The Lazy Man's Olde Fashioned

It's snowing in Madison. And I'm over muddling,

Library Clean Up

Musical standardization really sets my hard drive a-spin. The upside is watching my Play Density neatly propagate itself every Friday afternoon. The downside is shoddy labeling and useless metadata in my library. Nothing gets my goat like seeing an artist listed in my library 5 times because of an alternate spelling or extra space. To that end I've got my Artist, Album, and Genre fields Germanly regularized, along with well established conventions for listing featured artists, associating tracks, and assigning ratings. Until today though the Lyrics field has eluded my teutonical keystrokes due to a combination of its low visibility and relative inaccessibility in iTunes. Today I say, "No to @ThatHustle and no to this kind of crap on my screen." 

So, with a little help from Doug's Applescript site, I've modified some scripts to help me fix my Lyric Problem. And now you can too:

Lyric Playlist.zip

Directions:
1. Care that you have random stuff in your lyrics field.
2. Own an Apple computer.
3. Download file: Lyric Playlist.zip and decompress it.
4. Run file.

• This will search either your entire music library or a specific playlist, depending on what you have selected in iTunes at the time, and make a new playlist called "Lyricality" containing only those songs with between 1 and 200 characters in their Lyrics field. The 200 character limit should weed out tracks containing legitimate song lyrics.

5. Delete the lyrics info manually from the tracks in Lyricality, or use Doug's handy Delete Lyrics script to delete the lyrics field from selected tracks.

I feel better, do you?

TG Ds and DNs

DO NOT:

  ➠ try to spatchcock a goose. It's not a chicken, get over it.

  ➠ cook your gingersnap crust for 45 minutes, Darcy.

  ➠ leave your matches next to the stove.

  ➠ mistake the garbage bowl for the salad bowl.

DO:
  ➠ wear Joanna's Turkey Hat at the dinner table.

  ➠ build a fire; roast your goose on a fire


  ➠ stay up late playing drinking games with your dad.

80% of Self-Worth

My defeat by the dark horse Lynda in the monthly QRANK Finals was hard to take. And yes, I did turn to spreadsheets in my hour of need. A Top-Chef Fantasy League? Ever heard of it? There's nothing like an award to get you back up on your feet though. My Sports All-Star came through this morning, leaving me just one short of the QRANK All-Star septfecta. It feels good, it really does.

Photo Day

I've always liked this picture of Evan and I because it captures how much of a dork Evan has always  been and how I was always a little too cool for school/easily distracted. Also, that I've always been a bit of a  drooler. And into belts with alligator buckles.

What I've never seen before is this behind-the-scenes footage. Look at that hair preparation! More importantly, what do you think finally made me give up on my brush and realize what my hair really needed was that comb? I've never gone back, brushes are for bozos.

Honestly though, I've only recently become too cool for school.

September 1987: 1st day of school

Brothers In Plaid

It's Time to Start Hoarding

The Years of My Lives

I took this trip to California a couple of weeks ago and only took this one picture. I mean it's a nice picture, I like it. A smattering of Barnebey's watching the salmon run behind the Truett-Hurst Winery? I say yes. But where's my picture of David and me hangin' in the playground, drinking some big beers on the swings? Or that one of my dad riding a cable car, telling me how as a little boy in America he dreamed of growing up to drive the cables?  I really dropped the ball on that one. 

Then I went to Oklahoma to hold a baby and got so distracted by the bright lights that I didn't even turn my camera on. I do not know what is up with that.

I did successfully turn 29 though. And by successfully, I mean I threw up on my bedroom floor tuesday night. I'm on top of the hill! Look at all these sweet things I got to make up for it:

Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities. Darcy claimed her spot as 1st Gifter with this little volume, which to be fair showed up several weeks early. You can't go wrong with an octopus like that on your cover. And it fits in on my bookshelf perfectly, right between Dental Prosthetics and Glands. 

Transit Maps of the World. This book‽ I don't know how my dad knew I'd be interested in a book that combined history, maps, and transit systems, but I have secretly been eyein' it up at bookstores across the nation. So that's pretty cool. Wait 'til you see Tokyo!

This note, written to my grandparents after a much earlier birthday. Turns out I've always liked magnifiers.

A dark blue QRANK score. If you aren't playing QRANK yet you should be. If you're surprised that we have a googledoc to keep track of our daily scores, number of wins, monthly averages, and cumulative averages you shouldn't be.

A bloated Facebook wall. Remember when you liked Facebook? I don't.

A framed picture reference of the Presidents of the United States, from the Eisenhower administration. Papa Barnebey comes in with another classic.

Quinton Carter, on a shirt. And some sweet tix to the Oklahoma v. Texas Tech game with Big Mama Julia. Norman, OK—the Madison of the prairie land!

A KODAK mini video camera. Taylor & Grace, comin' through with some sweet digital technology. I can't wait to go swimming with it.

RoboRally: robot racing to the extreme [not pictured]. Besides being a talented road trip co-pilot, Joanna also makes it a point to stay tuned-in to the board game news circuit. Thank god somebody's doing it for us. 

Scorpios in the house!

My Cold Left Hand

I've always said I draw like I have 3 right hands. That's not how I ride my bike though. Which means I'm going to have to figure out what happened to all my L-handed mitt-bags pretty soon. These are all that I could find in my winter supply bag today.

Sometimes you have to break out the big cards.

On the Way to the SkyLounge

Just hanging out with my reflections. And David. At a wedding. Looking good.

Color Coded

This plaid collection is really starting to come together.

Voulez-vous jouer Scrabble avec moi?

Scrabble de Poche - I picked up this little treasure at The House of Thrift last Friday. I couldn't get inside of it until I got home, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was ending up with. Luckily, I like both good gambles and good gambols. Plus, it would've had to have been pretty disappointing to not justify the 99¢ outlay.  

So what was in my little Scrabble packet? One complete French travel Scrabble set. All tucked neatly into a little pouch, perfectly sized to awkwardly fit into those big pockets of your high waisted jeans. Bonus: one more item to add to my growing collection of things manufactured in 1981.

I am missing one R, but I've got two extra blanks to make up for it. And a 10 pt. W. I call that Fair-Trade  Scrabble. Like I always say, "Yes to more expensive Ws!"

The Greyhound Lifestyle

Hanging out at a truck stop in Tomah. Drinking a High Life, playing Qrank, wearing a sweater. On a Thursday.

I Joined Them At The Same Time

I'm pretty sure I threw my phone into oncoming traffic last night. I'm positive it was doing something stupid to deserve it though. And really, I probably should have done that a year and 5 months ago. Anyway, I think I'm over it like The Facebook, so I'm just going to hold phone hours from 3:00-4:00 PM from now until whenever. I don't where I'm going to be though, so just keep trying.

No really. Call me. Between 3:00 and 4:00.

Patch Peepin'

It's fall, and one thing I love to do during the fall is to peep shit. I'll peep leaves, and lobsters for sure, but I'd never turn down a chance to head out to a patch and peep some pump's. Then this happened. It's like 19th century Ireland all over again.

Luckily there were 8 acres of Dino-themed corn maze to make up for it. You might not be able to tell but there's a T. Rex running away from an attack pterodactyl out there in the maize. Which is actually too much maize for a Saturday morning. We took our free admission wristbands and hightailed it out to the novelty acts; there's nothing that says autumnal like Lady Pumpkins and an old red tractor. What do you think she's looking at? My shoes?

And that tractor out in the apple orchard—perfect for double-sittin'. 

 But old machinery is really only made for two things, laying on and jumping from. Done & done.

What wagon are you riding this fall?

The Chuck Wagon

Dock Organisation

Icons arranged in colour order. I going to have to change my Chrome icon to get it to fit in somewhere.

I Quit You

I made the horrifying discovery this afternoon that I still had Entourage listed as a favorite television show on The Facebook when I got an update asking me what my favorite Drama quote was. I wish more shows were as timeless as elimiDATE.

You Flew Your Bicycle in My Window Last Night

There's usually a single fly joyflying around my apartment at any given moment. Not two, just one. It's a bother sometimes, but I decided a long time ago that it wasn't enough of a bother to make me close the door to my porch. I don't care if it has a screen up top, I like it open. And if it means I have to deal with a fly, I'm okay with that.

Then a bird flew in last night. The night's game of Crapples2Crapples was over, but Rachel and Ross were still around when it happened. My first reaction was to get a newspaper. Russ took off his shirt. Rachel screamed. Who knew she was so skittish around avians? The newspaper and the t-shirt proved to be poor bird-herding implements, and after it had given us the slip a couple of times we paused, discussed our college degrees, and went and got a sheet. That finally worked, but not before the thing had started taking reverse kamikaze missions into the ceiling. My living room is covered with little sparrow-sized streaks of bird blood. I should have cleaned it last night while it was fresh—now I'm going to have to break out some more advanced scrubbing utensils. Which just goes to show you, a bird in the den is worth two brushes in your hands.

First Impact

Little Dirty Birdie Blood

The Red Scare

The, possibly, good news is that it did fly away once I tossed it out of the sheet. It may or may not of run into the building next door though. I couldn't tell, it was dark.

The bad news is that Rachel really is scared of birds:

A Wisconsin Circumnavigation

One time my dad came to visit for a week. We started off by riding Hank & The General around Lake Monona, then we continued by driving 1,100 miles around Wisconsin. This is our story—and this is our route:

First up, the Driftless Region. Wyalusing State Park at the confluence of the wide, brown Mississippi River with the wide, brown Wisconsin River, is described alternately as Wisconsin's most scenic, most historic, or most varied state park. I choose least surprising. Here's the view from atop the bluff, but don't bother looking if you've ever seen the Upper Mississippi before.

On the upside, there was that monument to Wisconsin's last Passenger Pigeon. And the 1st in my series: Whitney Jumping Off Things in Wisconsin While His Dad Takes His Picture. And this great field of goldenrods. You can't argue with that.

Next up, La Crosse! Home to Wisconsin's best drinking water, and generally recognized as Wisconsin's prettiest city. At which point I told the guidebook, "Fool me once shame on me, fool me... you can't fool me again." It would continue to vastly over-sell its sights during the remainder of the trip, but I had its number now. Go ahead, call Granddad's Bluff "550 feet above the back haunches of La Crosse", without question the #1 scenic spot in western Wisconsin. I'll draw my own conclusions. Like how awesome that neon light eagle head up there is. Why aren't you talking about that guidebook? 

From there it was north along the river. Surprisingly, we'd passed up the chance to walk "the longest main street in any town or village with only one street" back in Ferryville the day before. Even more surprisingly, Ferryville has more than 1 street. 

We didn't want to give up the dream of the quaint riverboat town though, so we made sure to take in the sights of Trempealeau and the Great River Road State Trail via bicycles. It's been years since I've shifted gears, you know what they say about a derailleur, but I am a sucker for wooden bridges.

Actually I'm a sucker for almost all varieties of bridges. Perfect for jumping off.

Last up on the Mississippi leg—Pepin, WI, childhood home to Laura Ingalls Wilder and pre-blind sister Mary. Otherwise known as The Little House in The Big Woods. Most noticeably missing of course are the big woods. Which just makes me wonder, how long was that winter really, Laura‽

Inland, to Menomonie and beyond! Chequamegon National Forest holds innumerable inscrutable forest roads, one of which eventually leads to the trail to Morgan Falls ("the prettiest waterfall in the state") and St. Peter's Dome (i.e. Old Baldy). Waterfalls are only good for 2 things—jumping into and jumping on top of, and this one was only good for one of those. 

Domes on the other hand are good for sitting on, looking from, and towering over. ✓, ✓, & ✓. I can see Superior from here! Joanna claims it's only her 2nd favorite Great Lake, but that presupposes that Lake Ontario actually is a lake.

Just look at these lake-cliffs. Sandusky's not going to give you any of that. 

Don't think it's over yet though, 'cause it had just Michigan! [say it. out loud.] That's right, we went to Michigan. We didn't plan to. And it wasn't even the real Michigan, just its upper mitt. They lured us in with promises of virgin forests and words like Sylvania Wilderness, practically irresistible when from clearcut PA. It turns out my timing is lost in Michigan. Or in virgin forests. Or maybe on Fridays. I don't know what, but this is the closest I could get to a jumpshot up there.

Being Friday we needed to get back to Wiscosin though. The fish and the frying were waiting for us, or at least we thought they were. Green Bay had pulled out an unforeseen haute supper for us, foams and gelées included, but no fries. They obviously knew I was coming:

North central eastern Wisconsin proved to be a full load of jumping for the series though. Lambeau, De Pere, Winnebago... they all had one in 'em.

There was only one thing left to do; Milwaukee here we come. Challenges of all sorts ensued. A tomato challenge, a trivia challenge, a hammering challenge, and of course a typing challenge.

I won. Except for the tomato challenge, no one really won that. We all equally avoided rogue tomato shrapnel.