The Oracle Speaks!

For the last month apprx my computer has had serious trouble streaming on demand music from the 'net.  I kept wondering "is it just these freebie sites" [such as Grooveshark and MySpace]?  I wondered "would these problems exist if I paid for Rdio?"
  Today I found my answer.  I took a gamble and it has paid off.  I am now listening to Emerson Lake And Palmer's "Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends, Ladies and Gentleman" (a double live album, formerly a triple live album before the rise of compact digital audio discs).
  So far it's been just that and New Order's "Low-Life", the 2008 remastered version.  I was surfing through Big Crumbs' list of stores in the music/books/etc. dept and noticed CD Connection on there, who, I thought, had MP3s as part of their offering.  What really sealed me buying from them was A) I had not bought from there before and B) the cash back rate was comparatively higher than other BC offerings - 5.6% - !!!  The suky thing is the version of "Low-Life" I ended up downloading was not the 2008 remastered edition, which means it's kinda flat sounding, the opening song doesn't have the drum-boom-kick that the remaster has.  And now I'm left with $1.60 for the rest of the month.  I already got most of my Xmas shopping done.  I am expecting an Amazon gift card in the amount of $19.68 and another in the amount of $5 and I'll use that to buy my mom's xmas gift.  With Rdio and the public library just down the street from where I live, I really don't need anything else...$1.60 is fine by me.  I also ended up with a $3.85 refund from a CD that arrived in not-as-described condition, although I had hacked my account down to $1.60 before I knew to expect the refund.  Mail didn't arrive 'til after 3pm.  It was a substitute mailman, not sure what's going on with the one that normally delivers to my address.  I noticed the same thing would happen at my old apt, but I figured that was b/c he was approaching retirement age and they were giving him an easier time with hours.  Now that I think of it, they probably don't want their mail carriers to be working even 4 days a week, since their shift sometimes ends after 3pm and they clock in before 7am normally.  I think it's actually closer to 5am, so that's 10 hours a day x 6 which is a lot of over time for the USPS to be putting in considering they're in debt anywayz...they'd probably give him 3-4 days off a week if they had enough employees to go around.  Last  I heard, which was about 5 years ago and may no longer apply, but, last I heard, the USPS has/had a serious shortage of mail carriers, at least in this area, southeast MO.
  I would stop tying now, but for the sake of sounding less crazy, I'll instead stop typing - now.