Creative descriptions, mocp, teaching...

Well, I still haven't quite managed to set up an alternative to this as I basically crashed last night, but did get an interesting little console-based music player called MOC running.  Well, mostly running... Here is the original "creative" explanation I wrote to the blogger that recommended mocp:

I just tried mocp, and I'm encountering skipping with frequent 40-90% CPU use for 5 to 60 seconds. At one point it turned into a little epic battle... mocp locked up while seizing 98% of the CPU and valiantly fended off all of htop's attempts to kill it -- it only died when I shot the terminal app out from underneath it instead.

The above sense of humor, incidentally, is how I used to entertain myself while writing computer tutorials in the 90s for family members. It didn't take long for me to figure out that making the material amusing made learning a bit easier for them, and that using their favorite real-world objects/places as metaphors made an even bigger difference.
For example, I remember having to explain the concept of multi-tasking with the Program Manager in Windows 3.11 to my then-43-year-old mother after we got our first PC (an IBM DX2/50), as she couldn't comprehend any of it. After a few failed attempts, I succeeded by describing it entirely in terms of her favorite place, Disneyland, complete with a little hand-drawn diagram. She took Main Street (booted up) to reach Central Plaza (Program Manager), which she had to use to visit different Lands (programs); just as Central Plaza kept existing even when she was in Fantasyland, and Fantasyland was still there even if she went to Tomorrowland, the Program Manager & different applications stuck around regardless of which one was active.
I think that's enough for the moment; I had more to say, but I'm starting to feel hungry and remarkably distracted. Bye!