Good Morning

it is a cheery 6am

the night still covers
the eyes of the world

and

good lord is it cold outside

I should be moving boxes
out to my van
to take them to the dump today
but
it is too damn cold
I think I will wait till the sun comes up
after all

I have three and a half hours
to move a couple dozen mostly empty boxes
as
long as I get them moved before the
window cleaners get here
I
will be all good

lacking any remarkable segue here but

I have mostly completed the torturous process
or standardizing my mp3 collection

so far I have standardized
every file name
correct all of the ID3 tag info
volume level each track

I still need to standardize genre info
I have already reset each track to "unknown"
so that I can go through them all
and do batch genre assignment
but

considering I have 7335 songs on this machine
or
382 uninterrupted hours of [mostly] good music
[Just shy of 16 days]

and

I probably have another 15gb on my server
which isnt up yet, although most of that
is about 90% sorted and standardized already
so it wont add too much to my workload

and

I am leeching fairly hardcore from good old paddy boy

*grin*

Standards, a question there of

so

I was organizing my Mp3 collection

and I noticed that there was no consistency
in the Genre tags

hell one confused schmuck
put the beastie boys
in "Christian music"

Now some genre "labels"
are fairly obvious

Classical
Rock
Jazz
Reggae

but then you have others which
seem to me to be very specific
sub-genres of a great genre

so what I want to know
is what in your opinions
are the top level genre

For example Jazz would be the top level genre of Acid Jazz

I want to keep it fairly simple
so
please let me know what you would consider
are the top level genres?

also
does anyone know of a web site
that lists genre info for various groups?

I tried CDDB but they don't seem
to want to share with the public directly
instead preferring to
brag about all the companies
that sell their products

basically what I need
is something that will give me reliable genre information
for groups that I am less familiar with
so I can still classify them


thanks in advance

Accidents, aren't

I see the word accident used everywhere

from automobile accidents,
to plane accidents,
to environmental accidents,
to I accidentally fucked your sister

Now our trusty dictionary defines an accident as the following:

1.
A) An unexpected and undesirable event, especially one resulting in damage or harm: car accidents on icy roads.
B) An unforeseen incident: A series of happy accidents led to his promotion.
C) An instance of involuntary urination or defecation in one's clothing.
2. Lack of intention; chance: ran into an old friend by accident.
3. A circumstance or attribute that is not essential to the nature of something.


Each of these definitions, describes something unforeseen, or involuntary

but in most usage is really used to disguise negligence

A car "accident" is no accident
it is the result of one or possibly more drivers negligence
a failure to drive safely and consciously with respect to road conditions

When a child defecates in it's pants
it is no accident
the child either doesn't know better
or was negligent in observing the warning signs
that an avalanche of shit was impending

When an adult defecates in his/her pants
it is also no accident
it is either a perversion, a medical condition
or a serious case of stu-fucking-pidity

In almost every case, usage of "Accident" to describe unfortunate incidents
is merely an attempt to cover up ours or someone else's negligence

Where accident is used to describe chance of lack of intention, happenstance would perhaps be a better choice of word.

People seem to invoke the word accident, like it was a "Get out of Jail free" card

If I only had a dollar for every time I have heard

"It was an accident, I'm sorry, but what do you want me to do"

I would have enough money to pay Bill Gates to scrub my toilets

It wasn't an accident, and I wont excuse it
"Sorry" doesn't make it better, just fix the freaking problem

It was negligence, and as such inexcusable but usually repairable

People love the word accident
because it excuses them of responsibility

I accidentally fucked your sister, so it isn't really my fault
I accidentally ran into your car, so it isn't really my fault, even though I wasn't looking

As if the intention magically solves the freaking problem

That I had no intention of fucking your sister doesn't really make it any better that I did
That I had no intention of crashing my car into yours doesn't do much for you

but we still cling to this idea
this fallacy

When instead of excusing negligence and unintentional consequences
which are entirely foreseeable by the laws of reality

we should encouraging ourselves and our youth
to act deliberately
and with intention

to be conscious of their movements and behaviours

because accidents, aren't

(no subject)

If you do not have it

you need to download it

what?

"Dont drop the Soap (for anyone else but me)" by Stan Ridgeway & Stewart Copeland

go

now

download

enjoy

thus is my will

Guiding lights

whipped up this lil graphic
thinking it might have to join
my einstein poster on the office wall

"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever.

Today I spent nearly an hour on the phone with customer service for my cell phone trying to fix a short list of things

I was bounced around quite a bit and got an opportunity to sample the customer service and relational skills of a broad section of their employees in a short enough time to reflect clear on each

For the most part they were all pleasant and reasonably competent for there job responsibilities
but I noticed in myself a particular response

with each new agent, all being kindly introduced by the previous agent, warm transfers are a beautiful things
[of course when your phone bill is $300 a month]
[they damn well better not put me on hold]

I quickly assessed the basic intellectual competency of the new individual, much like I do when meeting any individual, especially one with whom I must do business

What was surprising was the sudden sense of depression that I experienced when I realized that the incoming agent was not exactly the brightest bulb in the batch

I think I only noticed and even thought on it because there were no problems everything I needed got done

I didn't get a "goddamn freaking morons drive me crazy" story out of the experience

but still I felt this anxiety as if I was expecting the stupid bus to come crash my party and fuck everything up

because it was my expectation and because it did not happen that I stopped to think about it

Sure the last lady was a little slow on the uptake a little slow getting things done

it wasn't unreasonably slow but experience has bred in me an unreasonable fear of such people

now

human beings on a general spectrum vary greatly in intellect

some people have a surplus of intellect; think of them as intellectual millionaire
they have more intellect than they most likely will ever need

then you have your middle class; people with enough intellect to get by, with a comfortable margin of error

then you have your poor; the sorry sons of bitches who don't have two brain cells to rub together

now while this spectrum is quite wide the major of people tend to hover around the middle
and
because humans as social creatures
tend to surround themselves with people of similar intellectual capacity

we rarely notice the great diversity provided in the strata of human existence

now
a required mention is that except for the lowest 1% or 2%
every group has nearly unshakeable faith in their own intelligence

most people would not rate themselves as being complete dumb asses
[unfortunately most people are wrong]

but enclosed in their microcosm surrounded by people of relatively similar intellects, they are protected from this reality

now most of us live our lives in bliss interacting socially with people in a similar intellectual strata
and while we might admit there are people smarter than us, it is sort of a vague notion; "besides
they aren't really that much smarter"
[actually we are]
and every group takes enjoyment from mocking those lower on the intellectual ladder humoring themselves at the others stupidity

but only rarely do we actually have to interact with a person from a different class
when forced to deal with someone of a higher class people tend to minimize the differences to feel less inept or simply try to put the experience behind them. Alternately they may belittle the threat by assigning other unpleasant characteristics to said individual

hence the common terms

"brain"
"know it all"

etc

generally people do not talk and/or share broadly their experiences in which they were vastly outclassed intellectually people are generally fairly threatened by such events and do not choose to share them

this is remarkably different from experiences where people fail to use the most minimal amount of their own intellect resulting some bizarre or unfortunate circumstance, for in such cases they tend to ramble on and on beyond any real interest on the point of the listener, about whatever bonehead move they pulled.

such tales allow a person to share their mistakes and receive empathy but without threatening their perception of their intellectual status as they are the person recognizing their failure to use reason. This allows them to laugh about the situation.

however, should someone else illustrate their failure to use reason, the response is markedly different, specifically in that it is decidedly defensive and hostile.

When forced to deal with a person of a lower class, the response is similar in that it tends to create an opportunity for a story

"you are never going to believe the idiot ..."

such tales provide amusement at the expense of the less fortunate, as well as elevate the intellectual status of the speaker by illustrating that yet another person is below them on the intellectual food chain.

Politically correct announcement

We have been informed that the Arabs do not like to be called "towelheads."

The item they wear on their heads is actually a small sheet.

Effective immediately, please call them "little sheet heads."

Thank you for your cooperation