An Interesting New Band to Check Out...at Least Once....

I've been more than a bit busy with my other three (soon to be five) other blogs, but I needed to share this funny/cool band a friend alerted me to on Facebook.

Now I'm not a hug metal fan, but the news of a Metal-Themed Ned Flanders Band is hilarious! I can't embed the player so you'll have to hop over to check Okilly Dokilly out.

Cool/Funny Music Video

I'm just going to leave this here for you to check out....m'kay.

Finally Got My iPad Working!

OK, I have finally gotten my iPad squared away, but the process has been messy and a complete PITA.

Today Carolyn and I went to the local Apple Store's Genius Bar to get my iPad fixed.....and we had to leave without getting things resolved.

After several employees looked at the device the best they could do was surmise how the unwanted music got on the device, after a series of "dumb" questions. Now I realize they get a lot of dumb customers, but I have never:

a) Used iTunes Match
b) Shared my Apple ID
c) Let my fictional child use either my laptop or my iPad
d) Downloaded a bunch of free music from Starbucks

Regardless of whatever method they may have decided that this unwanted music got onto my device, I just want it off of my iPad. This simply fact seems to elude the Genius Bar staff, as does the fact that this wasn't a problem until the last iOS update.

They end up reformatting the iPad and putting a clean iOS 7 install on it, but sure enough there is a bunch of unwanted music waiting for me once I login with my Apple ID. They tell me to go ahead and open up iTunes on my laptop & look for my purchased music.

That doesn't help much......

....and neither does looking at my "Hidden Purchases". Of course, as these things have been happening, the second time I look at my Hidden Purchases all of my unwanted music shows up. WTF?

I go ahead and unhide, then re-hide these unwanted items.....but they are still on my iPad. After syncing, re-starting, trying to remove all the music.....nothing has changed. I cannot remove all of the music (wanted or unwanted).

Basically I'm back to square one.

Ugh....

I go back to that settings page and flip that "show all music" switch and......FINALLY it actually shows only the music I wanted on the iPad.

How many hours has all this taken?

iOS 7 Music Even More Messed Up Than Imagined (ie. Still Sucks Balls)

I'm getting to a point where I may just go ahead and do away with iTunes for my laptop and use an alternate music manager for my iPad.

I know a lot of people have better alternatives to iTunes, but for me it was a matter of something simple that worked. Now with iOS7 it is neither simple or working.

This morning when I "upgraded" to the knew OS I was "gifted" with a bunch of music that I didn't want and cannot get rid of. I've tried finding the music in iTunes (not there), searching my laptop's music directory (nope), and even went so far as to see if telling iTunes not to sync music and then re-syncing would help (you guessed it). The last bit was kind of comical because I get a warning that "Are you sure you do not want to sync music? All existing songs and playlists on the iPad 'Christopher's iPad' will be removed."

YES FOR THE LOVE OF PETE YES! GET RID OF EVERYTHING AND LET ME HAVE MY OWN ^%^&%@$#! MUSIC! Of course choosing this option does absolutely nothing....all my music and all of the "bonus" music is still on the iPad.

Now I've checked online to find nothing about this "bonus" music. I even checked my iCloud account, which I don't use, and there isn't even a spot for music there. This occurred to me because all of these freebie songs show some icon that I have to presume is "download from the cloud".

Wait a second.....I remember seeing something in the settings that is related.....there is a "Show All Music" switch. The notation shows that when on "all music that has been downloaded or that is stored in iCloud will be shown."

Well.....I couldn't find squat for music in my iCloud account.......not even a placeholder.

I just went ahead and deleted my iCloud account since I wasn't using it for anything.....and that didn't fix the problem.

Ok, back to this "Show All Music" switch. When switched "on" this is my album listing:

Ok.....nothing has changed. Not really unexpected since this was the default setting. I did delete my iCloud account so these "bonus" songs should be on my iPad....but they still show the download from cloud icon and they don't show up in iTunes....


















Now let's see what happens when I turn the switch to "off":

Well, some of these bonus songs are missing....along with my entire fricken library! The only songs left are some of the unwanted songs! Seriously?!! WTF?

I didn't buy these songs and I didn't download them to my iPad.

I thought maybe they only mean "purchased" music instead of "downloaded", but there are four or five songs I purchased straight through iTunes and not one of them shows up.

What I have going on right now is a device that has items on it I didn't ask for and cannot get rid of. I cannot even use iTunes to get rid of the items I do want, so it looks like, at best, is that I can add new items to the iPad (verified I can still add items), but that is it.

At this point I don't even know if a third-party music manager would work unless it can take out the stuff already on the iPad.

Maybe this is just me.....but last I checked Apple is kind of a big company. Don't they have people to alpha and beta test these things?

iOS 7 Music All Kinds of FUBAR

I went ahead an updated my iPad to the new iOS7 and to say that I'l less than thrilled is rather.....polite.

Overall it seems like a cosmetic upgrade, but truth be told I haven't really been playing with my assorted apps much. I do like my notifications showing up prominently when I turn on my iPad, but I'd gladly go back to the earlier OS, and may try to downgrade (I hope it is possible) just to get back the music player.

Seriously...the new player is all kinds of FUBAR. You get one basic layout and can cycle through the various ways that one layout can be organized. Now on the old OS I usually used the album layout so I could see a lot of album cover art and quickly choose which album I want to listen to. Now I have to scroll through a long list of albums, sorted by artist, to find what I want because most of the screen is wasted white-space. I looked at the settings and there isn't a way to get a decent album view.

To top it all off, all of a sudden I have a bunch of new music on my iPad that I never put there! If I wanted to listen to new artists I could use the fricken new Radio feature. Dumping a bunch of albums/songs in my iPad is over the line. It leads to longer downloads and now I have to connect my iPad to my computer and manually delete this crap. By "crap" I mean music I never asked to be exposed to. Some of these groups might be something I'd listen to, but not if it is forced onto me. I don't have one sing Country song or artist on my iPad....or at least I didn't until today.

I just checked....they didn't change my layouts on the laptop with the new iTunes update....

Thank you Apple for making your products less user-friendly....and just less friendly in general.

EDIT/UPDATE: I cannot remove these unwanted songs from my device. Not only is there no button or gesture to delete them, they don't show up in iTunes either. To make matters interesting, my wife's iPad doesn't do the same thing. I've tried unsyncing all of my music and then re-establishing the sync to the songs I want, but that doesn't work.

What a PITA.

BFS Working on a New Album

I think I'm always one of the last to know about these things, but in case that isn't true I figured I'd let my 12 readers know that one of my favorite bands, Bowling For Soup, is putting together a new record.

They are self-publishing this record, using Pledge Music to get the funds together. This seems to be quite the thing to do these days...self publish that is....because I'm guessing that the label companies these days simply aren't adding enough value for what they take off the top from the bands.

My first indication that this was happening was back in 1998 when I discovered an artist I liked in Austin TX. Before trying to self-publish her music this artist worked for a record label. The fact that she was going off on her own pointed out some problems....to me at least.

Anyway, this is a post about BFS, so I'll get back to it. For $10 you get a digital download of the record when it is released. For $15 you get the digital download, a physical CD, and another download of an exclusive acoustic album. Figuring $10 for a digital download and $15 for a CD is what I'd pay anyway, this seems like a good deal.

The fact that BFS is donating 5% to a artist relief-fund and kicking in the extra acoustic music tells me that the record labels have to be taking in a lot off of artists...whoops, I went there again.

Feel free to check out the BFS Pledge Music site, or you could just watch the pledge video here...

....but your probably want to go and make a pledge.

Small Free Music Sampler

I love it when bands I already like do cross-promotions with other bands that they like because it provides me a low-investment way to find new groups.

Bowling For Soup led me to The Dollyrots and now The Dollyrots have a small show with three new groups for me to check out. There is no way I can make it to the show, but they have a free (but they'll take donations) sampler for download.

I like being able to listen to a song or two of a new group which may lead me to getting some cool new music. Right now I'm considering checking out more of Go Betty Go, a group I've never heard of before......

I say mission accomplished.

NSFW Post: The Axis of Awesome Rage of Thrones

Today I finished up a big project and sent it off.  I know I put a lot more effort than required, but it was a reasonably fun exercise (the extra portions) and I'm hoping that the effort will be appreciated.

Of course the people I'm working with could just as easily toss it all out....that is their prerogative.

The last couple days of wrap-up have been more of a self-imposed stress, but now that is it over I have an evening to relax before digging in on several school projects.  I don't think I have any final exams, just final projects.

Today the Axis of Awesome came up in conversation and I found myself re-watching the 4 Chords video.  I went ahead and clicked on their YouTube channel to see if they had anything new...they do....and...it...is....wait for it...LEGENDARY. I got a lot of laughs off of this NSFW video.

Thanks guys, I needed that.

Programs that Help with Using iTunes

I've been using iTunes to manage my music library for a while now. While I'm not a big fan of the program for getting files in and organized, I'm usually using my iPad to listen to my music, so the bulk of the experience...the listening part, works reasonably well.

I don't let iTune automatically organize everything for me, so I have a lot of initial legwork to do.  Normally I'd let iTunes rip the disc, manually move the files over to my data disc, delete the CD from iTunes, and then find the new file location and import the music back into iTunes.  My last task is usually to find the appropriate album artwork and affiliate it with the music.

It sounds like a lot more work than it really is, unless the original rip is bad.  Lately I'm finding that iTunes is horrible when it comes to ripping my music.  I would think that a digital file would either work or it wouldn't, but all too often my songs sound like they came from a badly distorted LP.  It is also taking far too long.

Nothing like a CD taking 30 minutes to rip and then half (or more) of the songs come out like crap.

The only thing that is worse is when ripping an audiobook and your files come out all gobbledegook.  A single audiobook might come on a dozen CDs, each containing 30 files.  Sometimes the file names make sense, others might be some odd alpha-numeric combination.  Now I prefer to have all the files for a single audiobook in a single directory...in order.  Just because a CD is limited to 70ish minutes, it doesn't mean I want my digital files forced into that same structure.

Thankfully I've recently discovered a couple of programs that make my life a lot easier.

The first is called FreeRIP and it quickly rips tracks at a fraction of the speed that iTunes was doing it.  I'm sure some of the speed is due to slightly easier rip settings, but that only accounts for so much.

The second program is Mp3tag and it isn't as straight-forward and easy as I'd like, but with a little figuring-it-out-as-you-go-along it works great.  One issue when dealing with an audiobook spread out across multiple discs is getting the play order right.  Most players know to move down the track list in numerical order, but will get confused if there are multiple tracks with the same number (which would happen if you simply dump the files from multiple CDs into one folder).  With Mp3tag I can open up multiple directories in one window (preserving the original play orders), re-tag all the tracks so they are sequential, do any other tag conversions, and then have the program consolidate all the files.

Basically this post is a little shout-out to a couple of useful programs and hopefully point them out for someone else who might be needing similar assistance.

Coffitivity- Not-So-Random White Noise

I don't know about your work process, but I like to have something going on in the background. For me it is usually a movie on Netflix I've seen a couple of times.  I can follow along a little bit in my head, but not enough to be distracting....except for when it is.  Looking up to watch a cool scene can be a welcome distraction.

Some folks like working "out and about" and this webpage is designed to mimic that.  The idea is to play your music just a bit louder than the background din of the fake coffee shop being replicated.

I find this interesting and if it helps you get your work done, all the better.

Awesome Find by Dave

I'm supposed to be busy prepping for a Toastmasters speech I'm giving in four hours, but I foolishly decided to whip through my morning reading list.

One of the blogs I read every day is Blogography.  OK, not everyday, but damned close.  Evidently I didn't see his Sunday bullet post until this morning.  In that post he brought a mash-up of Carly Ray Jepsen and Nine Inch Nails.....

......and it is fricken brilliant!

Now I recommend going over and checking out the rest of his post, and the rest of his posts because that is a pleasant way to spend a morning, but if you only have a couple of minutes, bookmark his blog for later viewing and listen to this mashup now.

Sweet Space Jam

Lately it seems, to me at least, that Commander Hadfield of the International Space Station has become a bit of a media whore.....

....I'm surprisingly ok with this.

If there is a small chance that Commander's Hadfield's many recently publicized activities interests some of today's impressionable young minds, then please.....please do more of this.  It seems that despite all NASA's successes, they are continually getting their funding and missions cut.  I'd like to see where we would be today without the countless innovations handed down to us through our space programs.

I know that Commander Hadfield is Canadian and not part of NASA, but it's close enough and I'm hoping for some positive bleed-over here.

Enough with my musings, enjoy this kick-ass song that Gizmodo gave me a head's-up on:

Funny Duo of Garfunkel and Oates

I swear....people need to stop doing funny things that crack me up.  I need to pace myself on the laughs because I need to save some for a rainy day.

Today I stumbled upon a the comedy duo of Garfunkel and Oates.  For the most part the two do a musical comedy bit where Garfunkel (Riki Lindhome) plays the guitar and Oates (Kate Micucci) plays the ukulele.  Now I'm a sucker for a ukulele....always have been, but it is the content of their work that hooks me.

Be forewarned that their stuff is generally NSFW and probably offensive to some more religiously conservative types.

I enjoy their work and will probably be buying their songs on iTunes.  There is one song that I've only seen on YouTube, which is too bad because it is funny and irreverent as hell.

I like it when people can put a spin on something serious, bring attention to it without having to be so dramatic.  I think you should be able to laugh at things that care about and even things that you don't like.  Comedy doesn't have to be mean to be funny.

Here is a PSA from Riki that does a good job demonstrating some of Garfunkel and Oates humor (I don't know if Kate was involved):

Re-Stating Glee's Stealing of Johnathan Coulton's "Baby Got Back" Tribute.

If you haven't heard the news, the hit Fox show Glee decided to rip off a singer I like quite a bit.  Quite some time ago Johnathan Coulton did this awesome bluegrass-ish tribute version of Sir Mix-a-lot's Baby Got Back.

Today word has spread like wildfire that Glee also did a "tribute" of Baby Got Back.  The rub is they didn't do their own twist to the song, but instead whole-heartily ripped off the Johnathan Coulson version.  At first I figured maybe they just decided to do a way-too-similar version.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzikus Everyone!

Happy Chrismahanukwanzika everyone!

This morning I spent probably waaaaay to much time working on this animated gif for my blog.  I hope you all like it.  There are two "blank" versions, one saying Merry Christmas and the other saying Happy Chrismahanukwanzikus.  They are a bit larger, but I discovered that Blogger wouldn't resize and animated gif and still have it work.

As these are gifts (ha...ha...I kill myself), please feel free to use as you wish-consider within the scope of this blog's license.

Cool Things to Find (Mars Curiosity)

Now I realize I probably share way too many videos already, but I cannot help it.  When I find something cool I just want to share it.  More than that, I want to be able to check it out again later if I want.

Posting these videos here let me easily accomplish both tasks.

Almost two weeks ago I posted a nifty little ditty called, "Dumb Ways to Die".  With all of the hoopla regarding a possible "earth-shaking" Mars Curiosity discovery which is now being downplayed significantly, it was only a matter of time before someone got in a good something-or-other.

Cool Things to Find

Oddest PSA Ever

I found this little gem over at io9 and had no idea it was a PSA until the very end.

I just thought it was a little quirky folksong-ish ditty that somebody did some animation for.  It was a cute and catchy tune with some great simple animation that made watching the thing to the end quite enjoyable.

Dumb Ways to Die, from Tangerine Kitty.

Dropkick Murphys at the Spokane, WA Knitting Factory

My wife's birthday was earlier this week and her birthday wish was to see the Dropkick Murphys in concert.  She was able to get tickets to their November 7th performance in Spokane, WA.

I took care of the car and the hotel for the trip and did all of the driving.  We left Wednesday morning and got back late Thursday night.

It was an interesting trip.

MST3K Meets ICP and Carly Rae

I don't really listen to the radio much, so when I hear Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", I don't get worked up about it.  Most radio stations overplay all their music, so I get that people will easily get sick of some songs.

From what I've heard this song has been a real popular target to make fun of.

I like it, but I only hear it once or twice a week at best.

I also like MST3K, but this isn't MST3K.  What it is...well you should just take a leap of faith and trust me on this one.  It is hilarious and a bit on the NSFW side, but not too much.

Baby Got Back Supercut

I was never really a fan of Sir Mix A Lot's Baby Got Back until Jonathan Coulton did a blue-grassish version....which is awesome.

I think I've posted about the YouTube user dondrapersayswhat, but regardless, this supercut of Baby Got Back is brilliantly composed of tiny movie clips all stitched together.  In my opinion I think it is one of his best supercuts.....totally worth checking out: