Sound editing shareware

I am such a leech when it comes to using free audio editing software. I used to use Cool Edit, until it got bought over by Adobe. This last month, I've downloaded Wave Pad, Record Pad, Audio Editor, and now, Audio Converter. Really, I only download so many because they expire on me and so I need to use something else to do my cutting and fading and what-nots. I don't require very much fanciness. Why couldn't simple editing functions be bundled with Microsoft Media Player or Real Player? It would save me so much downloading, installing and uninstalling.



(If any one cares, Cool Edit is really good, but you can't download for free anymore. So far, WavePad works great for me.)

(Why why why why why why why why why did I embed the narration into the powerpoint????)

(If you were stupid like me and embedded your narration in the presentation and ended up with too much of a pause in between sound clips, you could get rid of the unwanted pause at the end of the sound clip by specifying the exact number of slides each sound clip is to be played. If you inevitably cut off the narration, lengthen the time under "slide transition", "automatically after". I still haven't figured out how to get rid of the pause in front of sound clips. You would think that increasing the "play from [time]" would do it, but it doesn't.)