No more music for me :-(

It's official...WinMX has died, and I am gutted. I discovered WinMX last year at my hostel (even though we weren't actually allowed to have music downloading programmes on our network because it slowed everyone down, but I still did it anyway because I am so damned rebellious...) from one of my friends who had had it at her house back in Hamilton. I had once downloaded KaZaA on my dads computer and used that for about 6 months, (before he got anal about my excessive internet use and cluster of viruses that came with it) so I was naturally wary about adding the itch to my already disease ridden laptop. But WinMX was great: no pop ups, no nothing. Just easy downloading for your pleasure.
After downloading, me and the girls went music crazy; it really was the highlight of my day/evening at the dingy hostel. It was like a new toy that you just couldn't get enough of, fabulously fabulous. We downloaded new songs, old songs, songs that brought back the memories. We made our own soundtracks such as "Grooving Oldies Volumes 1,2 and 3" (you know those songs you cant help but love, mostly from the 80's-90's era) and listened to them continuously. Right up until the day that I got busted and had to disconnect from the network, we grooved away to the sweet sounds of downloaded beats.

Because of my love for it, I continued to download all of this year. I was addicted. I had all the beats for the parties; name a song and it was there. I was getting my hands on the hot property of music artists without having to buy their entire CD (which was probably stink anyway). I would download for hours, and sometimes que up songs and leave it going all night. THEN...one day, I went to hook up for the downloading goodness, and it wouldnt connect to the network. It usually only took 10 seconds to find the WinMX network then let me download, but the little yellow light just kept flashing, telling me it was still searching. I instantly knew something was wrong, I could sense discomfort with my computer. I thought nothing of it, telling myself that the internet must have been playing up, and I'd try again later. The next day, the same thing happened. No response what so ever. I thought myabe my computer needed to be turned off for a few days to relieve itself from stress, you know, have a little bit of a holiday. So I did. I gave it a rest and when I returned to download, still nothing. I became like a smoker trying to quit; aggitated and at times angry, I took my stress out on the one who served me so faithfully. I tried to adjust settings on the computer to see if it was my fault, but still, nothing (if anything I've probably done something to it so that when I want to activate another programme I wont be able to, IDIOT!). A week had passed and I thought I'd check out the WinMX website to see what the dillio was, and to my absolute shock horror...it was announced: WinMX had crashed with no survivors. It had finally dawned upon the music industry in the States that no one was buying CD's anymore, therefore artists werent getting all the money for their bling bling necklaces and pimping rides, therefore the music industry was suffering. DANG NAB IT! Dissapointment came over me. I had to download a new programme now, but everytime I went to try get a free one, I couldnt, they were going to make me pay (with a credit card that I just down own, how unfortunate). Although I was mournful of my lost love of downloading the grooves, I wasn't paying, not to mention my computer had contracted another disease off the net and was refusing to obey (I really need to take it in to get vaccinated, Norton obviously wasnt powerful enough for my little beast).

1 and a 1/2 months on, I'm a recovering WinMX addict, facing the fact that I'm going to have to buy music again. I've tried looking at CD's I might like, but yet again, the old "2 song curse" comes over me; 2 songs on the whole CD that I like, the rest crap. I'm putting out the feelers to my friends who have other downloading programmes, to download me playlists then burn me CD's. There were a couple of songs I heard on the radio the other day that I really liked, but tried not to get too excited about potentially owning them. Let me tell you, it was hard, but I'm a strong person and moved on. Now if I hear a song I like, I have those 3 minutes and 43 seconds in a trance land where I cant be interupted; it just rips my undies that I cant download them! Im sure others out there have felt my frustrations but have kept them in the closet. I know downloading is bad, but I just loved it so much that I didnt care about legal mumbo-jumbo. I know downloading still exists, but until my computers fixed, I'll be having a break and focusing on the more important things at this present time, like exams. I suppose in the end, the death of WinMX was a great way for me to do more uni work.