The Unholy Trinity

One of these things is not like the other...

The unholy trinity I speak of in the title is a combination I stumbled upon tonight with much glee on my part. Apple iTunes COM SDK + JavaScript + Windows Scripting Host. I know, you're probably wondering what the hell kind of medicine I am on, playing with Windows scripting. I had never touched it before tonight either. JavaScript and I have a longterm love/hate relationship as well. I love to swear at it endlessly for its annoyances and lack of ease of debugging, while hating how often it ends up getting the job done for me.

That all said, this combination has just allowed me to do some kick-ass things with iTunes. I had the SDK downloaded for some time, and I wrote some sample C++ apps when I first got it. However, after seeing the Apple JavaScript examples I decided to experiment with them a bit. I'm thoroughly impressed now, similar to Unix shell scripts (although orders of magnitude less powerful), I find that I can just get a task done very quickly, as opposed to writing a full application. Quick and dirty is the key here.

I currently have some scripts to perform some actions I had been meaning to do. Remove any dead tracks from my library, and cleanup bogus comments on some of my tracks. If anyone is interested, I can give them the scripts.

Now, for the challenge. Come up with some task/feature that you would like to do with your iTunes library that you can't quite seem to make happen with playlists. I'll see what I can do about getting it done in a script.

5 of the Now

Here you go, your first holiday five of the now...

Side Two - DJ Ese, Aesop Rock, and Babbletron - Side Two

This was actually a free track that I got somewhere. I don't recall it being the free song of the week from iTunes (go here for keeping track of that BTW), so I think it must have been from when the Apple group on Facebook gave away some songs each week.
Regardless, this has a fantastic hook that sticks in your head. With Aesop Rock on it, how can you go wrong?

Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

At first my intense, burning hatred for Emo would not let me give this a listen. Thankfully, I like to at least give most music a chance. That, coupled with a resounding recommendation from the SO led me to listening and watching the video. These guys are not Emo. They just haven't quite realized that they just plain rock hard, and don't need the mascara.
This song just plain rocks. At times they evoke an image of Queen at their height in the late 70's. Coming from me, that's a resounding recommendation.

(Check out the video too, not as trippy balls as The Fountain, but cool nonetheless)

U + Ur Hand - P!nk - I'm Not Dead

Poor grammar aside, this songs kicks. I had found Pink a bit too mainstream for a while, but with this album, and this song especially, I think she is back in her own niche. This is way too raw and powerful to be classified as pop, but still a bit more polished than rock.
This is again a song where the video got me into the song as much as the music. It turns out having a bajillion channels can be good, MTV Hits actually plays music videos all of the time still.

Pack Up (Remix) - Lyrics Born with KRS-One and Evidence - Same !@#$, Different Day

Lyrics Born is almost too simple of a choice for a 5otn. The guy can do no wrong in my book. I have specifically been giving this track some additional listening lately though. Anyone interested in this better already know who KRS-One is, so I don't need to preach on that.
However, Evidence is the reason I have really included this track. I have picked up a few tracks from Dilated Peoples recently, and they are fantastic. "Neighborhood Watch" is the album I have been liking lately.

My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) - Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps

Reaching back to the classics here. Neil and Crazy Horse blurred the lines between folk and rock, birthing grunge in the process. I got back into this song as part of a pseudo-obsession with tracking down some obscure bootlegs a few weeks ago.
Specifically, there was a version of Daughter by Pearl Jam performed on Saturday Night Live back on April 16, 1994. This version was performed very shortly after the death of Kurt Cobain. Eddie Vedder segwayed from Daughter into "My My, Hey Hey", in a very cool performance (I would post it here, but unfortunately it isn't all that easy to find a live link for it).
Instead, I submit the original from Neil.
To really do this justice, make sure to follow it up with, "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" from the same album. The two songs represent one of the best "bookend" set of songs ever.

Google and Free Phone, How Can I Lose?

I had a nice post brewing about how happy I was with some of the new features in Gmail, but this one couldn't wait.

Courtesy of Lifehacker, Google now gives you the ability in Google Maps to click on a phone number, and have Google automatically hook you up to them for free. Through your phone, regardless of local or long-distance. How sweet is that?

Basically, when you click to call they ask for your phone number, call you, and then connect you to the business in three-way call fashion. No mucking.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how to hack all of my friends in as a "business" so that I can call them all for free (plotting and laughing maniacally...).

"Are you a business?"

The Underwhelming Sound of Zune

At this point Zune has been covered nearly ad-nauseum, and it wasn't even released until today. However, like others, I have some quick thoughts of my own.

I was in Wal-Mart today, and I walked near the digital audio players (DAP for all the cool kids out there) section. I immediately saw one of the new pink iPod nanos, as well as the incredibly cool piece of design that is the new shuffle. I stood there and drooled over the new shuffle, looked over the selection as a whole and then moved on.

Only then, did I realize I had walked right past the Zune display without taking any notice whatsoever. There weren't any big signs, just some small ones that said both Microsoft and Zune. I looked at it, and realized that if it weren't made by Microsoft I never would have even given it a glance. (Somebody please post in the comments the link to the Zune-poo comparison).

Microsoft better hope that their name and the silly music sharing feature are enough. I don't see much else here to make it compete with Creative or iRiver, let alone Apple.