Life

I forget

 

If I remember to do anything these days it’s thanks to gentle, but consistent, nagging. These help with that:

Ta-da Lists
Quick management of multiple to-do lists. I have my list page sitting in an Opera sidebar so there’s an ambient level of nagging at all times. It simply does one thing really well. I approve.
Time Cave
Schedule e-mail reminders to be sent to yourself. Again, simple and I approve.
Kathleen
I approve!

Also, 37Signals‘ new creation, BackPack, combines both of these and much more (add content to a page/list by e-mail!) but it’s completely unusable to me at the moment because Opera has a few bugs in its implementation of the recently fashionable XMLHttpRequest Javascript object, which BackPack uses for just about everything. Luckily Opera gets updated all the time so I’m patient and hopeful.

How to help iTunes destroy your mp3 folders

 

I know better than to use the defaults! I go into the advanced preferences and check “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized” and change the iTunes folder to where all my neatly organized mp3s folders are. Still I don’t see any songs in the library… I’ll Import them!

[Much churning]

Ta Da! I now have a different folder for every slighly misspelled artist name, title, album, ID3, and filename. Even better, any special collections folders I had, like, say, “girl groups”, are now empty, those songs neatly sprinkled throughout the mess.

OK. I wanted iTunes to manage my collection, fair enough, so let’s see what we can do now. I see a set of songs under a misspelling. Surely iTunes will let me fix this mess. Oh wait, I have to fix them all ONE BY ONE.

I’m open to suggestions…

4/20/05 Update!

I’m currently using ID3-TagIt to fix all my id3’s (at least all tracks with NO tags now have artist and title) and then I’m going to use iTunes and redo the operation…saving to a new location! Ideally everything will be rebuilt correctly. I think iTunes might still truncate folder and filenames, but I can live with that and fix the filenames with ID3-TagIt easily. I don’t think iTunes can store a multi-artist comp in one folder, so those will have to be fished out and reassembled with ID3-TagIt, a PHP script or something.

Wish me luck.

Get it together

 

Basically, 100 ways to get your s!@% together.

It makes good sense. Unresolved issues (physical, mental, financial, emotional) take energy to live with. They provide distraction, limitations, stress, uncomfortable situations, the list goes on… Of course, they want to sell you a book, but the list spells out what you need to do pretty well. Some of them are easy, you can get them resolved in a day or week, then there’s stuff like:

I am on a career / professional / business track which is or will soon be financially and personally rewarding.

Some of what I’ve yet to resolve:

  • I am putting aside enough money each month to reach financial independence.
  • I have nothing around the house or in storage that I do not need.
  • I use well-made sunglasses.
  • I have had a complete physical examination within the past 3 years.
  • My will is up-to-date and accurate.
  • I drink at least 2 liters of water a day.

Comforting

 

My girlfriend writes,

Awesome! We’ve been on lockdown this afternoon because of some nut outside with a gun… we’re apparently safe now, but who knows…

A Warning

 

[Warning: Miscellaneous parts inside.]

This came in a package at work a while back. Thankfully no one was injured by the apparently random contents. For our work’s white elephant party I added a stick of gum and a paper clip and repackaged it as a “MacGyver Tool Kit”, complete with infringing artwork.

Let’s make this quick

 

November’s French Horns show was great. December’s was to about five people after sitting through endless amelodic saxophone freakouts. Before they started the guy assured us all that, “we won’t be playing any songs tonight.” I’ll save my rant against free jazz for another time.

I think 2004’s was the first Christmas in while that my whole family was together in a formal way and it was nice. I had more spending money than usual and I let myself get wrapped up in the holiday spirit of financial irresponsibility. It’s nice to be able to give nice gifts, but the money we all spent on, say, random stuff at Target was just too much. I’m going to push for the each-member-gives-to-one-other-member method next year.

Oh yeah, then after spending all that money I bought a Jazzmaster on eBay and a 120W MusicMan (Leo Fender’s self-proclaimed best work) amp on the way home. Budget annihilation complete. The new (well, 70’s) amp made such a difference and the Jazzmaster is so painfully trebley. This is good.

But why have I been out of town so many weekends lately?

(also, this mrclay.org look is just temporary)

The way home

 

I turn onto 16th Ave from 9th St, accelerating, all my weight is on the right pedal. In an instant, the chain pops off, the pedal gives way, dropping my foot to the pavement, and the rest of me quickly follows. Nothing is broken, but my clothes are ruined, and I’m generally scraped and cut up everywhere. It then begins downpouring!

OK, let me see the damage…

Moving

 

Tonight is first night I spend in the creepy old Freeman house. Andrew bet me I couldn’t stay there a whole night. If I live through the night I get to keep the house, but if I’m dead in the morning, he gets the mp3 player in my van.

In preparation for tonight I called GRU and had them shut off the wall blood; all cooking utensils, axes, chain saws, box cutters, pencils and assorted stabby instruments have been safely stored away; I packed up my old reel to reel with tapes of strangers reading the Necronomicon; along the walls all candle holders were twisted and all protruding stones nudged revealing no secret passageways; I confirmed that when they moved the cemetary the house was built on that the caskets had the bodies in them (cheap cemetary movers can be careless); and, as always, we applied the basic zombie-proofing treatments.

I’ll tell you how it went in the morning.

More band road trips, please.

 

Someone go with me to see the Trash Can Sinatras in Atlanta on Sept 14th. They’ve been around for over a decade without coming anywhere near the Southeast and who knows if they will again. Yes, it’s a Tuesday and $15. Suck it up! I’m willing to leave early that evening and possibly drive back that night—whatever it takes, really. Let me know and I can buy tickets.

TCS tour page | you if you miss this

Also: photos of new the house.