Category Archives: About Me - Page 28

Time, Money, and Music

Posted by on October 22, 2014 No comments

imageHere’s an update to my music label collection: I am down to six remaining CDs.  This leads to the questions, “what’s next?” and “and then what?”

Well, the next thing is CD cover scanning, so I have pristine artwork for all my CDs.  Over time, reissues and re-releases will change the cover artwork, usually to the album’s detriment.  For example, all the Ozzy Osbourne covers got some massive, dumb border around them, with the actual album artwork in a tiny box in the middle.  Who came up with that stupid idea?

So, yeah, I want my album artwork to be exactly like my CDs.  And, I want some album artwork framed and hanging on my walls.  But then what?  I think the next step is owning a real listening stereo system (again).

What’s up with that graphic?  That was the image I got when thinking about owning a high-quality stereo system.  Right now, I can get by with my home theater system, but there is a certain appeal to having a real stereo, with dedicated speakers and amplifier, and components.  Why?  I have a computer with every CD ripped to lossless format playing through studio monitor speakers in my office.  Why this?

Let me first explain the graphic.  I think that owning a dedicated listening stereo is the realm of young, single men and old, retired men.  Exceptions abound, but bear with me.  The graph illustrates the likelihood of owning a stereo between the start and end of your adult life.  Yes, I had a great system in my 20’s.  I got into a stupid relationship and sold it all off for pennies at a garage sale.  Now, 20 years later, I am reconsidering the purchase again.  I’m not sure now is the time though.  Maybe a little later.  When I thought of why now might not be the right time, my rationale illuminated why the parabolic curve makes sense.  It’s about time.

Being young, single and free, you have the free time to indulge in nothing but music.  The same freedom applies once you are an empty-nester or a retiree.  You can also apply this to book-reading or really, any hobbies you had to give up because of the rat race of life.  For me, I’m not sure I’m nearing the end of the rat race yet, but I want to slow down, definitely.  I can say I haven’t exactly disliked any point in my life so far.  I sacrificed some things at certain points that may or may not have been wise.  But overall, life’s been good to me.

Now, about that stereo.  Why is that something to desire?  This sentiment would probably be shared by many hobbyists who have had their hobbies “stolen” by modern convenience.  There is an effort you must make when using older, dedicated equipment.  One might go so far as to say there is a ritual involved.  It’s the performing of the ritual that matters.  If you don’t do it right, the results won’t be good, or said another way, the more precise you are performing the ritual, the better the results will be.  And you can take pride in that.

Sure, the ritual of listening to an album involves choosing a cd, placing it in the tray, pressing the play button, then sitting down.  But that’s more than using a wireless remote to scroll through a huge list of albums, then clicking one.  Book people, you understand.

Disconnecting, and Connecting

Posted by on October 10, 2014 No comments

I made the decision today to delete my personal Facebook account.  To some, it may sound dramatic, but I hadn’t used it in months, so there was no pain involved.  I’m just staying old-school with the blog.  I’ll continue to maintain a different account for business purposes, but that never has any posts from me anyway.  That’s enough discussion about that.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a little about social media.  It started when I was forced to install the Facebook Messenger app on my Windows Phone because that functionality was removed from the main app, and also seems to have been removed from the phone integration (a key selling point of Windows Phone).  That led me to take a peek at Ello, which has been in the news lately as a potential rising star for future social platforms.  I was rather unimpressed.  If Facebook beat out Myspace for the reason of lack of customization, Ello beats Facebook in sheer minimalism.  And, I really dislike monospace fonts.

However, looking at Ello in such an early state gave me reason to think about what problem social media platforms are trying to solve.  When will Ello stop adding features?  How much do they need to add to make it “usable”?

I think what the Internet needs is a global contact list website.  To me, that would be the Internet’s “killer app”.  Do one thing that is critical, and do it extremely well.  How hard would it be to do this?  I’m going to spend some time and see…

Status Update

Posted by on October 4, 2014 No comments

After returning from a refreshing vacation, it’s time to jump back into the collection plan.  The current status is: of 42 albums, I now own 26 and 6 are in transit, leaving 10 left to purchase.

My current mantra is, “Why am I not listening to music?”  There’s a ridiculous number of times that I catch myself just working in silence.  I’m spending a good amount of money to complete this music collection.  At the very least, I should be listening to it.  Geez.  But, I have found some very good music that I am glad to have.

And I did get most of my music ripped to lossless before the vacation.  I say most, because I used Exact Audio Copy and there are some discs that had some errors in ripping and some discs that I had to skip complete tracks.  So, there’s going to have to be a second round of ripping to recover what I didn’t get the first time.

And then somewhere in the future lies the CD cover scanning, which I will use for artwork, both digitally and physically.

A Fool’s Game

Posted by on September 24, 2014 No comments

Today I learned (TIL for all the modern, acronym-dependent, Internet citizens), that when it comes to personal injury, I am no smarter than a toddler playing peek-a-boo.

Almost a week ago, I had some shoulder pain, like a knot in my back shoulder.  It’s not really uncommon, since I am either sitting at a desk or driving in my car 90% of my waking day.  The last time I had this specific kind of knot, it lasted for days and days and kept me pretty miserable, so I wasn’t thrilled to have it return.

So Friday night, I broke out my Shiatsu chair massager and beat the hell out of my back and shoulders.  It was like twanging guitar strings.  Just to be on the safe side, I took a pill from my emergency stash (now 5 years old) and went off to bed.

I woke up the next morning in pain.  Great pain.  I made it through the day with ice, heat, and Advil.  At the end of the day, I figured I was past my problems, but just in case, I took another emergency pill and went to sleep.

Sunday morning was no better.  Worse, in fact.  Probably because I had spent some time Saturday doing yard work since I wasn’t feeling any great pain (Thank you, Advil).  Now, I can’t turn my head or look down.  I self-diagnose myself with a pinched nerve and I can still feel the knot in my shoulder blade.  So I call up a local massage place and get a walk-in appointment.  They say, “We only have a male masseuse available, is that ok?”  Geez, whatever.  Even if I wasn’t in excruciating pain, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

So I get the crap wrenched out of me on the table.  He probably spent too much time on my neck and not enough on the trouble spot, but everything was messed up, so whatever.  As the night comes on, I’m sinking back into pain.  Advil wearing off again.  Then I get to thinking, maybe it isn’t a knot or a pinched nerve.  Maybe it’s actually an injury, like a pulled muscle or a torn tendon.  After all, I am currently on an antibiotic whose primary side effect is causing brittle tendons.

So, to recap:  I have a knot in my shoulder.  I pull or tear my lat muscles with a shiatsu massager.  I go to a massage and have them ripped up even more.  All the while, I’m peaking and crashing on Advil thinking, “I’m better!” or ”I’m in hell!”

It doesn’t end there.  Sunday evening, post-massage, my shoulder back doesn’t have a knot anymore.  Now it’s just one big swollen mass.  Sleep that night was in 20-30 minute intervals, followed with a painful repositioning.  At one critical point, I was on my chest and turned my head to stretch my neck and I heard and felt something in my neck squirt.  As scream-inducing as that was, it actually was kind of a turning point and I slept better afterward.

Monday, I had to leave work after less than a hour because the pain was making me dizzy.  Tuesday, I felt pretty good during the day, so I thought I was on the mend.  Then the Advil wore off.  Silly, me.  I took more Advil and felt better.  Better enough to do yardwork when I got home.  Silly, me.  Today, I’m paying for my transgressions again.

So yeah, I’m just playing peek-a-boo with my injury.  As long as I don’t feel the pain, it doesn’t exist and I’ll just go and injure it more.  It’s definitely not the first time I’ve done something like that.  This is just the first time I’ve noticed my behavior.

A Troubleshooting Challenge

Posted by on September 8, 2014 No comments

You have to love troubleshooting.

As a mentioned earlier, I’m doing a hard drive update on my Zune to bring it up to 120gb.  In the first chapter of this crazy process, I simply bought a 120gb 1.8” drive that was supposed to be IPod and Zune compatible.  I got the drive and prior to installing it, I erased the Zune completely, firmware and all.

After installation, the Zune wanted to be connected to the PC to install the new firmware.  After doing so, the Zune software registered a hard drive problem – not enough space on drive.  Hmmmmmmmm.  After thinking about it for a while, I considered that the base level of firmware back when the Zune 30gb came out might not support a 120gb drive, since they didn’t exist at that time.  So I thought I should bring the firmware up to the most recent, then install the new hard drive.

I put the old drive back in, upgraded the firmware, then put the new drive in and restarted.  Then I get a obscure (and yet common) error code.  So I think some more.  The new hard drive is a different brand – Samsung instead of Toshiba, and it uses more power – 4v instead of 3.3v.  Maybe it’s the drive that’s just incompatible?

So, I order a second drive, a Toshiba this time.  Without erasing the firmware, I install the drive.  The Zune boots to a “Please Wait” screen.  I wait for a few minutes and decide it’s not doing anything.  I power the Zune down, check the drive connections and start it up again.  Same screen.  I look online and the Internet says that that screen is shown during drive format and initialization (Do not disconnect or turn off the device).  Oops.  So I leave the Zune plugged in overnight.  The next morning, I left without remembering to check the status, so it ran all day while I worked.  When I get home, no progress.

I put the old drive back in and everything works just fine.  I put the new Toshiba in again and it doesn’t.  I put the old drive in, wipe out the firmware, put the new drive in and I get stuck at the “Please Wait” screen. Hmmm. The Samsung got past that screen but failed when writing the firmware.  The Toshiba doesn’t get past the drive initialization.  It’s actually a worse situation.

The next step of my troubleshooting is going to be at a lower level – the drives themselves.  One possible theory is that the drives can’t be formatted because they are not partitioned.  The company that sold me the drives may have run a diagnostic test that erased the drive’s file system.  So, I’ve ordered a ZIF to USB adapter so I can connect the drives to my computer and verify for myself.  Maybe I will need to create a partition and/or format the drives myself before installation.  As a side project, the adapter would let me see what kind of files are saved on the Zune itself.  That could be interesting information, too.

Running cost for this project: $70 for the two drives, $10 for the adapter.

Genres, Generalizations, and Generations

Posted by on September 4, 2014 No comments

Continuing my quest for ripping and metadata-izing my whole CD collection (currently midway though the D’s – getting through one letter a day).  And I’ve come up against the dilemma of assigning genres.

There seems to be 3 camps: don’t use genres at all, use a limited number, or go all in and use hundreds.  I’ve read a few interesting schemes as well, one being to use a limited number, then subcategorize using playlists.  That was going to be my plan, until I kind of realized something.

Looking at the Rock genre, there is a very large collection of sub-genres under it.  For example: Surf, Hard Rock, Hair Bands, British Invasion, Rock & Roll, etc.  Reading this list made me realize that the “genres” are actually few and far between, but the sub-genres can nearly be classified by release year.  Right?  Rock is different in the 50’s, the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and on and on.  Yet, it’s all Rock.  It’s the same with Heavy Metal.  The metal of the 70’s is nothing like the metal of today.  70’s metal is many times tamer than modern rock.

So I guess my plan now is the same as it was, keep a very limited number of genres and the classify things further with playlists.  But with my new insight, I can create smart playlists grouping by Year and get a pretty close approximation of a specific sub-genre.

In an semi-related topic, I had a hell of a time ripping one particular CD: The Digital Domain: A Demonstration.  This is one of those CDs that you almost need to have in lossless because its entire purpose is to demonstrate the capabilities of digital audio.  For some reason, every single track resulted in a read error when ripping with Exact Audio Copy.  I got the great idea that I could copy the disc to ISO as data instead of as audio, then mount the ISO and rip from that.  The first tool I tried, ImgBurn, hung during track analysis, so I ended up using Daemon Tools Lite, which I had installed already.  The rip from the ISO went off without a single issue, and it was fast.

Bits and Pieces, Scattered

Posted by on August 30, 2014 No comments

As my recent posts have indicated, I’m getting ready to do some serious work re-ripping and cataloging my CD collection.  It’s about a 600+ disc effort, so I want to do it as efficiently as possible.  One of the things I am having a lot of difficultly coming to terms with is whether to contribute my efforts to the public domain.

By public domain, I mean submitting highly-detailed metadata to an online database, probably MusicBrainz.  From what I’ve read and understood, this seems to be the workflow I’d have to perform:

  1. Search MB for album on website
  2. If not found, enter the new album on the website, if found, add additional data
  3. If new album, wait for submission approval
  4. Rip CD
  5. Use MB Picard to get DiscID for CD
  6. Search MB for album (hence the wait for approval) then submit the DiscID for that album
  7. Use Picard to update the metadata in ripped files from MB

The part that keeps nagging at me is the part where the metadata has to exist in the MB database before Picard can do its (only one) thing.  I am pretty sure Picard is supposed to be a database consumption application, tagging MP3 files from the MB database.  The DiscID and audio fingerprint features feel like they’re tacked on.

I was already resigned to the two-step process of ripping and then metadata cleanup, but I’m now looking at metadata entry, then ripping, then metadata refresh.  This is where I can’t tell if it’s worth the extra effort.  It’s probably worth something, because someone can use that metadata sometime.  After all, if I searched for the album and didn’t find it, someone else surely has, too.

There’s so many potential apps out there, but nothing does everything I want, and I don’t think there’s a lot I want.  The ideal application would:

  1. Look up metadata from MusicBrainz based on DiscID from CD in drive
  2. If data does not exists, prompt for it, otherwise display it and allow for editing
  3. If data changed, submit it to MusicBrainz. 
  4. Submit the DiscID if not already there
  5. Rip the CD and include the metadata in the files

Some apps do 1, 2, and 5, some do 4, some only do 5, none seem to do 3.

These are the times I wish I could have a clone of myself that would be able to do nothing but this task for a few weeks.  This is why sudden obsessions are so difficult for me.

… And I did some metadata editing on MusicBrainz.  I don’t think it’s for me.  There’s so much ambiguity, I don’t want to add any more confusion to what they have.  In my few edits, I came across a album they didn’t have – a classical compilation (damn it).  I entered the basic info and they said that my entry looks like this other album.  It was, so I copied the tracks.  Then after saving, I thought “Why didn’t I just edit the original after I learned it was there?  (and why couldn’t I find it in the first place?)”  I looked at the original and it may or may not have been the same album.  It might have been released by a different company.  So, on one hand, I could duplicate data; on the other hand, I could screw up another person’s release.  Yeah, not for me.

So I guess my decision is made.  My data is mine alone.  Selfish.  But cover art… that I can contribute, which is different post altogether.

Again, Not Thinking Ahead

Posted by on August 27, 2014 No comments

A post from 6.5 years ago (holy crap!) has come back to haunt me.  In the post, I was lamenting how I had taken a week to rip my entire CD collection to a lossless format, but then I didn’t have enough space to store it on my Zune.  I faintly remember the day I took the drastic step and deleted it all, keeping my standard-quality MP3 rips.

I’ve had a renewed interest in music again, and I was thinking about re-ripping my CDs.  Some of my rips have to be ancient, using imperfect encoding algorithms.  I’ve read a lot of advice lately and some of it I initially ignored, but now it’s starting to sink in.  I realize that I wasn’t thinking ahead before I started that forever-ago ripping process, and I wasn’t thinking ahead after the ripping either.

The first piece of advice that I shrugged off as dumb is proving to be the most important: Always rip to a lossless format.  Yeah, I did that.  It gave me a library too large to sync.  Dumbass, you transcode lower-bitrate versions for your portable devices from the lossless versions.  Well, that’s stupid, then I have two copies on my hard drive taking up space.  No you don’t.  The low-bitrate versions only exist on your portable device. 

(Insert lightbulb moment here)

In fact, the Zune software will do this for me completely automatically.  I just never gave it any consideration.  My thoughts were that I should have the highest resolution copies that the Zune could support on my hard drive.  Why would I ever need more if the device couldn’t handle it?  It’s a damn computer.  That’s the device that will.  Why, for any reason, should I limit my desktop to anything but the highest possible quality?  Now most people will rip lossless copies, then store or dispose of the physical media, but for many reasons, I won’t be doing that.

I’ve always told myself: I always have the physical versions, so I can re-rip them whenever I need a higher-quality version.  But, not thinking ahead, if I rip them at the highest quality possible, then make lower-quality versions as needed, I never have to rip again.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to start another round of lossless ripping, including a full round of metadata cleanup.  But it’s not so bad.  Encoding has become way more accurate, drive space has become plentiful, and CPU power has gotten insanely fast.  Over six years ago!

Oh, and also, I did decide to get a new hard drive for my old Zune 30.  It will be getting a 120gb replacement drive, so I should be able to hold my full collection at a better bitrate than what I currently have, even if it turns out to not be lossless.

The Next Big Thing

Posted by on August 24, 2014 No comments

Surprise obsessions are a difficult thing for me.  I started last week on a sudden quest toward a dual purpose.  Like many other inspirations of mine, it’s a race to finish the quest before the desire runs out.

I’m actually not sure where the spark came from, but it’s been something lingering inside me for a very long time.  The end result will be this: to own a complete collection of albums published under the MCA Master Series label and secondly, to create framed artwork of the album covers for my walls (copyrights be damned).

Let me explain the history of my experience with MCA Master Series.  When I was in my impressionable youth, I had acquired a home stereo, which had the new-fangled tech of the day – Digital Compact Disc – and I was building a CD collection of my own.  My stereo was monstrous, like most probably were at that time.  A full component system with receiver, dual tape deck, CD player, and the requisite 4-ft tall, 15”-woofer stereo speakers.

Around that time in my life, I was trying to figure out “who I was” and “who I wanted to be”.  One thing that I thought I wanted to be was “high-class”.  That didn’t necessarily equate to “rich” but more about appreciating art and music beyond the standard radio fare.  Let me quickly find an image that sums up my youthful vision…

…well now.  That was not a quick search at all, and this isn’t even what I think I originally had in mind, but:

image

That’s more or less what I imagined, reclining on crazy-modern couches and listening to… what?  Something pretentious classy, sure, but what was that?  I hadn’t found it yet.

As luck would have it, around that time, the MCA Master Series was releasing albums, and because I lived in a tiny dump of a city, no one would ever buy that stuff, so it ended up in my music store’s bargain bin – my default shopping section.  The first album I bought was Edgar Meyer – Dreams of Flight.  I was incredibly attracted to the cover art, because it looked as modern and abstract as I imagined my future listening room would be.  The music was clean and clear, jazz/classical, and I grew very fond of it.

Also around that time, I had read some articles mentioning the band Acoustic Alchemy and I noticed they were on the same label as Edgar Meyer.  A nearby pawn shop supplied me with these and many more of the MCA Master Series catalog.  All were enjoyed (except Booker T Jones, which is the only one I now regret throwing away) and are in my current collection.

Fast-forward to recent days and I’m finding a nostalgic desire to have that innocent dream of what my future could be – relaxing in a modern sofa (which I do have, now), listening to New Age/Jazz/Classical on a high-end audio system, maybe reading some e-books.

My adult sense of appreciation enjoys this music label for another reason.  When you put all the albums together, you have a incredibly cohesive marketing design.  There’s really something to be said for that, and it’s something that I feel might be lacking today.  Because I know the MCA Master Series is all high-quality, I can scan a rack of CDs looking for their consistent design and find something in a flash.  Using the same fonts on every album, with a dash of color for uniqueness, was a genius move.  You can see the same marketing technique if you are a Telarc or Rykodisc fan – just scan for their logo in the spine.  Windham Hill is another example, as well.

Back to the story, I’ve been hammering online sources and local sources for these really old, out-of-print CDs (yes, 30 years!).  I don’t want any reissues, if they exist.  I want these albums for the original artwork as much as the music.  Less than a week into my mission, I have purchased six missing albums.  Right now, I have 13 out of out of 43, with 4 en route, leaving 26 left to find and purchase.  I’m estimating at least $150 to finish out this collection.

What will that mean?  I’ve talked about collections again and again in my blog.  And the truth is still there.  This collection will mean nothing to anyone else but me.  But let’s discard that fact and think about phase two of the plan.  Scanning the album covers and getting them printed and framed as artwork.  Granted, some of the covers aren’t really suitable for framing, but many of them are.  Framing 43 covers?  Gah!

I’ll have to post some updates as I progress through this collection growth.

A Good Week So Far

Posted by on July 30, 2014 No comments

A couple of shoutouts for a couple of good actions by a couple of businesses I’ve dealt with.  These were cases where I could have been out a little bit of money, but they absorbed the cost in a show of goodwill.  For this, they deserve a good mention.

First, PNC Bank.  Under most circumstances, I would be giving them a rant post.  Consider this.  I’m on the board for a small non-profit organization.  We went to PNC last October and signed up for the free business checking.  Everything was just great.  Fast forward to two weeks ago and I got an email saying that August 1, there’s no more free checking and we would start getting charged $12/month.  We’re a really small organization, so $12/mo is significant.

That was enough to irk me, but after some research, I discovered that the PNC’s decision to end free checking was made before we had even opened our account.  So, our account rep sold us on an account knowing that in 10 months, we’d start getting hit with a fee.  That’s not fair.

I just closed the account on Monday.  The account rep was very understanding and didn’t give me any hassle.  Later on that evening, I made the awful realization that I never printed off my online statements.  Shame on me for not doing it each month.  So, I check PNC’s fee schedule and it looks like it’s going to cost me $5 per statement, or $50 total.  I take it on as a personal cost, since it was my screw-up.

I visit the bank Tuesday and sheepishly explain that I just closed my account and didn’t print my statements.  The rep didn’t even bat an eye and said they’d print them out right away.  And they did, for free.  My sum impression of PNC is that the local branch service is very good, and they want their customers to be happy, but maybe the higher-level execs are a little disconnected and are just looking at the numbers, hence the discontinuation of free accounts.

Second kudos go to AdoramaPix.  For the afore-mentioned organization, I had a need to print off a bunch of photos.  Shopping for price proved that AdoramaPix was substantially cheaper, and I wasn’t worried about using them because I’d previously dealt with Adorama and they are highly respected.

I order the photos at 10pm on a Thursday with an estimated delivery next Friday.  The next morning, I wake up to see my order has been shipped already  and my delivery estimate is now Wednesday.  I check the delivery tracking on Tuesday and discover the photos were delivered on Monday.  Damn.

Then I go out to get my mail.  No photos.  Oh my god.  I hate my mail carrier.  He or she is always misdelivering mail.  I’ve gotten valuable, important, and sometimes embarrassing things sent to me for my neighbors.  I either hand-deliver them or put them back to be redelivered.  This time it’s my turn.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of faith in my neighbors.  So I send an email to AdoramaPix and file a claim on USPS’s site.  In the meantime, I’m wondering who just got $55 worth of pictures for free.  A few hours later, I get an email from Adorama.  An apology and a note that they’re reprinting my photos and resending them.  It was that simple.

So yeah, it’s been a good week.  Thanks to PNC and AdoramaPix whose personal service saved me unwelcome expenses.