I totally read it on Some Guy’s Blog

Dell Home has another free TiVo offer.

After seeing MusicBrainz pop up on my del.icio.us popular page, I went and checked it out. I tried using it on my barrel of MP3’s that I had no hope of ever fully classifying, or really figuring out where they came from. I was shocked, not only at how well the program worked, but how easy it was to use. It even respects how I name files, and will handle that for me as well!

I still use Tag & Rename to finish up with assigning a year, and getting the directory structure exactly how I like it, but MusicBrainz has already become an indespensible part of my MP3 stack.

In short, if you have a lot of MP3’s, or you are an active downloader, please use a condom.

Wait! No, I mean, give MusicBrainz a try.

As Floyd Gondolli once said

I like simple pleasures, like butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth. That’s just me. That’s just something that I enjoy.

While in the past I’ve certainly enjoyed a tad more musical variety than Joe American, so much of my musical taste essentially comes down to three questions: Is it pretty? Does it rock? Does it have an enjoyable rhythm? If an album makes me answer “Yes” to two or more of those questions, we’re in good shape. In addition, if the record is unmistakably unique, that’s when I make room in the Top 54.

There’s no shame in having other criteria. We’re all critics when it comes to music! Some people like hip-hop and hate country. Some people are totally into a scene and judge accordingly. Sam Prekop’s 1999 self-titled release might not do so well on criteria such as these. Is it a jazz record? From the guy behind The Sea And Cake? I thought they were a pop band?

But I could care less about all that (except The Sea And Cake is really good, too). This is a breezy record, instantly evoking those sunny spring days, before the weather really warms up. Its shuffling rhythms and gentle guitar work calm the nerves, and Prekop’s hushed vocals don’t upset that dynamic. There’s strings, and horns, and piano on various tracks, even some synthetic rhythms on ‘Faces and People’, but the album remains startlingly cohesive. To me, it’s a big benefit to be able to enjoy a record while doing something else, and this record certainly fits that bill.

Today is the one year anniversary of my first date with Megan Epp.

I realize that I haven’t posted very much here about Megan, but that hasn’t been because she’s not very important to me. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth.

I met Megan online at OKCupid which is an absolutely fantastic site. Another of Megan’s friends met her boyfriend through OKCupid, and now both couples are living together.

Megan and I were friends for several months before I worked up the courage to ask her out. I planned and planned, because it was very important to me that no matter whether she wanted to go out with me or not, that we remained friends. I can have difficulty making new friends, as it often takes me a little while to warm up to a new locale, and I knew from the first time we met at World Cup that she would be a good friend.

Since we started dating, we haven’t spent very much time apart voluntarily. That’s what makes it so hard to write about her! She’s always looking over my shoulder! (I’m just kidding, baby.)

Megan and I formed a trusting relationship very quickly, and she’s been more understanding of my mental state than I ever could have expected.

Living together hasn’t made us any more angry at each other, but we do have to watch our tendencies to buy cool stuff including Megan’s beloved shoe collection.

She has an incredible ability to pick me up when I am down, and to calm me down when I am nervous or upset. She challenges me to be my best, and lord knows I can’t get away with anything around her.

She’s all I could ever ask for. I just wanted to let you all know that.

Before you leave:

Salary
Profit Sharing
Vacation
Sick Days
Personal Days
Holidays
401k
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Long-Term Disability
Short-Term Disability
In 1,3,5,10 years
Personal Networking
Required Travel
Bonuses
Guilt
Industry
Personal Growth
Best That Could Happen
Worst That Could Happen
Support Staff
Regrets

I’ve finished a non-trivial Google Maps integration for one of my Rails apps.

No offense, but the Cartographer library has quite some way to go, but it was an excellent starting point. I hope to be able to contribute some interesting functionality to it in the near-term future.

With five more days left at Dominion, I just got a request for a major new piece of functionality. Let’s see if I can whiz through this fellow! I appear to have finally cracked the final barrier for the jsCalcLib library, which is a big plus in more ways than one. That means it’s a stretch goal, but attainable.

Unfortunately, that means less posting.

In the vein of leaving myself illuminating notes here, if you’re looking for a way to access your JavaScript object a bit more like a hash, the construct you’re looking for is the for / in loop.

I’ve both updgraded the blog to run off Typo trunk, and rolled back to the default theme.

I am working on a theme that I’ll use for this blog, just in case the Typo theme contest doesn’t turn up any that I think are awesome. I’ve abandoned the notebook look for now.

It’s been sort of a rough week, even though I’ve been enjoying myself in general. My dad’s job at Capital One was eliminated, so now I’m preparing a “Can Web 2.0 get my dad a job?” blog post.

I needed a new set of tires, which I got yesterday. This was precipitated by having to change my spare at a gas station and almost doing it correctly.

I didn’t do a Top 54 post on Friday, so I’m now 2 of 4 on that score.

My fantasy teams did fantastically. I will retain first place in my ESPN keeper league, be a solid playoff contender in all my leagues, and am ready to break into top 50 for fans of the teams I like in my college football Pick-’em and salary cap football league.

And UVA beat FSU. So the minuses are big, but we’ll get through them.