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Tag Archives: 00s
The MP3.com Rescue Barge Barge
So back in November, I grabbed 1.78TB of media from the Internet Archive’s mp3.com Rescue Barge, and their Wayback Machine both, in pursuit of creating the most thoroughly complete archive I can muster of MP3.com’s music. The Rescue Barge is … Continue reading
Five Things I Learned from “Hacking Windows XP”
We had our annual local library sale earlier this month! If you’re curious what all I got (it was an especially good haul for weird alternative CDs), you can go read the journal post I wrote on cammy.somnol about it. One of the books everyone, including myself, was most interested in though was a book called Hacking Windows XP, written by Steve Sinchak, the maintainer of tweaks.com to this day, and published by Wiley in their ExtremeTech range. (Wiley, if you don’t know, are the folks that publish those For Dummies books that were the main way I got into retrocomputing as a very small child. I had another of their ExtremeTech books on building an arcade cabinet as well.) What’s especially fun about my copy is the CompUSA price tag on the front that says it was marked down to half off in December of 2004. History!
I’m a long-time XP power user. I had my own XP computer from about when I was 7. I used it every day at school. I now have an XP box on my floor to my left as I write this! (I mostly use it to chat on Aftersleep.) I like to think I know a lot about it, so I was curious how much this book could teach me. Indeed, a lot of especially the early part of the book is about stuff like customizing the Start Menu, changing system icons, and dinking with msconfig. Useful information, but stuff I’ve already got filed away in the brain box and mostly don’t bother with.
That said, I didn’t walk away completely unenlightened! Here’s a handful of stuff from this book that even a grizzled, old-school, daily XP user walked away having learned–either from it just somehow getting by me or because it’s properly nerdy. Also, there’s a CD. I’ll unseal it and we’ll get to that after the main course.
Somnolescent Record Club #1: Autolux’s Demos (2001-2002)
I’ve written a lot about music. Like a lot. A lot a lot. Usually, when I talk about music, it’s with this air of formality, either giving my opinion or digging into the details and investigating—I’m autistic, this is what I do.
I do listen to music for fun sometimes, though. I put on songs because they’ve been stuck in my head all day. I have characters and ideas I associate with albums and songs and specific times of my life. Sometimes, even—I will throw on a record.
I’d like to start up a monthly all-vinyl blog ramble series called the Somnolescent Record Club. For once, we’re gonna believe all the myths, get into the groove (quite literally), enjoy the tactility of the big art and the wax platters, and I’ll talk about my listening setup and all the things that run through my head when I put on an album. Today’s record is the vinyl-exclusive gold-colored Demos (2001-2002) from the mighty Autolux, whose debut album these demos were for I lived in in high school.
Hopefully, this runs more casual than you might be used to from me—that’s my aim.
First Draft: Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Rarely do albums come out right on the first shot. Labels reject them, bands disown them, and they get added onto after release. Here on First Draft, we take a look at albums that got cut down or remade and see what difference the changes made.
This especially long-winded First Draft concerns the infinite permutations of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco’s 2002 art rock opus which streamed online officially for the first time 22 years ago today.
Somnolescent Radio: Spring 2021
A return to those magical posts about what we’re all listening to? It must be spring! Devon suggested bringing it back, and given how another person means an even wider array of genres to choose from (plus more of a chance for anyone with a bad case of shyness to sit one out–no judge, it happens), it only made sense. Excuse me while I remember how these are formatted… Continue reading
Ranking Spotify’s Top 50 Songs Named “Undone”
Song titles are funny. They’re usually hardly unique, and tons of bands from all across the music spectrum have songs with the exact same title. Spotify’s search is an absolutely useless landfill for this stuff; the song you want will invariably be so unpopular that 200 other identically-titled songs (and in some cases, artists and albums) will come before the one you want. Lovely.
The inspiration for this one came about when I realized I actually know three different songs with the title “Undone”: the Failure song, the Weezer song, and the Josh Joplin song. When I checked through Spotify search, it turned out to be a very popular song name indeed.
So in short, I got curious enough to add the 50 most popular ones to a playlist, listen through, and rank them. I originally wanted to do every single song on the platform named “Undone”, but that’s just not feasible. Even the top 50 was a solid three hours worth of music, and has been hell to put together.
Alas, the Joplin track didn’t make the top 50; if it did, it would’ve probably ranked at #2. Nonetheless, we’ve got a lovely mix of yeehaw music, white girl piano pop, boppy electronica, acoustic torment, Backstreet Boys, and even a few artists who might not even exist. We’re starting at the bottom here, so apologies for the rampant negativity at first. It does get better. Here we go… Continue reading
Somnolescent Radio: Spring 2020
With three months or so to update the ol’ playlists, it’s about time to bring you another edition of Somnolescent Radio. As the first one went, each Somnolian has chosen a song dear to them at the moment and written a bit about it. Have a listen. Continue reading
Life ‘n Weeb Shit
Y’all ready for my dick in your ass? Just kidding its borb ready to kick gum and chew ass 0w< Continue reading
Somnolescent Radio: Winter 2020
We listen to a lot of music at Somnolescent, and we’ve been gradually sharing more and more of it with one another. It’s entertainment, inspiration, and something to pour over fansites and music sites hunting down. Indie rock, dad rock, things that aren’t rock, the lot.
Sometime towards the end of 2019, I got the idea to solicit a song from everyone in the group and compile them into something of a playlist for you to pick through. I asked each Somnolian to write a little bit about the song they picked to go along with their choice. With any luck, we’ll be making this a seasonal thing. Let’s get to the picks. Continue reading