Oct 18 - iPod Obsession or OCD?

I will start with my apologies for my lax Blogging, but life happens.

Anyway, in a previous Blog Why We Must Practice Subterfuge (Sept. 19, 2009) I took you on my journey of acquired a new state-of-the-art 160gb iPod. What I didn't tell you was my entire iPod Saga (trust me, it's more interesting than Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace).

November 4, 2005 - I purchase a used 40gb iPod for $300 (current retail is $400) and my love affair begins. I lot this baby up with tons of stuff, but selectively from my 1500+ CD collection.

June 2007 - I find a lost 80gb iPod in a locker at my gym. I post signs, but nobody claims it. It is filled lots of music I don't own, so in the Comments field, I label all of these as "newpod" and begin to listen to them. The bulk of these tracks are CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) and while some the Rock from groups like Relient K are great, I delete a lot as soon as "he", "him", "Jesus" and "Lord" become overwhelming.

Also, the guy I'm dating has an iPod that's completely backed up to an external hard drive. He copies all his tracks to my iPod and backs up my tracks to his hard drive. This will prophetically save my life. I then spend a lot of time weeding out duplicates. Oh, and I give away my 40gb iPod which (to date) is still functioning.

May 2008 - Now dating a new guy (Mark whom I'm still with), I give him a lot of iPod tracks and he gives me all of his. I again spend a lot of time organizing and integrating these new tracks into my library.

Now, when I say 'organizing' I mean slaving over. I change all of the Artists to 'Last Name, First Name'; I standardize album titles - using things like "(OBC)" to indicate Original Broadway Cast; I find 4k Artwork to add to all albums, I add some 'Composers' (only ones I care to ever sort by); I standardize and limit my 'Genres'; and juggle over 30 Smart Playlists and 15 Manual Playlists. Because my iPod memory is larger than my MacBook memory, it contains more tracks than are in my Library - it IS my Library.

June 2008 - The iPod crashes. Big time! It cannot be read by iTunes, but utilizing a third party software, the tracks can be read on the iPod. They are all immediately downloaded back to iTunes, but some are damaged. I call my 'ex-with-the-hard-drive' (who now lives in Chicago) and he - very graciously - mails it out to me to retrieve the tracks. I also get 's iPod and retrieve his tracks. I now have about 23,000 tracks - including a massive amount of duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates and hundreds of scrambled titles.

This is not good and causes me A LOT of STRESS (which is why I think it's a form of OCD). In July 2008, I get myself a 500gb External Drive of my own and copy EVERYTHING onto it in separate folders (Old iPod [pre-crash from the hard drive], Old iTunes [pre-crash], current iTunes [rebuilt], Ex's iPod and Mark's iPod). These are then organized on the 500gb External Drive under the title, 'The Complete Library" and the rebuilding truly begins.

Now, since I cannot trust the tracks, I select the one version of the track that I can trust the most (from the ex's hard drive) and load those onto the iPod. I mark them all in the Comments field as "evaluate" and begin to listen to them - all of them. The rest of the tracks in the duplicates, triplicates and quadruplicates in the Library and 'de-selected' but kept (for now) just in case the Chosen One on the iPod is bad. This process takes about a month of me straining over my laptop for hours upon hours after work... sometimes until 2AM, struggling between the Angel on my right shoulder saying "Go to Bed" and the Devil on my left shoulder saying, "Must finish iPod".

I create a Smart Playlist called 'Evaluate' in which every track lives in. BUT, if I listen to it and it's good, I give it a Two-Star Rating and it 'moves itself' to another Smart Playlist called 'Clean', if I don't like the track, I give it a One-Star Rating and it moves itself to a Smart Playlist called 'Delete' and if I like the track and it is damaged, I give it a Three-Star Rating and it moves itself to a Smart Playlist called 'Replace'.

Scared yet... oh, there's more. Every few days, I have to jive the iPod back with the Complete Library - marking the Clean ones as good, deleting the Deleted ones and selecting or replacing the damaged tracks in Replace.

Over the next year, the 80gb iPod crashes another three times, but this time, the reload is much less painless, BUT I still have way too many version of too many songs and it is taking me FOREVER - because every time it crashes, I loose the "Last Date Played" info so I don't know what's clean! I then come up with yet another system.

Utilizing the BPM (beats per minute) field that I never use, I start putting in various numbers: 1=delete; 3=replace; 4 and 5 are simply four-star and five-star songs that put them into their appropriate Smart Playlists; and 24 is my lucky number so it simply = clean (oh, and a 2 will eventually mean it 'needs' something - maybe it's in the wrong Genre, Art is missing, etc.).

Phew - well in Sept 2009 (as you know from the earlier blog) Mark got me a new iPod. The transfer was easy and complete, but I now alter my game plan for what I hope is the final time and the most concise and thorough play through I can envision.

I create a Smart Playlist called "Play Me!" which contains every track that does not have BPM listed and has not yet been played through and a Smart Playlist called "Played!!" that has every track that's does not have a BPM and has been played. This the playlist I listen to most of the time and each night (or so) I true-up the "Played!!" against the The Complete Library (including deleting all of the duplicates and triplicates now that I have THE good track). As of right now, The Complete Library = 22876 Tracks, the iPod = 19,545 of which 4174 are certified as Clean... only 15,371 to go on the iPod (13 need replacing).

Oh, and if I add something new? I still mark it as 'evaluate' in Comments field, so those have extra steps to integrate after they are certified clean ('Evaluate' is a Smart Playlist and once listened to, they move themselves into 'Add' - another Smart Playlist).

Well... if you have actually made it to the end of this Blog, congratulations! It's only taken me about 2 hours to write it, and if that's not being Obsessed about an Obsession (or OCD), I don't know what is!

[FYI - lately I've been looking at the way the Artist's appear on the screen of the iPod... instead of "Last Name, First Name" I could change it to "First Name- Last Name" but to Sort properly, I'd have to also move the Last Name, First Name information to the Sort By Field!

- somebody please stop me... help!]

Why Must We Practice Subterfuge...

...so we can get it right.

WRONG... that's not the answer. The reason why we must practice subterfuge is because others do it to us!

OK, so that sounds nasty and cynical, but check out my case in point. Mark bought me a brand new iPod a few weeks ago. The state-of-the-art, 120GB iPod Classic - the largest capacity iPod on the market. The previous largest iPod that Apple made, the 160GB iPod (pre-iPod Touch) lasted only one year before getting discontinued. But I digress.

Mark buys the iPod from The Apple Store and not two weeks later, they discontinue my new 120GB iPod Classic and replace it with the new 160GB iPod Classic! Oh... for the same exact price as well!!! Well, I can't tell how effed I felt by my beloved Apple once again...

February 2002 - I purchase my first laptop, the Mac iBook... colorful, happy, clam-shelled and highly portable with a sweet little handle, running the lasted Mac Operating System - OS 9.1.
About two months or so later... BAM OS-X - the latest, greatest super Operating System that launches their new line of MacBooks into a new generation. As I'm about to file for bankruptcy, another upgrade was not in the cards. I wait until 2007 to enjoy this new OS-X.

April 2007 - with my Sprint Cell Phone contract expiring and in need of a new phone, I get myself a snazzy new Sanyo Katana flip-phone (ooo, isn't it cool) and sign a new two-year contract with Sprint. BAM! two months later the Apple Revolution smacks me upside the head again as they announce the iPhone (do you hear the choir of angels?). This phone proceeds to revolutionize phones and I'm shut out for two years. Oh yes, kiddies... I do (finally) get my iPhone - the state-of-the-art 3GS in July 2009.

SO... you can imagine that after all that, I am not taking this latest iPod Nonsense lying down. I begin to scheme, plot and plan, setting my machinations in motion.

First, since I cannot simply 'exchange' the iPod as it was purchased
at The Apple Store (who have a 14-Day Return Policy)
[NOTE: shop at Best Buy who have a 30-Day Return Policy.]

So, I decide what I need to do is to find someway to Exchange my opened 120GB for a sealed 160GB. But how? How do I do that... if I had a sealed 120GB, possibly I could finagle an Exchange. But what then do I do with the opened 120GB?

I've got it. I will Purchase another sealed 120GB from a store that would take back the opened 120GB as a Return (so I get my $$ back) and try to exchange the sealed 120GB for a sealed 160GB at The Apple Store.

So I go to Best Buy to Purchase a 120GB iPod and By Jove... they don't have any. Well of course they don't. Even thought the new 160GB has only been out for one week, the 120s were liquidated. Drat... foiled.

But perhaps not. I venture online and find that BestBuy.com has the 120GB. So I buy it, knowing that Best Buy will not only take back an open iPod, but the Store will take back an item purchased at the Website. Part I of my nefarious plot has been accomplished... now to wait for delivery...

...which comes five days later. Time to weave Part II in my sordid plan. I must take the Sealed 120GB that just arrived from BestBuy.com and ask (read: sway) The Apple Store to exchange it. But what tale to tell? I initially plan to go with a small stretch of the truth... "It was a gift from my boyfriend (truth) who gave it to me (truth) just prior to going out of town (untruth) and asked me not to open it until our Anniversary (lie)."

But no, I'm not confident enough in that tale... I opt to embellish and wring out a touch of sympathy. So I go with, "My boyfriend bought it (truth) for me (truth) to use in a Silent Auction or Charity (ding-ding-ding a three-alarm lie) - the AIDS WALK (a lie that leads to Hell) and I can raise more auctioning off the 160GB than the 12oGB (Damnation, meet Larry. Larry, Damnation)."

Well, The Apple Store said, "Sure, no problem" and exchanged the sealed 120GB iPod for a new sealed 160GB iPod. No money exchanged hands as it was an even (by their accounts) exchange. And even with Eternal Damnation looming, I walk away cheerfully having finally stuck it to Apple for years of shafting me.

Finally... Part III of my ruse is to wipe my the open 120GB and take it back to Best Buy. This is accomplished without a hitch, they credit my card and the subterfuge, nay - Ordeal of my iPod is complete.

The Moral of the Story: If Apple would have 'simply' informed Mark that a new, bigger and better, more state-of-the-arty iPod was merely days away, I would have no Blog for you today.

Why must we practice subterfuge? Because we all need to feel like we win. Apple needed to continue to sell the 120s - knowing that the 160s were around the corner - so they wouldn't 'get stuck' with them. Could they have simply have lowered the price after the 160s came out? Offered a more generous upgrade/refund policy? Sure.

Could I have just been happy with a brand new, shiny 120? Sure... but after two other instances of Larry missing the boat, this time, that I was gonna swim out to the yacht, clamber about, plop my drippy self down in the deck chair, and close my eyes, smile and listen to my Tunes.

Oct 10 - Apologies & a 21st Century Saturday

OK, I will start with my apology for being a bad puppy. I have not blogged since my Dental appointment on Wednesday (way back on October 7). Why you may ask? Well, something cropped up at work that threw me off my game for a day (which I will not blog about) and after it was set right the following day (which I also will not blog about), I found myself on Saturday.

So with that out of the way, let's talk about Saturday. Lately I've been finding that my weekends rarely have any big plans. Oh, I have plans... errands and chores, watering my plants (both back and front). Random shopping, squeeze in the gym (before I can no longer squeeze into my pants), maybe run a couple miles... etc.

Today? Well... color me Lazy! My eyes popped up under my sleeping mask (which I've resorted to on Friday and Saturday nights so as not to wake at 6AM like I normally do for work) - where was I? Oh, yes, my eyes popped open at 8AM and fight as I might to fall back to sleep, the brain began churning, so up I popped.

Well... 'popped' might be too lively a term for what I did. Let's say I slowly sauntered into the kitchen to being brewing a few cups of the Magical Elixir of Life (coffee for those non-caffeinated folks). Once brewed, I poured myself a nice mugful with a packet of Splenda and a splash of NDC (non-dairy creamer, cha) and made my way to my comfy leather chair to check email, enter my 90 or so online sweepstakes (don't ask!) and watch this week's eps of "General Hospital" (yay!) from SoapNet.

After that was done, my feet were cold so I decided to lay down again... oh, and watched "Survivor: Borneo" from CBS.com as my DVR didn't catch it for some reason on Thursday. Anyway, after that I was comfy and lazy and moved on to The Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food" (I am disgusted by what and how much these people are eating on a regular basis!) and finally pulled my flabby butt out of bed to run a couple miles (by now it's about 2:30!).

Coming home, I stripped out of my sweaty stuff and hit the shower. Ahhh that was nice. Came out and took out some trash and recycling, watered all the plants and then sat down to work on my iPod (THAT will be a blog unto itself! but suffice it to say, I have to listen to nearly 16,000 more songs to 'certify' them as 'clean' - again, that's a blog unto itself).

Finally around 5:30, Mark calls with a needed errand into Pasadena to return some shoes and once there, we grab a bite, some Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (note - Pumpkin Latte as returned for a limited time!) and then back to my place where we perused YouTube until 11PM.

What the hell? That's my 21st Century Saturday. Take it back 20 years (when my grandparents were still around). With the exception of taking out the trash, watering plants, running and showering (oh, and the fact that "General Hospital" is STILL on the air), there is nothing about my day that would have made sense the them!

DVR, iPod, Laptop, YouTube, abrevs like "eps" (and "abrevs"), the fact that I can now watch my TV shows whenever I want to (and skip the mostly over-modulated and boring commercials - thank you!) and Splenda - these would all be alien concepts to them and got me thinking about what my Grandparents 20th Century Saturdays were like. I'm guessing chores and errands were still there (I remember shopping with my grandparents for Rye Bread in Philadelphia), but without iPods, Laptops, the entire Internet thing for that matter, and still living in the Dark Ages of Appointment Television, I'd bet their days were filled with much more fulfilling past times.

Have our lives become so entwined with and ruled by our technology that we can no longer simply go to a park and sit and think? Pull out a sketchbook and doodle something? Pull out a camera and just walk around snapping whatever catches our eye? Hey, and in the 21st Century, the camera thing's gotten easier because we don't have to waste 'film' by snapping unnecessary photos (as they did) since most of us probably have a digital camera and can simply delete them. That frees me up to take as many photos as I want and if doesn't turn out, it doesn't. No biggie.

So maybe that's it. Maybe we should be using our 21st Century Technology to 'enhance' our grandparents' 20th Century Experiences? Maybe tomorrow (Sunday) I will make a point of putting more meaningful experiences into the day.

No, not "maybe tomorrow", BUT "tomorrow."

Life & Death & Change

Today it rained.  Rain of course is not a common occurrence in Los Angeles.  It was a cold rain (my least favorite of all of the rains).  It caused my world to change... ever so slightly, but change it did.  Minor alterations.

I had to wear long pants today.  And a sweater.  And I kept my doors and windows closed.  I enjoyed my coffee a bit more on this nippy morn and I postponed some errands to avoid going out in the rain.

Bradley had to walk in the rain (which he hates) and it further necessitated my juggling an umbrella along with his leash and my iPod.  I even wore a sweatshirt.  (Bradley, by the way, it not a fan of rain either... he avoids puddles and walks close to me to stay under the umbrella).

Later in the day, Steve Jobs died.  (To paraphrase a friend of mine who posted this: "Thank you for knowing what I wanted before I knew I wanted it.")

Shortly after that, I got a call about a temporary job offer that could last a few months.

What does this all mean?  How do these relate?

As the day wound down, I realized that in retrospect, this day was not really unlike any other day.  It was merely your average routine day, but on any given day the routine is hardly that.

We face weather daily and adjust to it.  We hear news that's good or bad... about politics or money or life or death.  This might cause us to think about something differently.  We receive phone calls that change or alter what we do... an invitation, a request or just a conversation that causes us to do something.

These changes - no matter how big or how small - alter the ripples of our world. 

My point is, we are all on a course that is not set in stone.  Our course can change from moment to moment.  It is all fleeting and temporary and very fluid.

Just keep that in mind the next time something is not going as you hope... it could change a moment's notice - it might be changing now and you've yet to realize it.

Open your eyes.  Breathe.  Relax.  Smile.  Enjoy.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. -- John Lennon



=October Job Hunt=
10/01 (Sat) - Applied online as a Production Coordinator for E! Entertainment Television.
10/02 (Sun) - Answered an ad for an Executive Assistant to two show runners for a television series.
10/03 (Mon) - Answered an ad for someone with mad Excel/Word skills for a project in Glendale.
10/04 (Tues) - Reviewed Job Boards for NBC, Paramount, Warner Bros., DreamWorks Animation, Sony Animation, and the Walt Disney Company,   Applied online for the Universal Pictures Leadership Program.
10/05 (Weds) - Receive a call about a temporary position covering for a Maternity Leave (four months).  More details to follow.

Oct 11 - New Words and Old Worlds

For eons, humankind has been communicating in a variety of ways; some non-verbal and some verbal. As the verbal gained in popularity, the vocabulary exploded and grew and morphed and changed and evolved and became far more richer and precise. No longer was 'red' simply 'red', but evolved into burgundy, carmine, carnation, claret, crimson, damask, garnet, magenta, maroon, oxblood, puce, ruby, scarlet, vermilion - and let's not neglect the adjectives for 'red' like blood, brick, cherry, and fire-engine (from the soon-to-be discontinued MSN Encarta [say goodbye on October 31, 2009]).

And the evolution continues. New words crop up all the time, just as old words lose their meaning or value and disappear. New words can become globally accepted standards; regional and known by all your friends and neighbors but not by the people in the next town; or have multiple meanings in multiple areas - meaning that words are so widespread and ever-changing that I'm OK with that. New words adapt to better suit the needs of the users.

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, just 10 years ago, common words and terms like iPod and DVR were unknown. The word 'blog' itself is now fully accepted, but is a contraction for 'web log' or 'we blog' (depending on your source) and is therefore a new term coined around 1999.

20 years ago, 'cell phone', 'email' and 'laptop' meant virtually nothing sensical (my word for the opposite of 'nonsensical' - now that's a word that makes me gruntled). 30 years ago, a FAX (short for facsimile) was mostly unknown. "CC" means to copy someone on your email, but its origins are as an abbreviation for "carbon copy" - meaning the copy created when you placed that thin blue sheet of carbon paper between two blank pages before you rolled them into your typewriter. Now I only see something like carbon paper at the dentist's office when he's tasting the bite of a new cap or filling. Mimeo? What's a mimeo?

Growing up, we had an old Merriam-Websters Dictionary from the 1940s or 1950s (I think - Mom, if you're reading this, please save that tome for me). My favorite part of that book were the pages listing the new words that had been recently added. These were things like 'x-ray' 'laser' and 'television'. Commonplace words today that were new-fangled back then. Today, terms like 'google' (a verb) and abbreviations like 'btw' (by the way) are now taking root - will they be the new terms or words of tomorrow?

As a great example, take the word 'yahoo'. Ask nearly anyone today in 2009, and you will get an answer related to the popular website/portal Yahoo! The founders chose this word fifteen years ago in 1994 as an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." The actual definition at the time was more like "a boorish, crass, or stupid person" - a definition that itself had only been around for about 270 years. In actuality, the word 'yahoo' was invented by Irish writer and clergyman, Jonathan Swift in his novel, Gulliver's Travels (1726). In Part IV, our hero, Lemuel Gulliver, encounters a race of hideous deformed creatures - humans in their base form - known as Yahoos. Prior to that, the word doesn't seem to exist.

The word 'bloody' means covered with a human fluid in the US, but in the UK, it is a swear word like our 'f!@#ing' (yes, I know I used a veiled version of THAT word here for my sensitive readers after ranting about its usage only a week ago in my blog The Curse of Cursing?). Same word, completely different meaning in different areas of the world.

'Gay' used to simply mean cheerful and happy. Nobody uses it as such any more. No longer can The Flintstones have a "gay old time" without eliciting chuckles (yes, we're juvenile).

Today new words crop up daily and old words go by the waysides (what's a 'wayside'? "The side or edge of a road, way, path, or highway" - but do you ever use this word in a sentence other than in one of its clichéd phrases? - NO, which means the term 'waysides' has now fallen by the waysides.)

New words are good. Embrace them. Make them up. If you get enough people using them, you've added to the richness of our global vocabulary.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm gonna just culkin it today. (What does 'culkin' mean? It's short for Macauley Culkin who in 1990 was left "Home Alone." It's therefore now a verb meaning to "stay home alone".)

There May Have Been Signs...

Lately I’ve found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. And it’s during this time that I find myself living within my head more than I should.

It is after all, not unlike the repository at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s full of memories and closed chapters: Boy Scouts, Navy, familial dysfunction, playing the role of Paralegal at work, Animation Production, married years, single years, straight years, gay years… all chapters that make up the crazy novel of one person’s life.

Recently while in the dusty attic of my mind, I recalled my little suitcase record player. My world was constantly being expanded by the flat grooved bits of vinyl that spun around the little metal stub in the middle. And I begin to realize that hints of what was to come were – in retrospect – quite possibly evident from the very early on. Did the music shape the man I became or was the man that got buried deep inside for decades, simply finding the music that made his true soul dance?

Oh sure, the early experiences were musically provided by my Mother, who listened mostly to Classical. She supplied me with all the Disney tunes I could absorb. But what I craved more was hidden behind a sliding door in old cabinet of hers. With those doors, I found my own way.

Initially it was the album covers that sparked my interest. An old man in a cloud, dangling two people on puppet strings (the London Cast of My Fair Lady) – I listened and heard the voice of Mary Poppins and was hooked!

There was a violinist sitting on top of a house (Fiddler on the Roof) and a sketch of a bandleader who sang about “76 Trombones” (The Music Man). Well, my Mom took notice of this attraction (as I was always borrowing her albums). She then introduced me to Danny Kaye (as Hans Christian Andersen), Nat “King” Cole, Kiss Me, Kate and Streisand. I ate it up.

Soon, I had my own albums (in time, the vinyl collection would swell to about 2000). My Mom also began taking me to see things films like Oliver! and the cast album soon followed. In time, I started performing my favorites.

Oh, how my younger brother and sister loved those shows I’d put on for them… lip-syncing each and every song and performing each album in their entirety. And I did this for them often. Trust me, they’ve not forgotten. Thoughts of Jesus Christ Superstar still give my sister the shivers.

A few years later, my own record store wanderings found me perusing the Soundtrack/Cast Album section, as was my wont, and I came across this black and red and white album cover that stopped me in my tracks. Actually I came across two albums around this time, one was Patti Smith’s Easter with her hairy armpit on the cover. I was so grossed out – that might have shaped something, too!

But the album I’m specifically referring to had: an attractive nerd kissing a pretty girl; what looked like the Bride of Frankenstein; a bald guy with piercing eyes and stringy hair, peering around this guy/girl (?) with red lipstick. On the back, someone was grabbing the pretty girl’s breasts, a muscle guy was in a Speedo… what was all this about? With the promise of “16 Great Songs” and one of them being sung by Meat Loaf (who I recently liked from his “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”), I gave it shot.

OMG… to quote the lyrics, “…my mind has been expanded.” This was, of course, the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and while it would still be a few years before I encountered that actual movie – another mind-altering, game-changing experience – my perceptions were becoming clearer. Other early favorites were the glam rockers, very androgynous boys that intrigued me. Freddie Mercury oozed sexuality that I found surprisingly attractive.

I vividly remember one People magazine cover (September 6, 1976) with this not-unhandsome woman? Or was it man? The attraction was so strong, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I remember it at the checkout stand and I kept stealing glances at it hoping no one would see me. The caption said David Bowie. I didn’t care, I was attracted to him (I’d already loved his track “Space Oddity”).

So long ago. And while I didn’t actually ‘come out’ until much later on, musically I may have been out at an early age. I’m not saying that every little boy who likes Musicals is gay, for me I think these were glimpses into the real me that was struggling to break free.

I still cherish these Albums (on my iPod now). Hearing these songs still make me smile with more fondness than other songs do. The kid inside is quite pleased.