Hush!

The sound on my old laptop was easy to alter; there was a little dial on the laptop itself which I used to turn with my right thumb. I could do it unconsciously and I often did if my music was too loud or, let's be honest, if I was watching soft porn on my laptop. I used to do that a lot. I mean, I still do, just not so much. And my laptop's volume dial was perfect for the average lazy Joe who couldn't be bothered to find a pair of headphones - just turn it down so there's a fraction of volume (so you can still hear the music, natch), but nobody else can hear. Perfect.

My netbook's different. It doesn't have a volume dial and, besides, I'm trying to preserve this thing for a few years - don't want to go messing about with bits of hardware too much (my old laptop emitted a pleasing "crunch" just before moderate volume, which I'm not sure it was meant to do...). But this morning I got an external CD/DVD drive, plugged it in and shoved a random CD in to see if it worked. Hey, look at what's on the CD - Andromina: The Pleasure Planet. (Yes, seriously, there is a film actually called that.) OK, well, I know there are scenes in this and I sort of know where they are, so I looked for one. Okay, there's one. It's way too loud.

Quick, where's the dial? No dial, fuck! So my hands flew to the mouse pad (well, "flew" implies movement of some kind; my thumb just twitched - my palm covers this whole keyboard/mouse setup) and I randomly hit the Windows Media Player volume control. Down a bit, down a bit, not too far, not too far - curse you, too far. Up a tad. Too loud. Right, where's the Windows volume control in the systray?

And I fiddled and I fiddled and I fiddled and eventually I found the perfect setting for watching soft porn. The sound's important, evidently. Lo, I was satisfied, except for the fact that I'd need to turn it all back up to listen to music. I may just have to keep headphones next to my netbook, or something.

Right, I thought. Sorted.

Now what do I do?