A small package of value will come to you, shortly.

I've always been kinda behind the loop when it comes to technology... never been one of those guys that had to have the latest thing right when it came out. So: no pager, no cell phone (not even the giant honkin' 80s model), the last game system I had before I got a PS2 was an Atari 2600 that my parents picked up at a rummage sale back when everyone ditched 'em 'cause the NES came out.

So it follows that in spite of my huge music collection on both hard copy and mp3, my only "mp3 player" was my rapidly aging desktop computer. Most of the components were hand-me-downs from a friend of mine and it works well enough for what I use it for. I've gotten used to burning stuff to disc when I want to listen to it somewhere else (like in my car) and I'm too cheap to justify shelling out the cash for an Ipod or any competing players when I already have a working burner and player. While I like the idea behind those new phones that also play music, I'm a social reject who doesn't like spending time on the phone in the first place, and wouldn't get any calls anyway from people that aren't my parents or my girlfriend. I'm old enough that I don't get the point of this constant texting that everyone seems to do these days (and my fat fingers would miss the right keys even if I did try to do any of that)...

So, I wound up with a cheap COBY mp3 player that I got free for entering in about 2,500 or so of those reward codes from Coca-Cola products. So far, for the price, I can't complain. It has 4GB of space which means it should hold about as much music as a DVD of mp3s. It has some other features that I haven't messed around with yet, like a tiny video screen and a text reader function, and an FM radio receiver.

Now, of course, the big question is which tracks do I fill this device up with? I recently read one of John Sandford's books, Broken Prey, which besides being a good book, has a nice little subplot bonus of "Lucas Davenport's Best Songs of the Rock Era," a list of songs based on the premise that Lucas' wife bought him an Ipod with an Itunes gift card good for 100 mp3s, so he's trying to fill it up with what he and his friends/partners/etc. feel are the best 'rock' songs. I passed the book along at PaperbackSwap, but actually took the time to copy down the whole list (which appears as an appendix in the back of the book) because there are some great songs on there that I'd forgotten about. There's a few on there that, in my opinion, just don't fit and of course there's certain artists/groups on there that I just can't stand (Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, for example). I'm not copying the list on here since oddly enough, the book is missing the usual copyright disclaimer in the front that lets you quote parts of it in the context of a review.

Looking through it again, I find myself wondering what exactly constitutes "the rock era," anyway? Does that end in the early '70s with all the singer/songwriter stuff? Does punk rock bring it back, since the Ramones and the Sex Pistols (among many others) played closer to the roots of rock with their covers of older songs? And while I still like some songs off the list (The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" and Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason") I wouldn't consider those "rock songs," exactly. There's other songs listed that I'd consider to be folk or soul or blues, not rock and roll... and I'd be perfectly fine if I never heard "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers again the rest of my life.

More on this list later, once I've heard every song on there and have my own take on it.

More BS about music - Holiday Edition.

So, it's December. They're playing Xmas music where I work. It's mixed up a bit, some regular songs, then holiday stuff, then regular stuff again. When I was younger I used to get really annoyed that stores would play religious songs around this time of year. As I got older I realized that that was very hypocritical of me... along the same lines as getting pissed off hearing songs about Rudolph the Reindeer because "he doesn't exist!" I'm just glad that so far we've been spared The Chipmunks and that everyone seems to have forgotten the Jingle Cats. I can deal w/ the Muppets' "12 Days of Christmas" because Beaker is awesome.

One thing that hasn't changed since I was a kid is that no place plays the good novelty Xmas songs over their loudspeakers. I still love "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer," Bob Rivers' "12 Pains of Christmas" and "Walkin' Round in Womens' Underwear" (the song, not the act itself.) I can't remember who sang "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" [edit: sung by Gayla Peevey in 1952 or -3]

Today is a memorable day, not because of any sales or "Black Friday" craziness, but because I finally used up the entire spindle of CD-Rs I'd bought back when I upgraded my CD burner to one that'd burn 80 minutes of music. Why'd it take so long? I had a bunch of old 74-minute blanks that my parents gave me to use first, so I used those when I had an album/bootleg that would fit. Time to start on the next spindle...

One of the problems of high-speed internet access is that I end up downloading way more music than I can organize and burn at one time. I guess that's part of the whole obsessive collector thing... whenever I do burn a disc I try to compile everything that'll fit from a band I like - rarities, b-sides, all that stuff.

Speaking of collecting stuff... There's a lot of stuff that should be for sale, but isn't. I'd love to have a leather/fake snakeskin wallet that reproduces the album art from Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies. There's hundreds of awesome album covers that ought to be on shirts, but aren't. Since I pretty much fit the stereotype of the collector geek, you can imagine my disappointment that the few shirts I do find tend to end at size Large. If I was rich, I'd start a company that would reprint classic/vintage album art shirts in the full range of sizes...

procrastinate? maybe later...

Another day spent attempting to reorganize stuff... rediscovered my stash of spare CD cases plus some discs I forgot about from when I first had access to a CD burner.

I've been putting all my burnt stuff in those slim CD cases and labelling the edges with an embossing tape machine. Now I see why nobody really uses these anymore - it's extremely difficult to get all the letters to line up, and I keep overprinting them when the tape doesn't advance like it's supposed to. Judging from a high school-era Swans compilation I'd made for myself, I used to be much better at this, since I did the tracklist entirely in embossing tape. I'm not calling it "Dymo tape" since that company no longer seems to make it... and I'm one of those anal people that gets annoyed when brand names are used generically, like saying "Kleenex" or "Band-Aid" when you ask for a tissue or bandage.

damn, November already?

Another awesome Goodwill score: found a signed copy of Elmore Leonard's Riding The Rap! It's a large print edition, dedicated to the Maximillian hotel, which according to Google is either in Prague, Czech Republic or Malcesine, Italy. Perhaps there's another hotel with the same name in the United States somewhere... The full inscription reads "To the Maximillian, a fine hotel, with thanks for a most enjoyable stay. - Elmore Leonard, 4-02"

At any rate, I think that's more interesting than a book that's simply signed to a random person that showed up at a book signing. "Dutch" himself either left this book there or presented it to the manager or someone who worked at the hotel, and in the years since it migrated to the shelf in the Midwest where I picked it up! I wasn't even looking for signed books, I just grabbed it because it was a hardback and one I hadn't read yet, and didn't notice the signature until I got home...

Speaking of books, I mentioned PaperbackSwap and SwapACD in one of the earlier posts on here... I can now say that I received several items successfully from these sites and can fully recommend them both. If anyone reading this decides to join, there's a "referred by:" field when you sign up for your account. Type in "obscure-reference" with a hyphen between the words, and I'll probably get some sort of credit for referring you! What you should know before you join any of these sites is that you need to post 10 books/CDs/DVDs (depending on which site you join) to get your first credit. Also, you have to pay for the shipping to mail any of the items on your shelf that other members request. When you request items, though, you don't have to pay shipping. Like anything else, you should read all the terms of use before you agree to sign up...

like the title says, misc. rambling

Spent most of my day off reading other people's blogs about "retro stuff," like TV shows, movies and advertisements from the '70s and '80s. This got me thinking about the random things I've kept from when I was a kid... not the toys and such, which are still mostly packed away at my parents' house, but the other stuff.

For instance, I still have two green plastic bag clips that advertise Keebler's Cheez 'N Chips. All I remember about these cheese flavored snacks is that the two bags my mom bought came with their own clip to reseal the bag with. (There's an ad for them at the 8:48 mark at the link, in glorious VHS-o-vision) Even after watching that ad, I still don't remember eating them, or even if they were any good! However, the clips were made well enough to last through umpteen years of junk food consumption, despite a springless design.

I've held onto a collection of pocketknives and lighters, even though I only ever carry one of the smallest knives to work and no longer smoke. I just like keeping this stuff...

update

still going through books... unfortunately, many of the ones I have are ones I can't sell since the 99-centers on eBay and Half.com have taken the profit out of it. Oddly enough, I've seen many listings on Half (by the same few sellers) that are priced astronomically high. I couldn't imagine anyone paying $120 or so for any book or movie unless it was both rare and signed... or some special limited item like that Stooges box set, or those early Beck records with the painted covers.

My guess is either these sellers listed the stuff back when they were the only one that had the item, or else they really don't want to sell them in the first place.

I have found a possible solution for those books and CDs that are too common to sell or trade in elsewhere... there's a couple of sites for swapping paperbacks and CDs that sound almost too good to be true. The same people have another one for DVDs, but I haven't bothered with that one since I don't have a ton of movies just sitting around. So far, both sites have only a few "catches" that I can see. Everything you post to your account has to have a UPC and be in their system... which some of my older books and random CDs aren't. If other people want stuff you've posted, you pay shipping to mail it to them. That part isn't that big of a deal since I've gotten used to mailing stuff on eBay... I'll update this once I get the few items I've requested through these sites.