looks like the end of days | 4:10 PM >

The internet is awesome. Click a few links on somebody's blog and end up looking at profiles like this. I think I laughed for a solid five minutes. I'd say that man has testicles like watermelons for doing such a thing, but the pictures he's posted of himself prove otherwise.

Now, music!

The first thing I'd like to do is to explain my ratings system. Ever since I started using iTunes and have had the ability to rate songs I've done so. At first it was just to make smart playlists of my favorites, but now I also use to to cycle songs I don't want to hear out of the random rotation that goes into my iPod Mini.

Thus, I've come up with a system that's not the same as most 5-star systems, but that allows me to sort my music with a decent level of efficiency:

No stars		I'm undecided on the song.
		Totally unlistenable and should be deleted.
		Unlistenable, except perhaps in the scheme of its original album (not on my rotation, but not deleted).
		Listenable. Stays in the rotation, but not a favorite.
		Extremely listenable. Stays in my favorites.
		A full-canal aurgasm.

First up is The Like, and their first album Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? Feels a lit like a grown-up Veruca Salt, which is funny considering how young these girls are, and the fact that the two bands sound nothing alike... Excellent lyrics, but what really made me start listening to them is the way their songs flow, build, and finish. The album starts off with a 5-star, June Gloom, and while it's generally harder hitting from the beginning the pace never slows to a point where you get bored. Unlike my other recent musical acquisition, Morningwood, this CD feels like a true new-millenium child of rock-- not too alternative, not too folky, never too harsh. No songs below a 3-star for me, and that's impressive seeing as I'm so picky. Other really great songs on the disc are What I Say and What I Mean, (So I'll Sit Here) Waiting, and Under the Paving Stones. This is a definite pick-up if you see it.

I picked up Morningwood's because it sounded like the kind of music I need right now and it was playing when I went into the CD shop. It was also $8, which is just about the right price for me for an impulse buy. I was quite disappointed, but not angry; for $8 I don't feel like I lost all that much money. There were other CD's I wanted, like Nikka Costa's latest, but it was $27 so I passed. I've never understood how CD prices actually go up as they pass from The New into The Back Library. I also don't understand how charging $27 for a CD that's hardly an hour long is considered kosher. I'd have bought the CD without thinking and without having heard it, because I love Nikka, had the price been better. But at that price I could experiment on three other CD's from new artists.

It's been said before, but the recording industry really has no idea what customers want, and telling them what they want is akin to slowly hammering the nails in one's own coffin. Hell, basically all "content" providers are confused. Sony's only just now considering bundling DVD's with UMD's instead of selling them separately for the same price, due to low UMD sales. (Hmm, I wonder why that was? Oh, you sell the movie from the DVD to be played on only one system, with less features and double the price of the DVD version, and you're surprised when you don't move units?) I just hope that iTunes soon offers the ability to buy both the iPod tracks and later upgrade to a shipped CD.

I had a dream in Japanese last night and in it I was talking to a woman with a baby who was very much not Japanese, but talking to herself and her baby in Japanese. That was a strange one.