Track Count

As a side note to the previous discussion about the RAID, we currently have 9858 tracks on the music server. All of them acquired legally, I might add.

I'm mildly disturbed by the fact we're only up to D on the backlog of ripping the remaining CDs. We have a lot of music.

New Raid Box

So, in the continuing saga that is music at YPS Manor, I have a new piece of hardware. Let me take a moment to explain the backstory.

In the beginning was a WD NetCenter 320 GB network hard drive. I determined that 320 gigs was not going to be sufficient over the long haul. The WD now hides in the server closet and handles mundane things like recipe backups and archived downloads.

In attempt to get in front of the storage problem, I requested and received a Fantom G-Force NAS. As a proper child of the era, I grew up watching Battle of The Planets, so the opportunity to own a G-Force was fairly irresistible.

I should have resisted. A few weeks after I bought it, the fan went out. Not getting any response from tech support, I kludged up a new fan. Then the power supply went out. Twice. Then a hard drive failed. In short, it hasn't been the most reliable piece of equipment I've ever owned.

Well, right about the time the hard drive failed, I got an Amazon gift card. It nearly covered the purchase price of a ZyXEL NSA221 enclosure. I still had very little data on either of my last hard drive purchases. So, after a bit of drive swapping between machines, I have a 1.5 TB RAID-1 stack.

One of the main reasons I purchased the Zyxel is because of the native support for Squeezecenter. I wouldn't have to spend my limited free time kludging together a solution. Ultimately, that was a failure for one simple reason: the Zyxel is slow. I expect slightly snappier response from my media server than I was getting. So on that front, it was a disappointment. I'm still using my little Zotac board with AMD Sempron for the media server, and keeping a backup of all the music on the Zyxel.

Other than that, the Zyxel has been fine. I had to RMA the first one for a bad power switch, but it's been flawless since then. It's a little slow on huge data dumps, like the initial copying of the music files. Setup was easy and painless, everything in the house recognizes it, it holds a ton of data. Woo and hoo. If you already have drives, or even if you don't, it's hard to go wrong with the Zyxel. A little work on your part gets a lot more storage space for the buck.

Music Tails

In my assiduous attempt to avoid any further commentary on certain recent events, I'm going to talk about music. After all, my opinion on music is just as influential as my opinion on politics. I can't even get the person who lives with me to agree on either one consistently, so what hope do I have with the rest of you?

Anyhow, I received an Amazon gift card over the holidays, which neatly coincided with Amazon having a $5 MP3 album sale. Sweet! So, in no particular order, I downloaded the following:

Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon
The Birthday Massacre - Pins And Needles
Volbeat - Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood
Combichrist - Making Monsters
Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits: 1974-1978
Apocalyptica - 7th Symphony [+Digital Booklet]
The 99 Darkest Pieces Of Classical Music

I paid for those 7 and am still dithering on what I should buy with my remaining bounty. The albums below weren't a difficult choice, since they were free:

Best of Nuclear Blast: 20th Anniversary Compilation
2010 Cool Tour New Artist Sampler
Gothic Metal - Metalhit Free Download Series
Death Metal - Metalhit Free Download Series
Thrash Metal - Metalhit Free Download Series
Folk Metal - Metalhit Free Download Series

I remain slightly confused as to what exactly "folk metal" is supposed to be, but this confusion is not new.

You may note some of my choices tend towards the obscure. A gentleman recently wrote a lovely article which explains the more recent oddities of the top-selling album list. I think it's worth your while to read, if you are interested in the slow-motion implosion of the record industry in the current form.

Random Monday Thoughts

Afghanistan is a failure of the Westphalian system. Not in the usual sense of a failed nation state, but a failure in trying to impose an alien paradigm on a populace which is having none of it. Much of Africa has the same issue.

Walmart is starting to have ammo back in stock sporadically. Even with tax, I can get .45 ACP cheaper at Walmart than I can buying in bulk.

I found out today I need a tux by Friday. I hate it when that happens. But I'm still better off than J, who has to figure out what to wear. Formal wear is so much simpler for guys.

Facebook got a lot more pleasant once I figured out how to block applications. I don't give a shit about Mafia Wars, Farmville, or any of the rest of the nonsense.

Joe Klein is a dipshit who wouldn't know sedition if someone slapped him in the jaw with the definition.

As long as we're on sedition, how does the Smith Act square up with a document that says throwing off a despotic government is not only a right but a duty?

I realize it'll happen when hell freezes over, but I'd like it if either Microsoft or Apple started including FLAC support in their products.

WANT.

On that note, I'm out and home for a drink, some dinner, and tux shopping.

Genre Confusion

As a quick reminder of how you got screwed by "affordable" health care, here's a list of new taxes before tomorrow, when YPS will officially become unhinged over taxes for the day.

Anyhow, I was amusing myself looking for new music on the web the other day. I have come to the conclusion that sites which use social recommendations, like amazon, or have some kind of similarity engine, like Pandora, are really your best bet. Genre labels in the new millennium are, broadly speaking, next to useless.

The larger, overarching categories still have some use. If somebody tells you a band or artist is country as opposed to rock or pop, that has some small measure of validity. I say small because the three categories I just mentioned are bleeding into each other rather seamlessly. Turn on GAC or CMT and see if the music you hear would be out of place on a Top 40 or Alt Rock station. From my admittedly jaundiced perspective, I can't see much difference.

Of course, I listen to a lot of Metal and Industrial. Even these labels aren't much use, since there are a lot of bands that don't fit neatly into one category or the other. So in an attempt to differentiate between sub-classes of each, people have invented a bewildering variety of categories that are, frankly, completely meaningless except to the three guys who came up with them while arguing over music late one saturday night.

One band I was looking up was listed in the following "genres":

• Metalcore
• Thrash Metal
• Groove Metal
• Death Metal

Aside from the fact that I don't even know what some of these are, (groove metal? WTF?), if your genre labels have 4 different possibilities for one band, they're not much good. Another band was described as "a mix of progressive metal, grindcore, and hardcore". Umm. Yeah. Does that mean something to somebody, or is some music nerd with a journalism degree trying to justify his existence? I mean, I've been listening to metal in various incarnations for 25 years or so now, so I think I've got a decent grasp on the music. The labels? Not so much.

This is where Amazon, allmusic, and Pandora come in handy. I don't want to spend my time figuring out what all these bullshit labels mean. I want to listen to some good new music. Amazon tells me what CDs people who bought my CDs also bought. allmusic tells me what bands are similar to bands I like. Pandora, through the magic of their genome project, just plays music at me their engine figures I'll like. All three work pretty well, but the radical profusion of genres and sub-genres and terminology isn't real useful.

Anyhow, since writing about music is like dancing about architecture, here's a tune I found in the process. Perhaps you'll like it.

Lamb of God - Set To Fail (Official Music Video)

On the other hand, if you don't like it, you now know I am not a reliable source for music recommendations for you. Perhaps there's some websites that might be able to help you...

Monsters Everywhere

So, I bought The Fame Monster a week or so ago. Little did I know the nefarious scheme my money unwittingly supports.

Yes, sadly, Lady Gaga is a willing agent of the Illuminati.

I leave it to you, gentle reader, to draw you own conclusions.

Morning Moments of WTF

First off, I have one question in regards to a story about a man who got stabbed in the neck during an altercation at a movie theatre. Who brings a meat thermometer to the movies? What, are you going to check and make sure the internal temperature of your hot dog is up to code?

Next, I know all the children these days are unruly little bastards who have no respect for authority and all that good jazz. That's not news or anything. But still, I think sawed off 12 gauges for dealing with the urchins is a bit extreme.

Indeed.

Random Friday Thoughts

Pantera + Thomas Jefferson = Eternally Fucking Hostile?

When the majority of your job consists of using a computer, when the IT department starts jacking with your computer, it seriously cuts down on your productivity for the day.

As punishment for my laziness in not taking down the Christmas lights last weekend, I now have to do it when the temperature is in the low 30s. Yay!

Why do Cat5E jacks cost more if they're blue? Is adding blue dye to the plastic that much more expensive than adding the white dye?

Photographic Proof

Some time back, I posted on the strange career arc and transformation of Ice Cube. Somebody has done a lovely photo comparison about it. Looking gangsta there, Ice.

H/t to Radley Balko via his Twitter feed.

Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Well, we're working on purging the last unpleasant detritus of the bootlegger's legacy from our body politic. We're not quite there, but as of this writing I believe there's only one Kennedy left in a federal office. Yes, America, we have yet another dead Kennedy. The last, least, and lumpiest of Joe's political spawn has finally departed the building.

Ted Kennedy has died. On this occasion, some might find it appropriate to say good things about the recently departed. If you feel that's warranted, I suggest you go elsewhere. Teddy was a loathsome individual who avidly pursued foolish and destructive policies and his own self-aggrandizement. I can't claim to feel sorry about his death, and I won't. Mary Jo Kopechne, as always, is unavailable for comment on this occasion.

In the meantime, this seems oddly appropriate.

Too Soon?

For levity?

What, the guy dies and all of a sudden we're supposed to stop mocking him? Meh. The attention of the masses, however fickle, is part of the price you pay for fame. Don't want it? Settle down in Peoria and deliver the mail for a living.

Music Hath Charms To Soothe The Savage… Shopper?

While out recently at a large chain retailer fond of sending out coupons every week, I started paying attention to the background music. I did this mainly because it gave me an opportunity to tweak my lovely and talented coblogger and spouse. As I pointed out at the time, you know your alternative-music street cred has bottomed out when the big box is playing the greatest hits off your iPod. I figure I get to make snide comments like this because the world will have gone seriously weird when the tunes on my iPod are showing up as background music outside of head shops and record stores. The latest additions to the playlist include such friendly, happy music as Combichrist, Suicide Commando, and Static X. Well, that and the Katy Perry CD. But I haven’t added that to the device because I’m waiting on new computers before I rip it. I think that CD alone blows my credibility to shreds, but I’m old and tired and don’t care much.

I could insert the obligatory old guy rant about how music today sucks and how you should get off my lawn. Instead, I’ll just reference Sturgeon’s Law and note that the old days had a whole bunch of crap being produced as well. Those of you who are even older will have to do the legwork on your own decade of choice and figure out just how much talent-free dreck made it up the charts and into inescapable ubiquity.

In other musical news, if you have a high tolerance for crap and want to hear the sound of a career imploding, go listen to the new album from Panic At The Disco. Note the lack of exclamation point, a signal that they have changed their musical style to be less exclamatory or some such nonsense. What they’ve really done is go in a direction that is almost completely unmarketable, as well as being just bad. Not that I care, as I only listen to them when J is driving. It’s just amusing to listen to a career dying.

Speaking of iPods, one of my issues with Apple, besides their lack of support for FLAC format files, was the godawful piss poor software interface they like to call iTunes. I avoided it for a long time by running Rockbox. However, Rockbox had some bugs features issues I got tired of dealing with on a fairly regular basis. So I uninstalled it and went back to using the default interface. The default includes iTunes. It annoys me no end that Apple won’t let me simply drag and drop files. So, I got rid of iTunes. I’m using MediaMonkey Gold. This has the added benefit of not needing to keep two separate directories for the different file types. MediaMonkey converts on the fly between FLAC and MP3 when I drop the song into the device. It ain’t quick at doing so, but it does it automatically. If you’re loading up the podling for the first time, it will probably take all night. After that, an album or two doesn’t take that long.

On that note, I'm off to await my insurance check so I may buy new computer hardware.

Get Bombed 3 Times

At the asscrack of dawn today, 63 years ago, the United States government ushered in the dawn of a new era by blowing the ever-loving crap out of a chunk of deserted New Mexico real estate. We understood the power of the atom and used it to turn some sand into radioactive glass. Yay, us.

In the 63 years since then, we have notably managed to not destroy all life on earth as we know it. The genre of post-apocalyptic sci-fi really dates from the Atomic Era, and so far very few of the bleak dystopias imagined have come to pass. Personally, I'm not at all disappointed.

Anyhow, in celebration of the glorious event, here's a drink recipe shamelessly pulled off the internet. I have modified it for easier understanding by non-metric drinkers.

Atomic Bomb

Take a double jigger of good beer.
Place in bottom of pint glass.
Fill remainder of pint glass with Aquavit.
Drink.

If you're a little less prone to drinking pints of mouthwash Aquavit you might try reversing the mix. That strikes me as a wee bit more palatable, but what do I know? Also, you won't end up passed out on the floor after 2 of them.

Musical suggestions to accompany the evening's libation:

Atom Bomb by Fluke
We Will All Go Together When We Go by Tom Lehrer
Atomic by Blondie

Similarly themed music may be substituted at your discretion, but these are what's on the NAS that come immediately to mind.

Now, go drink up and enjoy a Happy Trinity Day.

Rock Is Dead

You can't possibly think you're any kind of a rock star when the AARP is sponsoring your concert tour. You define old and busted at that point.

Rocking the Irony

Piracy is bad, mmkay? Unless you’re Sony BMG, in which case it’s apparently okay.

Personally, I find it hard to credit the music industry’s assertions about how piracy is the destruction of the music industry as we know it when they’re going around pirating software.

Music to Interrogate Prisoners By

So Mother Jones, a magazine I always get confused with Mother Earth News*, has songs it says are used in American military facilities for “torture”. I’ll quickly mention the fact Mother Jones, like many on the anti-war side, has an exceedingly loose definition of torture. Some people apparently think anything which might make a prisoner uncomfortable is torture. While being somewhat ludicrous, such behavior also reduces the term down to a pointless smear. If everything beyond asking prisoners politely is torture, then the term is effectively meaningless. The vast majority of people will quit responding to the accusation once the bar is set low enough. For a clear example in contemporary American culture, look at accusations of racism and sexism.

Anyhow, by my quick count, on the RAID box that holds all our music we have 10 of the 24 songs listed. Does this mean I’m trying to torture myself? Funny, I never noticed any tendencies towards masochism before now.

I recall the last time this issue surfaced, when we were trying to get Noriega out of a church in Panama, I had a greater percentage of the music used. Of course, I was actually in the Army then, so it’s not surprising. I’ll call attention to only two of them that stand out as particularly egregious behavior:

The Barney Song and the Meow Mix commercial.

I don’t know who came up with those choices (PsyOps, maybe?) but I’ll freely admit that if you played either of those at me for an extended period of time, my already fragile sanity would snap like a twig. I think Barney may be a little culturally specific to work on the rest of the world, but a loop of the Meow Mix commercial would drive anybody mad after a while. It’s an inspired choice.

Speaking of inspired musical choices, I present to you Celtic Frost performing Mexican Radio. Stan Ridgway is still out and about and releasing records, so you might go by his website and see if his latest offerings interest you.

*One group of hippies is much like another to my mind.

One Sentence Review: 103.7 Jack FM

103.7 is the radio station you get when somebody with the last 40 years of Top 40 hits loaded on their MP3 player hits shuffle.

Sir Elton Gets Bitchy

J forwarded me a lovely news item about Elton John flapping his gums and making an ass out of himself. The most hilarious part of the whole thing is where he makes the incredible assertion

In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.

Okay, so by his math in any given year in the early 70s, 520 albums were released "that were fantastic". I call bullshit. Even assuming only 3 years, say '71-'73, had that kind of output that's still 1560 albums. I believe it's vaguely possibly 1560 albums released in that entire decade might hold up as being quality works, but I wouldn't bet much on it. 520 in any given year? I'll take that bet, Sir Elton. Because of this awful internet, I can go back and look and see what kind of dreck was popular in the early 70s. Fantastic? Homo, please.

I’ll give you the shorter version of his thinking: You kids today with your internet and crappy music and funny clothes! Get off my lawn and turn that crap down and shut off that internet!

He's bitter because his latest albums aren't selling because they're not any good. The obvious solution would be to make better albums. However, that’s hard and may, unfortunately for him, be beyond his current capabilities. So instead he’ll slam everybody who is selling records as being talentless, and blame the record buying public and the intarwebs. That’s the spirit, Elton! Do not go gentle into that good night! Stay cantankerous and bitchy so people will remember you as a bitter old queen! Helluva way to burn up some of the goodwill people have for you based on the work you did when you were good.

Aramark Blows

Let’s just state for the record that I think, in general, Aramark would have problems selling ice water at the concession stand in Hell. Saturday’s trip to Reliant Arena for the My Chemical Romance show did nothing to cure me of that impression. The t-shirt stand was staffed by 4 people who moved at half the speed of smell. I’ve seen stoned hippies run concessions better than the Aramark people were Saturday night.

Squeezebox

Well, it's been a little over a month since J bought me a Squeezebox. I have to admit, I'm vastly impressed. There are more capabilities to the device that I have yet to finish exploring, but for now I'm very happy.

Nowadays, the box and the software emulator on my desktop run more often than not. It runs through the 6,179 songs, playing whatever it's random heart desires. The remote control works perfectly, and adds yet another layer of volume control into the system. At this point, I should be able to infinitely adjust the volume to a tiny portion of a decibel. Sound quality is excellent, but I'm using FLAC for everything I rip myself. I guessing a low-quality rip will still sound like crap, but I don't know. There's a few mp3 files that have snuck in somehow, but they're mainly humor and samples from obscure artists that we don't have discs from yet.

The only issues so far have been software related. The server software has some interesting glitches. I recently discovered that if, for any reason, you run two copies of the server software on the same box, you're hosed. Nothing works. Likewise, occasionally the tracks don't play. Forwarding to the next track seems to fix that most days. Every so often I have to reboot the wireless access point.

On the plus side, we are doing the “rediscovering” our music collection thing. There's a lot of moments when one or both of us will look at the other and say “We have this?” Much less frequent are the moments where neither of us can identify what's playing. Fortunately, the display works quite well for that.

I've read other whole-house solutions that involve radio broadcasts throughout the house. These, based on my carcasting experiences with the Belkin Tunecast, are not likely to be nearly as successful. Right now, the Squeezebox works for us. With a computer in the office running SoftSqueeze and the hard box in the living room, we can blanket the interior of the house with music. I have done something bizarre* with the inputs and outputs on the receiver, so I can't play the Squeezebox on the outside speakers yet. Once I get that nailed down, we should be good. I may have to revisit this when we move, but for now I'm okay. Although a way to get the tunes to the garage would be nice...

*Seriously, from looking at what I did before to make the CD changer player both inside and outside, I must be nuts. I have outputs cross-connected and cables connected in places that make no logical sense. Yet, I get sound of of everything when I use the CD player. I must have been really hammered when I hooked it all up. At least that's the excuse I'm using right now...