Normally this time of year I would be doing Advent of Code. This year they changed the way its run, no leader boards, less exercises. The leader boards thing seems to be somewhat in retaliation for people using AI. It removes the incentive to get done super quick. They also kind of sucked depending on your time zone.
I already quit on Day 1. I got stuck on part 2, I tried, I changed things I rethought what was happening, I even maybe sort of found a problem, but I couldn’t work it out. I even did my usual method of using someone else’s code to get the right answer for my data set, so I knew for sure where I was aiming.
Hell, I even gave in and fed Claude to look at the code even though AI is discouraged and it couldn’t find the answer. I have seen a lot of people stuck on Day 1 Part 2, on the Subreddit. Enough that I almost wonder if there is an issue with the solutions they have. I doubt it, but it seems, extra high. In the end, I just, don’t have the right combination of time and care and need to solve this. Its supposed to be interesting and fun, not an
Music
I am super super close to getting all my music sorted down. And there is a LOT of it. Some, 40,000 tracks.
I have about 1000 songs left to properly tag and categorize. I have a fair number of accumulated “To Sort” boxes, some from my brother, some from previous sort attempts. One hurdle I decided to remove, that I had in the past was mixing legitimate music with “illegitimate” music. I have a ton of purchased music, the majority, I have ripped all my CDs. I had a cluster of older songs from college and Napster (etc) that I had kept separate. Sometimes updating and replacing them with properly.purchased versions. I had gotten it down to kind of the dregs. I decided to just mix it.
The vast majority if the files go into a base folder simply called “Music”. This is sorted into more folders, A-Z, # for numbers, Various for compilations, and Synthwave, because I have a bunch of that from Bandcamp.
Within these are singles, and folders, Artist/Album. Some albums have an MP3 and a FLAC folder.
Back in the root there is some additional sorting.
- Soundtracks – What it sounds like, movie and TV Soundtracks
- Soundtracks – Anime
- Soundtracks – Video Games – This one is a bit of a mess inside, but its generally sorted by platform, or large series (Final Fantasy, Metal Gear)
- Comedy – I have some stand up comedy albums, and a few goofy music albums
- Music – Ambient – I have a fair number of sort of, “ambient music” CDs I have ripped. Cultural music, nature sounds, harps, its not all instrumental, but a lot is
- Music – Classical – For classical music, that isn’t just ambient music
- Music – Christmas – Because its only useful for like, one month of the year
- Music – Extended Megamixes – I have a bunch of hour long electronic mixes I’ve accumulated over time.
- Other Audio – Basically, non music. Sound clips, a few podcasts, some new clips
- RIPS – A staging folder for ripped audio, serving two purposes, often I want to find it easy to move to my phone, but also, it usually needs tagged, renamed and processed
The sorting serves a lot of purposes. Things become easier to find. They will scrobble properly on Last.fm. I have fished out a lot of duplication. I have found stuff I enjoy but had forgotten about. It also means various remote access apps like Jellyfin work more easily.
Speaking of Last.fm, I also did my usual, “subscribe to Pro for a month at the end of the year.”. Mostly to clean up my scrobbles, and to support the service a bit. It turns out I had misnamed the new Sigrid album when I ripped it from CD. Its “There’s Always More That I Could Say” not “There’s Always More I Could Say.” I also consolidated some Lauren Mayberry singles to count towards the album, which was fun, because not Vicious Creature is my most played album of all time.
Toys
In a post I didn’t post last week, I bitched about not finding any of those $15 Black Friday Transformers packs. I would buy like, 7 of the options, easily, for a nice catch up on things I skipped.
I did get the Sunstreaker reissue to go with the Sideswipe I got a few weeks ago. He’s neat. Kind of wish he had a gun. I keep worrying I forgot to get the gun from the package, but everything online suggests this version does not have a gun, just his goofy backpack “gun”. The Devastation recolor has a gun and an effect part.
Movies
Today, I went out to the movies, something I don’t do.very often, for a variety of reasons. Last movie I saw in theaters was Godzilla Minus One Minus Color. Before that, it was Godzilla Minus One. Today, I went to an IMAX showing of Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair.
I have not really watched Kill Bill a lot in recent times (I actually did watch Part 1 a few months ago), but it was, is, I dunno, one of my favorite movies for a while. I ran the DVD in the background on repeat a lot in the past.
There were a few fun new bits here and there, the biggest being an extended fight sequence during the O-Ren anime where she fights with Pretty Riki, the long haired swordsman. They also cut the very last bit of the first movie, where Bill is talking to Sophie, not the whole scene but the last one, which changes some fo the dynamic of the last movie a bit.
The showing wasn’t local, it was up in Bloomington. I also am pretty sure I have never been to an IMAX movie before either, though I came close a few times. Some other re-released of older films happen at this theater quite a bit, I just, have never ended up going. The IMAX didn’t seem that different. But it had nice fancy recliner seats.
