Something said here (which I linked to a bit ago regarding 'Mo Money, Mo Problems') about 'I Got A Story To Tell' gave me pause the first time I read it, but I couldn't figure out what my problem was until I went back to listen to the song. The author says that he's taking out 'about a minute of the overlong fade-out' since in his version of the record the song no longer comes at the end of a disc. I couldn't make sense of what he meant by 'overlong fade-out' until I realized he didn't mean the actual fade-out, that starts about 15 seconds before the end of the track, but the final part of the track - about two minutes of the total 4:43 - where Big re-tells the story that makes up the first part of the track. The song is perhaps slightly misleading about this, because at first it sounds (it sounded to me, for a long time) like Big finishes his verses, then they let the beat ride for this long stretch (which never bothered me - nothing long with letting the beat go for a while, especially at the end of a record) while there's some verite-style dialogue mixed low enough relative to the verses to kind of seem like background. But I think it would be a mistake to ignore that part of the song, and especially to cut it.

More on why later. I hope.

Note on the back of Corporate Ghost, Sonic Youth's Geffen-era video collection:

'SY's pre-sellout "independent" videography forthcoming'

Hell.

Fine. More wait and see. Fine.

Of the 518 songs I've played on my iPod in the past two months, there haven't been any whose names started with 'z'. I hit all the other letters, though.

I'm pleased by the possibilities for discovering inane factoids that technology provides me. I'm just not satisfied that I'm able to exploit every possibility at my disposal. I know there are more inane factoids I could use to make empty commentary on my listening experiences, if only my computer would let me discover them.

'I bet your ass is darker than a Mobb Deep track'

Huh, I think Axl just said 'tangible'. How about that.

Oh, the ways that list would be upset, though, if the computers knew about the songs I had burned to disc. Why does the world have to be so imperfect?

'Breathe' and 'Yeah' have suddenly broken into the top five this week in my most-played songs on iTunes and my iPod. It's true that I've been deliberately choosing the Fabolous, but the Usher song just seems to have my iPod in thrall. I was getting a little tired of it, really. But now I feel just as excited to hear it again as ever.

As ever? Really? Well, maybe. I don't know. Back at the beginning, it was really exciting. Run-to-the-dancefloor exciting, in my imagination at least.