I've been trying my best to convert my music collection over to MP3 format so I can load it into my player, but the journey has been slow and fraught with peril. I accidentally hit the delete key frivolously and had to rebuild the library on my home computer a time or three. Now I'm pretty much a whiz with the conversion software, though. It is still a pretty mindless and mundane task of individually converting the hundreds of CDs I've amassed, though. In most cases, there are only 2 or 3 good tracks on a CD which really goes to show how much money I've wasted by buying them. I'm glad there are services out there right now like iTunes and Napster so that I can find single songs if I want to without having to buy whole albums. Or if I want whole albums I can always go to SecondSpin or check Ebay.

(Frigging Ebay. I listed the 2 Alpine subwoofers on there so that I can get the rest of the money I need for my air intake on the WRX. The first time I listed them, the reserve price was met but the putz bidder never contacted me. Meshuggah. I relisted them. The auction ended on Monday. Reserve not met. Ugh.)

Today's random tracks on the MP3 player so far today:

1. Gavin DeGraw - Nice to meet you
2. Van Halen - Jump
3. Hall & oates - It's a laugh
4. Rent Soundtrack - Tune Up 2

Like I said, in many cases I've got CDs in my collection that are only good for a couple of songs. Gavin DeGraw has been one such CD, I've found. There are very interesting transitions. Last night on the way home, two songs played back to back and I can't for the life of me remember what they were but they just fit so well together. More of today's random tracks to follow at the end of this post.

Funny story about "Jump" by Van Halen. Merrie and I went down to Santa Cruz a number of times and browsed the boardwalk there. There was one particular arcade towards the end of the boardwalk that had a drum machine. It was some sort of MTV thing, and you could load your tokens into it and pick a song to play along with. It actually had a pretty substantial library of pop, rock and metal tunes. I always saw people playing it when I went down there, but never bothered to try it out. My friend Michelle came out to California to help us move back, and Merrie and I took her down there before we left San Francisco and headed back east. We went into the arcade during the course of the Santa Cruz visit and, lo and behold, the drum machine was unoccupied. The perfect opportunity to try it out.

I sat down, loaded in my tokens, and started going through the library of tunes to find something I wanted to play along with. I'm not a bad drummer (not to toot my own horn) but I didn't want to make a fool out of myself. I was a bit upset that the machine didn't have double bass pedals because I was really in the mood to play "One" or something similarly dramatic. The guy that had been occupying the machine on our last trip had selected "Mother" by Danzig. Have you ever heard "Mother"? A catchy song, but mind-numbingly simple drumming. I wanted to show off a bit.

I was going through the library and I realized I was being timed. See, they don't want you sitting on the machine for forever deciding on a track to pick, so you've only got about 30 seconds to pick out what you want to play. 30 seconds isn't really a long time. Here's how my though process went through the pickout process:

(sit down and plunk tokens into machine)
(pick up drumsticks)
Okay, sorted by artist... what artist should I choose?
(28 seconds left)
Ummm... crap. I should have thought this through. Maybe Danzig... I could play "Mother." Hahaha.
(25 seconds left)
Shit, I'm running out of time. Umm, how about Metallica?
(22 seconds left)
Yeah, okay, ummm, hmmm, not much there to choose from. Maybe something else.
(18 seconds left)
How about some... what's the name of that band? There's G&R, Poison, Ratt... what's up with the hair metal?
(14 seconds left)
How about some classic rock? Looking... looking... ummm....
(8 seconds left)
Ooh, Van Halen... what do they have to choose from there?
(3 seconds left)
Ain't Talking 'Bout Love, Jump, Panama, Poundcake, Right Now...

Time runs out. I accidentally selected "Jump." The machine tells me to get ready. I know the song by heart and can play most of it on keyboards and guitar, but I've never played the drumline. This should be embarassing. I should have picked "Mother" by Danzig. Lesson learned.

The keyboards at the beginning of the song kicked in and it was painfully loud. Don't get me wrong, it sounded godlike, but I was going for low-key since I didn't know how to play the song. So I just start playing along, and it sounded AWESOME!!! I was hitting all the crashes, doing all the tom rolls... it was intense. I started to realize I was developing an audience, but I couldn't really see, because of the way the machine is set up. I was too busy trying to look intense and play along with the song. Look at me everybody! I'm Alex Van Halen!!! WOOOO!!! Get your t-shirts off ladies!!!

Okay, maybe that last part was more David Lee Roth than Alex Van Halen. Scratch that.

The song was over and I was half-tempted to play another one but I decided to find the girls instead. I found them over playing pinball. I was all nerved up, like I had just played a show or something. Merrie said, "Was that you over there making that racket?" See, nothing but love from Merrie when it comes to playing music. Yeah, I replied sheepishly, it was. "Nifty," she said. And that was the end of it. Glory be gone.

5. Steve Vai - Little Green Men
6. Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
7. Big Hate - It's Hard
8. Suffocation - Involuntary Slaughter
9. Xentrix - Dark Enemy
10. Hellraiser Soundtrack - The Rat Slice Quartet

Ah, fun stuff. I've found it hard to listen to Vai's "Flex-able" album for more than a track at a time, so having it on the MP3 player really helps. Every once in a while I get thrown off by a song that comes on, and don't even know what it is. It took me a while to peg down Suffocation earlier. Thought it was Cannibal Corpse. Silly me.