pure science with a splash of black cat

iTunes sucks.

We’ll ignore for the moment the fact that my chief problem is my iPod, which only lets me import 300 or so songs before it chokes and dies and gives me errors that have no solutions.

I am trying to import a song. This song was, moments ago, in iTunes. I deleted it from the library because I was moving the folder the song was in (and therefore I deleted the other 13 songs from the library.) When I imported the folder again, 13 songs appeared, not 14. iTunes will have NOTHING to do with the other song.

I RIPPED THIS CD WITH iTUNES.

YESTERDAY.

AJSGAJOIJASOIGIOASJAISOJBAJSGJAOISJGIAOSJGIOWJGOIWJLKSDJLKDSJ

And back to my iPod: I loathe it. I have 296 songs on it right now. I’m going through them all to make sure they are in fact what I think they are, and they are not. “Rapper’s Delight,” for instance, instead of playing “Rapper’s Delight,” plays an entirely different song for four minutes before playing the same second of “Rapper’s Delight” over and over and over again. “Too Much Time on My Hands” plays “Dames” from 42nd Street. “Superstition” instead plays “A Mad Russian’s Christmas.” “What Is Hip?” and “Semi-Charmed Life” — two songs I MUST have available to me for interminable car rides — do not play at all.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.

It also has this obnoxious tendency to lose my music. I’ll sync the whole thing, then go look at the playlists under the iPod, and there’ll be that little exclamation point next to a song. The iPod misplaced it…how? Because iTunes knows exactly where it is. So I have to remove it, sync the playlist, put it back in the playlist, and sync again. Why do I put up with this?

Really, Apple, you need to make iTunes play better with Windows, or otherwise start supporting third-party iPod management applications. (And everyone whose first response is “buy a Mac” can kiss my ass. Don’t even start with me.) This is a rather large segment of your consumer base, you know. Give us a freaking break here. Or, rather, give them a break, because I’m replacing my 80GB Classic with a used 80GB Classic (which I wouldn’t do except for the DRM-filled music that litters my hard drive and the fact that I don’t feel like replacing my TuneBase with something made for a different music player), and I’ve already dumped the iTunes Store’s sorry ass for Amazon. I’m not giving you another nickel.

Now that I think I have fixed everything (AFUCKINGAIN), I am going to sync my iPod. And then, if it doesn’t work, I am going to take it outside and back my car over it.

[edit] Those songs are still screwed up, but I’m not going to back my car over it yet because I’d rather shove ice picks in my ears than listen to the radio while I’m driving. Once I get another iPod, I’ll back my car over this one.

All night long, we would sing that stupid song

And every word we sang, I knew was true

I'm a little more than halfway through And Another Thing...

And…I don’t know how to say this. So. I’ll just say it.

I don’t hate it.

(Yes, that much buildup for a largely ambiguous statement. Let me Spillane.)

I keep marking things I like and things I don’t like, and the only thing I outright don’t like is this (p. 9 in the U.S. hardcover edition):

What would his obituary say in the Hitchhiker’s Guide? Ford wondered. It would be brief, that was for sure. A couple of words. Perhaps the same two words he had used to describe Earth all those years ago.

Mostly harmless.

I’m picking nits, probably, but it’s pretty well known going back to the first book in this series that Ford spent years on Earth researching the place for his Guide article, submitted something of considerable length, and later, it was cut down to “mostly harmless” for space reasons.

Or maybe I’m not picking nits, since if you’re going to write a damn book for this series, you should probably know where “mostly harmless” came from.

But that’s okay, because a few things have made me laugh out loud. Page 111 (not that context helps in a book this weird, but Zaphod is in Asgard, the home of the gods in Norse mythology, on a mission, and he is about to embark on a challenge before Heimdall lets him visit with Thor):

Heimdall adopted a heroic stance, which is not easy when one is clad in a garish ski suit, but in fairness the god carried it off. He raised his horn and blew a long, undulating series of notes that sounded suspiciously like the old Betelgeusean nursery rhyme “Arkle Schmarkle Sat on a Schmed,” but with a semitone more implied violence.

Page 142 (Zaphod is trying to make his way down to Thor’s hiding place):

There was a customs Viking in a reinforced booth who seemed a little surprised to see a mortal coming onto the platform. In fact, he was so surprised that his eyes popped right out of their sockets.

“Whoa,” said Zaphod. “That is truly disgusting. Can you do it again?”

“No, I cannot,” said the Viking, twisting the eyes back in. “Who the Hel are you?”

(Don’t ask, I just laughed at it and stuck a Post-It on it. Or, yes, you can ask — Hel is both a place in Norse mythology and the name of its ruler. And for what it’s worth, they had mentioned Hel earlier in this subplot. I don’t have a working knowledge of Viking fairy tales.)

There are really only a few things I absolutely cannot abide, namely Random (who is Douglas’s fault, so I can’t really blame Colfer for the fact that she’s insufferable), the return of Fenchurch in the form of a computer that Arthur has so far become obsessed with (like, way to bring back THE WORST BOOK IN THE SERIES — we’ll see how that goes), and something else that I’m not going to talk about on the off chance that someone wants to read this book with as few spoilers as possible.

Honestly, it’s no better or worse than Mostly Harmless, which I just re-read on Sunday night before reading this. And that’s pretty high praise, considering I was expecting to loathe it.

I’ll let you know if I learn to loathe it by the time it ends.

The brains, they're contagious!

The Veterans Committee elected Whitey Herzog and Doug Harvey to the Hall of Fame, the latter being, to me, one of those “what took you so long?” elections. I’ll never understand what exactly drives a voter to say no to a guy one year and yes the next, but, there you go. (I understand strength of a nominee class and everything, but really, either a guy is he or he isn’t; stop playing games. The context of what makes and does not make a Hall of Fame career really doesn’t change drastically from generation to generation, let alone year to year.)

This comes after the writers managed to pick both league MVPs and Cy Young winners without screwing anything up. Must be something in the air.

Hopefully, the logic craze continues long enough to get Edgar just enough votes to keep him on the ballot. I’m not delusional enough to think he’ll get in this year (even though I think he deserves it), but getting so few votes as to exclude him from future consideration until his fate is left up to the Veterans Committee would drive me to throw things at people.

(Because this is about performing your job correctly, I’ll leave the Marvin Miller thing for a separate post…or, you know, bunch of posts, because COME ON.)

I'm sorry, things keep cracking me up, sounding like things I would say.

Old Thrashbarg regarded him gravely. His old gray eyes moved sadly. He held his arms aloft, one still carrying a bobbing pikka bird, the other his staff.

“O Sandwich Maker from Bob!” he pronounced. He paused, furrowed his brow and sighed as he closed his eyes in pious contemplation. “Life,” he said, “will be a very great deal less weird without you!”

Arthur was stunned.

“Do you know,” he said, “I think that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me?”

—Mostly Harmless

Sometimes my friends make me feel that way, too, Arthur.

Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side.

“Is there any humane way,” he moaned, “in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?”

“No,” said Ford, “because your daughter is caught up in the middle of it and it is deadly, deadly serious.”

Thunder rolled in the pause.

“All right,” said Arthur. “Tell me.”

“I leapt out of a high-rise office window.”

This cheered Arthur up.

“Oh!” he said. “Why don’t you do it again?”

“I did.”

“Hmmmm,” said Arthur, disappointed. “Obviously no good came of it.”

—Mostly Harmless

P.S. Well, not that way, really. ;)

Un tour du chapeau de Marc Savard et les Bruins l'emportent, 7-2

Enough said. And I would like to point out that I asked Rex to score a goal on Twitter, and he did, so that means that I CONTROL THE UNIVERSE.

You know it's now or never, take a chance on rock 'n' roll

I went shopping.

a.k.a. “Reasons Why I Should Never Have Been Permitted to Get a Debit Card or Go Shopping Without Supervision.”

Things I bought and actually needed:
A pair of sneakers, all black, with Dr. Scholl’s inserts, for work, because if I wear that one pair of black heels again, my feet are going to kill me in my sleep. Men’s size 9, wide width, because I have big feet and the selection of women’s shoes sucks.

(And yes, I already own sneakers, but they’re navy blue, grey, and brown, so they don’t really go with black dress pants.)

Things I bought and can claim that I needed:
Holiday cards, and they’re adorable. Those of you who are getting one from me are going to love them.

Things I bought and did not need but that were on the wish list for a while:
And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer, located for me by an enthusiastic B&N bookseller who was delighted that I wanted the book, delighted that I’ve read every Hitchhiker book, and told me I must read Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series, which is advice I am not likely to follow. But! I definitely appreciated her attitude. And I appreciated the fact that the book was 50% off.

Also: Dove Peppermint Bark Promises. I cannot wait to open them.

Things I bought because I saw them and they needed to come home with me:
Jim Brickman - No Words
Jim Brickman - Beautiful World
Johnny Cash - The Christmas Spirit

(Aside: am I the only person who buys CDs, rips them to my hard drive, and then never takes the CD off the shelf ever again? This is why I usually only buy music digitally.)

Things I bought that have been consumed already:
An original Auntie Anne’s pretzel with marinara sauce and a Coke. Delicious.

Things I did not buy that I came very close to buying:
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton. Next time! I promise!