You didn't need them, your Sunday friends.

[raybear]

You know, I never find myself listening to a song on the soft rock radio station and thinking, man, what this song really needs is a great R&B remake version. And yet, I can't stop listening to either India Arie's "The Heart of the Matter" (Don Henley) or Angie Stone's "Holding Back the Years" (Simply Red).

I bought this emac in June of 2003 and plugged it and I haven't done jack isht to it since, other than run a virus scan every time I restart it. I think it might be time to updgrade to a new OS system and clean it up, including deleting the tons of unnecessary files and uninstalling programs I never use and all that maintenance stuff that's super super tedious. I mean, I was briefly considering that in lieu of spending $75 on the new OS and doing it all myself, that I would just spend $1,000 and buy a new computer. When there's major resistance, logic can be bent to transform mountains. But, uh, not in a good way. So this morning I thought I would take the first step and 'backup' everything, which for me basically meant burning all the word files onto a CD, because I don't really care about anything else. But my computer initially wouldn't even let me burn a CD because I didn't have enough memory. This got cleared up quickly after I emptied the trash, but still. I need to do something with the 11,000+ mp3 files I have, they are dragging down the operation. This is a slightly daunting task for me. I do have good motivation though -- I bought myself an ipod shuffle. Which is sort of ridiculous to me, I never thought I would get a shuffle ever, it's the least appealing of the ipod family, except I got seduced by the orange. I convinced myself it was worth it for exercising (and copying job). I also had a $25 gift certificate to redeem. But I realized that I might not be able to connect it to my current iTunes because I'm so behind in the OS updates. Which is how I got to this place.

It's spring cleaning in general for me though, as far as urges. I want to clean out the closet of every item of clothing I don't wear twice a month. Purge out my bookshelves. Dispose of the magazines. Get the damn stove and TV off the back porch.

But first, let's start with something small, like taking down the christmas lights in the office.

Comments

my solution

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

to backup=removable harddrive. store your itunes library there, no more bogging down. no need to remove! the packrat special, indeed.

Re: my solution

[raybear.livejournal.com]

true.

but, that's 1) spending money, 2) still somewhat significant effort to figure out how to make happen (when did i become the person overwhelmed/scared by technology?) and most importantly, 3) i'm not sure i want to further enabling my packrattery.

Re: my solution

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

I rationalize by thinking that my packrattery is probably less harmful electronically, that I'm only going to clean up so much so it may as well be something that is physical, and by the fact that the harddrive is less expensive than a new computer, and also because my computer shitted out on me, rapidly, last year, causing many many troubs, including reimporting all of my cds, which I'm still doing, and which blows. All of this is worth 150 bucks to me. I'm not superawesome with the technology, which I solve by knowing a lot of geeks.

Re: my solution

[raybear.livejournal.com]

ok, ok, i am being convinced.

Re: my solution

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

actually, this is a great suggestion and one that was given to me by other mac users when your i-tunes crashed. having an external hard-drive *could* encourage being a packrat, but supposedly it's a safe and check back-up system.

Re: my solution

[louche.livejournal.com]

ray! it's superduper easy to get an external hard drive. and it is superduper cost efficient and will make your computer run like the dream it was in 2003-- or almost so.

small external drives aren't very expensive. if you're going to use it mainly for your music, you probably only need an 80GB or 100GB drive. you can get really good ones of that size for like $99.

look: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?ps=1&pn=3&mco=CA161FB9&nclm=1A3883B1

you can also probably fit all of your word docs on there to backup, as well as backing up all your itunes playlists. seriously. it's a smart thing to do.

whoa. i just got way too excited about external storage. wow.

Re: my solution

[raybear.livejournal.com]

ok, ok, you people are right, i'll get over my thing. part of me did think external hard drives were $300+ anway, which just goes to show, i haven't looked at them in a very long time.

actually, all the word files, of both me and DYA, fit on one CD-RW! it was thousands of files. but compared to the memory space of mp3s and jpegs, they are nothing.

Re: my solution

[louche.livejournal.com]

haha. "you people."

great! then forget about all those CDRWs which are easily scratched, messed up, etc. and put it all on that nice external drive!

wheee.

Re: my solution

[raybear.livejournal.com]

the CDRW solution was more my temporary backup before i install a new OS on the computer. i did the same thing whenever i moved -- a quick saving of the most critical and important documents, in case the computer gets dropped!

orange ipod shuffle

[sorting-laundry.livejournal.com]

am i reading too much into it to think that your having been seduced by the orange has to do with the balancing of your chakras? The orange chakra is the chakra associated with food and sex. It is also related to channeling your creativity. you were driven to purchase the orange ipod shuffle so that you will see positive growth in those areas??

-k

Re: orange ipod shuffle

[raybear.livejournal.com]

hahaha. i wouldn't turn those things down either!

i was also seduced by the 12 hours of play time.

[saltjam.livejournal.com]

I'm your magazine man if you need some hauling away when the time comes...
(oh, but you can keep the New Yorkers ha)

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I have a nice armful of Entertainment Weeklys and Smithsonians too.

[saltjam.livejournal.com]

niiice.

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

saltjam, I'll swap you some bitch and some colorlines for some gq.

[milosh.livejournal.com]

dear raymond,

i will be in chicagoland from thursday, april 12th, through monday, april 16th. perhaps we can actually hang out this time, eh?

cheers,
myles

[milosh.livejournal.com]

also, i have an external hard drive, and i love it.

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

what kind?

[milosh.livejournal.com]

i'll have to check -- i don't remember off the top of my head.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

except i am leaving town that exact weekend for a writer's retreat! bummer.

[milosh.livejournal.com]

total bummer. totally!

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

I would like to see somebody do something with Kenny Loggins' If you believe. Maybe Celine, though I would like her to show a little restraint.

The song sells itself. Kenny's vocals are probably the best of his career, better than Heart to Heart and Whenever I call you "Friend"..

I can't believe someone hasn't snagged this song, because it's exactly the seemingly unshowy vocal showcase that most divas would kill for.

[sharkysmachine.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking about getting a shuffle because I find Avery (30gb) to be too much choice for me to deal with and I spend my nine minute commute looking for something to listen to and usually end up listening to NPR.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I generally like playlists with a 50-100 songs anyway, i only occasionally skip over things, so i think it will work out.