we interrupt this broadcast...

Sometimes, it's good to be laid back. A less laid back person would have been frustrated by the fact that iTunes decided it'd had enough of uploading CDs. Especially on a day when that less-than-laid-back person had made a goal to finish -- once and for all -- the transfer of music from CDs to the computer.

Oh well. Perhaps iTunes was actually frustrated that the laid back person was too laid back -- regularly taking unplanned breaks to have lunch, take a nap, and watch the Seahawks. Perhaps, the meltdown was revenge for iTunes feeling neglected that a mere 3232 songs were uploaded since Friday night, instead of the 3711 remaining. That's right, iTunes crapped out 479 songs from the finish line. C'est la vie. By the way, that's the title of a great song by Robbie Nevil. It's one that I own on vinyl -- the next frontier in music transfer.



So, I'm retiring for the evening. I'll watch some more of the Seahawks, who overcame snow on their home field last week (very unusual for Seattle) for a victory, as they battle it out against the Broncos in 16° F Denver. Brrr. Then, I'll go to bed. Woo-hoo. Does the excitement never end?

Song count: 16463 (or 479 fewer than anticipated; so close)

"Mele Kalikimaka" by Chris Isaak (a very fun, Hawaiian Christmas song of which I have several versions, though this is my favorite)

weekend ends

Had a nice visit with Sam and Donna, and doted on their cats (Versace and Tiger) and dog (Chamois). Enjoyed shrimp cocktail and cherry/apple/peach pie. Seahawks lost. Oh well.

Bought an outfit for the holiday party. It's black. ::sigh:: The top does have a design "burnt" into the velvet and a little sparkle up around the neckline. Still, it would have been nice to have some green or maroon or gold or something. Oh well.

Uploaded some more music, although iTunes was being very temperamental as to the speed with which it uploaded. Some songs went at 20x or better, but more than a few went at 5x, 3x, 1.2x. So, between doing other stuff (football, shopping) and the speed issue, I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked. Oh well.

The cats always make me happy. When I work at the computer, there are three designated cat areas in the immediate vicinity. An afghan-covered kitty hammock on the floor to the left of my desk. A folded afghan on the desktop, at my right hand. A folded lamb's wool blanket on the floor by the bookcase, to my right. The hammock is exclusively Sadie's, and the lamb's wool is exclusively Schmoo's. The desktop spot can easily accommodate two cats, and does on a fairly regular basis. Milo probably spends the most time there, sometimes solo, but oftentimes he's joined by any of the other three cats. Milo is the ambassador of the house -- everyone loves Milo. Woodle will occasionally hang out there, but usually he abandons the room altogether and sleeps on an afghan-covered gliding rocker in the living room.

Tonight, Woodle spent a little time on the desktop afghan with Milo, but then decided he wanted his own spot. Sick of being the odd cat out, he moved over to the other side of the desk and proceeded to settle right down on a Walgreens flyer, at the top of my keyboard, under the banker's lamp. Didn't seem to me that it would be comfortable, but he was very happy there for a good hour or so. Then, he decided that the afghan would probably be softer.

So, I guess I'll have to clean off the newspaper flyers permanently and find another afghan to fold up and put in this spot for Woodle. You'd think they'd find any of the approximately one thousand other soft, comfortable spots in the 1600 square feet of space we occupy. But I like having them close, so I can't complain.

Here's a picture I took of Woodle on the desktop afghan this summer. It took me a good 15 minutes to get one of him with his eyes closed, because every time I turned the camera on to take a picture, he popped his head right up to inspect. What a funny boy. We love having them around.

Good night.

Song count: 12092

"Miniature Disasters" by KT Tunstall

hooky, part iii

The Compact Disc Digital Audio System offers the best possible sound reproduction -- on a small, convenient disc.

Its remarkable performance is the result of a unique combination of digital storage and laser optics. For the best results, you should apply the same care in storing and handling the Compact Disc as you would with conventional records. No cleaning is necessary if the Compact Disc is always held by its edges and is replaced in its case directly after playing. If the Compact Disc becomes soiled by fingerprints, dust or dirt, it can be wiped (always in a straight line from center to edge) with a clean and lint-free, soft, dry cloth. Never use a solvent or abrasive cleaner to clean disc. If you follow these suggestions, the Compact Disc will provide a lifetime of listening enjoyment.

That is, until a better technology comes along that will allow you to put 20,000 songs onto a device the size of a deck of cards and pack away all those Compact Discs you spent too much money on for the last 15 years.

Song count: 9429

"Dare to Fall in Love" by Brent Bourgeois (a solo effort from half of Bourgeois Tagg. Remember them? Yeah, not many people do. I loved them.).

give me the stuff, part i

This music uploading thing is like an addiction. I love it and can't pull myself away. A CD goes in, magic whirling occurs, and when the chime sings (indicating that all the tracks have been imported), I must remove the disc and start all over again. There's never a time when the chime tells me, "this is the last one for now, Kelly, go and take a break."

So obsessed am I with transferring songs that I decided to forgo my extra half hour of sleep this morning, and I got up at 5:00am to move more music. I should have left for work at 6:30am: that still would have been a reasonable amount of progress for so freakin' early in the morning. But I couldn't stop. I left at 7:15am. And as soon as I got home tonight, I hastily gave my husband a kiss and the cats some ear scratches on the path to my desk for more uploading.

Thankfully, the lure of baked salmon with pesto, rice pilaf, and fresh broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and green beans was strong enough to take me away from it for a while. Ted and I chatted while enjoying our repast, and then we caught up on TiVo. As soon as Prison Break was done, guess where I went? Um, to where I came? That is, where I am now?

Yeah. I'm here. At my computer. Uploading more discs. I can't write any more tonight. I have to get some sleep, in order to be able to wake up at 5:00am and start all over again. Maybe I could just sleep at the desk, in three minute increments.

Song count (at this moment, but constantly increasing): 6935. In case you were wondering, that's 882 songs... today alone. And 2852 since I started counting one week ago yesterday. Yep. I'm addicted.

"Mr. Solitaire" by Animal Nightlife (an alternative 80s flashback of epic proportion)

oops

I'm sorry, iTunes. I didn't mean to assume that you were the cause of my slow-going CD import project. In frustration, after my last entry, I decided to try using my DVD R/RW drive instead of the CD drive. And voila! Suddenly, whole CDs were importing in a fraction of the time! Songs could play during the imports without sounding crackly! The internet and all other programs ran freely without hesitation! Life is good again!

So, the song count has increased dramatically since my 32.5 songs per day average. Today's count is 4657! That's right, more than 500 songs additional since Tuesday night. I'm going to get so much done this weekend, I'm giddy with anticipation.

radio musicola

I'm on the brink of getting my "new" computer, I can just feel it. OK, so I had to ship it back for a fourth time (this time, it appears to be a bad video card), but I just know that when I get it back next week, it's going to be perfect. In anticipation of that momentous occasion, I've been prepping my music and other files for the transfer. This required the acquisition of a 600GB Maxtor external hard drive (naturally).

An aside. I paid way less than this link suggests because I bought it through my favorite retail outlet in the whole world.

With the decent size hard drive on the new computer, I'll clock in just below a terabyte of storage space. I love being an amateur geek. So, I've been futzing around with my music, reorganizing, adding, etc. In the process, I ended up at the Lollapalooza website (ok, so maybe that step was a tangent). I discovered that Ween is playing this year. This made me think of the first Lollapalooza I attended in 1993. It was also the last Lollapalooza I'll ever attend. What a nightmare. But that's a story for a different day.

So, it wasn't that Ween played the 1993 Lollapalooza show. I don't think they did. There were only about 30 acts on a mere two stages all in one day then (there are about 150 acts on nine stages over three days now). I was only able to spy parts of Fishbone, Alice in Chains, Arrested Development, Primus, and Rage Against the Machine. Anyway, it was that the radio station I listened to had started playing a Ween song around that time, and I connected the two. I never did buy the album (I was young and broke and bought music sparingly for a few years there), but I did record it from the radio station onto a cassette. Ah, technology.

Having made this connection today, I promptly bought the song on iTunes and by happenstance found the video on YouTube. And so it is with much fanfare and extraneous story-telling that I present to you, Push Th' Little Daisies by Ween.



Here's an interesting thing I discovered today. One of the things that I always liked about this song is the seemingly random insertion of a James Brown-style "aaaooowww!" as voiced by Prince. In fact, I'm fairly certain that this "aaaooowww!" is from the song Alphabet Street, but that's just a guess. Anyway, when I listened to the version I bought, it was missing. In its place a straightforward curse of the sh*t variety sung in the same tone as the rest of the song. But when I watched the video, Prince emerged howling. I presume this was their way of making the song censor-friendly. Learn something new every day.

And so to end this random, music-themed entry, here is a sample of my iTunes playlist that I listened to today. The appearance of Ween so soon after its addition to my library is due to the fact that I refreshed my party shuffle afterwards.

This grouping started out as The World Women's Music Playlist. Sometimes I think Apple made this technology smart.

Babooshka
Kate Bush

Aganjú
Bebel Gilberto

Save Me
k.d. lang

Galbi
Ofra Haza

Beat Surrender
The Jam

The Nightfly
Donald Fagen

The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)
Missy Elliott

Sometimes It Snows in April
Prince & the Revolution

This Love
Maroon 5

Some Other Time
Ross Traut / Steve Rodby

Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don’t Think They Heard It All the Way Out In Bushnell
Sufjan Stevens

Monkey Gone to Heaven
Pixies

Not Alone
Soulstice

Magic Mind
Earth Wind & Fire

Where You Are
Marc Broussard

Push Th' Little Daisies
Ween

Living Water
Ryan Farish

Steal My Sunshine
Len

Where Do The Children Play?
Take 6

Questions
Jack Johnson

Out of Reach
Cities of Foam

Future Love Paradise
Seal

Slip & Sliding
Matt Bianco

I Put Myself Together
Charles Brown

I'm so looking forward to the day when I get my entire collection digitized (oh that won't take too long), and then the eclectic nature of my taste will be even more apparent by these lists. By the way, the title of this entry is a Nik Kershaw song from long ago.

not-so-little girls

For all the time I've spent on windows and rocks, it's been a while since we've been able to visit some of our favorite small people and their parents. Luckily, in the last two weeks, we've been able to do some catching up.


Our friend, Alia (formerly known as Lulu but much more mature now) is seen here in ladylike repose with a sporty summer dress and sandals, balloon, and powdered sugar ring around her mouth. Alia-Lu is 5 and 3/4 years old, thankyouverymuch, and looking a bit devilish here, don't you think?

Miss Paige is 6 and a 1/2 years old and was found swimming in a new bikini, against the whirlpool created by her Dad. She also demonstrated her vastly improved diving technique (almost getting her head underwater on point of entry). This is what happens when she's asked NOT to pose.

Then there's Alli-baba. Miss Allison is Pay-Pay's little sister (I love that nickname), and she can still be aged in months (21 of them). Napping when we arrived, she had to be slowly reintroduced to Auntie Kelly and Uncle Ted. It's been months since we've seen her, so it was kind of like starting all over again. Here's Step 1: being shy (with Mommy and bink).

Here's Step 2 (after about 20 minutes): friendly (with cracker and foot).

And mere moments later, we arrived at Step 3: outgoing (with Pay-Pay).

These two are a double-whammy kick in the pants. If I were smarter and had my new computer, I might actually be able to upload video (which I've never done) and link it here to show off the song-and-dance they put on for us with their Dad. Paige is quite good at replicating the choreography. Allison is just a riot of wiggling and jumping and crashing into pillows, kind of in step with the music.

I have a few other not-so-little girls to highlight, but photo uploading woes prevent me from continuing tonight. Another time.

By the way, I am supposed to receive returned via FedEx on Monday the 24th, the "new" computer I bought a year ago that has never worked correctly. Admittedly, after the last battle in October, I put the whole thing -- wrapped completely in its original box -- in the garage and let it sit while concentrating my life on the Forum. Now that that event is behind me, I finally decided to take the cause back up. So, there may be a continuation to the emachines story here this week (in addition to fixed pictures, new pictures, maybe some video, maybe another vacation installment... hey, wait, I don't have time to do all that!). Toodles.

what is middle?

Once again, I find myself in the frustrating and moderatly embarassing position of having entered text and lost it when attempting some fancy maneuver. Last time, it was spell check. This time, it was trying to include a picture. I'm still figuring this Blogger stuff out, so be patient. I'm just going to post this here with what I think may include a photo. Then, if it works, I'll come back and finish the post. If it doesn't work, I'll probably delete the whole thing and start over some other middle of the night.


Sadie on her hammock

learning to listen, a prologue

Is it ironic that I spent half an hour here writing about my evening exercise in listening, and it was all swept away when I attempted to run a spell check? Not particularly ironic, I guess. Just frustrating.

Damn, I put some effort into that too. And now I'm too drowsy to recreate it. So, until I have the wherewithal to return and try again, I'll simply paste a very old poem of mine about quiet (well, the lack of it). I wrote it in response to an e.e. cummings poem. Do note that the title does not contain a misspelling or typo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the Mystery Of stilness


vociferous space.
the relentless vestige
of battle.

tableTop chaos
impinging
wringing guts
(like fresh, wet boxers to be h
u
n
g
)
.
OUT!
and crashes the thing
through the wall up the floor.

at the stop
a too-long cord -- wrapping dizzily among shags curling here Crinkling, twisting --
pretends be
the blackless shadow
from
zigging
Fourthofjuly
*sparklers*

too quiet.
now what? is beseeched.
beginagain
no time for peace


© 1995 Corene Ellis Young
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also note that all poems written by me or my alterego, Corene, are open to interpretation. It's been a long time since I've taken up the pencil. Maybe it's time to make new sense out of new circumstances. The old sense seems senseless now.

What the hell am I saying? Man, I need sleep.