Start

I hate my friend Tom.

Not conclusively or anything. In reality Tom's one of the best of the good people. But Tom did something that unintentionally and inevitably changed the course of my summer vacation: he taught me how to load album covers into my iPod.

Just like this, but without the words hovering midair.

This sounds harmless. Helpful, even. "That would be a great thing to learn!" you're thinking*. And it is a nice thing to learn if you aren't as compulsive and lacking in priorities as I am.  Now in fairness, I rarely bother with anything at all, and if I do get obsessed even that rarely lasts more than 48 hours. But in this case, that little burst of productivity was all it took.

Because now I had gotten it into my head to to do the entire iPod.

I spent the next two days obsessively hunting and downloading album covers, uploading them to iTunes, redownloading albums I already had (iTunes won't change a file if the original has been deleted), then putting those back in and matching them with covers. And it all had to be done running between my mother's PC (with internet access) and my laptop (with none), flash drive in hand, over and over until everything had been relabled, restored, and reunited with its artwork.  All 32 GB. That is a shitload of music, for the record. That's around 5000 songs, more than 350 albums, nearly 300 artists and most of it needing artwork.

And it wasn't even that simple. As I worked (""), I thought of albums to add. So I'd search, download and add. But then I'd have too many, and I'd have to toss some. So I'd agonise, rate and toss. Hell I even filled the notes with a list of upcoming album drops to remember. 

Riding the high of my fresh if completely disproportionate enthusiasm, this seemed at the time like a reasonable way to spend vacation to the hometown and family I hadn't seen in nearly two years. I was propelled by the idea that this little sliver of metal and... computer bits was owed the lavish attention it had so long been deprived of. In my 4am internet and vodka haze, I reasoned it out: iPod keeps me company during hours of commuting every day-- He's is practically a friend! And thus this seemed the least I could do.

In sum, I spent two days almost in their entirety and late into the night weeding and preening and prettying up my iPod. I haven't worked so diligently at anything since the "No More Nukes" letter writing campaign I took up in '07 (Fun Facts: Belgium does not actually have nukes; a country can ban you for letter writing; the seemingly mild insult "waffle-eater" is offensive, lewd, and possibly racist when translated into Flemish). By Monday morning, I hated myself. I hated Apple. I hated the way my eyes felt as though they were about to roll out my face. And, like I said, I hated Tom.

Oh, but you should have seen my iPod. The shiny touchscreen flooded colour and personality with every song. Every album was one I knew I wanted. Bands I'd been meaning to test drive--there. Classics I'd been forgetting to add--there. Like in a teen movie about the "ugly" kid, I took down his ponytail, took off his iGlasses, lent him a dress and now...my plain friend was hot. (He's a tranny for the purposes of this metaphor. Get 2010). And shallow as I am, it made me want to spend more time with him. 

And how to turn two days of misplaced effort and an obsessive vanity regarding an electronic device into something useful? Well I'm an asshole with a laptop and an opinion, so... blog. Because if blogs like Shopping and Poker, and Baller King exist, I might as well. I'm twice as opinionated and only half as sexist.  Boobies.

So now this space is about music and all things related. Old music, new music, commentary, suggestion, reviews, playlists, links, news, rock, pop, indie, oldies... whatever. The only theme here is "What I'm Feeling Into Today." I run this joint and you're at the mercy of my never-logical whims. And there's nothing you can do about it. Besides go somewhere else, I guess.

Welcome to my new blog and comment freely if you have an opinion or an uncontrollable urge to troll people on the internet. It all brings the lulz, so whatever. I may not be nice when commenting back but Hell,I'm not all that nice about anything.

And here's a classic in the name of... starting.

Fuck it--you want clever stick to Baller King:

 

*Or you're thinking "When you pay for your music it automatically comes with album covers. Bitch is a music thief." Way to go, you got me. You can go back to checking your pager and worrying about falling off the edge of this flat planet now, or whatever it is that people who still pay for music do.