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limiting tracks-per-artist in playlists


A middle-blog before my typical midnight post, dedicated to some tech content. Move along if that’s not your thing.

If you’ve read some of my banal iPod-related ramblings here before, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of using iTunes/iPod Smart Playlists to configure interesting musical selections. One of my favorite Smart Playlists I have on the ‘Pod is the “Unheard” list. A simple playlist that grabs all items where the “playcount” equals zero, and theoretically eases the task of making sure I’ve heard all those gems lurking in the back corners of my disk. The only problem with the playlist, and, in fact, with any shuffle-based playlist, is that it gets skewed heavy towards artists that are better represented on the iPod. Now look, I don’t need a lesson in statistics here, OK? I realize that, if out of 500 tracks on my iPod, 250 are the Grateful Dead, I’m going to see the Dead pop up pretty often in a true shuffle (as would be the case with my randomly-picked “unheard” list).

Problem is, I actually want to have every single Dead Dick’s Picks album on my iPod, just on the off chance that I can impress some Deadhead by saying “You bet I do” when they ask, passing the bong, “Hey man, do you have that ’75 Berkely gig, you know, the one where Donna Jean couldn’t hit the high notes in ‘Rain and Snow?'” And, I want each of the twenty-nine takes it took The Beatles to get “Hold Me Tight” right, not to mention all fifteen live versions of “Over the Hills and Far Away” Zeppelin performed on their ’73 US tour. I really do want to have all that on my iPod, all the time. I don’t want, however, the thousands and thousands of songs that pepper my iPod as a result of that fanaticism to “overpower” all the other stuff when shuffling. Here’s where you say, “Too bad Dave, you can’t have it both ways.”

Oh but I can! Here’s how I managed to limit the number of tracks per artist in a shuffled playlist.

First, make a smart playlist of all your music minus the overpopulated artists. I did this based on the catch-all criteria of track-time being greater than zero, and then filtered out the Grateful Dead, Beatles, and Led Zeppelin (my three most heavily populated artists). You could just as easily do it basing it off the iPod’s default “Music” playlist (which contains your entire library). However you do it, what you should end up with is a playlist containing your entire collection minus your most heavily represented artists.

Next, make a separate playlist for each of your overpopulated artists, limiting the number of songs to a reasonable number (I chose one hundred) chosen at random. Do this by using the “artist is” criteria along with the “limit to” filter. In my case, this means I have three playlists: Beatles, Zeppelin, and the Dead, each limited to one-hundred songs chosen at random from the thousands available for each artist.

Finally, create a new playlist that pulls music from the playlists you just made in the previous steps (you can use “in playlist” as a criteria for a playlist). You’ll need to make sure that you set the match criteria to “any” instead of “all” on that last one, or you’ll get a playlist with zero items. This newest playlist is essentially your entire collection, including your overpopulated artists, but limiting them to one-hundred (or a number of your choosing) tracks each. And, from now forward, instead of basing all your shuffle-themed playlists around the iPod’s default “Music” playlist, you can base them off of your new limited-representation list. Voila!

Postscript: If you do create sub-lists such as my one-hundred item random ones described above, you may notice that, over time, these playlists are not magically “refreshed” with new random tunes via iTunes. Despite the more-than-somewhat misleading name, “live updating” does not mean the playlist will choose a new batch of random songs, it means only that, when you add more songs to the iPod/iTunes that fit the smart playlist criteria, they’ll be accounted for and captured. If you’re looking to get some form of “auto refreshing” for your random tune selection (as I was, makes things more interesting), you’ll need to add some further elimination criteria to the playlist. I chose to add a criteria that “last played” is “not within the last” one week. This way, once a song is filtered into the playlist and you’ve heard it recently, it’s eliminated from the playlist and replaced with another (per the “limit to XX tracks” tickbox). Anyway, hope that helps.

You can likely think of all sorts of other limited-shuffle tricks you can do with playlist-combining, which makes using Smart Playlists a fun way to experience your music in different ways. Too bad Apple hasn’t added a way to “hide” certain Smart Playlists from showing on the iPod. It would be neat to be able to mask out the ones that are only “supporting” lists as building blocks to a final one (like the hundred-track ones required as interim input to create the final list above). Maybe with a new firmware, eh?

See ya!

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margarita fever-dreams


Sorry so long between entries folks, lots has happened. Keaton can do long division, Sharaun now detests untidiness, and I’m now 100% bald. Nah… I’m just screwin’ with ya. Not much happened at all: A trip back from Oregon and a day spend on the couch in misery yesterday. Why? I’m sick.

Being sick, the Monday I had planned was ruined. No waking up early to get Springtime fertilizer and spreading it on the lawn, no pulling weeds, no time in the sun. Instead I spent the whole day laid up on the couch alternating between freezing and boiling with a pounding headache and more snot than brains in my head. I started feeling bad when I woke up Sunday in Oregon, our last day there, it was worse yesterday, and I’m cautiously optimistic I’m on the mend today.

Yesterday, in a brief flicker of feeling-OK, I decided to amass the tax documents and do our 2007 taxes. The past few years, I’ve developed a strategy: Use the online H&R Block tool to rip through the process as quickly as humanly possible, trying hard to not be anal or stressed about it. Then, when I’m done, I close the whole tool and wait one day. Going back that next day, I do a very cursory review… just an eyeball to see if things look semi-right, no number-matching or data-checking or anything wise like that. Then, I press “file.” Simple as that. Taxes are a mystery to me anyway, I always think I understand what’s going to happen each year, and each year I get surprised. I guess I just don’t have a head for numbers when it comes to finance. Hell, I guess I just plain don’t have a head for numbers, period. But, we ended up getting some money back this year – which is a good thing in one way, and a bad thing in another because I’d rather not loan the government my dosh. Either way, we’re done for this year.

Speaking of windfall, we’ve managed to pre-spend some of that tax money already by way of booking tickets for an April vacation in Mexico. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to actually buy airfare for Keaton, and it hurt just as much as I thought it would. We’ll be spending a full week somewhere south of Cancun, splitting the cost of a two-sided “lockout” timeshare thing with a coworker of mine and his family. The price was decent, and the accommodations are brand new and look fantastic. Plus, since we’ll both be bringing our broods along, we plan to work out an alternating babysitting scheme that gives the husband-and-wife duets some time away from kid-duty. I’m just excited about the carnitas, swim-up bar, and sunshine. Bring it on.

And, on a funny logistically-related note, the US government says that Keaton needs to have a passport to travel. I used epassportphoto.com to whip up some pictures of her for the application, and Sharaun and I will have to both tote her down to the post office so she can give the requisite fingerprints, pint of blood, hair sample, and get her “not a terrorist” tattoo. It’s a pain in the butt, is what I’m attempting to sarcastically say, to have to “pose” my two-year-old daughter for a passport photo and whatnot. What’s she gonna do anyway, score a key and smuggle it back in her baby dolls? Doubtful.

Anyway, I just wrote this entry to get something up here for Tuesday, as I couldn’t stand to go nearly a week without a post. I have the best of intentions to also have something ready to auto-post at midnight tonight as Wednesday’s entry, so, we’ll see about that. Until then, see ya.

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a nice way to start the day


As the doors of the elevator slid closed this morning at work, entombing me momentarily with four strangers, I had a head-snapping moment: I got a waft of the large blob of a woman who had taken position next to me.

Globular and short, she appeared to be experiencing much higher G-forces than the other passengers and I, for she seemed to be smooshed down into herself, her neck all but disappeared and her legs compressed to stubs. As I pondered the dimensional aberration she must have unwittingly stepped into, wondering just how much more gravity weighted her down inside that anomalous hole in the astrophysical norms of the universe, her scent brutalized my nose.

Now, here, I’m sure you’re expecting me to make a crack on this poor woman’s odor as somehow related to her size – not so, though, dear readers. The scent that tickled my nose was not objectionable in the least. In fact, she stank ripe and sweet of some familiar perfume – the perfume of a girl I used to think I was in love with. It was such an olfactory revelation to smell that scent again, a tug on the lapels from times past, flooding thoughts of the present with old memories instead. So powerful is that tie in my psyche that I actually had to take another look at the woman beside me. Nope; still large and largely unattractive; bummer. And anyway, the lumbering cables hoisted us to where we were going and we parted ways.

Was a nice way to start the day.

Transition.

Today we traveled.

After two hours of delay in California, including a repaired hydraulic line, boarding and a taxi out, finding out the repair introduced air in the line and trashed the pump, and a taxi back in to move everyone to a new plane, we’re finally in the air and on our way to Oregon. Keaton held up well considering the long wait and lack of nap, her spirits buoyed by an ad-hoc dinner of chicken nuggets and a lot of walking around in the terminal. She’s restless now in the empty seat between Sharaun and I, but at least she’s behaving. At this point, I just want to be there (Keaton and Sharaun too, I’m sure.)

Back in California, the warm sunny weather is making me shamefully aware of the sad state of my yard. Winter weeds, fed by constant rains, have completely overrun my planter strips and any other patch of bare ground capable of sprouting seed. My grass is coming out of its cold weather hibernation and brownly awaits some Spring fertilizer, and my downed fence is still ghetto-propped with 2x4s. Plus, that the 10′ x 10′ patch in my front yard that’s gone unplanted since I had to drive machinery over it while building our retaining wall is really starting to get to me. I’ve decided, then, that I’m going to spend some money and fix it all. Gotta get things in shape for summer… Beer. Beef. Summer.

Goodnight from the North friends, think of me tomorrow in your sunshine as I’ll be mired in the rainy gray of Oregon.

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my geriatric symphony


(I think I’ve stolen that image to accompany a blog before… right?)

Monday night and it’s a bit of a jostled beehive here as we’re realizing that we have to leave for Oregon tomorrow and have little time to get ready. With morning obligations, packing has to happen tonight. But… we’re not packing, neither of us. Sharaun’s working on the computer in the kitchen and I’m sitting here on the laptop. By my estimates then, we’ll be up late scrambling to get things in order. It’s a longer visit this time, five days in all staying at my folks’ place. Work at the local sawmill promises to be busy, with two meetings of import Wednesday and Thursday. I know things will go OK, because I plan to a fault… but I still obsess… I still obsess.

I have only one topic for the night, and barely got that one down to boot. Feel lucky you’re reading anything at all, OK? OK.

Tonight, unfolding myself from my nightly position on the couch (leaning sideways into the upholstered arm that holds the laptop from which I suckle my nightly diet of bits and bytes, legs tucked up into myself and knees pulled close to my chest), I arose from my gargoyled perch to a loud crack! from beneath the flesh, blood, and atrophied muscle of my shoulder. My bones. The snap, crackle, and pop of old age set into my joints. While I’m ignorant of the physiology of the phenomenon, I do know that it’s as good as a warning shot fired off my bow by USS Death. Sometimes at work, I’ll turn my head sharply and hear the same auditory harbinger of my pending demise. And I’ve even noticed that, as my foot makes its small pushes on the gas pedal, my knee will often pop in protest of the minuscule motion. It’s like God is communicating to me in some secret language of clicks and pops, telling me I’m neglecting myself… urging me with with creaking bones to get out and run a mile or jump rope.

I’m listening, Lord. I’ve tried Morse Code, I’ve tried that clicky language they speak in the Gods Must Be Crazy movies, I’ve even tried dolphin – but I can’t seem to decipher the message. Maybe I should play the lottery? Eat more greens? File for medical leave and drop off the grid as an experiment to see how long a company will pay an employee who’s MIA? Perhaps I only have a piece of the decoder, and I’ll need to augment my popping joints with the growls and grumbles of my aging gut or the scraping sound my hairbrush makes on my bare scalp in the mornings to reveal the true message. A full sonic testament to old age, my geriatric symphony played right through the instrument of my corpus.

I offer you a wet old-man kiss through well-used lips as a heartfelt “goodnight.” Wish us luck in our travels, and I’ll type to you next from Oregon.

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the perfect housemate


Sunday afternoon and the weather is so perfectly sunny and blue-skied that it’s hard to believe it’s the very heart of February. Instead of building snowmen or cursing frozen toes in bed at night, I feel like I should be hosting friends in the backyard for a barbecue, maybe running in sprinklers or chasing the ice cream man. As much as I love it, I’ve so far squandered it, sadly. I think I’m subconsciously waiting for it to be a little more predictable, another couple weekends of this I’ll be convinced. I’ll retire the jeans and call up the shorts from the reserves, stop checking the chance of rain before work each morning, and work on my flip-flop tanlines. It’s coming… I can sense it.

Roughly a week from now, I’ll drop Sharaun and Keaton off at the airport where they’ll navigate their way to Florida to our newborn nephew, and Keaton’s first cousin, baby Hobson. Then, for five whole days, two of them being weekend days, I’ll be a complete and total bachelor. And, as much as I’ll miss them both, you have no idea how much I’m looking forward to this time. See, I have a plan… a scheme, a grand idea I’ve been machinating and devising ever since we booked her trip. If all goes well, I plan to use those four days to clean. Yup; you read me right: I want to clean. And I don’t mean dust or vacuum, although I’ll likely do those things; I mean clean. Harsh-sounding or not, I’ve often found myself plotting just how I’d bring the house back into order if Sharaun were to just “disappear.”

Don’t worry, I’m not considering looking for shady ex-cons on Craigslist or anything, this is just a fanciful line of thought I sometimes turn to when the place is overwhelmingly disarrayed. See, after Sharaun disappears, I immediately set to work bringing the house in-line with my expectations: things have a place and when taken from that place are subsequently returned to it; clean is the “base” state and all ongoing effort is reduced to simple tidying; and things that are trash or arguably trash are thrown away instead of ferreted into corners or stowed for no reason. I figure, given a week without anyone undoing all my doing, I could have this place in a state I’d be happy to come home to each day.

So, in what I feel must be a test, I’ve been given that week by the powers on high. I’ve decided now that I’ll use that time to bring this place into that “base” state of clean. My plan of attack: Before Sharaun leaves, I plan on investing in about twenty or so moving-size cardboard boxes. After she’s gone, I’ll label the boxes in groups: trash for sure, why not trash, storage, and donate. Then, with my time, I’ll go methodically through rooms and parts of rooms in the house, bucketing items into boxes accordingly, striving for some kind of Godly top-to-bottom Spring cleaning. I’ll leave the boxes in the front room before doing anything with them to give Sharaun a chance to veto any of my choices, but the goal would be to either have them stowed or gone not long after she’s back.

Think it’ll work? Yeah, I have my doubts too.

Goodnight friends, I love you because you laugh at me.

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please, will you bow with me?


Hi internet friends. Thursday night and I could use a little more week to get things done at work. But, were it offered, I’d turn it down.

Was a beautiful day today in Northern California. The air is still nippy, but with plenty of sunshine to warm your bones it seems more crisp than cool, and that makes me feel like we could be on the road to Spring. In fact, day by day, as the rains begin to break here in Sunny California, my brain is steadily considering the coming change of seasons and the spring and summer activities that come with them. Camping, for one thing, is something I’ve been daydreaming about lately. Back to the outdoors, this time with Keaton a little older and likely able to enjoy it a little more. I know she won’t be remembering trips for another couple summers, but I’ll still enjoy being able to see her get a little more out of them.

Please, will you bow with me?

Oh lord, we exalt Thee. Review time at the sawmill is over, and the joyous occasion calls for an endless celebration rich in fermented drink and empty carbs. There will be drunkenness and dancing, we’ll kill the fatted calve, and exchange fists in sport to the cheers of frenzied onlookers. We’ll raze buildings to the ground in a kind of tidal joy that peaks as unintended anarchy, but we’ll regret it in the morning. Women will part with clothing freely, and bed whomever smiles widest and has the strongest breath of wine. Legs will be parted and shouts will rise to Heaven, where you, Dear Lord, can look down on this bit of creation and know – review is over. And until that painful time strikes anew a year later, we’ll banish the memories to the corners of our minds. Thank you, Father, for your wise benevolence in quelling this torture, we give all praise unto you.

Amen.

I was thinking today about how much I love elective methods of communication. Phone, e-mail, and instant-message; all these wonderful keep-in-touch tools are great for enhancing communication, making it more instant and available. But they possess an unsung virtue: The are all elective. Meaning, if I don’t want to respond to them, I don’t have to. As opposed to something like a knock at the door, running into someone while out and about, or someone popping into your office at the sawmill – I can simply choose to ignore them. Oh, and I do. When I don’t want to, I ignore all of them. Maybe it’s a jerk move, but to me it’s an exercise in personal freedoms.

Goodnight my friends.

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a dart right down the center


Tuesday night, sitting here watching the live dog-and-pony show on MSNBC, the circus that is modern-day democracy. Nothing much groundbreaking yet, other than the fact that I’m not near as glued to the returns as I thought I might be. Sharaun’s out at a meeting, abandoning Keaton to another night with dad. And, dad’s not much better, as I, too, am going to abandon her for a few hours while I go out with friends to celebrate a birthday within the clique. (No, I’m not leaving her home alone… sheesh.) Anyway, I guess none of that is really interesting… so I’ll stop now.

Hey, man. Hey, how’s it going? I wanna rap to you real-style for a minute, OK? I’m not trying to be harsh or anything like that, I just wanna talk straight to ya for a second. What I want to know is… what’s wrong in your head that you seemingly can’t remember that you’ve told me this story, like, a hundred times already? You just sit there, telling me again. You’re waving your hands to illustrate your exaggerated points, and your mouth forms a perfect open circle as you exclaim your key points with a little too much bombast. I sometimes wonder if I could throw a dart right down the center, not touching the sides like in Operation. But I sit here like a chump, re-reacting to the same highs and lows in your warmed-over narrative, because I’m too polite to tell you I’ve heard it before.

I mean, it was an OK story the first time around, maybe even worth re-telling in my company if there are new people around – knowingly putting me through it again for the sake of the newcomers. I’m OK with that. But it’s just us right now, just you and I sitting here, with a whole world of new and exciting events we could talk about, and here you go again with that same old yarn. I’m not gonna say anything, but I’m not gonna listen either. I know when to smile, laugh, and physically emote incredulity – like a trained animal I’ll have you thinking you’ve got me under your spell. Hell, I’ll even throw in an eyebrows-raised “No kidding?,” for ya, I’m a nice guy like that.

Think you just had a meaningful conversation with me? Not likely. I was thinking about naked chicks or fireworks or how I wish Led Zeppelin would tour the US this summer with John’s son Jason filling in on the skins.

Was good talking to you though, we should do it again sometime. And, knowing you, I’m sure we will.

Know what guys? I wrote that last paragraph based around a funny incident I had today, and then, re-reading it in review prior to publishing, realized that I myself I’m likely the greatest offender of the very thing I’m tongue-in-cheeking. I mean, I do that re-telling stories thing all the time (thanks Dad, I completely blame you for this trait). Right now, at the tender age of thirty-something, I do this with full consciousness, just to exploit the story for all it’s worth. In the sunset of my years I fear, however, that I’ll do it for lack of knowing.

Well, it behooves me to go to bed, being that I need to wake before the dawn again to make my favorite daytrip to Portland and back. I made time today to stop by the library over lunch and checkout a new book for the travels, although I don’t think I’ll be one-daying this one, seems a little more dense and requiring of detailed attention. I’ve wanted to read it for a while, all the learned seem to have, and I hate feeling left out. You may have heard of it, I think Oprah even opined about it, it’s called One Hundred Years of Solitude. I’ll let you know how it is.

Goodnight.