Happy New Year

    Last night was New Year’s Eve, and tonight is Return to Work Eve. My six days of vacation are over. You’d think I could’ve used all that time off to really spruce things up around here, to really write up a ton of new entries. I mean, it’s not like I had a lot of visiting to do, to get me out of the house. Instead my attentions have been focused on my new iPod.
    Yes, I too — sorry, I mean iToo — have succumbed to the Gift of 2003. I’ve heard stories about how supplies were limited, but I had no trouble getting mine. I simply ordered it from The Apple Store. I got a 20 GB one, with "www.shortfatguy.com" laser-etched on the back. I might post a review of it later, but for the last week I’ve been obsessed with ripping my CDs to it. I just finished a two-day project of compiling all the U2 albums, B-sides, and (some) remixes, in chronological order. Over two hundred tracks.
    I’ve put many of my favorite albums on it already and have only used up 8 GBs so far. Among these, I have folders for the entire BBC Lord of the Rings radio play as well as all three Howard Shore scores. In total, around eight hundred fifty tracks. Soon I’ll be adding the 24 CDs that make up The Order of the Phoenix UK audiobook (ably assisted by iTunes’ “Join CD Tracks“ tool). I could do this over several CDRs, yes, but with the iPod I can retain all that information without having to compress the crap out of it. Plus the iPod is definitely more easily navigable than CDRs.
    Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to posting daily, now that I’ve finished some of my music-ripping projects…but then again, I’ve got hours of music to start listening to!