Decade of Data

Some time in mid-May of 2004 the hard drive of my otherwise trusty PowerBook G4 gave out. It was probably a direct result of the emotional stress I had subjected it, and everyone else that I cared about, to over the preceding week. I had just finagled an A in my final undergraduate class; somehow getting credit for building a functional bagpipe while simultaneously not building a functional bagpipe. And also breaking Jobonga's sewing machine.

The point being, I had lost all of the backup for the past 4+1 years of college; except for my WeBWork―my entire collegiate career's worth of work, gone. The other point being I still had 2,388 mp3s on my reliable 2nd generation iPod (back when 10GB sounded like a lot). And luckily, that was the important point.

At 1:01 PM, May 18th, 2004 I started importing these songs back into my iTunes library. And now, exactly a decade later, I have 10 years of uninterrupted iTunes metadata at my fingertips. And guys, I'M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT.


Some important notes:

1. The 1st song added back into my library, and thus, the song which will forever be my oldest iTunes entry: "When The Angels Sing" by Social Distortion. It's not what I would have chosen to be the originating entry, but the data doesn't lie. My oldest songs, in reverse order:

I do feel pretty good about "Informer" showing up there at #4. Also, "Boogie Shoes" by KC &/or The Sunshine Band has proven to be a really insightful Napster grab for me. Pre-2004 Whitney had some insightful predilections. 

2. In 10 years I have acquired 35,999 songs (see above). Which is roughly 9.8 songs/day for 10 years, which are basically Wangari Maathai numbers. Or, in other words, if I started playing my library today it would continue non-stop until August 19th. It's a little disappointing that I didn't hit the 36k mark, but it still feels good. Really good. And I'm sure that it's still more than Schwenn has. 

(At this point I'd like to throw out a shoutout to Napster, The CIF server, and the internet in general. Actually, mostly The CIF server. To this day its Internet2 connection is the ideal by which I judge my life. It would be enjoyable to have today; in 2002 it was transformational.) 

3. Most Played Song: "No One" by Alicia Keys. By a wide margin. Obviously.

Other highlights: "Bring It On Home To Me", because it's amazing. "The Dreamer" by The Tallest Man On Earth, because it's what I whistled in my jail cell that time I got arrested. "Break My Stride" by Unique II, because BIKETUB.

4. 196 Genres, 4316 Artists, 5377 Albums

5. My Oldest Play: "Freeze Frame" - Less Than Jake. 

That's right, the last time I listened to it was a decade ago, while I was still importing those 2,388 songs. IT WAS NUMBER 2368! And then never again. Over the course of 10 years. #memories

6. THE DENSITY .

Because, THE DENSITY. After Crapples and my Sweater Book, this is the thing I am most proud of.

Because my Play Density is what I live for. Sorry, for which I live. It's the reason Pandora, and Spotify, and Jennjamin's Mix Tapes, and Rdio have no appeal to me. I need the data, and I need the playcount. Always. Otherwise what will the next decade of my life mean? 

In which we go to Camden, and make it out of Camden also.

Camden has a lot of things—like a bridge to Philadelphia, half a 2000m rowing course, the highest 2nd highest murder rate in America (doin' it St. Louis), and half the police force it did a year ago. We were more interested in their not quite minor league baseball team. Well, and that bridge to Philadelphia. 

Here we are, on what could have been our last walk, headed towards some pubic transit over to The Jers'.  I like this picture but I'm glad it wasn't the end.

It's a great little stadium (and that view‽), but they really don't make it that easy to get to. Once that round trip ticket you've bought doesn't work you'll have to wait until the PATCO lady comes over the station loud speaker to tell you (yes, you) to pick up the emergency phone. And it's not until she's done remotely managing your ticket that you get to wander through after-dark Camden over to the stadium. The thrill of it!  These blurry times were had:

But so were these 4th row times, and these bird times. I don't know why that happened, but it did. And I love it, shut the door. Also, The Sway finally got into full gear.

We couldn't hang out in murdertown all night though; Roxyalotta was having a birthday bash. Everybody knows that the only thing more fun than Vacation Roxy is Birthday Roxy, so we weren't about to miss that. I came close when I broke both my ankles for a minute while Swaying, but we all recovered in time for some additional Philadelphia DANCING(!). 

Where's the bus? Call a Cab!

Here's something that I want every person's visit to Philadelphia to include: late night bar sing alongs to Motown Philly followed by late night cheesesteaks on my deck.

Sunday. Day Three. Brunch. Bloody Marys. This picture, depicting our various states of array/disarray. The realization that Crapples is still stashed behind The Barbary. Finding it hidden right where you left it:

Then taking a good look at the place you had had such a good time at Friday night. In the sunlight. Feeling both good and a little scared about it.

In the harsh light of day: The Barbary

Day drinking. Everything. No, literally, we drank every single thing they had on their menu. We may have played every single Crapples card that's been made in the process.

Waitress Lex gets in on the action.

This is a great game to play at a bar actually. Find their list and start from the top. Don't try to order what you want because you can't. Your drink is whatever is next on the list. Which proves to be amazing, hilarious, and unfortunate all at the same time. Bonuses are accrued when the barkeep &/or waitress gets invested enough to search out rare off-menu items just for the love of the game. Losses are accrued when you have to pay the bill.

Here's what you don't want to do—leave your credit card on the table when the group finally let's you go home to New York. There's gonna be some extra shots on it, which is your own fault, Schwenn.

He left us! He left us!

Here's the part of the story I thought I might not tell. As bad as the crushing return to reality was when I finally returned to work on Tuesday, my funsickness paled in comparison to Monday's umbral variation on a Whitney. I had so many questions about what was going on inside of my body. There was a lot of laying myself places, and only eating bits and pieces of my grilled cheese, and doing the old shakes in the grass routine. After putting Katie and Lynda really close to a train to the airport without waiting to see if they actually got on, I went home and ate this. I think it was a good idea. If you come visit me I'll make one for you too.

Getting Back in the Habit

Spring Break. A once annual celebration. After last year's Spring Break '94, there was at least one other thing to do—Spring Break: Back to Philadelphia. Darcy showed up with her party-culottes on which lead, among other things, to drinking by the train tracks, that picture with Kermit, and a party MVP award. I didn't vote for her, but I've got a good idea about who did. 

Kermit, as usual, was over served.

By the time Katie showed up at beautiful Wayne Junction the lamb had been marinated, the cucumber had been 'tziki-ed, and all the spana was kopacetica. We celebrated Mary's loss of a son, but gaining of a god, with wine, bourbon, and rum from an authentic Englishman. Next time that happens I'm gonna need to get a picture of The Two Evans together.

Why you eyin' my Crapples boxes?

I'll tell you something though. I don't care who died and went to heaven, I'm not gonna not get the gang back together on a day like last Monday. The Philadelphia cast of BikeTUB made a day of it. With Evan, on his cruiser, leading the parade.

Not satisfied by her tour of the basements of historic Northern Liberties, Katie demanded a walking tour of Germantown—birthplace of abolitionism, Bill Cosby, and Monopoly. We sent her out with our leading expert in local history the next day for a tour of the sites literally minutes before the NYTimes guy was there to blow the lid off the whole thing. Continuing in a long Philadelphia tradition though, she and my dad got really close to a lot of colonial buildings but never actually got into to any. Here he is outside of Clivden, cheesin' as always.

Next up on the history list: Gettysburg. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, its postponement to Saturday was voted best decision in '011. In the meantime it was all BALLRs & tilts for us. It's called the highlife, you should try it sometime. But don't actually try tilt. It's terrible.

Livin' It.

Crapples2Crapples: Update II

I've been meaning to get the latest update to Crapples out for months now. It's finally happening—Booster Pack #2 is headed to the printers in the morning. A couple of highlights you can look forward to in your Crapples2Crapples future:

Crapples2Crapples: A Brief History

»April 17th, 2009: the as yet unnamed Crapples2Crapples is conceived over beers at the Silver Dollar, post-Apples To Apples play at The Terrace.

»April 23rd, 2009: Apples to Apples, v. 2.0 googledoc created and shared with original participants; inaugural entry now forever lost to history.

»August 20-25th, 2009: Logo Contest/Logo Selection

»September 1st, 2009: Five Crapples2Crapples sets arrive in 1 perfectly sized cardtub; Booster Pack 1 googledoc begun.

»September-December, 2009: Crapples begins making appearances across the nation [Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Crandon].

»December 22th, 2009: Booster Pack 1 arrives, full sets sent to Boston; Philadelphia. Crapples now located in 5 cities nationwide [Madison, Milwaukee, Iowa City, Philadelphia, & Boston]

»January 18th, 2010: Boston submits requests for 2 additional sets.

It's been a meteoric rise, all made possible by copyright infringement! What's next? Booster Pack 2, coming this spring to a city near you. A short preview of what to expect:

The Triple Wedding: Part 3

Wedding #3: The Footloose Wedding

Katie and I started this one off with some Jack & Gingers somewhere over Michigan. Disturbingly, it was Katie's first drink plane-side, something we fixed by continuing to drink Jack & Gingers all weekend long. Or maybe that was because they're the perfect drink to kick up your heels with in the crisp New England air. The point being, we drank a lot of Jack.

Unfortunately our destination this weekend was not Portland, ME; The Double Portland would have to wait. But we were going to Maine, and after recovering from our first bottle of Jack, taking a couple of trolleys, and doing some artsy loitering, we couldn't wait to get ourselves up to the Vacation State.

[City Loitering]

[Country Loitering]

Sure, we may have done some leaf-peeping on the way up (don't act like you haven't done it), but what we were really looking to peep were some fat, red lobster butts. Did you know that Southern Maine is chock-a-block with Thai restaurants? We had to peep a bunch of those, not to mention a pile of HPV pumpkins, before we found just the right lobster spot with our preferred list of supplies—lobsters, a pot, butter.

Post-lobster, we had to pop our hopper into high gear and get ourselves dressed and de-lobstered to make sure we didn't miss the wedding trolley out to the barn. This time the very open bar was not sidelined by lack of dancing floors and/or music; the barn was a-dance before dinner was over. Take that Kevin Bacon.

Breakfast saw us reconvene at the hayLoft restaurant down the road. Things that weren't surprising: Katie's poor ordering skillz, the 20oz beers. Things that were surprising: that capital 'L', Crapples being great for breakfast too! It was the game's inaugural New England appearance, and it was a huge success among the Husky alums. So much so that we changed our flight and stayed to play again that night.

Despite the brief scare we had at the check-in counter involving first a missing reservation, and then a single boarding pass to Detroit, it turned out to be a really good decision.

Evaluation:

Location: a barn not that close to Portland, ME

Highlights: Katie, the party trolley, Crapples2Crapplesx2, the barn dance

Music: dance party

Company: 2 new Facebook friends, so many Crapples lovers

Food Discovery: Kristen's brussels, Kristen's sausages

Sway: Chansky's Sway, originator of the reverse headbang

On a scale of 1 to fun: FUN

[Katie, Whitney, Hotdog Hat]

The Triple Wedding: Part 1

I've been dropping a string of references to The Triple Wedding lately and I'm finally ready to blog it out. Three consecutive weekends, 8 airports, 658 pictures. I promise I won't post them all.

Wedding #1: The Reunion Wedding

The first of The Three, but not the first of the fall, took Joanna and I down to waterlogged Atlanta, GA. We may have each gotten our own invitations to this one but that didn't stop us from signing the guestbook together, or from me trying to match my tie to her autumnal dress (I couldn't). Being the youngest Rochester alumni/ae to get the invites it was a little like freshman year, except with fewer freshmen. And more martinis.

[Ye Olde UofR Attendees]

Usually the amount of alcohol served at this reception would be just the lubricant needed to get the dance floor all a-dance. I know after a waitress told me how good I looked and started filling up anything I was holding with champagne, I felt like dancing. Easiest way to make sure no one dances at your reception? Don't have a dance floor and don't have music. B without A certainly won't do it, A without B might, but both A and B is pretty much a sure thing.

My advice for when you find yourself at such a point: start the auto-tune karaoke while planning the post-reception party out in ATL. Our decision the night before to hunker down in the hotel room over a few Becks(!) and some Crapples2Crapples was suddenly less about the opportunity never arising and more about saving ourselves for the wedding night!

[Things that are sad]

Evaluation:

Location: The classics. A big church for the ceremony, a museum for the reception.

Highlights: Joanna, that waitress compliment, reuniting, my bottomless glass

Music: There was no music.

Company: I already knew 7 people, double the number I would know at #s 2 & 3!

Sway: The Mattress Sway, the first Sway off the ground.

Food Discovery: sugar bacon Like regular bacon, but also available for dessert.

On a scale of 1-10 Ws: 7 Ws and a v.

Saturday—now with more games.

In the continuing story of Games I Have Loved, Saturday in The Kee really brought something to the table. The afternoon got underway with a really satisfying round of Breakfast Scrabble over PBRs (I'm unemployed!) that Katie kicked off with LATTED. As in, "No, I'm fine. I just latted over at McDonald's, those McCafés are totally deck." And you can't argue with a game where you get to use HEROBEARS, my favorite kind of bears, and HIV-GLAZE. Ask for it at BW3s.

Next came bowling. We had a variety of skill levels involved, and half-way through the ball return started hoarding our balls. Regardless, the event was a great success due to the beer, the hand-scoring, and the sweet sweet jams that group of black ladies had put on. Conveniently, by the time the Alanis Morissette hour started up we were off to game #3—Crapples2Crapples.

This particular game was something of a watershed moment for Crapples. We've played our internet-cum-reality creation a couple of times now to cautious enthusiasm. Any festering doubts that it might not be as much fun as just reading the googledoc, or the distinct possibility that it would prove unaccessible to non-contributers, have been trampled thoroughly. By charging rhinos.

Game #4: Dancing!