Nothing but Song

Feeling :  cranky  Listening :  Cookie Jar - Gym Class Heroes  Reading :  Claudia and the New Girl

So, even though July 11 was the iPocalypse (and coincidentally, my dad’s 65th birthday), I went ahead and upgraded my first gen iPhone to the 2.0 firmware. It was pretty easy. No muss, no fuss. I’m not keen on upgrading to the 3G just yet. The only difference that I can see is the speed, the phone/data plan prices, and the fact that it’s got GPS on it.

I’m of the school where you run your shit into the ground and when it cannot be repaired, you replace it. I’m going to have this phone until that happens. I will also be doing that with my car, and prolly my computer too. Plus I’ve never been an early adopter of anything. I always wait and salivate over things for months before the madness gets hold of me, and I have to have it. I was like that with my iPods too.

I’m incredibly tickled by the Apps they have for it. Apps completely expand what the iPhone is capable of. Right now, I have AIM, AirMe, BlipSolitaire, BoxOffice, CheckPlease, Facebook, Light, Morocco, MySpace Mobile, PhoneSaber, and RubyRepeat installed. Those are only the free apps. I would prolly go around and buy up the whole store, but alas, I am practicing restraint.

I do have two and a half more terms of school left, ya know.

I will admit, some of the apps (not going to say which) are a bit buggy and slow-loading *coughmyspacecough*, but I look forward to the time when the kinks are all worked out. It’ll be a smooth ride, someday soon I hope. I truly believe that Steve and the crew are working behind the scenes to make it so. The iPhone is definitely on its way to being a one-stop shop for those of us who need to be connected.

Haters to the left! I’m talking to you, Ate M.

Also, I decided to combine Cydonia with my Flickr. The Cydonia subdomain now redirects to my Flickr photostream. I deleted “my greatest hits” on Flickr, and uploaded the pics from Cydonia into it. In addition, AirMe is an app that allows you to post photos via Flickr directly from your iPhone. So I expect to be doing that more often as well.

I’m also going through this bizarro suspense/horror/sci-fi creative phase. This is probably because I’ve spent the last two weeks reading all the episode summaries of the classic Twilight Zone series, haha. As such, I wrote my own little short story spin on the “Static” episode. I think it needs to be tightened up a little, then I’ll get a beta reader. Plus the last few ideas I’ve been struck with have this sci-fi slant to ‘em all. It’s amazing what a creative mind will spew out sometimes.

Speaking of “Twilight,” I finished “Eclipse” the other day. It was okay, I guess. I’m sorry, but I still have trouble believing that people like these books. I tried to be open-minded, I really did, but reading the series as a whole was like reading a teenage girl’s fanfiction. The dialogue, the situations, the tone, everything felt very juvenile.

I understand that the books are meant for a young adult audience, but you don’t have to sound like them to get them to like your books. It’s a very sad realization to me when books like “Twilight” are acceptable reads for anybody. It kind of lowers the bar, being a writer myself. Unpublished, yes, but if writing like Stephenie Meyer is going to get my things published, I’ll keep them to myself, thanks.

The Cullens are fascinating characters though. I look forward to “Midnight Sun” only because it’s from Edward’s point of view, though I am not keen on revisiting “Twilight” again in that sense. By that premise alone, I’m sure that book will be nothing more than fanservice. SMeyer needs to branch out a bit. Also, Jacob should get his own series or something. I think he really grew on me in “Eclipse.” I didn’t like him so much in “New Moon,” but I definitely grew to like him in “Eclipse.” He’s a misunderstood boy who deserves to be explored further.

Also, I’m thinking about upgrading my account at LibraryThing. You’re only allowed to catalogue 200 books. But if you upgrade to a one-time lifetime membership, you can catalogue as many as you’d like. Now that I’m investing in my book collection again, I think both a lifetime membership and a CueCat would make my life complete.

It’s the little things that make me happy.

My sister-in-law is due with the newest addition to our family (a girl they’re gonna name Michaela Gemini) in September. I wish I could go to her baby shower; it’s the first weekend of August. But I don’t think I could ask for vacation this short of notice. Plus I don’t think I have any money. I had to spend some of my savings to help my parents out. Mind you, it wasn’t a huge amount, and helping my parents out is the least I can do, but still. I want to use that money for my own plans, you know. *le sigh* I’m gonna save up and get some things on their registries, so I don’t look like a shitty ninang, rofl.

And hey, I finally found 43 things I want to accomplish in my life. Yay!

?: “Is it just me or does everybody in the world seem to be pregnant?“

Feeling :  geeky  Listening :  My Love - The Klaxons  Reading :  Nothing at the moment

I’m going to do something a little different, and recommend some Smart Playlists for the iTunes readers of Nothing but Song out there.

I got most of these from Smart Playlists, but they haven’t been updated in awhile. I had a few hours of free time so I went through their archives to find the good stuff.

Now, one thing to remember is this. The more elaborate you tag your songs, the more it will help keep your Smart Playlists fresh. Highlight the track name > Right click > Get Info and update each song accordingly. I’ve tried to go through and update each song or album tagged with as much information as I possibly could in my own stash.

I’m more interested in year, album artist, album, and artwork, so personally, the grouping, composer, comments, genre, year, BPM, and all that are extras. It would be nice to have everything listed by their genres, so that might be my next big project for my iTunes.

Now I don’t know how many songs you have in your iTunes (I have over 11,800 as of this entry) so maybe your Smart Playlists won’t be as elaborate as mine. I’ve actually had to limit each Smart Playlist to 50 songs, simply because a lot of them fit the bill.

Let’s get started!

If you don’t already know how to make one, here’s a quick tutorial. To create a Smart Playlist, go to File > New Smart Playlist in your iTunes browser. Or Ctrl+Alt+N if you want the keyboard shortcut.

From there the Smart Playlist dialogue window will pop up.

Here are a few of my favourite Smart Playlists. Just click the thumbnail, and you’ll see what you need to do as well…

!

“The” bands

Colours of the Rainbow

Feelin’ Spiritual Punk?

Forgot About U

I, Me, & You

Live in Concert

Questions, Questions

Rainy Day Train

Sakura Goes Acoustic (Sakura’s the name of my iPhone, rofl)

Songs About a Boy

Songs About a Girl

This is the REMIX

Who, What, Where, When, Why?

Obviously, the playlists can all be altered for your tastes. It’s actually pretty fun when you modify even just one detail and you get a whole new batch of songs. That’s what makes Smart Playlists so cool.

Be warned though, if you modify even just one little thing that iTunes can’t comprehend, it will give you a blank playlist. Then you’ll have to go through and double check to see why it wouldn’t add songs for you.

Have fun!

?: “Do you have any favourite playlists?”

Feeling :  lethargic  Listening :  Don\'t Shoot Me Santa - The Killers  Reading :  Buddha Baby & Atonement

Last week has been one of the best weeks of my life this year. My mom is home for the holidays (Filipino home cooking, mmmmmmm!!), and two of my three brothers came home as well. Luckily their visit coincided with my two days off from work.

I got my grades back for the Semester from Hell: B-, B-, B+, A, and a 3.17 GPA. I knew all the freaking out I did was well worth it! I’m so relieved. All I know is if I can handle those 4 classes and come away with decent grades, the year and a half left is going to seem like a cakewalk in comparison. But maybe I shouldn’t say that. I still have 3 terms of upper division courses to take.

I’m taking 2 classes online, and 2 on campus next term. Plus I decided to retake the 3rd semester of French next year. I have to transfer a 4th semester only. But it’s been so long since I’ve taken any French (over 3 years), I might as well retake the 3rd to brush up on my skills. I went to my old school’s website (where I have to take my French classes and transfer them to my current school), found out the name of the book that use for the upper French classes, bought a slightly older version of it on Amazon for $5, and I’m going to spend the first six months of 2008 brushing up on my French. I’m not going into this blind at all.

Anyways, on Tuesday, we did errands and chilled. Nothing terribly exciting, rofl. We saw “I Am Legend” and wow, what a trip. I love how Will Smith can still carry a movie. I don’t think anything he’s done has been shitty. My brother and my s-i-l flew in late Tuesday night, so I didn’t even greet them until the next day.

Wednesday, I got my iPhone for Xmas from my brother and my s-i-l. We also had a small dinner get-together with my cousin’s family that night, had Coldstone for dessert, and went drinking and bowling at Red Rock that night. I don’t quite remember what we drank, but it was enough to get my s-i-l shitfaced. I kept having to take her to the ladies’ room. She doesn’t remember a thing, bless her. That night will go down in infamy for us, because she’s usually the one who can hold her liquor and it’s her husband (my brother) who is hugging the porcelain! The goal of that night was to get me shitfaced, but I had to stay reasonably sober to take care of her since I was the only other girl there.

I was hoping to keep my phone number because I’ve had it forever, but they said that because the numbers are the account have a 209 area code, I couldn’t keep my 702 one. FCC rules about crossing markets, or some shit like that. So I had to go back to the AT&T store and sort it out. They had to give me a new SIM card in the store. When I got home, I had to add the iPhone to an existing phone number in the plan (which was the phone number on the SIM card). If anyone has that issue with their iPhones, there is your answer.

Siriusly, anyone who talks shit about the iPhone obviously has no experience with it. People will say “It’s $500 worth of technology in my pocket, I couldn’t trust myself.” Or they’ll say “if the phone breaks you’ll only have the iPod.” Or “if you have to fix some part of the unit, you have to send the whole thing in and you’ll be without a phone or an iPod.” Or “you can’t use Bluetooth with it, you have to buy an adapter.”

First off, I would protect this phone with my life. Not only does it have my iPod, but it also has my phone. I could not live without either. I would never treat it carelessly, even though PC World shows it can withstand pretty much any shit you put it through.

Bluetooth? WTF do I need Bluetooth? I got my iPhone to get rid of having a separate phone and iPod mostly. Everything else is extras. I love how I can set it up for Gmail. I mean, I’m so satisifed with it. The only way I would get rid of it would be when someone would have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. You think I’m joking? I’m not. I’ve never had a phone this fancy or badass before.

Saturday night I went to see Sweeney Todd with Corinne at Green Valley Ranch. Afterwards we had the munchies so I used my iPhone’s Safari browser (which is a lot faster than some might think), to find a local IHOP. Ended up not using that IHOP ’cause I was too busy talking to her, rofl.

Speaking of Sweeney Todd, I LOVED IT. She didn’t but that’s ’cause she’s not much of a Johnny Depp fan. The music worked so well hand in hand with the story. I was immediately swept up in it, because Tim Burton had enough sense to incorporate the incidental music from the original show. It is very rare when a musical gets transferred to film that the director keeps the incidentals.

I’m out. I’m going to optimize my site for mobile phones. I mean, Safari can handle my website, but I think it would be much easier to download and surf for other phones if I could make it so.

?: “Any fascinating plans for Xmas this year?”