Keeping Busy
Keeping Busy
Yesterday I told Ian that I was making a bona fide Cry For HelpTM, that I need his ideas for keeping me productively busy... busily productive?... during this limbo time until we figure out what we're doing and move onto the next chapter in our lives. Ian was awesome, and responded immediately with some ideas which we jotted down on our kitchen chalkboard. I now have a list that includes some projects that need doing before we eventually move like sorting through our moving boxes and prepping them, some minor fix-its I've been putting off, and some important daily activities like simply playing with the kitties. That's good; I am comforted by having a list.
Music Collection Reorg
Since the Great Music Crash of 2010, I've been working pretty diligently to replace all the ratings for my music, rebuild my playlists, and get my music collection back in order. It's going very well, and it's an amusing way for me to pass a little time and yet feel productive. I finished the first pass of the ratings a few days ago. I've used this system that, in the name of Trying New Things, I must acknowledge is pretty weird: anything that rated only 1 star got deleted, and 2 stars were things I didn't like much, but couldn't commit to outright delete. Basically, that left me with only 3 stars to use in my active music collection, and until last year, I was extremely stingy with the rare 5 star designation. Since my most favored playlists are based on ratings, one can see how I'd end up listening to the same collection of 3- and 4-star songs over and over again. But that's the way, isn't it? You have 5,700 songs in your music collection, and you listen to the same 500 again and again.
This year when the collection made its annual crash, I took the opportunity to dig a little more deeply during the reorg. I eliminated duplicate files entirely from my collection, and that took some doing! Many were there from compilations or Greatest Hits albums. Some were just badly organized, with the same song being listed in different genres, so I never caught the dupes. Additional mishigoss came in the form of little sillinesses like the Rolling Stones being listed twice as that, and The Rolling Stones. Oy vey! I think it actually took longer to clean up those sorts of mistakes and duplicates than the rate the whole collection.
Once I completed that process, and outright deleted all the 1-stars, and 2-stars that realistically I'd never want to listen to, my music collection is now much more manageable in many ways. For one thing, for the first time ever, I've opened up the heretofore useless 2-star rating as actually valid in my collection. That has greatly increased my organizational power, and enjoyment of 3-star songs altogether.
The ratings process continues in refinement as I actually listen to songs I haven't touched in awhile, and adjust both their rating, and my determination of genre accordingly. It's tough for some things like 80s songs -- do I classify them as 80s, or in their native genre like Hard Rock or Pop or whatever? That classification dilemma certainly made the development of an 80s music playlist challenging! The rediscovery of what I already had is like Second Christmas, however, and I'm enjoying the process.
Miscellanea
I've begun watching "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for the first time. I didn't much care for it when it came out, so I never gave it a chance. We're only a few discs into Season 1, but I am amused thus far.
Last night's "Lost" finale left me with mixed feelings. I wish more had been explained or resolved, or closed, or explored more thoroughly -- on the other hand, I accept that artistically, it's probably best to leave the audience wanting more. I don't agree with the assessment I've read from some others that my years watching the show were "wasted," nor do I feel totally cheated -- I felt that way by the end of "The X-Files," I'll tell ya that! No, I sort of always knew that Lost wouldn't give me total explanation and satisfaction, and I'm impressed that I got as much explanation as I got. Nevertheless, my feeling stands that Seasons 1 & 2 sure seem divorced from the rest of the show. I think they started writing without much clue of where to go from there. Season 3 was something of a transition as they tried to figure out what that plan was. By the time Season 4 rolled around, the show was certainly on track to the ending aired last night, but I'm not sure that "new" show is one that I like. I want to see the ending of Seasons 1 and 2! How did that show end? Because certainly it bore little resemblance to the show that wrapped up last night.
Ian has been playing a new game for the Xbox 360 which he anticipated for months beforehand, "Alan Wake" from Remedy, which also produced the Max Payne games which were among Ian's favorites. We've been downstairs glued to the TV playing that for days. The game is so much fun that I've genuinely enjoyed just sitting there as an audience member, watching Ian play through it, much as we did with Assassin's Creed and a few others. Fun! I've also heard stupendous things about "Red Dead Redemption," and it makes me think that perhaps it's worth checking out after all.
That's about all I can think to share for now.
T$
Yesterday I told Ian that I was making a bona fide Cry For HelpTM, that I need his ideas for keeping me productively busy... busily productive?... during this limbo time until we figure out what we're doing and move onto the next chapter in our lives. Ian was awesome, and responded immediately with some ideas which we jotted down on our kitchen chalkboard. I now have a list that includes some projects that need doing before we eventually move like sorting through our moving boxes and prepping them, some minor fix-its I've been putting off, and some important daily activities like simply playing with the kitties. That's good; I am comforted by having a list.
Music Collection Reorg
Since the Great Music Crash of 2010, I've been working pretty diligently to replace all the ratings for my music, rebuild my playlists, and get my music collection back in order. It's going very well, and it's an amusing way for me to pass a little time and yet feel productive. I finished the first pass of the ratings a few days ago. I've used this system that, in the name of Trying New Things, I must acknowledge is pretty weird: anything that rated only 1 star got deleted, and 2 stars were things I didn't like much, but couldn't commit to outright delete. Basically, that left me with only 3 stars to use in my active music collection, and until last year, I was extremely stingy with the rare 5 star designation. Since my most favored playlists are based on ratings, one can see how I'd end up listening to the same collection of 3- and 4-star songs over and over again. But that's the way, isn't it? You have 5,700 songs in your music collection, and you listen to the same 500 again and again.
This year when the collection made its annual crash, I took the opportunity to dig a little more deeply during the reorg. I eliminated duplicate files entirely from my collection, and that took some doing! Many were there from compilations or Greatest Hits albums. Some were just badly organized, with the same song being listed in different genres, so I never caught the dupes. Additional mishigoss came in the form of little sillinesses like the Rolling Stones being listed twice as that, and The Rolling Stones. Oy vey! I think it actually took longer to clean up those sorts of mistakes and duplicates than the rate the whole collection.
Once I completed that process, and outright deleted all the 1-stars, and 2-stars that realistically I'd never want to listen to, my music collection is now much more manageable in many ways. For one thing, for the first time ever, I've opened up the heretofore useless 2-star rating as actually valid in my collection. That has greatly increased my organizational power, and enjoyment of 3-star songs altogether.
The ratings process continues in refinement as I actually listen to songs I haven't touched in awhile, and adjust both their rating, and my determination of genre accordingly. It's tough for some things like 80s songs -- do I classify them as 80s, or in their native genre like Hard Rock or Pop or whatever? That classification dilemma certainly made the development of an 80s music playlist challenging! The rediscovery of what I already had is like Second Christmas, however, and I'm enjoying the process.
Miscellanea
I've begun watching "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for the first time. I didn't much care for it when it came out, so I never gave it a chance. We're only a few discs into Season 1, but I am amused thus far.
Last night's "Lost" finale left me with mixed feelings. I wish more had been explained or resolved, or closed, or explored more thoroughly -- on the other hand, I accept that artistically, it's probably best to leave the audience wanting more. I don't agree with the assessment I've read from some others that my years watching the show were "wasted," nor do I feel totally cheated -- I felt that way by the end of "The X-Files," I'll tell ya that! No, I sort of always knew that Lost wouldn't give me total explanation and satisfaction, and I'm impressed that I got as much explanation as I got. Nevertheless, my feeling stands that Seasons 1 & 2 sure seem divorced from the rest of the show. I think they started writing without much clue of where to go from there. Season 3 was something of a transition as they tried to figure out what that plan was. By the time Season 4 rolled around, the show was certainly on track to the ending aired last night, but I'm not sure that "new" show is one that I like. I want to see the ending of Seasons 1 and 2! How did that show end? Because certainly it bore little resemblance to the show that wrapped up last night.
Ian has been playing a new game for the Xbox 360 which he anticipated for months beforehand, "Alan Wake" from Remedy, which also produced the Max Payne games which were among Ian's favorites. We've been downstairs glued to the TV playing that for days. The game is so much fun that I've genuinely enjoyed just sitting there as an audience member, watching Ian play through it, much as we did with Assassin's Creed and a few others. Fun! I've also heard stupendous things about "Red Dead Redemption," and it makes me think that perhaps it's worth checking out after all.
That's about all I can think to share for now.
T$