Being a nerd, I tend to like the command-line. When I'm working on my laptop at home, I tend to like listening to music. Before I discovered that mplayer had a really convenient shuffle idiom, I would invoke it thusly (to listen to all my Pavement tracks in shuffle mode):

export IFS=$'\n'
for track in $(find /mnt/upnp/MediaTomb/Audio/Artists/Pavement -name \*.mp3 | ~/bin/shuffle.py); do mplayer $track; done

And the wee shuffle script I whipped together looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# shuffle.py
 
import sys
import random
 
args = list(sys.stdin)
random.shuffle(args)
sys.stdout.writelines(args)

And here's the convenient shuffle idiom that renders my arg-shuffling script somewhat useless:

find /mnt/upnp/MediaTomb/Audio/Artists/Pavement -name \*.mp3 | mplayer -playlist - -shuffle -loop 0

Lack of Talent, its hour come round at last, slouches towards podcastdom to be born.

It's late and I'm tired, so here's the skinny: at the beginning of the year I ambitiously[1] resolved to record one song per month. Instead I've serendipitously turned up the LOT recording sessions from July 2005, which we call the Burlap Overseas, and which I never really went through. Now that stuff is backed up six ways from Sunday[2] and I owe it to my fellow Lack of Talenteers to go through all these hours of raw audio and pick out some interesting bits so we have something to build on the next time we get together[3].

If you're interested, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and listen along. Updates will be sporadic, perhaps even spasmodic or spastic. Now the disclaimers: you should know that LOT was never about songs or practice or technique or order or music, really; we are true to our name[4]; it's about some friends gathering in my grandparents' basement with lots of music gear[5], even more alcohol, a box fan to keep us cool, a washing machine to clean Gramma's clothes, and a microphone that runs the whole darned time. This is booze-soaked sonic experimentation among close friends and even if you hear nothing else, you should hear hints (or squeals, or yawps) of joy amidst the cacophony.

Notes

1. Read: foolishly
2. Phew. I am a paranoid backup freak.
3. Est. 2013
4. At least I am
5. We switched instruments often, sometimes even playing the ones we could "play."