saturday stuff, part iv

So, I was assembling stocking contents when Ted came home from work. While the chicken pot pies cooked, I arranged a few more items, then joined Ted downstairs for lunch. We caught up on some TiVo, and for the second time in a week, Oprah drove me to blog. There are two reasons for that. First is the amazing premise of the show, and second is the fact that it proves my earlier claim that she embodies contradiction.

Let's skip over that second bit, and focus on what's important. The concept of Challenge Day engaged me immediately. Early into the show, it made me think of my company's Diversity Council (of which I am currently Vice Chair and will become Chair shortly). The lessons that can be learned through this type of exercise could have huge implications not only on employee relations but to the success of the business. The program wasn't designed for a corporate environment. Jane Elliott's exercise, though not originally created specifically for the corporate world, is probably more suited to that. But the idea of having a cross section of employees participate in Challenge Day is infinitely appealing to me.

Irrespective of that notion, I do think the program should be utilized by every high school in America. Every year. Forever. Oprah was right -- this is the kind of thing that changes the world one person at a time.

~~~
Did some music importing while writing this entry and folding laundry (I can multi-task). Song count is now 5658. Back to stocking assembly for me.

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" by Harry Connick, Jr. (could be called a cover song, but is more one of many interpretations of a classic)

saturday stuff, part iii

Progress continues. An IM conversation with nephew, Andrew, taught me a simple answer to an iTunes challenge that has vexed me in my upload process. Thanks, Andrew! Laundry is nearly done, the bed stripped and re-made, Christmas presents relocated from one hiding spot to another (to prevent a curious husband from happening across something he shouldn't see before December 25th), trash emptied, and the song count up to 5313.

I must now head to a project that will keep me in another room (i.e. away from both iTunes and Blogger) for a little while. But I'm determined to finish putting together the kids' stockings this weekend! And so I must away.

But before I go, the song that's playing right now on shuffle (which I'll list below) connects nicely with an activity and a quote from this past week. On Tuesday, we all headed to the polls for mid-term elections. I indeed voted (see sticker payment for civic responsibility, above). Shortly thereafter, I heard a quote from W.C. Fields that made me chuckle. It is "I never vote for anybody. I always vote against." Sad, but true. Never one to stick to party lines, even I was astonished by the fact that I voted for candidates from four different political parties. Craziness.

"Election Day" by Lyle Lovett

saturday stuff, part ii

It's just wrong to have this much energy on a Saturday morning. I'm blazing through my list, tasks falling to the strikethrough of my PaperMate stickball pen. Silly, to be this excited about doing chores. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'm not going to address in this entry any of the more thoughtful topics about which I'd hoped to blog. That would require too much distraction from the joy of housework! I'm certain my energy will wane later today, and contemplating deep thoughts will be a nice respite.

Instead for now, I'll just make this observation. As I listen to the shuffled songs of my iTunes library, I am struck by two simultaneous thoughts.

Thought 1A. It's great to hear the songs that, to this point, have not been on iTunes/my iPod (which I use at work). It makes the random combination that much more interesting, and I get to listen to music I like that I just haven't listened to much.

Thought 1B. The new additions to the shuffle seem to intensify my awareness of all the music that hasn't been added yet. I hear a recently imported track, and it makes me think about another album by the artist or a different artist.

It's a paradox. But I'll survive. Thought 1A is strong enough to get me through. Current song count: 5138.

"Holding Out for a Hero" by Frou Frou (interestingly, another cover song... this one a Bonnie Tyler song)

saturday stuff, part i

Since Ted left for work two hours ago, I have eaten breakfast (Raisin Bran Crunch and orange juice), fed the cats (Nature's Recipe), cleaned out some email, read the New York Times, started laundry, and increased my iTunes library to 4911. That's right: 254 more songs this morning alone, so far. Like, I said, giddy!

My list of weekend tasks is long and exceedingly optimistic. I shall attack it with zeal! And report here occasionally. I have several topics I want to cover, and will attempt to squeeze them in here between chores. The unique feature of this weekend's entries will be ending with the song playing as I hit the "publish" button.

"Old Man" by Lizz Wright (a cover of the Neil Young song)

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.

kirstie alley is full of shit

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have admired Oprah Winfrey for many years. I am particularly enamoured with her philanthropic work, although her determination to overcome adversity and become the architect of her own massive success is also quite admirable. In the last couple years, though, the sheen has worn off as she more frequently and enthusiastically embraces the superficial on her show (and in her magazine, which I stopped reading about a year ago). More importantly, I am deeply disappointed when she exhorts to her millions of fans -- many of whom hang on her every word -- that emulating said superficialities will improve their lives.

She embodies contradiction. And she should know better.

Building schools for girls in Africa improves lives. Rebuilding homes in the Gulf Coast improves lives. Allowing audience members to help their communities with the aid of $1000 debit cards improves lives. Increasing the literacy of millions of otherwise bookless TV zombies improves lives. She knows these things: she's done them all and more.

So, when she spends a ridiculous amount of time over a couple years glorifying Kirstie Alley's weight loss extravaganza, I have to wonder a couple things. First, how is she able to conveniently forget her own experience with years of yo-yo dieting? Second, how much money is Jenny Craig, Inc. paying to have their name sprinkled so liberally on one of daytime TV's most watched television shows? Third, in the year 2012, what will the Oprah show episode be like when Kirstie comes back to wage her next inevitable battle of the bulge?

Oprah is guilty of perpetuating the false hope that weight loss is possible (when 95% of the time, it's not), and that it solves all of life's problems (when 100% of the time, it does not). So when I started to watch yesterday's TiVo'd Oprah show -- the one highlighting Ms. Alley's bikini entrance -- I deleted it after only watching the first few minutes. Thinking I'd done my duty for Size Acceptance by rejecting the show outright, I moved on to the computer to check email and read some news.

But there she was again. I might have let the whole thing slide were it not for this article. In it, Ms. Alley simultaneously flaunts her newly-svelte body and claims she's not defined by it.

"I think women -- I don't think we ever feel like we're good enough. We don't feel like we're thin enough or pretty enough or smart enough or work hard enough. And we are good enough... . The bikini thing is neither here nor there, other than the fact, you know, I am 55 years old. So I thought -- come on, we are all good enough. And we look good enough. And we are not our bodies." - Kirstie Alley

Hogwash. Poppycock. Balderdash.

How is it possible to say you're good enough after spending two years chastising yourself in a veritable media blitz? It's not. It's all horseshit. Bullshit. Publicity. And the happy "look, I lost weight and look fabulous and YOU SHOULD TOO!" routine is just one more hammer banging away in a universe of hammers that pound the message that thin=happy+healthy and fat=unhappy+unhealthy and there's nothing in the middle. It doesn't matter that nothing in life is that straightforward.

And I again dissolve into the continuation I don't have the time or energy to follow-through on. So, I'll end tonight's rant on a note mentioned before in this space. John Tierney of the New York Times wrote a nice piece called "Fat and Happy" that mentioned this great concept identified by George Armelagos, an anthropologist at Emory University. Speaking of popular preference for body types, he calls the relatively recent desire for thinness the "King Henry VIII and Oprah Winfrey Effect." This is how it's explained:

"In Tudor England, it took hundreds of gardeners, farmers, hunters and butchers to keep Henry VIII fat. In America today, anyone can bulk up without help, but it takes a new set of vassals - personal trainer, nutritionist, private chef - to keep Oprah from looking like Henry VIII."

this is painful

Today's song count is 4148. Sunday's was 4083. At this rate (32.5 songs per day), and using my estimate of 40,000 total songs, it will take me three years, one week, and two days to get everything uploaded. Ack.

I have two problems hindering my speed. Whenever iTunes is importing a CD, it slows everything else down. Really badly. Very frustrating and it reduces my productivity on all projects. Also, every now and then when I insert a disc, iTunes asks me to choose which disc it should reference. Unfortunately, the options are often identical with no way for me to tell what differentiates them or -- more importantly -- which one reflects the correct information for my specific CD.

Tonight's touble child was Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams." The prompt showed me the same three choices, but when I picked one, the track list was completely wrong. I removed and re-inserted the disc hoping to get the prompt again to choose a different one, but it now automatically associates this disc with my incorrect choice. So, either I do some research and find out how to fix this problem (which requires far more work than I want to do), or I let the stupid thing upload with the wrong track list and manually fix everything afterwards (which is even stupider). ACK!

Someday, probably three CDs away from having everything transferred to the computer (November 15, 2009), I'll figure it out. Tonight's additions are as follows (in absolutely no order and with no reasons):

• Wilco "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel"
• Sting "The Dream of the Blue Turtles"
• Cheap Trick "Authorized Greatest Hits"
• Montell Jordan "This is How We Do It"
• Robert Downey Jr. "The Futurist"
• Pete Belasco "Get It Together"

Ah, the pain I must endure for my music. Now, onto the next blog entry. Two in one night!

4083

Not blogging much these days. Stuff going on. Y'know. I've actually been spending a lot of time doing chores around the house, and preparing for Christmas. The vast majority of our shopping is done, and stocking assembly has begun in earnest. The list of things left to get is incredibly small, so I'm very excited.

We've also made a slight change in the manner in which we'll be giving gifts this year, which will ultimately allow us to finish our preparation even earlier than normal. This will allow us even more time to fully enjoy the holidays without any of the gift-related stress. It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year (favorite version, Andy Williams, though I love the warbly happiness of Johnny Mathis's interpretation).

This year's addition to my holiday music collection started early with the purchase of three albums -- a reissued/remastered classic that I never got the first time around, a new release from a seasoned veteran, and the ethereal sweetness of a newer artist (well, "newer" relative to the first two artists).

Although Bette and Herb are on CD, I procured Sarah through iTunes. It was daring and bold and unconventional for me to go virtual on that one, because for some inexplicable reason, it just feels like my holiday music collection should be tangible. Obviously, I got over it by about a third, so perhaps by 2008, I'll have kicked the CD habit altogether.

These newest additions have all been added to my iTunes library, but I've only listened briefly to bits of the songs. For as much as I love holiday music, I'd still like to have a little time to savor autumn (my favorite season). I'll have plenty of time to saturate the air around me with Christmas tunes in the weeks before December 25th. That said, I did listen to the entirety of Sarah McLachlan's "Christmas Time is Here." It is stunningly beautiful and a respectable tribute to the Vince Guaraldi classic.

Adding these new purchases to the collection was the simple part. And I can rest easy knowing that -- when I'm ready to delve head-first into the Holiday genre shuffle -- I'll be prepared. Considerably more challenging is converting the rest of my music collection to digital form. I'd delayed doing this in the past because of an inadequate computer system. That has been resolved, and now the time must be spent importing CDs.

As of today, when I was only able to import six CDs (other chores and a nap induced by an oncoming cold beckoned), my iTunes library numbers 4083 songs (note: approximately 1000 of those are Christmas songs). By my no-doubt-inaccurate guesstimate, if I am able to get everything from all my CDs and records onto the computer (sometime before I die of old age), that number should rise to about 40,000. I'm curious to see how close I come to being correct on that estimate. But it's going to take a very long time (and the addition of a new piece of equipment) before I'll know. Drops in a bucket. Watch for updates to see the number grow.

Post-script: I went heavy on parenthetical phrases this entry. What gives?

testing 1, 2, 1, 2

I'm on the new beta version of Blogger which allows me to label my posts, thereby grouping similar posts. Cool, eh? But because I'm in full Saturday morning chore mode, and we have company coming over for Round 3 of the Lost Season 2 catch-up viewing, I don't have a lot of time for silly things like reading instructions. So, I'm just going to think up a few quick labels and make this post part of all of them.

Post-Lost tonight, I may come back to try a new post. Isn't the anticipation just too much?

warped

I don't know which is worse -- the lengths to which the beauty industry goes to create an unrealistic image presented as the ideal, or some of the idiotic comments that follow this clip on the YouTube page.



Today is Love Your Body Day. I say, love it every day.

the men of television

I should probably be reading the stack of books that continues to accumulate in my section of our library. Or even, less esoterically, the pile of entertainment rags adorning the coffee table. Instead, there are a few television shows that have really caught my attention. Bones, a carryover from its first season last year, is still a favorite. And I just love the new Sci-Fi Channel series, Eureka. I haven't missed an episode.

Alas, there is a bigger quandary. The leading men of these shows are the unwitting participants in a fantastical duel for my attention. Move over, Dr. McDreamy (I've never seen one minute of Grey's Anatomy), Sheriff Carter and Agent Booth are here!

Sure, they're easy on the eyes; handsome in conventional ways. But there's more there there. Could it be the man in uniform phenomenon? Nah, the FBI guy just wears a suit. It's more that. They're both funny. And smart. With warmth that just exudes from what is undoubtedly their own personalities.

OK, so they're well-written characters portrayed by good actors... who just happen to be seriously hunky. A third clearly in the running -- although too skinny to earn this last descriptor -- is Dr. Gregory House. He is the king of well-written, well-acted, and he's sexy in that I-know-he's-really-got-a-British-accent-under-that-American-one way. Scrawny, really, but funny.

"Is this an intervention? You're a little late since I'm not using drugs anymore. I am, however, still hooked on phonics."

But all three of them are really funny. When Jack's daughter, Zoe, grabbed a wheat grass for herself and scolded her father for drinking too much coffee, his response was, "I'll stop drinking caffeine when you stop drinking the lawn."

Why am I blogging about this? Perhaps it's because I'm dealing with the anxiety of Eureka's season finale. It's just wrong for a show to END at the beginning of October! But hey, Mr. Monk left me weeks ago. I'll just have to suffice with my favorite FBI Agent, the cranky Doctor, and iTunes downloads (and SciFi webisodes) of the Sheriff for now.

growing strong

Some words of wisdom and a quick link to a neat photo project. First the wisdom:

"Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees." - J. Willard Marriott

And now the photo project:



Cool.