My 2003 mp3 marathon concluded over the weekend, as i ripped the last of the albums that were missing songs in my digital library (Xymox and Yaz, in case you're curious). As Veronica and i were in Providence dog-sitting Olive for Rob and Roo, i had a look at their CD collection and ripped 15 or 20 albums of theirs as well. All told, my mp3 library is now exactly 9000 songs strong. I'm pretty happy to be liberated from nights spent swapping CDs in and out of my laptop. I'm now poking through other CDs in our collection to see what else i might be interested in, and ripping 6 or so a day at work (takes less than 10 minutes). Today was Ian McCulloch and Alphaville.

Me at work

I turned the big two-nine last Thursday. It was a relatively low key affair, featuring lunch with my coworkers and a relaxing dinner at Panera with Veronica. I've gotten some very nice presents though, some for my birthday and others unrelated but arriving as if on cue. Actual birthday presents included a gift certificate to Amazon from my parents that i'm debating how to spend, and a gift certificate to Newbury Comics from Rob and Roo that went towards a Skatalites compilation, Stereolab's last album Sound-Dust, and the excellent old Sonic Youth album Sister that i used to hear from my roommates in the dorms at Cal. Veronica will be taking me shopping for a suit sometime soon, to improve my wardrobe so it is commensurate with my new job. My non-birthday presents included my new 17" flat panel monitor, bought with the last of my CMIR equipment monies, which arrived on Monday after two months on backorder. Also, Veronica and i both got new cell phones, the Nokia 3650 ... $300 but free after two mail-in rebates from Amazon and T-Mobile. It's the new video/camera phone, and is really nifty. It can take 640x480 pictures, 10 second videos with audio, can access the internet, and many other things that i have yet to master.

Work is coming to a head, with only two and half weeks left for me at the CMIR. I'm in a good state to wrap things up on schedule, but there are so many little odds and ends to take care of. Not to mention the usual stream of interruptions from my coworkers, for which my patience is dwindling dangerously low. "My Stanford office will have a door", i keep telling myself. Uh oh, here comes one now. "A door ... a door ... close the door ..."