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Thursday, 05 November 2009

Currently
Lies and Alibis
By Jerry O'Connell, Jon Polito, Deborah Kara Unger, Steve Coogan, Ken Kerman
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ITunes Disaster

A couple weeks ago I did something in ITunes that I really wish I could take back. I had been having problems with songs not playing in ITunes that DID play on my IPod and also in other programs like Windows Media Player. The problem appeared to perpetuate as each week I found new songs that were experiencing the same problem. I finally discovered that one way to fix it was to do the ID3 tag conversion, but when I did it, I did not designate what version to convert it to. Each time, I left it as “none”. But it worked. As I hunted through my 17,000+ songs, I realized it might be easier just to take the rest of the songs (I was only through artists beginning with “C”) and do the conversion for all of them. Mistake. Not only did it take a few hours, it lost tons of artwork, changed the word “The” so that it would appear AFTER the artist name (such as “Cars, The”), and truncated song and album titles. I was incredulous. It did not do this for all my songs. Usually those I had added in the last few months were safe. It seems for many it converted it to the original condition they were in when I first put them in ITunes. Anyway, I am still working on fixing them and I have a ways to go. By the time I am done, I will probably do something else to destroy all the work I did, as this already feels like the third of fourth time I have had to add artwork to several albums. Very frustrating. Maybe I should just delete it all and go music free for the rest of my life.
Nah.
Currently
Overnight
By Chris Brinker, Gordon Clark (II), Jim Crabbe (II), Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Duffy (II)
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We have all seen it before: you walk into a public bathroom stall and the toilet has a doo doo stain. If there is another open stall, you go to that one instead. And if there is no other open stall, you may even leave and find another bathroom, like someone did today at my work. But why? You should have no worries about what you are about to add to the bowl being contaminated. Are you afraid the stain might come out and attack your behind? There is no answer really, other than we prefer a totally clean toilet from the get go. But what would you do if you were at someone’s house, went #2, and left a little momento of your own? Would you clean it up? That concludes today's gross talk.
Currently
Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey
By Cracker
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I seriously doubt the 0-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to be on TV this weekend, but I would LOVE to see the old creamsicle uniforms in action. Good ole Bucco Bruce. If only I was still living in Tampa. I might even GO to that game. I hope they are so inspired by the old uniforms that they actually get a win against the Packers. That would be cool. Just put Aaron Rodgers on his back a few times like Minnesota did and you actually have a really good chance, Bucs.
Currently
Brothers Bloom
By Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo
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Special Grocery Trip

We were about a mile from home last night when my oldest son, Max, called to say we needed to go by the grocery store because we had no food to eat. Of course, he said it as if he were starving to death and that all the food we did have was either rice cakes or gruel (Note: I don't think that either one taste all that bad, though I am not sure I ever had gruel). When I informed him we were almost home, he was very upset and said he had called earlier and no one answered. So this morning I finally noticed there was a voicemail on my phone. However, it was my son Mitchell, and what he said had to be one of the funniest things I have heard in awhile. He told me we needed to go by the store because we were out of.......drum roll please.....oyster crackers. He mentioned nothing else; he only wanted oyster crackers. I wonder if anyone in the whole world has ever made a special trip to the store to buy only oyster crackers? I would be "no."
Currently
Beat the Reaper: A Novel
By Josh Bazell
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Date Night

Last night, Julie and I went to Olive Garden so we could use a $25 gift certificate that my parents gave to us on our anniversary (Sept. 25th). I had not been to Olive Garden in years and learned that $25 does not go far. Correction: it does not go far when you order wine and an appetizer. Restaurants must know that when people get gift certificates that they spend more than they typically would if they did not have a gift certificate. At least, I feel that to be true. So when offering a gift certificate, why not discount them a bit to entice people to buy them as gifts. Perhaps offer a $25 gift certificate for only $22, or $20, since $22 looks gross. But not as bad as $23. Actually, Discover Card (and probably other cards) already offer something like this. Instead of taking cash back, you can use your $40 rebate to buy a $50 gift certificate. I have done it in the past. And then I promptly went out and spent the ten extra dollars on a new wind chime.