there the next day. I guess because I put it in there, I thought I ate it too... I just seem to go in circles...

Best post yet.

desert you sound like me.

how many times does it take to walk across the house for a lge trash bag.

i should say how many days does it take to remember to bring back the

bag, just too many distractions too many things to do. Hahaha

Stringweaver I will look into the Prime music. Thanks!!! I did not know this was also available on prime. I have so many laptops just sitting. I could put one in each room as little music boxes for when I am working in that room. Generally I just drag my kindle around room to room and plug it int speakers I have picked up at yard sales. I tuck them out of sight as best as possible and still be able to hear them nicely and leave the little plug in cord handy. I really should get shed of some of these laptops. It is such a pain to deprogram them.

oh Chris, so glad to hear I'm not the only one who stashes laptops rather than deprogram them! I think I have two, maybe three. Alas, I need windows 10 to run Groove, and that's why the last one became obsolete. I'm still working out how to get my full collection of ~8500 songs to run on my phone. It's supposed to work.

I just came into the world of Smart Phone so clueless on how to get ti to stream music.

Sadly i even keep my pile of lap tops plugged in to keep from losing the CMOS battery. I am keeping one laptop because it is sentimental to me. I should load it up with games and give it to the neighbor for her kids to play on. Maybe I will do that with a couple of the others.

I have Ubuntu loaded on another ancient laptop and it runs like a dream on it if I would just learn to use it. When my really expensive laptop started to go bad I got the really cheepo Dell I am on now. Was used lightly and $129. I think new they can be $249. It has no CD rom DVD so I picked up an external for another $20 shipped. I was keeping the old expensive laptop for the burner. At this point I really need to just sit down with it and get anything off of it I want to keep and let the machine go away. OR I do have cables I can hook on the hard drive and transfer anything to a large stick drive I want to keep. But for now it sits plugged in. Ubuntu has a lot of add on programs to use as upgrades for older computers. I down loaded the LXLE version when I did it a couple years ago and there is a great Ubuntu forum for help.

And finally Joe's computer. It is a windows 7 so not eligible for the free win10 upgrade. The lid on it is cracking. No idea what he did to it to do that. I asked once and he did not know. I LOVE the light keyboard on that machine and the hard drive is clean. He did not know how to save a file.

I LOVE my little windows 10 tablet and it was only $89.00. Maybe an option for you to get the upgrade you need inexpensively. The one thing I love about the little 10 inch tablet is it has all the ports. Mini HDMI and regular USB. I have not tried the external burner on it. It came with a kepboard attached to it but I use my external keyboard. It is a better fit for my hands. AND it keeps the tablet working as a touch screen all the time. the touch pad on the built in keyboard is too squirrley for me.

Snowing hard now and starting to build up. a little bit.

send some of that snow down here please! If it's going to be cold and gloomy, at least there could be fluffy white snow to make it pretty.

I have an ASUS netbook and usually carry that around from upstairs to downstairs and to work for streaming. I can get Groove on my new windows 10 phone, but I haven't worked out all the kinks yet. I have an old cd/radio boombox upstairs. It had external speakers, so I have wired in my good quality Boston Acoustics stereo speakers to it and use it for an amp, then use the aux jack to get the music running through that. Very nice. Downstairs I use a much less nice speaker. One day I'll get a bose bluetooth speaker. A friend has one and wow, it really does sound wonderful.

oh, and to get this thread back on topic, I have no Christmas music in my collection.

I heard christmas music in a walmart before Halloween!

Do you have a classical public radio station in your area? It will have some Christmas music, but it will be glorious English boy choirs sending traditional carols.

Oh, that sounds divine! We do and I will google the number for it. Seems like it's one of the real low numbers. Maybe 85ish?? I'll find out right now.

That sounds great Anglophilia. I would like that kind of Christmas music. I have a couple Christmas CD's or maybe Cassettes. I forget now. I rarely play them cause I did not do Christmas for so many years.

I could listen to her play all day. Hallelujah

A few years ago, I decided that I wanted some really GOOD Christmas music - not pop Christmas. So I went on iTunes and found several albums of music by English boy choirs and bought them, and then Googled "Boy Choirs Christmas" and bought a couple of CD's. At that time, my computer had a CD drive, so I downloaded all the albums onto the computer into iTunes. Then I synced my old iPhone that I was no longer using and had all the Christmas music on it. I found a small stereo at the grocery store that allowed an iPhone to be plugged into it, and I now can enjoy the Christmas music of my choice all over the first floor of my house. I have it in a continuous loop. I also downloaded it onto an iPod that plugs into my car stereo and I pretty much play it whenever I'm in the car from now until Christmas.

I have been seen driving down the road singing along, with great vigor, the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah! Just can't help myself when I hear it or the Beethoven's 9th Finale Chorus! I now - I'm just an old nerd...

Wow! You are all much more technically "with it" than I am!! I'm lucky I can work my tv and computer. Even my phone gives me fits from time to time. I was just saying today that I could use a kid to get my devices all working together smoothly! :)

OR I do have cables I can hook on the hard drive and transfer anything to a large stick drive I want to keep.

my goodness shades! how do you do that? I got a new computer and now have to get my stuff off of this old one and onto the new one... do you know how to get things like 'favorites' list and the list of frequent sites used off of one? I hate to lose all of that and have to start over! there's a program called 'PC mover' but it really doesn't get great reviews!

also, I'm looking for a tablet (or maybe even a laptop if cheap enough) for a friend who is also disabled. she is 60 and in recent yrs spent several months in a coma and just recently lost part of a lung. she is living with her mom (who is 88) now. she moved home yrs back to care for her dad when he was dying - it was after he died that she collapsed and went into a coma.

I want something with big enough screen for failing eyesight (at our age) and good sound for our failing hearing... a keyboard (that clicks) or at least port to take one for typing emails. she'd most likely will only use for emails, skyping with her kids/gkids (and friends - me) and surfing on web. her kids/gkids are in another state. she has little (very little) money and I think it difficult to keep $s on her cell phone to talk much to kids/gkids/me. I don't like to pry too much about it. I have asked some on the phone and told her I'd be much more than happy to send her money to help with phone so we could talk more (and even for her to talk to her kids/gkids). I'm blest that long distance is no charge on my LL.

She is concerned that if her mom dies the house will be sold and she'll have no where to live. She doesn't like either sister enough to live with...lol! i sure wouldn't want to live with either of my sisters! and doesn't want to go back to home state because it's too cold there (she's been in a bit warmer area for a number of yrs now). I will invite her to come live here - but not sure she will because it is so much farther away from her kids / gkids. they're just in the northern part of the state to the east of her now.

anyway, any recommendations on what tablet to get her? I like the amazon fire hd 10 but it is so expensive with 32 gb. people tell me that with only 16 gb it isn't very useful. I do like that it has Alexa. that would be very handy for her!

I'd like alexa myself. maybe i'll get me an echo dot down the road a bit. I'm not sure how good of a speaker the dot is tho. or even how anything connects to it. I got rid of my big 'ol wooden encased speakers when I moved into here. qvc had the tall echo on sale a few weeks back for about 100.00. great price but that's the first I'd heard of such a thing and I watched it just to learn about it.

murraysmom - i'm with you on this - "You are all much more technically "with it" than I am!! I'm lucky I can work my tv and computer. Even my phone gives me fits from time to time. I was just saying today that I could use a kid to get my devices all working together smoothly"

I got a new TV over TG weekend - will need Jed to set it up for me. Same with my computer I think... I haven't been able to keep up with changes in technology.

I have a cell phone in a box still cause I know I can' t set it up. tho, I plan to try this weekend if my eyeball will allow me to! I have a very bad left eyeball. was to 2 eye specialist on Tues and go back to the retina specialist today (in a few hours). it's swollen and putting pressure on the optic nerve (maybe my brain the way I think...). I have 3 different types of drops to put in thru-out the day - totaling 9 drops a day. oh, and I got a SHOT in the eyeball! ugh... not something I can recommend to anyone... my sister has to drive me to the docs cause I can't see enough to do it myself. also I don't know what he might do that will make it temporarily worse - like that enlarging of the pupil. he gave me sunglasses to wear just to sit in the waiting room.

Steph I use an Obi phone over my wireless internet connection to make all the long distance calls I want free. It is a bit like talking on a cell phone and some times drops the connection and you have to call back. I have had it for several years and my version is outdated but still working. This is close to the one I have. They do not even sell the older ones. I think I paid 35 dollars for it several years ago and have make 100's of long distance calls on it. Draw back is it usually does not have a local number prefix so people think I am calling from Idaho Falls. My friends know this so no biggie.

The little tablet I just bought with detachable keyboard is an RCA 10.1" 2-in-1 Tablet + Kbd Win 10 1.83GHz Quad Core 32GB 2GB RAM + OFFICE. I paid 89 dollars for it from Ebay. I really like it.

It has a mini HDMI port a regular USB port and a mini USB port. Also Blue tooth and of course WIFI. It is a nice size. I do not like the keyboard so took it off and use my little blue tooth keyboard with it. The keyboard that comes with it DOES click and way too loudly for me and the touch pad on it makes me insane. With my little 11 dollar blue tooth keyboard it works great. And it is also an 11 inch keyboard so a little bigger then the one comes with it.

Just remember she also has to pay for internet and that adds to the monthly bills unless she is close to a hot spot and can travel there to use it.

Anglophilia you really are a computer wiz.

My new, to me last February, laptop does not have a CD drive either. I picked up an external one for 20 dollars. I forget if it is a burner also. I do have a burner on one of my older laptops so if I were going to burn some thing I can use that one. I will have to get it out to see if it burns. I totally forget.

Yes I just looked at the exrternal CD rom drive and it is a DVD R/W. Hard to imagine they are so inexpensive now. I bet it will work with my Cambio tablet too. Humm. will have to try that.

I really should use the 10 inch tablet more. I just got so used to my lap top.

STEPH if you have Google chrome you can transfer your favorites to a new machine by importing it from Chrome. I do not use any other browser so I have no idea how to get them that way. With Chrome I can see all my favorites from every machine I have. So I am right at home no matter what machine I pick up. .

You can also use a usb port to transfer files and photos you want to keep. You can get a big one. I have a 128 GB USB stick that was maybe 6 dollars or less. I forget now. Just plug it in and make folders on it or copy your old folders to it.

" The keyboard that comes with it DOES click and way too loudly for me and the touch pad on it makes me insane. With my little 11 dollar blue tooth keyboard it works great. And it is also an 11 inch keyboard so a little bigger then the one comes with it."

I like a click when I type - I'm sure she does also (from when we worked together mega yrs ago doing bank input). how do things connect with this Bluetooth stuff? The USB?

I also think she'll prefer the full size keyboard - again, I sure do. that is also what we used yrs ago. I don't think she's worked on anything else. I don't think she's ever had a home computer.

I did see an RCA 10" on Amazon and it's one on my list of options. glad to know you like it! Do you think 16 gb is to little for good use? having 2 USB ports is very good. haven't seen that on other tablets. Does it have an 'Alexa' type helper on it?

Do you think I could set up Chrome on my old computer and transfer my favorites list to it from IE??

I'm sure google tracks one's every move online to make a huge profile on them! that kind of stuff I don't like!

"Just remember she also has to pay for internet and that adds to the monthly bills unless she is close to a hot spot and can travel there to use it."

yes, I thought of that. i'll need to pay it. is there an additional charge to get wifi? I need to check with my phone co about getting it for me too. I don't want her to put out any $s to use a gift from me...

Need to stop reading / typing for now. eyeball isn't happy with me... will be back after a rest. eyeball needs a nap!

I just talked to a co-worker about getting his teenage son to get my windows Groove software working on my windows phone. Then I can stop carting my netbook everywhere.

I don't know if any of you all like jazz. I heard a story on NPR this morning about the Savory collection newly released (only) on Itunes. Radio performances recorded live back in the day, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, etc. I don't like a lot of jazz, but this stuff I can lap up with a spoon. So I'm going to have to remember my login and password and buy it. Vol 2 will be released tomorrow.

Strigweaver the Jazz sounds wonderful. I really like most versions of music. NOT hard metal or Rap though.

Steph Mine is 32GB not 16 and for me it is fine. Bluetooth transfers through the air and my little Cambio has blue tooth but if it did not I have a wee blue tooth USB that will plug into a port. The USB ports are one large one small/mini. My external keyboard is full sized almost compared to a lap top not like a desk top keyboard. I did not like the smaller keyboard that came with the Cambio and it just sits in my charging station. Because of this I felt the need to buy a folding case for the Cambio and I tuck my keyboard into the case and it sticks out on either end a little bit.

Yes I think you can down load chrome on your old computer then import your IE favorites to chrome. It usually gives you that option. Then down load chrome to your new computer and import favorites again to it. This way both computers have assess to your favorites links.

I do not know who Alexia is . Windows 10 which is what the Cambio is had Cortana and I shot her dead minutes after I turned the little tablet on. I do not want some thing like that bothering me while I am trying to work. I also wonder if it is a form of keeping track of what we are doing. I also disabled the cloud on both windows 10 machines. I can store my own stuff thank you very much. I also disabled several games and anything else I do not use or felt was invasive.

As far as cost you would have to find that out on your end. My internet comes with a router and WIFI and all my devices are WIFI. Some tablets do NOT come with WIFI so be sure it is listed in description.

I'd better go for a 32gb tablet to be sure there's enough usable space for her. I, too, like a good sized keyboard - or at least, my fingers like it...

chrome has often popped up on my old computer for me to DL and I always get rid of it. now i'll have too pull it up and DL it. I don't like IE but the computer guy put it on here when he had it for repair a few yrs back. Good to know I can import my favorites to new computer once it's on this old puppy...it is surely on its last leg.

Alexa would be like Cortona I think. She only answers what she is asked tho. she came get help for you if needed - and if you've previously given her some contact info - and she is 'on' when you ask for help. Alexa can turn lights off and on (if set up to do that), answer questions, tell a joke, add to your grocery list or a 'to do' list etc.

I am concerned about all the info they gather on us. I also wouldn't use the cloud except maybe for a book from amazon. I bought a hardback book last week and they also put it in the cloud for me! I plan to cover the camera eye on my new tv and laptop. I've heard they can turn those cameras on and spy on people in their homes! it's getting very creepy ...

I bet wifi is an additional cost. they add money for most anything anymore. I plan to buy my own router rather than rent from the phone co. I will call tomorrow. I was just too tired today - after yet another eye doc appt! almost an hr drive each way. next wk I see him on Wed - that day he is at an office much closer to me. it'll only take about 30 min. today it did seem that some eyesight is back. I hope it continues to improve each day!

I do hope I like the new computer and wifi!

Good luck with all of it Steph. I do not want another woman in my house telling me what to do =Alexa Hahahahaha. I do not know how your internet or your friends internet works on the WIFI. All of them seem to be a little bit different. I do not pay monthly for my router. I am bundled with phone and internet and it is 74.00 a month so I feel it is pretty expensive. Unfortunately we are in a remote area with out much choice for internet/phone packages. When I use up my AT&T minutes on my pay as you go cell phone I will consider changing everything. I have until next September to use the minutes up. I better make some calls.