They should call it Shitamp 3...
So last year around Christmas I decided to upgrade to Winamp 3. I figured I'd be up to date with things that would make my Mp3 experience a whole lot brighter. Now I'll have you know, and some of you might, Mp3s and Winamp have been a staple of my computer life here at Nova. The music is always on through winamp (it doesn't deserve the capital w). You see, my playlist, which I've had since September of '01 has gone through college with me. It had survived unscathed since the great crash of August '01 and I like it that way. It is in no order, except in the order in which I downloaded it. It kind of maps out my growth and learning through the years. Also important was winamp's shuffle feature because it would surprise me with songs that I wouldn't even remember I had. If my playlist was going to grow winamp would have to as well. So I went and I took the leap into 3. Dumb!

Little did I know that the software would suck...and suck hard. Not only did the bastard eat up 3 times the memory as it's predecessor (like you care) but it changed the shuffle feature, making it not random (surprised you're still reasing). It started repeating songs and some songs ceased to exist in my world because I refused to search 2000 songs for something I don't even remember having. It did have a fine little search feature, and a queue that I could control, but then I knew what was coming. Where's all the crazy fun in that? But I kept it. I convinced myself that its flashy new looks and higher version number meant it had to be better, despite all the flaws I saw; says alot about me doesn't it? Never again would I acheive the high of hearing a grand ol song out of the blue. But all wounds heal.

Then today, months later, somewhere between watching the television and yelling at the television for being to glarey in the daytime for "Enter the Matrix" on the XBOX I decided to cruise around Winamp.com. I found that not only have theY not released any updates to winamp 3 to fix all my problems, but that they have released improvements on Winamp 2 (it gets the capital because it rocks). So Winamp 2.91 is newer than winamp 3. OK whatever, I decided that I would make the upgrade..or downgrade...or sidestep? Assholes.

PAIN IN THE ASS! No words can describe how hard it would be to make sure my playlist would remain true to its orginal form in the new old Winamp. I bet you're saying, "Hey Tom, they are the same program, wouldn't the playlists be copmpatible"? No of course not! The fuckin ballfucks decided to intorduce a new format. So after a long process of saving in the old format, deleting faulty files and installing both versions at the same time, I finally got my list. But try clicking on a file and some of them turn into a dash. Just a dash. FUCK! So then I had to sit and type in all the titles and artists for half of the list.

Fuck you Nullsoft (Winamp 3 era)! Your product is like building a wheel and then making it square cause you think it looks better. The fuckin wheel ain't gonna work if it doesn't roll! You're officially put on "The Bus."

Huzzah Nullsoft (Winamp 2.91 era)! You make me nostalgic for late nights writing papers with a buffalo chicken sandwich from Wingers, a tub of Wawa Lemonade, and Winamp pounding away at those songs that I've heard, but kind of sort of don't remember.