Fun With iTunes -- your library says things about you....

Eric Hedlund posted a version of this in his blog on 1-22-06. I've modified it and put it here. Load up iTunes, my friends, for a fun experiment. (You can do this with your iPod, or other music program if you prefer). Prepare your answers and post them here as comments.....

You have to tell the truth no matter how embarrassing. You may omit Podcasts and AudioBooks if you'd like. If you use symbols to force sort stuff where it doesn't normally appear (such as tildes) you can go to the first naturally sorted item.

What are you using to answer? iTunes 6.0.2 for the Mac

How many songs? 676 (I have many more, but I don't keep them all in iTunes).

Sort by artist
First artist: [USA For Africa] but if you don't count punctuation, Aaron Copeland
Last artist: ZZ Top

Sort by song title
First Song: 99 Luftbaloons (Nena)
Last Song: Your Wildest Dream (Moody Blues)

Sort by time
Shortest Song: 20th Century Fox Fanfare at just a few seconds
Longest Song: Echoes (Pink Floyd) at over 23 minutes

Sort by album
First Album: 4 (Foreigner)
Last Album: You Had To Be There (Jimmy Buffett, Live)

Sort by "Last Played"
What was the most recent song played: Baby Grand (Billy Joel) today
What was the least recent song played/when: Come on Feel the Noise (Quiet Riot) 11-5-04

First song that comes up on Shuffle*: Come Monday (Jimmy Buffett)
(If you don't have Shuffle on your device, what would you like to come up next time you press PLAY?)

Search for these terms
How many songs come up?
"sex?" 2
"death?" 0
"love?" 45
"you?" 69
"why?" 4
"God?" 4
"crazy?" 3

Billy Elliot (Play Review, London)

I originally saw this play on 2 August 2005, and I have been trying to find my original review since then, but it seems to have gone AWOL along with my entire list archive for that trip (and also my review of the Proms, etc). So for this review, I'm going to have to skip the retro-review and write it from scratch and memory. The play is too good to leave it unreviewed, so here it goes.

If you've seen Billy Elliot the movie, you may be expecting the same thing from the play, but that's not what you'll get. (My original movie review is in this blog as well). I loved the movie to pieces as did many people. It's hard to improve on something that good, something that memorable, and something that, in many ways, borders on perfection.

First of all, the play is not the movie. Period. The play is based on the original work and that is primarily about the miner's strike as opposed to it being the background story, it is the main story. This makes the play even more poignant than the film.

The songs from the movie are not the songs in the play. Elton John wrote some interesting pieces for the play, one of the most amazing being "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher" which is bright, bouncy, and very cheery as long as you don't listen to the lyrics which make it very dark, very subversive. It is a very hummable tune and is definitely a showstopper.

The acting in the play is fantastic beyond all measure. The wild standing ovation it got was well deserved and in fact it probably deserved more. Billy Elliot has won dozens of awards and it deserves every single one of them. The audience was clearly moved by the production.

I am not a big fan of dance at all. However, I loved the movie. And as much as I loved the movie, the play was amazing. The young boy who played Billy was fantastic -- we got the one in the famous poster, but they rotate the lead among three lads due to stringent British Labour Laws.

I cannot say enough good things about this brilliant work, and I encourage you to go see it. It may be one of the best pieces of theatre ever created.

Seti@Home: My 15 seconds of fame (or 24 hours)

Today, 19 January 2006, I was named Seti@Home's user of the day. I have no idea how or why I was selected but I am thrilled because I've always been a huge supporter of Seti@Home. If you go to the link below today and today only, you can see my ugly mugshot on the front page of Seti@Home. I have, of course, taken a screen-shot for posterity which is on the link below and saved my congratulatory e-mail.

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/index.php <-- this link always works, but after today it won't show my name. http://www.darsys.com/seti.html <-- information on Team Orkut (formerly Team CMOT)

Crazy Frog, Led Zeppelin, and Masturbating

I originally made a post called Crazy Frog or Coldplay back on June 3rd, 2005. Pretty innocuous, eh? Well, it's interesting because over 25% of the people who find their way to my blog are looking for that post. Another 20% are looking for my post from March 5th, 2005 called Why Led Zeppelin Sucks which, ironically, has NOTHING to do with Led Zeppelin sucking, because they don't suck.

Neither of those posts was intended to attract people to my blog. They were just rantings I made on topics I have an opinion on. However, between the two of them, they're generating hundreds of hits every week -- over 50% of my traffic, in fact. I am not sure I should thank Google or not. Then there's the people find my site via, sadly, a search on the term "Anal Psoriasis" which bears no further discussion.

One day, I decided to make a post that would drive people to my site to increase traffic. I cheated and used a sex term Masturbation. Did that bring traffic? Nope. Nary a visitor. So far my blog has over 22,000 hits -- most of them in the past year. That's more than my most of my web pages. I was hoping, secretly, that some people would click on the Google ads and help me earn money towards the upkeep of this site, but that hasn't happened. I'm not even earning a dime a day, so nobody's clicking.

I cannot explain the traffic at this site and have given up trying. I do find it interesting, amusing, and terribly frustrating. If you're not into clicking on ads, there's always the donate link as well which goes right to my ISP and stays out of my grubby little hands.

Also, I cannot figure out why that one thread (Why Led Zeppelin Sucks) has more comments than the rest of my blog in its entirety.

That's really all I have to say right now. I have no point, but thought I'd up and ramble a bit. If you want to comment here, that'd be great as long as it isn't about Zeppelin -- go to that other thread if you have to have your two cents. Or better yet, go to my Happy New Year's Post and comment there -- I actually asked my readers to say where they were from and it was universally ignored.

Come on! 22,000 visitors and nobody has anything intelligent to say?

Apostro'phes

So, I was at Eric "Ptomaine" Hedlund's blog earlier today. I go there now and again, despite the fact he posts in spurts and then doesn't post for over a year. If he posted regularly, you can be sure he'd be in the blog link section on your right. You may remember Eric from several other mentions (#1 and #2) in this blog. I only mention Eric because he had this fantastic link in his blog and I feel the need to thank him for reminding me about it. As everyone knows, I despise people who don't know the difference between it's and its, especially when they should know better. It's a regular peeve of mine, and I rant about it endlessly on my website and in posts around the 'net. I am not above writing to an editor of a publication to complain. It's quite frustrating to see the increasing flocks of ignorant people.

So what did Eric post that excited me so much? A link, a long forgotten one. In specific, it's a link to The Apostrophe Protection Society. Yes, it's a real link! The site is not pretty to look at, but it's rather well organized and very informative. I encourage you to go there. If you're a lover of the book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, you will love this site. Grammar and punctuation are highly underrated.


PS: Don't forget the newsgroup: alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe

Blow It Out Your Arse

Matt Deatherage (once famous as keeper of the Dogcow) made this post about Olestra (scroll halfway down). I feel obligated to report that I, too, once ate a can of Pringles made with Olestra. It had the most unfortunate side effect of cleaning out my entire intestinal tract in a very rapid fashion an hour or so later. I didn't realize quite how widespread this problem was until I happened to run across his post.

Of course, when CK was experiencing some problems of an unspecified nature and was considering seeing a doctor due to the time involved, I suggested a can of same to alleviate it. I shall spare everyone any further details, but it most certainly had the desired effect.

The question is: why is this crap still on the market? 20,000 complaints? That's no small number though in theory it's statistically insignificant when compared to the entire population.

I am also allergic to Nutrasweet (Aspartame) once it's been cooked. I don't trust Splenda either. Maybe all these synthesized foods aren't such a good idea. If the human body tries to blow them out your backside in a projectile, shouldn't that send you a message? I figured it out and just don't eat the stuff anymore.

Billy Joel In Concert (1-7-06 Sunrise, FL)

Here's my review of last night's Billy Joel concert. He's sold out two shows here, something he always did when used to perform regularly -- in fact standing room only seats were sold at the Bank Atlantic Center, which is rarely done here. This show was 1-7 and the next is coming up next week on 1-15. His play "Movin' Out" is in town and he personally performed at opening night a few days ago, giving the audience there a big surprise, and although I wasn't there my friend Karen was and said his two song performance after the show was far more enjoyable than the play itself. Anyway, I digress.

There were a lot of lighting problems during this show. I had floor seats (Floor 5, Row M) and they kept shining the lights in our faces blinding us -- many people were rather put out by this and it was mentioned in this morning's Herald as well. Also, Joel kept yelling at his lighting people "I can't see my drummer for the cues," which was funny the first time, but after the fourth or fifth time he was clearly irritated. I hope these were opening night issues because if not, the lighting guy is losing his job.

There were some microphone problems on one bit, but they were quickly addressed and he started that part over from the top. Again, we'll chalk this to opening night glitches.

Joel's voice started to wear a bit towards the end, but I don't fault him after such a long hiatus from a full length concert performance. It's better to hear a real voice than hear some flawless lyp-synched performance. The band was fantastic, especially the black lady doing his backup vocals. She was fantastic.

Billy opened with Piano Man, which, as you know, is the song he's always closed his concerts with. So we knew it was a different night he had in store for us. It was odd for many people because they came to hear his hits, and as you can see by the set list below, he avoided them almost entirely. I didn't mind most of them, having heard many of these songs on his albums, but many people who left were rather dissatisfied that he didn't play his usual Top Ten hit concert. As you can tell, he picked many deep cuts that never were heard on the radio that would appear only to his most die-hard fans. Again, I didn't mind but there's bound to be grumbling when an artist does that.

His voice was good, as I said, though acoustically he was often drowned out by his band on a some songs -- this isn't his fault, though. Acoustically the Bank Atlantic Center causes that problem with many artists and has been a frequent complaint of many artists and fans at this venue.

Joel played an oddly arranged version of We Didn't Start the Fire which I initially enjoyed but later left me entirely dissatisfied. It just didn't sound the same. Maybe it's me.... He also played three songs for the people on the sides of, and behind the stage, something he does do that most acts don't do -- I think it's great, especially since for many of his past shows I was, indeed, behind the stage. He started at 8:25pm for an 8pm start and ended at 10:35pm.

His set list is as follows:
Piano Man
Everybody Loves You Now
Miami 2017 [The crowd went really nuts on this one]
Laura
Allentown
New York State of Mind
Stiletto
Zanzibar
The Great Wall of China
All For Leyna
Sometimes a Fantasy
Sleeping With the Television On
She's Right on Time
Movin' Out
The Night is Still Young
Big Man on Mulberry Street
Where's the Orchestra
Keeping the Faith
I Go to Extremes
We Didn't Start the Fire
Big Shot
You May Be Right
(Encore)
The River of Dreams
Only the Good Die Young
(Encore 2)
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Famous Last Words

(1-18-05 addendum) Billy did a second show which was reviewed in the 1-17 Miami Herald (Daily Fishwrapper) which reports a vastly different show. Here's a brief excerpt:

Billy Joel's second show Sunday night at the BankAtlantic Center was everything his Jan. 7 tour kickoff wasn't -- a rollicking, rocking roundup of the Piano Man's greatest hits.

Joel, who has a home in Miami Beach, knocked 'em out from almost every album. From his opener, Angry Young Man, to the closing Piano Man, he had the standing-room-only crowd in Sunrise, well, standing.

Along the way: Ballad of Billy the Kid, New York State of Mind, You May Be Right, It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me, We Didn't Start the Fire, My Life, I Go to Extremes, Only the Good Die Young, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and more.

Before launching into a version of Allentown, Joel took a somber moment to lament the brutal beating of three homeless men in Fort Lauderdale, one of whom died.

Quite frankly, I wish I had gone to the second one instead.......

Our Government Is Comprised of Morons

Today I was planning on writing a tirade on the much maligned -- and rightfully so -- Patriot Act. Nobody seems to be willing to take any sort of stand on creating a balance between Security and Stupidity. I like my privacy, and while I really don't care if anyone gets a list of what I bought at Amazon.com, it's also nobody's business. Ditto for e-bay. (For those concerned, it's actually pretty easy to figure out what any e-bay user has been recently buying or selling. And on Amazon, many people actually list what they've bought -- even I do that sometimes.) The question is why the government needs a law to accomplish this. They've always had the power to request a subpoena to get anything they need for a specific case. What they've done, however is made a mess.

Here's an example. Let us say, for instance, one of my employees at work is telling a joke about Fidel Castro. Someone is walking by and hears him saying something complimentary about Fidel. He doesn't realize it's part of a joke. So he reports a tip that this person is a communist sympathizer. Next thing you know, this person is being investigated for no valid reason. Sound silly, doesn't it? Now replace the word "communist" with "terrorist" and you have modern day Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is an evil thing, and so is the primary champion of the Patriot Act: George Bush -- he of less intelligence than your pet dog.

Like I said, I was going to write about the Patriot Act, but I just wrote a few comments because this proves our government is run by people who are almost as dumb as your president. (He's not my president because I certainly didn't vote for him.)

Four year old boy on don't-fly list. Yes, you heard right. Our government in its infinite wisdom and in an effort to protect us all from Osama BinLadin has decided four year old children are a threat to your safety and liberty. Of course now that the media has gotten ahold of it, they have stated "there are no children on the don't fly list" even though, quite clearly, there is one on the list. They suggested the airline just ignore it, but they neglected to mention that ignoring the don't fly list deliberately can be theoretically prosecuted as an act of treason. The airline, and I understand their position, wanted someone else to make the decision. So instead the four year old on his way to visit his grandmother gets the third degree. It makes you ever so proud to be an American.

I can picture the headlines. "Republicans Protect American From Four Year Old Terrorist."

Someone has to bring some measure of sanity to our security.

Say, which reminds me. Did you hear the one about Fidel Castro.......

Happy New Year

I am quite certain there are about 1,000,000 similar entries on blogs and websites around the world with the same exact wishes, however I will, nonetheless throw my wishes into the pot as well:

Happy New Year as well as a prosperous and healthy one to everyone out there. In French, une bonne année, or Spanish una próspero año nuevo! And for good measure in Welsh (ain't Goggle grand?): blwyddyn newydd dda.

For those of you who read my blog regularly, thanks for coming along for the ride. I hope this blog continues to interest you. I'd appreciate a link from your blog or webpage if it's not a bother. I can't believe I've been doing this over a year already.

Such as it is, I'm rather curious to know how many readers I have out there. If you aren't bashful, please post a comment here with your first name and hometown.

Cheers!