Here’s this week’s Friday Five, happily posted before it’s Friday on the West Coast to freak out

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not? I am definitely an organized person. I can’t stand it when anything necessary is out of place. I pay more than my roommates so I can have a private bath (both out of my cleanliness bug and the fact I need to keep things in order). I maintain catalogs of my CDs and DVD s, and update them as soon as I add something to the collection.
2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly? I have my Hiptop which I carry everywhere and does all those functions. I use it all the time, although my “unencumbered” life lately doesn’t have me needing a lot of time organization. :)
3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now? No, because there is an unnecessary CD, a tissue, and a slinky on the desk which do not belong there.
4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter? CDs: Alphabetical by artist, then chronological by (original) release date (with live and comp. CDs shifted all the way to the left (oldest)( Update: I mean all the way to the right). DVDs: Alphabetical (only violation of this is to group series together. i.e. John Waters’ collection is grouped under W).
5. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize? Cataloging and Ripping my CD collection was terrible as I waited until it was 350 CDs deep before getting started. Now that it is all done it is pretty easy to keep it updated. You will think I am crazy, but since I am such a neat freak about my desk, when I buy a new CD I don’t remove it from my desk until it is added to the spreadsheet, the webpage is updated from the spreadsheet, and the CD is ripped. That usually motivates me to update the catalog pretty quickly to avoid desk clutter. :)

Ok, The new Tomahawk album, “Mit Gas”, is fantastic! I am so glad I am going to get to see the band twice in a row in a few weeks! I still have an extra ticket for the Boston show if anyone reading this wants to go. I promise it will be a great show!

Matt and I saw Phone Booth today, which was pretty enjoyable, but it wasn’t anything too special. I guess if I was female/gay I might have a better opinion of it (because I have heard that Colin Farrell is a “hottie”).

There was some Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 played this evening on Adam’s PS2. I tied for 2nd with Matt, but we were way over on strokes…

Matt and I found the alternative Jamba…. It isn’t as close as the other one (which was removed), but this one has the full jamba menu…


What’s been going on? Not all that much. Corinna has been sick for a few days so I have been spending some time tending to her. Our normal poker night was moved to Thursday, but we ended up playing last night as well. Matt and Doc came over, and I walked away with \$20 of other people’s money, which is a good thing. During the past week we have been playing small \$3 no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em games (For the poker newbie, think Rounders) which I have been getting hammered at. I’m really solid at Limit Hold ‘Em, but I haven’t figured out my no limit strategy yet. With last night’s winnings, however, I am way up overall, so it’s not so bad. Got some software to help me with my no-limit game, so I think I will train on the software for awhile before playing over the table again. Anyway, our regular game has pretty much become a Limit Hold ‘Em fiesta, with the occasional 7 card stud game appearing to mix things up. Hopefully I can continue this “winning money” trend on Thursday.

I need to get the new Tomahawk CD, which came out yesterday, and I have a few errands to run today, so it looks like a visit to Harvard Square is in order.

Large Pie, Fries, Large Coffee.

Pronto.

Nothing too exciting has been going on. I caught X2 with the SNFC, was a great movie but I am growing increasingly disappointed with the SNFC. I might have to start an alternative if they don’t pull their shit together.

Had dinner with Rory’s parents tonight at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate his birthday, which was fun… I’m just hanging out tonight, might watch a video or something..

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like. Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Suck My Kiss”

2. Name two songs that always make you cry. Well, Queen - “Who Wants to Live Forever” doesn’t make me cry, but it definately affects me that way. Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem gets me a little misty sometimes too.

3. Name three songs that turn you on. Stevie Ray Vaughan - “Pride and Joy” Luscious Jackson - “Citysong” Lovage - “Pit Stop (Take Me Home)”

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good. David Bowie - “Starman” Faith No More - “Everything’s Ruined” Mr. Bungle - “Desert Search for Techno Allah” Skinny Puppy - “Hardset Head”

5. Name five songs you couldn’t ever do without. Skinny Puppy - “Spasmolytic” Talking Heads - “Heaven” Faith No More - “Midlife Crisis” Bruce Springsteen - “Born to Run” David Bowie - “Ashes to Ashes”

I don’t think I have spoken much about it, save in my journal entry last night, but poker has taken ahold in our lovely apartment. I have never been one for card games, in fact I usually dislike them, but something about poker has grabbed me. Perhaps it is the betting angle, which has definately upped the strategy in my eyes. I’ve played four different nights now, and each time I have gotten better and refined my strategy. Hopefully I can keep improving, but if I start to lose money as a trend I will bail out… :) We don’t play for big money, so even if I do tank a night it isn’t a big deal at all.

Rory found a great TV show, World Poker Tour (on The Travel Channel, oddly enough). They televise poker tournaments from around the world, so it’s a great way to watch pros do their thing. We watched a tournament at Foxwoods tonight and I picked up gobs of great knowledge that will only help me next Tuesday.

I’m gonna go to bed now….

I hate to get political, but today I read the headlines “U.S. forces to leave Saudi Arabia this year” and thought to myself “Could that be because they will instead now be stationed in Iraq for the next 20 years?”. Note, I am not talking about occupation or anything silly like that, but it seems to me that this is a token effort to make it look like we are maintaining less of a presence in the Middle East (one of Osama’s biggest gripes was our troops stationed in Saudi Arabia). Even if occupation has been ruled out, it would truly surprise me if there wasn’t a US military presence in Iraq for some time to come.

On a less noteworthy note: \$0.99 isn’t too much to pay for a single song…. People used to buy ’45s like they were Pokemon at that same price 20 years ago (and they were forced into that pesky B-side too!).

Last night was poker night, and thanks to my new playing strategy and some competitors without such a fantastic strategy I came out with \$10 of other people money. Adam bested me with \$15 of other people money, but that’s OK because it wasn’t my money. :)

I bought two CDs from Apple (“This is Spinal Tap” and Prince’s “The Hits 1”) and burned both to CD, subsequently ripping them back to MP3s… Not too bad of a process if I don’t do it often. I would think I would be backing up my purchases to Audio CD anyway, so the added step of ripping them isn’t so bad. It would be nice if my SliMP3 could just play the AAC files and save me the step, but I don’t see that coming any time soon.

In case you were wondering, Apple’s service uses all the proper tracklengths, so when you burn an entire album to CD it is still recognized by CDDB/freeDB and the tracknames look up properly (or at least for the two CDs I purchased). This is a good thing.

I added those two albums to my CD List. I put (iTunes) in the “Label” column to indicate that these are downloaded albums burned to CD. I hope to be able to rename this from CD List to Album List in the next few years, but I don’t think I am quite there yet.