goblinbox

In which this post is, like, totally ILLUSTRATED.

I lost two pounds last week, in spite of that four-slices-of-pizza debacle. I lost no inches, though, because of all of those damned squats and crunches and push-ups and shit. Nine weeks to go to achieve my goal weight.

So naturally, yesterday Adam sent me some Swedish Fish. They’re delicious superfruity fish-shaped gummi wonderfulness. They’re also 150 kcal per serving, so I am ignoring them as we speak:

Last night I went to an afterhours party at a friend’s house. She has a cat that will walk into a plastic grocery bag and let you carry her around:

I found it to be so hilarious I carried that cat all over the house. In a bag! LOLz!

This morning I took Bindu to her annual check-up. They poked her with a needle and her rabies cert is good until 2013. She has some tumors the vet thought were not fatty lipomas, but since her overall health is good for her age, I don’t think I’ll worry about them. She pants a lot, she’s nearly deaf, and she’s always rubbing her face on the floor like it itches, but she also eats well, has lovely ears and teeth, wants to go on walks, and runs up and down my bedroom stairs all day long: pretty good shape for a 13- or 14-year-old dog. I might get a basic blood panel done next month, just for the hell of it, but the vet thought she seemed fine overall.

We stopped at the store on the way home, and although I did find fava beans (yay! ful meddames!) I didn’t buy any garlic. Ooops. I made freakin’ awesome delish chickpea curry for lunch, though:

I realize that today is Tuesday, but there’s a nice disco-y Monday Morning Mix for you, if you want!

In which there’s music.

Here’s the second rough of one of my new band’s demo tunes:

(And yes, Naomi, I had RB fix the ‘chew’ sound you didn’t like. I live to serve!)

One of these days, we’ll get organized and record a third tune… and then learn enough material to actually do a gig if someone hires us!

In which you sign up and we all exchange CDs and have lots of fun!

My woman-hed Deboka is looking for new music, so I’m building this playlist the other day. I think, “I’m gonna send her one song for each letter of the alphabet! How fun is that!” Then I spend an hour having fun sorting and digging through my library, trying to find songs that start with V or X or Z, adding artists and removing duplicates, trying to make the most excellent Alphalist evar.

Here’s a sample of my Alphalist:

• Ah! Leah!, by Donny Iris
• Balamouk, by Les Yeux Noirs
• Come Get To This, by Marvin Gaye
• Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, by Michael Jackson
• Everybody’s Talkin’, by Harry Nilsson
• …and so on.

After I created this bitchin’ playlist, I discovered that I really dig listening to it. And I want more! I want one from YOU! So I’m setting up a CD exchange for my beloved goblinboxers.

Here’s what you do:

1. Make an A-Z playlist consisting of one song beginning with each letter of the alphabet. (If you don’t have a song in your library beginning with a particular letter – say Q or Z – double up on the letter before or the letter after.)
2. Burn this bitchin’ playlist to CD.
3. Send a copy to me.
4. Send a copy to the other people who sign up (this part is optional).
5. Check your mail! Get a CD from me! Maybe get CDs from the others!

Doesn’t it sound wicked fun to get all kinds of new stuff for your MP3 library? Especially from people you may not even know?! OF COURSE IT DOES!

So if you wanna play, leave a comment. Then email me your snailmail address and tell me if you want to exchange CDs only with me or with everyone else who signs up too. I’ll send the appropriate mailing addresses out to those who want to participate.

Come on, it’ll be fun!

In which I’m amazed, dismayed, and groovin’.

1. It fucking snowed. Snowed! On April 11th!

2. I drove past Los Portales and it appears to be closed. Like, permanently. WTF?

3. My b(r)other and I send each other MP3s via gmail. I finally got the last few he’d sent me downloaded and imported into iTunes and synched to my iPod, and damn if this isn’t just wonderful. (It rocks when your bro is a kick-ass drummer.)

That is all.

In which there are season-inappropriate MP3s.

I saw the chiropractor this morning — I fucking love that guy — and I swear I’m two inches taller now! I really needed to get cracked; you shoulda heard the noises my neck made.

Today, I’m geeking on Bowie’s sexy, moody suite Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise) from his 1974 LP Diamond Dogs. I have no idea why I’ve fixated on this; it’s not exactly what you’d call springy music. In fact, I’m not sure anything could be less renewal-regrowth-hope-spring than this, this oh-so wonderfully exhasted and jaded lyric:

If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
’cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing
cheap thing

Or this:

I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands

Whew! I really need to buy Diamond Dogs again someday. It’s been remastered and re-released and everything.

In which I do my administratrix thing.

I upgraded goblinbox to WordPress v2.0.2 today! It was terrifyingly easy! I’m so happy it’s hard not to squeal.

I also installed a calendar over at house-11.com. It’s supposed to be so the band can put their schedules in there so we know when rehearsals are and when gigs are, but it seems weirdly slow and hard-to-use so I might find another calendar app instead.

Anyway, nutshell: I installed lotsa software today. (Yes, I do realize that you couldn’t care less. Yes, I do know this might very well be the most boring entry you’ve ever read. I really only posted it to make sure WP was still working.)

In other news, here’s an old Queen song.

In which I’m in SO much trouble.

I’m no longer allowed to post MP3s on this server ’cause I keep getting in trouble for it.

If I understand it right, goblinbox.com is physically located on a server colocated at The Planet, which is, I think, a server farm somewhere in California. I think my buddy Keef owns the box in question, and shares its operating costs with an awesome friend of his, Codergirl. Or something. To be honest I never really asked and the point is that I get free hosting so I need to be a good girl about it!

The first time I got in trouble for hosting copyrighted material, it was totally my fault. I’d been posting occasional playlists for y’all to check out, and/or uploading files for my own use and then spacing out on deleting the files later. The Planet got a lawyerly letter, which they forwarded to Codergirl, who forwarded it Keef, who forwarded to me. Codergirl’d gzipped’d the files together for me and put them below the site’s root, but I didn’t really need them so I deleted the file. Problem solved.

This time when I got in trouble The Planet actually disabled my account for a bit and said something about this being my second offence. Well, it’s actually all Jethro’s fault (tee-hee!) because I let him store a bunch of music files on my server while he was in between computers. (There were no links to the files, but because goblinbox.com is so well-indexed the files were easily located by lawyers. Natch.)

My account’s been restored now, and all those files are gone. Deleted. Erased. No more. The only MP3s on this site now are recordings I’m actually personally on. I guess if I feel the need to post music in the future, I’ll do it offsite at one of those free file hosting places.

The thing about these damned MP3 files is that you don’t really own them. Say you go out and spend your hard-earned pay on an album and take it home and rip it so that you can have a copy on your computer, another on your MP3 player, a copy in your truck, and so you can burn a backup CD in case the original gets scratched. You own the physical CD and can do pretty much anything you want with it: you can play it on any stereo you encounter, you can lend it to your buddy, you can leave it out in public where anyone can get it and listen to it, etc. But you emphatically can not store electronic files of that CD in a public place for your own use or the use of your friends and family without breaking the law and eventually getting a nice letter from a solicitor somewhere that goes something like, “We have learned that your service is hosting infringing files on its network. These files contain sound recordings by the artist known as Jamiroquai. These sound recordings are owned by one of our member companies and have not been authorized for this kind of use. We have a good faith belief that the above-described activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”

The more ‘free’ MP3s come through my life, the more money I spend on music! I wish the entire world would go check out Baen’s Free Library experiment or JPK’s Free Reads or any of the thousands of musicians who post loss leader MP3s and shut the hell up about filesharing and copyright infringement already fer chrissakes. If I run across one or two songs I like, I’ll buy the album. I may not do it immediately, but I do buy it eventually. Since I don’t listen to the radio or watch MTV or have any exposure to new music whatsoever, the only way I’m ever going to find music I wanna buy is if it comes to me in the form of an electronic file I can put on my iPod.

Carrying around space-hogging CDs is so nineties.

In which I share the MP3 love.

This combination of songs is typically me: vintage Elton John and neo-soul hardly go together, but these two songs were at the top of my playlist all weekend anyway:

Mellow – Elton John This track is from John’s brilliant 1972 LP Honky Chateau, an album my dad spun a lot when I was young and impressionable. I’d forgotten how much I loved this track until I heard it for the first time in years after finally getting the album onto my iPod last week.

Whatever – Jill Scott This song is just plain fine. It’s been out long enough that right now I’m looking for remixes. The one I’ve found so far isn’t very good. Her web site has blurbs of a few more so I’m off to look for them.

In which you can download some free MP4s, if’n you wanna.

I’m doing tedious server management stuff today, so I’ve got my Sony earphones in my head — the ones NLW had me buy, like, a year ago, the ones I never used until I figured out I should bring them to work and plug them into my tower here; I never used them because they’re the in-ear phones and while they’re high fidelity they only work if you’re not moving around AT ALL because they transfer all movement directly into your eardrum — but the point is that I’ve been listening to iTunes most of the day.

Mainly I’m geeking on Magnet (which is all Sean‘s fault, that evil bitch heartless bastard). If you find you’ve got an urge to geek along with me, hit Magnet’s site at homeofmagnet.com and scroll down until you see the Download section (in the left column).

The track in particular that I obsessed over all weekend is called Heaviest Heart – you should download it. And then you should just go ahead and download the rest of the free tracks offered since you’re already there.

I love his voice, btw.

It’s ambient meets the Beatles meets Todd Rundgren in a melodic, ballady mood meets Hird meets electronica meets acoustic. Yeah yeah, so maybe the material’s a little moody and introspective but it matches my mood today and I like it. (Plus, the end of Hold On is *so* Todd-on-Healing that I can hardly stand myself.)

In which I post some MP3 links.

So thanks to Sean’s The Rex Monday, I’m really into this track called Vistareel — it’s my current earworm. (You can, and probably should, get it here.) It’s ambient so not something I’d normally geek on, but it’s eerie and deep and catchy as hell and the vocal samples played melodically? Oddly compelling. And I love the CSNY-circa-D�j� Vu guitar tone too. You should check it out. Seriously.

I discovered Comfort Radio today. They played Sub Dub and Miles Davis back-to-back and it totally amused me.

I also discovered The Hype Machine… because I don’t already have enough crap on my iPod that I’ve never even listened to. (Before the year is out, I’m gonna need a whole server just for my music collection. Yay me.)

In other news, the genre field of ID3 tags? Is the bane of my existence. What a fucking mess! I’ve got tracks tagged “hip hop,” tracks tagged “hip-hop,” tracks tagged “hip-hop/rap,” and tracks tagged “hip hop/rap.” WTF, I ask you. And what’s the appropriate tag for songs from a 1973 Elton John album? Rock? Pop? Folk? Is “remix” a genre tag? I’ve got tracks tagged “pod cast,” and tracks tagged “Podcast.” I’ve got tracks labelled “indie,” “booty bass,” and “oldie.”

I seriously hate the genre tag unto death, I tell you. I’ve begun to delete whatever’s in it when I get new tracks. Eventually my iPod will have only one genre on it: {None}!

In which you hear me sing a song that was written for me to solo on. For real.

Remember my trip to New York last September? To sing on a friend’s acapella album? Well, I saw her over New Year’s and she gave me the tracks.

She doesn’t like them and isn’t going to use them; she wants to re-record the material later this year. I don’t blame her. It’s kinda rough, really. It’s really hard to record acapella material, especially without a conductor.

But anyway. Here, for your listening pleasure, is Sweet True Love by Barbara Morillo, recorded at LiveWire studio in NYC last autumn.

I’m uploading this track specifically because, hey, this site’s all about me and I’ve got a solo in the end of it.

• Sweet True Love

Enjoy! Do please tell me you love me.

In which I’ll probably not look as young or thin as I once did.

Tonight at House 11 rehearsal we’ll be setting the band room back up (now that the gear is all back from the gig), and then watching the video from New Year’s Eve.

*groan*

The band will now know about that one verse I made the words up for because I’d forgotten the real ones!

In other news, here’s some poppy pop goodness. It kinda sounds like the theme to the Sopranos, but it’s about Internet porn and I love it.