Friday, March 30, 2012

Enough, Already!


Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?  If you're like most people, you are all too familiar with the phenomenon.  Well, for the past few nights, I've heard Taylor Swift singing her song "Ours" in my head over and over.  I don't even care all that much for Taylor Swift and her songs.  Having it on endless loop in my head is even less appealing and waking up in the night to hear "Don't you worry your pretty little head....." is a downright nightmare.   Aaaargh!  So how in the world do you get a song unstuck?

One website suggested listening to the sound of your breathing.  I wear a CPAP at night.  Anything that can make it through the noise of that contraption from hell is NOT going to be deterred by the sound of my breathing.

Another suggestion is to start concentrating on a song that is even more annoying and "memorable."  Hey, do I REALLY want to replace Taylor with "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?"  Not THIS pretty little head!

You can try turning down the volume in your head and see if that works.  Problem is that I was a drama major who enjoyed working in musical theatre, too.  I don't naturally sing softly.  I belt out songs.  I'm not sure I can do "soft."


Some suggest giving in to the "earworm" and singing the tune aloud.  I guess the theory is that you are getting it out of your system that way.  I just don't know.  I wake up a lot in the night and thus am "hearing" that darn song a lot.  If I start belting it out frequently in the wee hours, the Commander is apt to relegate me to the guestroom where I'll find myself singing the blues.

Sigh!  I guess it could be worse.  I could have a heavy metal song (now THERE'S an oxymoron) stuck in my head.  Looks like it makes sense to just relax and enjoy the concert while it lasts and maybe, in the meantime, I'll figure out what subliminal message this song is trying to send me.


On a completely different topic, I recently tried to update my Nook Color e-reader with the latest software version 1.4.2.  I was still on 1.3 and hadn't had any luck getting the update via the wireless so I decided to follow the instructions on the Barnes and Noble website and download the new update and manually install it.  This did NOT prove to be an easy task.

I tried twice and the Commander tried once and we just couldn't get it to install.  I decided to do a little online sleuthing to see if others were having the same problems.  Yup!  After reading a variety of suggestions, the common denominator seemed to be that you were more apt to have a successful experience if you downloaded the new update in Internet Explorer.  We had been trying it in Chrome.  However, even folks using Firefox were reporting lots of problems.

Armed with my new information, the Commander followed the exact same steps we had followed on our earlier attempts but this time using IE and voila!  The update installed with no problems.  It's times like this when I REALLY appreciate the simplicity of Apple's iTunes store and their approach to software updates with my iPhone and iPad.  'Nuff said.

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