Tim watches Ze Frank and Jonathan Coulton with me.

You can watch them, too. Quick, The Show is almost over (sniff, thanks Ze!)

If you are on the internet and you haven’t heard of Jonathan Coulton- don’t worry, you will.

He writes and performs songs about life, geeky things, and the occasional monster. Funny, strangely poignant songs.

All of a sudden this guy’s everywhere, including here. This is the song that first grabbed me, Shop Vac (mp3).

they really need to put a light there
because it’s hard to turn
it’s hard to make a left turn

I mean, who can’t relate to that?

Lots more at his site. I started to make a list of songs I like best- but it got too long. Go play at his site.

I see that iTunes will finally have the Beatles catalog available.

This is great news, but kind of a non-event for me.

You see, Pat has a copy of pretty much every Beatles recording in existence, including all kinds of weird studio recordings. He’s been in the process of gathering, organizing, and archiving them for years. It’s his hobby.

I keep thinking that eventually there has to be an end to it all, there must be a finite number of Beatles recordings out there. After all, they were only a band for less than a decade. Yes, there is the solo work, and he’s gathered plenty of that too, but even so- half the band is dead, and anything recorded by McCartney or Ringo in the past 20 years really isn’t worth archiving, right?

Still, it goes on and on. Oddly enough, I don’t have all that many Beatles songs in my iTunes library, because there are so many songs and versions of songs that it’s hard to find the plain old regular versions I want to listen to, so I never venture into the Great Beatle Archrive. I just dig out the old CDs and rip as needed.

I finally downloaded iTunes 7 today. I was watching Andy play with it, and I love the way you can just scroll through the album covers, plus I’d heard the bugs had been fixed.

It’s pretty cool, but so much of my music is missing artwork. A lot of it is songs that Pat got from who knows where, or stuff I pulled off compilations that iTunes doesn’t recognize. A few hours of web searching (!) and I should be able to fill in most if not all. But I’m not sure what to do with all the singles. Do I really need artwork for all of them? And is album artwork what I want? Or do I want to really search and see if I can find the 45 covers for some of them?

Some of them are songs that I have the original album for, but the version I have on iTunes is from a greatest hits or compilation of some sort. Do I want to seek out the original artwork, or just stick with what iTunes finds for those?

Some days it’s nice to be concerned with issues like this, instead of things that really matter.

My iTunes went all Japanese on me this morning (click photo for full view). I haven’t really tried to figure out how to bring it back to the USA, because the Japanese version is kinda funky. Useless to me, but funky.

For example, the number 4 song on iTunes Japan- Bump of Chicken. I have no clue what the song is about (even if the title is providing all kinds of imagery) but the song itself is modern pop, kinda cute sounding. Although, with a name like Bump of Chicken, how cute can it be?

Because, you know, we’re so much more sophisticated in the States (and what is that red blotch on Justin’s face?)

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. My initial reaction to it was SELL OUT, but I grew up and got over the idea that there was something innocent lost when big business got involved with music. Not to say I don’t wish things were different, I do- but they’re not. I also just thought the idea was kinda lame. I still think that, but a few induction ceremonies later I admit it’s appealing (favorite moments, Bono inducting Springsteen and Springsteen inducting U2… ) And if I ever find myself in Ohio, I think it’s worth making a trip to Cleveland to see the Hall itself.

So the 2006 Hall of Fame nominees are out. Chic, The Dave Clark Five, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, R.E.M., The Ronettes, Patti Smith, The Stooges, Joe Tex and Van Halen. One of my biggest issues with the hall is the nominees each year. I think they try too hard to be all-encompassing and neglect many bands/musicians that truly deserve it.

My thoughts on this year’s nominees after the jump. (more…)

I never did get to that meeting last night. Wasn’t feeling up to driving over there- they didn’t really need me there, just the numbers I had, so I emailed them over along with my cell number for questions (which there were, so maybe I should have gone after all. )

Feh. I really felt lousy, but feel ok today- seems to be a pattern. I need to get myself out of this funk I’ve been in- need to eat better, workout, do something really fun.

I’m sick of winter. I’m feeling about 10 years older than I did six months ago (what is up with that?)

The whole point of this big organizing kick I went on was to free my up to do fun stuff. So why do still feel like I have too many little annoying things to do to enjoy myself? The smallest little chore feels oppressive. I find myself doing busywork instead of fun things. I really don’t need to pay bills today- the ones I have aren’t due for awhile and I have them scheduled to be paid after the next paycheck. So why am I sitting here with Quicken open? No good reason.

So I opened iTunes and found a bunch of new songs to grab (oh, the new Michael Stipe & Chris Martin In the Sun is amazing, and LISA- I bought a “country” song! Keith Urban (if he’s country I’m a 90 year old black woman…) I saw him on the Grammy’s last night and thought, you know, this is really like the stuff I loved as a teen- Eagles, Jackson Browne.

So now I’ve got the weirdest mix playing. Country, pop, emo, rock, alt. Fall Out Boy to Kelly Clarkson to Audioslave. I’m still not doing anything, really, but the soundtrack is really good.
And I feel a lot better.