Friday, July 21, 2006

That's Just the Kind of Guy I Am, I Guess

Yeah, that's right. I made my first substantive post in months about songs on my Media Player, completely ignoring the power outage that has been going on all week in my neighborhood, depriving my apartment of air conditioning in near 100-degree weather.

I don't understand myself sometimes, either.

My Computer's top 10

Yeah, isn't that always the way - you make the big post saying that my life has been too boring to post about, and the few times interesting things have happened I've been too busy to find the time to post about them. And then what happens? You get the idea for the perfect blog post! Too trivial for any big announcement to your friends, yet too juicy to just let it sit and fester away in your brain!

Yes, I'm talking about the "Play Count" on my Windows Media Player!

I am rather fortunate in that I have a job where I can listen to music all day. At first, I'd bring in CDs to listen to, but I soon discovered it was easier to just rip all my music onto the hard drive of the computer and listen to it that way.

Normally, I just set it all to "random" and let it go, so in theory every song should be played about the same as every other, right?

Apparently not - I checked the "play count" and discovered that the computer has been playing favorites! I now give to you the top ten songs in my collection, as selected by my computer (with links, where applicable, so your computer can play the songs as well!):

1. "Main Titles to Conquest of Paradise" - Vangelis. This song was played more than twice as much as its nearest competitor! Computer must really love the seafaring music.

2. "Accordion Song (Ken's Polka)" - the Old 97's. The first of many songs featuring a squeezebox.

3. "I Know I'm Not Wrong" - the Mysteries of Life. A fine cover of the Fleetwood Mac song, available (along with many other equally fine songs) from our friends at the Musical Family Tree.

4. "Ol'man Rossi" - from the soundtrack to Signor Rossi. Of all the Signor Rossi tracks, this is the one it picks?!

5. "Another Saturday" - Marykate O'Neil. This I get. Probably my favorite from Marykate's wonderful first album.

6. "Beer Barrel Polka" - Frankie Yankovic. A barrel of fun, to be sure!

7. "Paralyzed" - Bob Mould. From here on, the rest of the songs are pretty standard fare from my collection. Good, solid, semi-obscure pop music from some of the masters of the form...

8. Tie: "Unravel" - Lynn Miles/"One More Bottle to Go" - the Minus 5/"Go Down" - Sam Phillips.

9. Tie: "Bird Town" - David Thomas/"Oz on 45" - the Squirrels/"Fingertips" - They Might Be Giants (the part that goes "Mysteeeeerious Whisper! Mysteeeeeerious Whisper!").

10. Tie: "It's Not Safe" - Amy Rigby/"Love Met the Devil" - the Januaries/"Honeymoon" - the Muffs/"Road to Nowhere" - Talking Heads/"Mary Jane" - the Vulgar Boatmen

Hope you enjoyed this peek into my computer's musical taste. See you in a couple months when something equally exciting occurs to me...

Monday, July 17, 2006

Please leave a message at the tone...

As you might have gathered, been busy of late and, alas, the blog has been neglected. (And, the way my life is at the moment, this is likely to continue for some time.)

So, while I go off to wander the Earth, feel free to browse any of the other fine sites to the right. I'm outta here (for now)...