Given that I am an absolute CD whore, I think I would be just as happy getting a copied CD as a gift as getting the actual CD...doesn't matter that you'd spend twenty bucks on the one and maybe three on the other; so long as I get music, I'll be happier than a clam with a mouthful of krill. Mix CDs, too- love those. Sure, they're cop-out gifts, but I love getting them.

It just seems, to me, that I am ridiculously easy to get gifts for. The rest of you people are utterly impossible.

Currently I am making it my goal to find and download every version of the Final Fantasy Crystal Theme. There ought to be eleven of them, not including remixes and piano/choral versions. However, in VIII, the Crystal Theme is only played at the very end of the game, in the last thirty seconds of the final FMV and into the end screen. I have yet to see it; I could probably look up the track listings for the soundtrack and find out if it's there or not. I aslo can't find V or IX, which is odd because they're the last FFs that actual use the crystals as plot points.

I've no idea who did the music for 1-3, so there's a possibility that the Crystal Theme wasn't even introduced until IV. I doubt that's true; it's kind of funny how a series of arpeggios defines a genre for me but hells, I was convinced that VIII wasn't properly part of the series until I beat the game and heard the music. I can't imagine IX not having a version of it because of all the other references (musical and otherwise) to previous games; that song is, perhaps, one of the most memorable aspects of the series as a whole, right up there with chocobos, moogles, and Bahamut. (Bahamut in mythology (not dungeons and dragons) was actually a giant Mesopotamian fish, similar to the turtle with the world on its back in certain Native American and Asian traditions. Giant fish, bigass dragon- it's all the same, right?)

While I'm on the subject of music..."Silence" by Delirium featuring Sarah Machlachlan is an awesome song, and not just because it's Sarah or because it's called "Silence" or because of the Gregorian chanting. ...Really, I'm sure there are more reasons than that. I'll think of some eventually. :)

I miss my violin, and the dreams that plague me have been strange of late. *sigh*