Tonight I finally got through organizing my music collection. Everything’s rated, has album art, has correct info (I hope)… it’s very nice.
Final count: 3394 songs, 9.8 days, 13.31 GB. 12 of those I haven’t been able to find CDs for; for the rest I have the CD, bought it from iTunes, or downloaded it from a legal site.
Continuing on the music theme, my next project is to go through and organize my iTunes collection. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) it’s not an afternoon project - I have 3600 songs. I spent a large part of today rating songs and cleaning up info, and I found out that I listened to and rated just over 1000 songs today. Whew. That’s a lotta music. Only 2600 to go.
My latest free-time project has been going through the bands in the Live Music Archive. If you haven’t heard me rave about it before, it’s a place where you can download complete live shows in near-perfect quality - legally - for free. As of right now, there are 459 artists and 9103 shows available for download.
I’m the kind of person who loves all kinds of music, and I mean that pretty literally. I’m listening to some jazz/blues right now from the Archive, and I’ve been surveying everything from bluegrass to rock to reggae.
My task was this: go to the site of each band in the Archive and download an MP3 or two to see if I liked their kind of music. I ended up with a list of 76 bands I really liked; there were more, but I had to limit it down to a somewhat reasonable number. The next step is downloading shows, and I think you’ll realize that that’s a pretty big project in itself. As I go through, I’ll post some of the good finds here. Already I’ve been really enjoying Bluestring and Ki:Theory.
Some people in Minnesota are encouraging people to call a San Fransisco florist to have flowers delivered to random homosexual couples waiting in line to get married in San Fransisco.
What the Hell are people thinking? Man, this makes me angry.
It’s great when a site just comes together… especially when it uses tech you’ve never played with before.
Keep watch on bumstock.com. Updates to follow.
A year or two ago, the state of Maine was involved in a great voting process: what would be on our state quarter? As it turned out, Maine people voted to have Pemaquid Point Light depicted on the quarter instead of the other three choices.
Wow, the state quarter… what an argument. It echoed one of the main issues within our state - what is Maine? The US Mint page about the Maine quarter stresses the historic and tourist value of the coast and lighthouses such as Pemaquid. If you’ve ever driven more than half an hour off of coastal Route 1 or Interstate 95 south of Bangor, though, you know that the vast majority of the state looks nothing like our quarter. A lot of citizens - people in the “other Maine” (north) especially - still don’t like the quarter as a representation. Even my parents were divided: my coastal Mom liked the lighthouse design, while my Dad (from central/northern Maine) liked the Katahdin/lake design better.
Personally, I thought the chosen design was the best for design only; I really didn’t think any of the choices represented Maine well. What, then, should have been put on our state quarter? I think the best choice might’ve been something that we’ve had representing us for almost 200 years.
Shortly before Maine was founded on March 15, 1820, a group of individuals chose the Maine state seal as a representation after citizens voted to support separation from Massachusetts. I never really looked at it until I was reading about separation in my History of Maine textbook. Almost completely unchanged, the state seal does a pretty good job of summarizing what the state is about. Seeing as how almost 90% of Maine is forested, the pine tree definitely has a place in the middle of the seal. The moose, as the state animal, also belongs. The most important part, though, is the farmer and sailor on each side; while not all northern Mainers are farmers and not all southern Mainers are sailors, it still shows that over the 180+ years we’ve been a state, there’s always been a division between two Maines.
Using an annoying pop-up ad feature for good (or cool…): DubDub
Requires Flash, JavaScript, Internet Explorer, Windows, and probably a kinda fast computer.
Apparently Buy.com is having a 48-hour sale. I just got an e-mail from them telling me to hurry up:
“48-Hour Sale! Today Only! Act Now!”
