somebody talked me into updating my cd list, so i spent most of the night last night doing that. it was something i was going to do soon anyways; that's one of the reasons i'm going to get some wood to build some shelves. but it means i didn't get any recording done.

it's up here, if you're curious.

now, i should add the caveat that it's pretty thin regarding releases after about 2002 and especially after 2005. this is partly because i haven't had a lot of cash to blow on cds and partly because the wide variety of options for downloading music have meant that the cash i did have was often perceived as better spent elsewhere. not having to take chances on discs anymore has also drastically reduced the amount of time i've spent listening to things. back in the 90s, you'd take a chance on something and then force yourself to listen to it at least ten times to be sure you don't like it. nowadays, i think we all tend to write things off without giving them the time they might need, while gravitating towards things that appeal to us as instant gratification and/or make it instantly clear that the complexity level is off the wall. there's a good and bad side to that - it increases the amount of music you're exposed to and in the process gets you closer to what you really want, but it also abolishes a certain aspect of subtlety. i try not to be a hypocrite, but i can't defy arithmetic. what i will say is that the list of planned purchases for discs released after 2005 is both very long and very weeded out by much listening. as a collector, i still have a prerogative to buy discs, but that is something that is usually going to happen when the disc is five-ten years old and i'm convinced i like it enough to add it to the collection.

i'm going to be weeding the collection out slightly, but the truth is it's already been weeded out. the three aims in the collection right now are related to rarity, quality and the label the thing was released on. so, i've got a lot of constellation stuff, for example, that i very rarely listen to but have no interest in discarding due to the collector quality of the label. that issue accounted for, this is a relatively elite list of music produced before 2005. the guilty pleasures are mostly connected to 90s grunge discs that i know are bad but can't bring myself to discard because i like rocking out to them from time to time.

there are reviews attached to the first dozen or so entries in the list. i'm not at all prioritizing this at the moment, but i will eventually come back to it, and when i do i'll be trying to address the holes in the list created by mp3s replacing physical discs.

i'll be recording tonight.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/index/index.html

if there's anything (new or old) that you think is a glaring omission, let me know. i'd say chances are that i'm familiar with it, and i can let you know if it's in the list or not and how i'd rank it.

while it's always prudent to absorb state media with a large dose of skepticism, and i'm not able to translate from russian myself, i don't see anything contentious in the video. vice is reporting similar images and perspectives from a pro-western perspective. while this is no doubt spliced to present a message, i think that message should be taken rather seriously.

what struck me about the perspectives in the video is how flabbergasted people are at what's happening - just this absolute level of disbelief that what they're experiencing could really be possible.

and, when you step back from the propaganda, it's hard not to share that view. all of this nonsense and violence over some abstract geopolitics that most of these people don't seem to have the slightest clue about....