jeff shuck

Well, it has been a fairly crappy week — actually, a tough month. No, a tough year so far. Yes, tough and crappy. But I’ve found a good stress reliever. After using iTunes for several years to download songs, something popped yesterday. I started to rip every CD I own onto my computer.

I’d held off to this point — why do I need 15 GBs of files that I have sitting on CD only two feet away?

But yesterday I realized: That’s not the question. The question really is, why the hell not?

It began slowly, hunting for certain songs. Picking the best ones to save to the hard drive. Then I picked up steam. I have tons of disc space — why not pull in the whole album? Why not? Now, as I move through the pile at high speed, I’ve become as death, destroyer of CDs. I’ve probably cut through a over a hundred and fifty already.

“ONXRT: Live from the Archives, Volume 2,” which I haven’t listened to in years? Rip it! This Mortal Coil’s “Filigree & Shadow,” which out of 24 tracks contains exactly one memorable song? Rip it — you never know. Someday I might need an electronic version of that exact song, along with copies of the other 23. You really just never know.

It appeals to my need to actually make progress at something — I love watching my G5 cut through a CD in a minute. Move the CD from the “waiting” pile to the “done” pile. Watch as the piles shift and my shelf starts to clear out. Think what I can do with that space. (For example, begin to store mix CDs that I make from the collection. Or perhaps, spare hard drives.) This isn’t futility — I am doing something here!

I’m on a roll. You want a song? Give me a ring — I’ll sell you some used CDs.