Life is a State of Mind

I am not even sure this is a bug, but it is a strange and annoying behavior. When I upgraded from iTunes 7 to iTunes 8 for Mac, most of my Smart Playlists stopped playing more than one song with each play command. The playlist would only play one song and stop. Very annoying, you build a playlist to have music running and not have to worry about selecting a new song every time.

Scanned the support forums, every solution they suggested did not apply in my case (my songs were checked, the “use only checked songs” button was not checked, editing the playlist showed nothing unusual). As a last resort I deleted my smart playlist and created a new one with the same settings and name and… it worked.

Strange, but perhaps this solution will either help someone else noticing the same problem or someone will send in a reason why it happens and how to fix it without deleting and recreating the playlist.

As a side note, nothing gets rid of bad 1970s era ear-worms like medieval music! Miri it is!

I must be dreaming. Three days in a row with no need to close windows nor run the air-conditioning. Gorgeous weather, can it really be August near Washington?

Temperatures are still getting up to 90 in the afternoon, but there is so little humidity that it’s comfortable to be active, work, or even exercise without being drenched in sweat in a few minutes. Very unusual, very welcome. The cats have been enjoying more outside time with us, and I have been pulling weeds and doing a little yard work. Erci is still prepping for her RHCE/RHCT class and exam, and writing papers for her MBA financial class. Yesterday she got out for a couple hours of errands and I enjoy turning the music up and catching up on some house-cleaning.

Scott get’s pedantic for audio geeks after the fold…
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My latest favorite music fascination is Rodrigo Y Gabriela, metal/rock inspired flamenco and classical guitar influence original music by two guitar virtuosos. I am a little sad that I do not think it will be practical to see them live, but want to share the information that they will be touring this area of the East Coast of the United States soon!

Rodrigo Y Gabriela are playing The National in Richmond, Virginia on Friday, August 8th at 9:00pm. Tickets are $25 each; and a good show is pretty much guaranteed. The following day, August 9th, they will be playing the V Festival in Baltimore. That festival is more money for each ticket ($99 and up I think), but you get to see the Foo Fighters and many other bands as well.

In case you have not figured out how awesome they are, this is from their website:

If you are interested, but not local, check out the list of Rodrigo Y Gabriela Tour Dates to see what location and date will work for you.

This video popped up on Ruckus.com this morning, and I was instantly smitten with the music:

Rodrigo y Gabriela have their own website, and a first CD.

More independent music available for free (though they’d love it if you bought some MP3s or CDs as well). This time from the inspirational Gaia Consort. They encourage you to download or stream their music to see if you like it and share it with friends. They love it if you bought it too, and frankly it stands up to the listen first test and I am buying some.

Hat tip to Poly Weekly for playing the excellent song Three on the podcast, which was enough to hook me. Nice viennese waltz, by the way!

I am a big fan of independent artists and fresh, new music from innovative talent. A friend is helping several new artists get started at NewIndieArtists and they have links to samples of their music and CD Baby and iTunes in case you want to buy some music in either MP3 or CD format.

While hitting CD Baby, I went ahead and ordered a couple of Jonathan Coulton CDs I have been interested in for weeks.

I finally broke down and bought the expensive original soundtrack and score to the movie Donnie Darko. I selected the British import version of the CDs because it has all the classical music and the ’80s pop that was remastered specifically for the movie and gave it such a haunting edge. The variation to Michael Andrews’ “Mad World” song is worth the expensive price of the double disc set all by itself. You can get “Mad World” elsewhere (Tears for Fears did the most popular version), but I like this version best of all.

If you are curious about it, you can hear the 30 second samples for free on iTunes Music Store (fire up iTunes, which is free for Mac and Windows, go to the iTunes Music Store, search for “Mad World”). Several versions come up, and they are all good (I have the Tears for Fears version on CD too). Something about the quieter, slower version by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews is the most hauntingly beautiful though… decide for yourself.

BTW; if you have not seen Donnie Darko the movie, and wrote it off (as I did) as another silly teen flick, give it a chance. It is mind-twisting Sci-Fi set inside an ’80s teen flick… awesome. Really twisted in much the same way Body Heat, Eternal Sunshine, Memento, Body Double, The Crying Game, and other films are. You might have to watch it three times to catch on to all the time loop paradoxes. Thank you very much to those friends who insisted I get by the silly teen reputation and watch this film (yes, it’s a film, not a movie). Oh yes, and it stars a very young and handsome Jake Gyllenhaal and has his super-sexy sister Maggie in a bit part as his sister too. Lots of eye-candy.

So I had no interest in getting myself an iPod nor any other portable music player since I left the military. I had a Walkman, and later a portable CD player - but then I stopped traveling regularly and no longer needed portable music. I listen to music all the time on my computer, home stereo, and in my car, but I have not needed portability.

Years ago my wife snagged a Diamond Rio 500 (slick little MP3 player) and it was an interesting novelty, and remains a decent MP3 player because it uses standard memory cards and can be expanded easily. When she later got an early iPod, I inherited her old Rio 500 and used it for short bike rides. That has been good enough for years.

She upgraded her iPod, and sold her old one to our dance teacher. Recently she just upgraded again (she has a shiney new black 60GB iPod Video), and once again I inherited her old device, this time a very nice 20GB 4th generation iPod. Initially I was thinking, what would I do with this thing…

After a few days I figured out that I needed some accessories to make it work, so I grabbed:

Dock everything combo adaptor ($23):
http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/combo.html ( it is smaller and handles both firewire and USB connectivity and charging)

Y-adaptor with volume controls ($16):
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/smartshare/” (for sharing your audio with someone else’s headphones)

Headphones for travel:
Etymotic ER-4P ($160) - noise dampening Canalphones (http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.aspx)

Belkin headphone to headphone plug cable (apple store) - this plugs my iPod into the Prius

So the noise blocking Etymotic headphones are stunningly awesome, both as ear-plugs (-38dB makes for a really quiet airplane ride) and as fantasically clean audio monitors for great music and really easy to hear spoken words. Shure and Ultimate Ears both get good reviews too, but for the music I listen to the Etymotics have cleaner crisper sound. If you like rap and never listen to classical, you might check out the Etymotic ER-6i, Shure E2C/E3C/E4C, or Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro instead (for less money than the ER-4) or the Shure E5C or E500PTH if money is no object.

I spent the recent trip to the Bahamas listening to fun podcasts and music, and I gotta confess that though I am a late adoptor to the whole iPod/portable music scene, I am now thoroughly infected with the bug.

I know it’s a paid for commercial for the music group “The Bastard Fairies” and that it was all scripted, but the truths coming out of this little girl’s mouth are so profound and so awesome that I had to share it. Also, the band is giving away their first album in MP3 format and asking people to download and share it if they like the music, I do.

I am reading Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith” right now - so her diatribe about religion causing violence strikes a familiar chord in me. Anyway, enjoy. I downloaded the album “Momento Mori” and I am enjoying it - though I’d like to buy higher quality version I think.