Pilot's Log

I've succeeded in ripping most of my audio CDs to MP# format. There were two I haven't done yet, but it was a matter of taste. (Would doubt that Bro or Sis would care for Star Trek music performed by an orchestra that didn't do any of the actual performing for the shows. It's too classy to be called a "knockoff", but that's kinda what it is.)

Final total, 199 songs...roughly 750 MB. Just a tad too big for one data CD-R. Yes, my collection is pathetically tiny compared to perhaps everybody else on the other side of the digital divide. As I said before, till recently I trusted radio to play what I could tolerate. It's tougher to do that now tho'.

FP (who may go shopping for more music soon)

Via mravac_kid:

Go to popculturemadness.com and find the Greatest Hits for the year you turned 18. Cleverly note that this is totally US-centric and play along only if you're okay with that.

Select the first 50.
Bold the ones you like.
Strike out the ones you hate.
Italicize the ones you are familiar with but neither like nor hate.
Leave the ones you don't know as is.

(Bloggers' Note: As my birthday is only two weeks before New Years', I could have chosen either '84 or '85. I may go back and do this to the '85 charts too.)

1984 Greatest Hits ( Read more... ) Yes, I despised Madonna. It took years and her role in Dick Tracy for me to begin to tolerate her. But I still haven't forgiven her.

Hey.

Tonight on CBS, there was yet another of American Film Institute's "100 Years" shows devoted to the movies. This time, they went for the theme of inspiration...and the top film in this class was It's a Wonderful Life. That doesn't surprise me at all...especially when you take into account the fact that it's been ripped off by half the TV sitcoms ever produced, usually for their Christmas holiday episodes.

I suppose my vision of that movie is clouded by having seen Frank Capra's WW2 propaganda films first. I mean, this was his first feature after the end of the War, and I guess the national mood at the time was "WE WON--but did our National Soul come through the ordeal intact?" So this was his attempt at an answer.

Is it optimistic to wonder if we'll be asking the same questions when our current troubles are over...or just optimistic to belief that we'll still BE AROUND to ask?

* * *

To change the subject a little...

Long-time readers of this blog know that I have a pathetically tiny music CD collection, borne from lack of funding, peculiar taste in music and the lack of high-speed download technology. Even so, I have a number of redundant songs in my stock...thanks to the fact that hits collections seem to draw from the same songs. Those of you with MP3 players don't have this "problem", right? You just throw on what you want, the whole what you want, and nothing but the what you want? *shrug*

What I have more than one of:
"Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics (would want "Here Comes the Rain Again" or "I Need a Man" to replace one)
"Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons Project (have their Greatest Hits collection)
"Cool Change" by the Little River Band (I have their Greatest Hits, plus "Night Owls" on another CD, so I'm not sure there are any more songs of theirs I'd want)
"Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant (would want "Romancing the Stone")
"Words" by Missing Persons (I have most of their hits...again I wouldn't know if they had any other songs to interest me)
"Only the Lonely" by the Motels (how about "Icy Red", "Shock", or "Don't Tell Me the Time"?)
"She Blinded My With Science" by Thomas Dolby (gimme "One of Our Submarines Is Missing" or "Airhead"...?)
"True" by Spandau Ballet (an "Only When You Leave" would be fair exchange)
"The Reflex" by Duran Duran ("A View to a Kill"? "Save a Prayer"? "Skin Trade"? "Meet El Presidente"?)
"The Tide is High" by Blondie ("Dreaming" or "Heart of Glass" would be nice instead)
"Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo, "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Wave, "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire...I love one-hit wonders, I have to admit. But what to add that I don't already have? The immediate bands that come to mind WEREN'T exactly one-hit wonders per se.

Meanwhile, I continue to scour the bargain bins of record stores, and wince when I see CDs that have songs that are already on this list above...or worse--songs I never want to hear again. It's tough to be an informed consumer.

FP

Hey.

Since my brother probably already has his machine by now, I can "spill".

They are Panasonic 5-Disk Changer DVD/CD player units. Panasonic answered my e-mail and pointed me to a downloadable User Manual, which I printed out about an hour ago.

My problem now? TV set and player unit aren't co-operating...the signal isn't getting from the player to the TV. One roadblock, that I thought I could work around, was the fact that the TV set only has coax signal-input, so I experimentally routed the output from the player through a VCR to use the coax output from the VCR to the TV. (--In effect, use the VCR as a demodulator.) Instead, we may have to get an actual demodulator, but this isn't urgent, as we already have a DVD/TV player set in another room. As for the other missing hardware, we have lines on these as well.

And brother mine, if you're reading this, I'll print out a copy of the manual for you too.

FP

Hey.

I compared my list of favorite songs to a printout of the Pop Charts, 1980-1989 today. Well, it should surprise nobody that the lion's share of my favorites come from that particular decade. I first got "serious" at following pop around 1979, thanks in part to syndicated TV shows like America's Top 10, Solid Gold and The Blue Jean Network--all of which beat MTV in showing music videos.

Frankly, I miss stuff like that today.

But anyway, for a good long time I used to tune in to the countdown shows (both radio and TV) and had the good fortune to have a LOCAL TV station that played music videos as well...and then another simulcast one of the most popular radio morning shows. The music meant more to me then than it did later.

That isn't to say that we didn't get our share of utter dreck. I won't name names as I don't want to think about them myself. A good number of songs--including some from my favorite artists!--will still make me tune out in a heartbeat.

But overall, it had been a good time to listen to the radio.

Nowadays, I'm flipping between SIX FM stations--and not being able to stand ONE for more than a song at a time. The new songs...they don't hook me. The instruments get so overproduced that the radio can't tell whether it's signal or noise. The lyrics insult. The delivery of the lyrics insult. My index finger races to the next selector button.

I am one unsatisfied listener.

FP

Hey.

My CD travel wallet still has 13 empty slots.

So I'm asking all of you...what 13 music CDs do you consider indispensible? Give me why and wherefore. I have a coupon for a music store in Pigeon Forge and I wanna use it!

FP