So the magic iPod gods decided to serve up NIN’s Piggy. And while I was listening to it, I got an email from a friend with photos of some pig cupcakes she’d made.
Category: Uncategorized
Instant Review: CopyTrans Manager
I was syncing my iPod when the electricity went out last weekend. I somehow ended up with duplicates for every song, which was not good. I managed to purge everything and was attempting to re-sync, when Songbird suddenly started crashing because it didn’t have enough virtual memory.
I assumed that the power outage damaged some of my RAM, or part of my hard drive, so I increased the size of my swap file, but that didn’t help. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Songbird, but that didn’t work, either. I tried installing it on another partition, then on an entirely different drive. No go. If the problem is damage to my system, it seems to only have affected Songbird, which would be weird, but not beyond the realm of possibility.
Anyway, after pulling my hair out, I looked around for another iTunes alternative, found CopyTrans Manager, and gave it a try. Wow! It’s much zippier than Songbird. You can also add and remove files directly to and from your iPod, instead of having to re-mount and re-sync the device. Updates that would have taken hours with Songbird can be done in minutes with CopyTrans Manager.
The downsides are that it cannot edit metadata, so if you want to alter any tags, you’ll have to do so using another program. Since I’m using something else to rip and organize my library, that’s no problem for me. You also cannot add tracks at the folder level, which makes importing tracks into the CopyTrans Manager library tedious.
It also does not (yet) have drivers for iPod Touch or the iPhone, so if you have those, you’d still have to install iTunes to get device drivers. It supports all other flavors of iPod, though, including the Classic.
Like I said, it’s zippy, and so far, it’s rock solid on my quirky system. Yay!
Gifts
One of my cat sitting clients brought me back a couple of gifts from Costa Rica: a little pad of banana paper (it’s screaming to be made into a miniature book) and a bottle of Lizano salsa. I’m not a big fan of pouring chili-based sauces all over my food, but I’ll give it a try.
And a couple of nights ago, across-the-hall neighbor brought me a cupcake. Not just any cupcake, either. It was a work of art, with a veritable Everest of frosting that actually tasted good. Mmm. Now I’m craving frosted cupcakes so badly that even homemade brownies aren’t going to cut it.
Vast Tracts of… Books!
I’ve cataloged 124 items* so far today, and it’s only 2pm. Can I go home now?
*That’s about 15 items per hour, not accounting for breaks. When we were told last year that one of the candidates for Dean of the Li-barry said that copy catalogers should be doing (if I recall correctly) 11 books per hour, everyone got up in arms about how no way, no how, nuh-uh could anyone work that fast. Um, yeaaaaaah.
Kneetops
Language is a funny thing. I just cataloged a book called Who needs kneetops? : report on the trial of simple, easy-to-use, portable, text creation devices with communication capabilities, published in June 1985. I wonder why the term laptop caught on, instead of kneetop?
Retail Therapy
I may have mentioned, in passing, that someday before I die, I would like to have real, live, matching towels and wash cloths? Well, that day has finally come. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and Target had some decent and pretty ones on sale. I got mixy-matchy chocolate brown and sea foamy teal bath towels (two brown with viney sea foam pattern and two solid sea foam), light tan hand towels, and an assortment of wash cloths in various shades of tan to brown.
Normally, I would have gone with deep blues, teals, and aquas, but since my tile floor is a peachy tan color, I thought I’d better do something to bridge the gap between that and my teal shower curtain. Because I will not give up the teal shower curtain, and there’s not anything I can do about the horrible color of the floor tile. Brown with sea foam is not something I would have ordinarily considered, but it’s actually a yummy color combination.
What I Learned Today
According to Catalogue of banned publications cinematograph pictures and records from 1st August, 1968 to 30th June, 1980, the movie The Return of Count Yorga was–for some incomprehensible reason–banned in Malawi.
Other banned gems include Sweet Sins of Sexy Susan and Mondo Teeno.
That is all. As you were, comrades.
On the Subject of Food
Do you remember Butternut bread? It came in a blue and white checked wrapper and was soft and moist and squishy. When we were kids, we used to tear off the crusts, then roll it into dough balls. Butternut bread made the very best dough balls. I’d forgotten about doing that. My favorite was to dip the dough balls in creamy peanut butter. Mmmm.
And that reminded me of a new favorite sandwich: cheese and peanut butter on toasted bread. It sounds disgusting, but it’s damnfinetasty. You have to use real cheese. The fake stuff, like Kraft singles or Velveeta, would get lost–flavor-wise and texture-wise–in the peanut butter. Sharp cheddar works best, I think.
In Da Hood
While I was in the shower this morning, I heard what I at first thought were firecrackers going off. One, then about half a minute later, two fainter blasts. But fireworks? At that hour? Unlikely. After thinking about it some more–I wasn’t exactly awake yet–it occurred to me that I can barely hear firecrackers from inside, and certainly not over the noise from the shower and fan. Aieee! Those were not fireworks I heard. They had to’ve been gunshots.
I got out of the shower, meaning to call 911, but I looked out the window first and the place was already crawling with cops. Thankfully, someone else was more alert and clueful than I was, and had already called them.
The cops were still there when I left for work. I wonder what, exactly, happened?
Title of the Day
Proterozoic unconformity and stratabound uranium deposits: report of the Working Group on Uranium Geology. Organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, edited by John Ferguson.
US$246?!!! For a book on uranium deposits that was published in 1984?! And what I find even more mind boggling is that there is a copy listed on Amazon.
red paper boat 