Happy Thursday folks.
If you’re viewing the page via your iPhone or Android device today, you’ve likely noticed that I installed a much more mobile-friendly theme that takes over when the page is viewed in a mobile browser. I like it a lot, and it’s actually what inspired me to change up my current desktop theme (the main look and feel of sounds familiar). I haven’t done this in a long while… but my current theme was kind of clunky compared to some of the more modern themes.
My goal was to maintain as much of the look and feel of the site as possible while taking advantage of something less hacked-together (I still have to go through and reformat some of the more kludgy CSS remnants, but I’ll get it all modernized soon enough). I think it’s mostly in-place now, the only drastic change being my decision to drop the years-old header logo… which meant ditching the Bible-times trumpet man image Ben stole for me off the internet way back in 2003. Sayanora, trumpet man.
OK enough website junk. Let’s talk about something better. Maybe something funny… Oh, I know!
Sunday evening this past week my daughter spent nearly five minutes explaining to me the wonder that was her Halloween-acquired Ring Pop.
See Dad, it’s like ring but you can eat it like a lollipop. It’s candy. You put it on your finger like a ring and it’s pretty like jewelry but it’s also candy like a lollipop. See? See it on my finger like a ring? But watch, Dad!, look with your eyes!, see… I can… mmmpphh… see, I can lick it like a lollipop. Isn’t that neat, Dad? Dad… did you see? It’s a Ring Pop. It’s called that because it’s a ring and a lollipop. Dad. Dad?
About two explanatory sentences into her rant, I started laughing a little. By the third or fourth recitation of her stark wonder, I had all but lost it and was cracking up. Sharaun, sitting opposite me on the other couch, was also laughing. By the end, I was playing with her (I think she figured it out). “But wait,” I’d stop her to interject, “Is that thing a ring, or a lollipop?” Aaaand we’d start all over again. Good stuff.
Changing subjects…
Recently, I’ve started using the track rating feature on the iPod. I never really used the functionality before, for a couple main reasons: 1) I pretty much only put music I like on the iPod, so I would hope not to find anything less than “middlin'” were I to do a “rating audit” or somesuch and 2) I don’t use iTunes to manage my music, so the track rating metadata would only live on my iPod and not be transferred permanently back into my collection. If my iPod ever went south or I had to reload tracks off disk, I’d lose the ratings data anyway, so I’ve always considered it fleeting and useless.
Over time, my mind has changed somewhat on each point. Yes, everything on my iPod is there because I at least “like” it. But, as I’ve learned being a manager at the sawmill, even a group of top-performers has a bottom performer – regardless of whether or not that person is generically “good” or not. Same with a huge batch of “good” tunes, I suppose. Even if I like it all, there are some tracks that deserve a star or two more than others. I figured that exploiting the natural strata of my tastes might actually make for some neat ratings-based “smart” playlists.
Furthermore, about a year ago I bought some software that promises it’s able to make a complete, hardware/firmware agnostic, restoreable backup of my iPod. The idea being that, as long as I keep up with the backups, were my iPod ever upgraded, lost, or ruined, I could restore it to its previous state – including track-by-track metadata. Still, ratings wouldn’t get sync’d back into my master collection on disk – but I gave up on this a long time ago after a couple failed migration attempts. But, at least I could carry the ratings metadata through an iPod crash or upgrade… better than nothing.
Anyway… I’m trying it out. Why not?
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- a day of real magic - 2018
- reading - 2010
- what that man said - 2004
- you can judge me - 2003
That’s too cute! I’ll never look at Ring Pops the same way now. You mean its jewelry AND candy?!