Ever tagged/renamed whole bunches of MP3s? Know how much that sucks? Well, tagging choir practice MP3s is like the worst ever. Why, you ask?

1) They're a mix CD, burned off of various CDs, thus not in any CDDB
2) They're obscure songs
3) It's always like 28 little 2 minute songs
4) They're full of special characters
5) They have subtle differences between versions and weird naming schemes

I defy you to come up with a more annoying set of music to tag.

That is all.

PS. I'm only in the 1st and 5th ones, and they're short samples, but have a listen!

Oh man I almost want to cry our choir sounds so good. I just got a copy of some of the recordings for the first time... incredible. Not all perfect of course, but there are a huge number of these songs that sound completely professional. I'm so honoured to be a part of it. Gotta rip tracks and get them up on the choir's website, and of course post here :)

Whew, so much going on that I can hardly keep up. 

Things currently occupying my consciousness...

Well, I'm typing this on my new (used) MacBook.  I've had very little (almost no) time to do anything with it other than installing Firefox and some couch surfing.  So far I'm most impressed with the matte black finish  :)  Love the keyboard, although it's really going to take a while to get used to the keyboard shortcuts.  Looking forward to spending more time on it and really making it my own.

Trying to plan out scheduling and internet connectivity for some time at the cottage in Muskoka this summer.  Ah the joys of a portable job!  I think we're going to put Ubuntu on a small form factor PC for up there, and see how family and friends take to adopting Linux...

Oh yes, and voip!  That will be a fun experiment.  Trying to find a pay-as-you-go service with a call-in number in the 905 area code.

Starting to get going on my real vision for StG.TV, but not having a lot of time lately.  Various client sites in panic mode.  Chris and I have agreed that we will shift our hours so that I have a bit of extra time to focus on the project and grad school application stuff this year.

Ah and choir!  Our concerts this weekend went quite well... a couple of relatively minor goofs during the shows, but I'm really feeling a personal triumph.  I rocked my solo despite being petrified each time up until just a week before the concerts.  We're just about to get the recordings from March's concert, so I'm hoping May's won't be too far behind.

Ordered an evaporative cooler from NewEgg today to try and get some cooler air and humidity going in this place on roasty days.  

Going to a work retreat next weekend, and possibly London in June... and then Barcelona for a retreat and DrupalCon in September!

Can't remember if I actually posted about this, but we booked our wedding site for next year  :)  Casa Loma on November 15th!  Haven't really done much other than get that set, since all the dates up until then were already booked over a month ago, yeesh.

I still can't stop thinking about how beautiful Meagan was at the wedding.  I can't wait to see the professional photos.

Finally cleaned this messy loft up over the past few days.  It was so bad, my feet were always black from walking around inside.  That can't be good.  

Time to get Zoe shaved soon... I think she's uncomfortably warm some days.  I know I am  :P 

Uhmm... this post isn't nearly as interesting in real life as it sounded in my head  :)

Whew, I've been so busy that I haven't even posted about this... but our Summer on the Baltic Sea concert is this weekend in San Francisco and Berkeley! 

I even have a small solo this time  :)  We are doing most of the material that's on this CD actually (and more), if you want a preview.  Singing in Latvian, two dialects of Estonian, Spanish (by a Finnish composer), and Swedish.  Oh and some nonsense language by Jennefelt.  The Swedish yodelling is amazing.  And... loud.  It's an incredibly diverse set of music.  Folk, modern, dark, upbeat, quirky.  I think non-classical/choral people would really enjoy this concert in particular.

Tickets are $12/$15 (students & seniors/regular) in advance on the site.

I should have recordings from the previous concert soon too!

We are really, really good.  I love this choir so much.  Last night's rehearsal was incredibly intense and physically demanding.  Two more rehearsals to go this week...

Welllll a long tangent tonight started with looking for my CD of album recordings without vocals as requested by Jay to include in the CamGirls documentary (by god they actually got an editor a couple of weeks ago -- updates in the blog there).  Which I still haven't found yet.

Which DID lead me to discover my grade nine CD-ROM yearbook (yep, that's 1998 folks).  Which, as you can imagine, led onto a massive tangent giggling at old photos (good lord Meagan, you really haven't changed much in a decade... well, except for the boobs... and your group with Martine!  And the squish-in-a-bug contest!  And Grease!  And old boyfriends!  And and... is that Candice in a Xena costume??) and hunting down people online.  I think that needs to be a post of its own.  Lurid stories and huge crushes and reminiscing, oh my.  In my photo I'm even wearing what I still call my favourite shirt to this day!

Which then led to looking for more album stuff, and remembering to check CDBaby, and discovering I have over $100 sitting in there that I hadn't cashed out.  Woohoo!

It's nifty to see my album's digital sales stats:

 

Anthem for the Perverted has the highest number of sales.  Pervs  ;) 

Oh and we spent five hours (!!) today re-running cables, including our new 5' power strip and big, sexy UPS.

 

The back of my desktop area now.  I swear it looked a lot worse before.

And Spaz, proving once again that he is my web god and I must one day clone and steal him, is writing a wonderful picture rotating script that will clinch my victory for having all the pieces necessary for a harmonious Flickr/Gallery/StephTheGeek.com integration for images.  I guess now I just have to implement it.  Pesky details.  Go admire his large DVD collection.

I got a solo for our upcoming choir concert :) It's a short one, in one of the Swedish pieces (Verlaine-stämning), but it's very pretty and floaty!

Hot off the presses…  Phantom sequel set in NYC forthcoming.

At least I stand out with the hair  ;) 

Audio to come whenever they get the recordings and I find out what exactly I can post!  It went quite well... I had been missing this part of my life so much.   

Between concert notes before I run out the door...

- I can actually hit a high B reliably again and I'm really holding my own in this choir
- pantyhose sucks but when you're wearing a thin skirt that'd show garters or panty lines it's the best option
- is there such a thing as choir elbow? my right arm is killing me from holding music :\
- things go bad when you get all hyper-focused and stop listening to your fellow choristers
- guys singing french drinking songs rock
- saying "gee, i should really take off my only black dress shirt before I brush my teeth" is guaranteed to invite a spray of toothpaste on said shirt
- i hope we sing in an echo-y cathedral sometime... these little venues are nice but rather flat
- am i the only one who has ever put antiperspirant on her hands to stop them from getting sweaty?
- having a husband who comes to all your concerts and insists on modding your binder with a hand strap rocks

Piracy is a worse fate than obscurity Obscurity is a worse fate than piracy (edit: wow, I must have been really tired)

I couldn't have put it any better. Exactly what I was thinking when releasing my album.