Author: J T. Ramsay

J T. Ramsay http://jtramsay.com

Who Needs Birthday Presents?

Once upon a time, I used to be a guy who com­piled lists — obses­sive­ly, even — of the movies and music I want­ed to acquire in some phys­i­cal for­mat. It made birth­days and Christ­mases so easy for every­one in my life. Dis­trib­ute the list and — voila — instant gifts!

Now it’s not so easy. I still real­ly enjoy music and film, but there’s just no press­ing need for me to “own” any of it. Does this mean I’m fac­ing a future of ties for every gift going forward?

The 2011 Phillies at the Trade Deadline

Hunter Pence. It’s going to take the rest of the sea­son for me to decide how he improves this team. I know peo­ple are excit­ed, but I think there are oth­er issues, notably the pres­ences of Wil­son Valdez and Ben Fran­cis­co, who have late­ly become sur­plus to require­ments. Remov­ing Dom Brown from the every­day line­up does­n’t improve the Phillies chances come post­sea­son play.

I still think the Phillies match up well against any team they could face in the play­offs, but I hate to think that banged up vet­er­ans like Polan­co or Ibanez could come up short when it mat­ters most.

I’ve Rejoined Tumblr

You can fol­low Ram­say­ings: The Tum­blr by your pre­ferred method. Since I fol­low a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of music crit­ics there, it may be where I enter con­ver­sa­tions about stuff like that? Or pos­si­bly techi­er things? Or social media things? It’s a gar­den that’s grow­ing very quick­ly and I’m scram­bling to keep up.

And, yes, I think I’ve decid­ed to main­tain both Word­Press and Tum­blr plat­forms in some way or oth­er indef­i­nite­ly. Social media is a cru­el mis­tress. I guess it would be cru­el­er if I were also vlog­ging or something.

#ripfest

If you want to see a Cliffs Notes ver­sion of what I’m rip­ping and tak­ing to AKA some time in the next month or so, fol­low the #ripfest hash­tag on Twitter. 

I’m going to be pret­ty aggres­sive about what I’m ditch­ing, so we’re talk­ing about some 600+ cds or so. If you’re inter­est­ed in any and are will­ing to stop by the house to have a look, they’ll be sold for $3.50 a piece, give or take.

Everything Must Go!

Not real­ly. I’m final­ly get­ting around to doing some­thing I threat­ened to do ages ago: rip the CDs I real­ly want to keep and sell the rest.

Now I’m get­ting seri­ous and I’ve begun in earnest. Sure, I’ll keep some hard copies as back­up, but the bulk of it is going in a box and is head­ed for A.K.A. Music.

Wish me luck.