When my NAS recently died, it took (among other things) our music collection with it. Luckily, I had a full backup from three weeks ago, so I recovered 99% of what we had. But, those missing three weeks were three busy weeks for music purchases. I had two records from Anita O'Day, the new Beastie Boys, Dirty Projectors, Old Crow Medicine Show, and many others that I couldn't remember.

Then I remembered that most of those new songs are on my iPod, so they weren't lost forever. But, as I recalled, plugging an iPod into iTunes starts the sync process, which would sync the iPod with the old iPod playlist, which didn't have the new stuff, which means those new songs would be deleted. Can't do that! So, I found an program that could take songs off an iPod and import them back into iTunes. All I had to do was find the songs I bought during the lost three weeks and click a couple of buttons. Simple! Except, I forgot all the things I'd purchased. I got most of them, but knew there were more... After racking my brain for a while, I gave up and decided I'd just have to repurchase anything I forgot to save.

So... Did all that, plugged the iPod into the dock and iTunes popped up a box that said "Hey, looks like there are some songs on the iPod that aren't in your library. Do you want me to add them to your library for you?" Fuck yeah I do! Finally, when confronted with an exceptional situation, iTunes does exactly what a normal person would want it to do! Thanks, Apple!

A teenage girl in Germany who forgot to mark her birthday invitation as private on Facebook fled her own party when more than 1,500 guests showed up and around 100 police officers, some on horses, were needed to keep the crowd under control.
Eleven people were temporarily detained, one police officer was injured, dozens of girls wearing flip-flops cut their feet on broken glass and firefighters had to extinguish two small fires at the 16th birthday party in Hamburg, police spokesman Mirko Streiber said Sunday.
The birthday girl, identified only as Thessa, went into hiding, Streiber said, but "nonetheless the party was a hit."

Just bought tix to see Dino Jr play Bug in its entirety. Woo Hoo! Freak Scene!

And Henry Rollins is going to do a pre-show interview with them, on stage.

Now all I need is a $6.00 case of Golden Anniversary and a room full of textbooks and dirty laundry, and it will be just like college.

According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research by Kurt A. Carlson, assistant professor at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, and Jacqueline M. Conard, assistant professor at Belmont University's Massey Graduate School of Business, the farther back in the alphabet the first letter of your surname falls, the quicker you're likely to chase some enticing new consumer offer. This response is rooted in childhood trauma.

Not having a last name, I am not subject to this tyranny. But I find it interesting to see what normal people go through.

The Adventures Of Brown Recluse Spider Man

The NAS RAID server where I keep our music, pictures, semi-weekly backups and Quicken data, is dead. Three weeks ago, I replaced the four drives in it - because they were starting to flake out - with three brand new drives. Right now, it's looking like at least two of those new drives died at the same time. FUWD. Luckily, I have a full backup from a few weeks ago. Unluckily, I have nowhere to put it.

The site here is still exceeding my ISP's usage limits, and I'm completely stumped on how to fix the problem. I'm starting to suspect that this really is a WordPress issue, since the date of my last WP upgrade happens to perfectly coincide with the day the problem started. FUWP.

My managers are about to chop my head off over a piece of software that is taking longer to finish than they told me it would (they reduced the initial four month window to four weeks and then didn't tell me about the change for a week). This is compounded by the fact that this software has to be tested and certified by a government agency, and that testing and certification takes two weeks per round. And, the agency does not answer my emails. And they give me conflicting answers. And the documentation is skimpy, ambiguous and disorganized.

Days like this, I just want to get in my car and drive. Except it's 100 fucking degrees out.

Engage!

The Scotch Pronunciation Guide