Happy Birthday, iPod!

iPod, happy birthday. I love you.

Well, I guess I don't actually know the exact date I got my 'Pod last year. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that it took me at least an entire year to load all of my mp3s into iTunes. I finished Saturday night, while Amanda slept with her mouth wide open, drooling.

Someone ask, "WTF? How could it possibly have that long? You just drag-n-click, jackass!"

Fuck you, Someone. That's not how I roll. It must all be perfect. All spelling and capitalization must be right for all artists, albums, genres, groupings. This often means I must enter this information in for each file or, at best, a group of files. I stopped trying with song titles, though. You all know I'd prefer titles to be perfect--trust me, I tried--but the shear number of mp3s makes that impossible. As testament to what tidiness I've managed and proof of what I'm up against, I submit one snapshot of my true love, my music collection:

Click to enlarge. Bask in the clean lines--all those stats and categories! First, note the bottom:

13,924 songs, 43.1 days, 78.29 GB--I'm weeping as I type. The left navbar is the heart of the beast. It shows my 'Pod, named iPodophile, and all of my playlists. I've kept them all very general because I like to listen to it all. I have categorized them all--again, 13,924 of them--into just eleven blanket genres: Atmospheric, Classical (lacking severely), Comedy, DJ, Folk, Funk, Hip-Hop (You might be surprised to find out this genre is my second largest, at 12.59gb.), Jazz, Metal (third largest at 12.01gb), Rock (first at 24gb), and Soundtrack. There are a couple exceptions, like the Tolkien and Irish/Scots playlists that call for specifics. "Only Four Kitties" is my playlist that loads into my 'Pod.

This playlist was the subject of my very first official blog post. You always remember your first: the typos let go, the lack of all-important pictures, the awkward shifting nature of blog "audience"--is it journal writing? General audience or known-limited? Aww... Good times.

The "Only Four Kitties" predicament is one that still troubles me. How do you pick just 4gb of music from 78.29gb? Back then it was 4 out of 71, so my batch of kitties has grown considerably! Actually, you have to chose more like 3.74 kitties. Apple advertises my gen of iPod at 4gb and 1,000 songs. But we all know--or at least we should--that many mp3s taking up that little space calls for some shitty-quality mp3s. That's also not how I roll. Right now, there are 553 mp3s on iPodophile, with 3.2mb I just can't fill. Dems some hi-quality files. Some might even say "tits."

It's been a momentous weekend. First, my thesis reading--pictures soon. Then, the complete gathering of my collection. Is it bad that I can't decide what I'm more proud of? It's interesting: A thesis is supposed to be a culmination of your work as a student and writer. In that sense, my thesis began culminating when I first arrived here. So did my music collection. Now they're both complete--but not done.

Regardless, happy birthday, iPodophile. And to think, Amanda told me not to buy you! Don't pay her any attention; she was just being practical, and bless her for it. But the only thing you drool is sweet ear honey.

Mace...out