If you’re like me at Christmas, you spare a good bit of no expense to provide nothing but second best the best for the guy whose name you picked out of a hat your loved ones. In that helpful spirit, here is how you get out-of-print songs that you don’t own off of the internet and onto your knock-off brand X mp3 player!
1. Download some cheese-eating audio editing software… like the one that rhymes with “Shmaw-dacity.”
2. Get a mini-to-mini audio cable (stereo.) It helps if you swiped a bunch of these from the place you used to work. (Sorry, I left that out.)
3. Connect the audio out from one laptop to the mic in of a second laptop. (Oh yeah, you need two PCs. Dang it!)
4. Find the song on YouTube or something.
5. Record the song into the editing software.
6. Save As something remotely usable, like .wav, instead of whatever goofy proprietary file extension they give you.
7. Load the song into Windows Media Player on the first PC.
8. Burn the song onto a CD. It’s better to get ten or songs before you do this. (Again, sorry.)
9. Rip the songs BACK into Media Player, as .wma’s this time.
10. Sync the song to your cheesy brand-X mp3.
11. Repeat until exhausted, or until mp3’s become obsolete.
In all seriousness, Audacity is a little chunkified, but I have used it a lot to get my old LP’s (look it up, kids) into my mp3.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Remember, friends, Christmas can be a time of frustration and deep family weirdness…
…oh, were you expecting a “but“? I thought you knew me better!
A Lively Exchange 
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