and i didn't need to upload it, as all those songs are already on my computer...

I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Well, no. I’ve had absolutely no trouble sleeping from 6 am to 3 pm. That’s been effortless. I have had trouble sleeping like a regular diurnal mammal. So, in between when I decide to go to bed and I actually fall asleep, I have been getting a lot done. For example, I have upped my winning streak on FreeCell from the low to the mid 300s. But, I felt that I could perhaps be even more efficient. So last night, I decided to go through a stack of unlabeled CDs to label them.

I found some weird things. I found a mix CD that was labeled. There was “[undisclosed name]’s mix” written on the front, along with the date and the #7. The date harkens back to a more innocent time, pre-9/11 time when we had boy bands aplenty, J. Lo had not yet met Ben Affleck, and Aaliyah was still alive. Ah, the halcyon days of yore. In any case, here is the playlist (seriously, you can’t make this stuff up, folks):

1)‘N Sync – Gone

2) something Indian

3) Theme from (the original) 90210 (which you now sadly have to clarify)

4) Linkin Park – Crawling in my Skin

5) from Rent – Rent

6)‘N Sync – Dirty Pop

7) something Indian

8) Blu Cantrell – Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)

9) J. Lo – I’m Real

10) ‘N Sync – Do Your Thing

11) Mandy Moore – In My Pocket (a very poor quality version)

12) ‘N Sync – Celebrity

13) Xtina, Pink, Mya, Lil Kim – Lady Marmalade

14) Willa Ford – I Wanna Be Bad

15) from Moulin Rouge - Hindi Sad Diamonds

16) Jordan Knight – Give it to You

17) Aaliyah – Are You That Somebody (RIP)

Full disclosure: the tracks showed up in my iTunes without labels. I had to look them up (by reaching into my memory and instantly knowing the songs). Also, I was trying to detect a theme for the CD. And I couldn’t even come up with a joke answer. Something using the word bling?

Also also, let’s talk about 2001 in music for a second. Napster was in full swing then. Music was apparently doomed forever, and the sale of music would never be the same. Number one selling album that year? Linkin Park. This album went like ten times platinum. Things were free and still (somehow) legal, and something like ten million people spent actual money on the Linkin Park CD. Just saying.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I had come across something even weirder. There was a CD with just two documents on it. One was a set of notes and the other was an essay written by, well, I don’t know. Not by me or anyone I know. WHERE DID IT COME FROM? And, if you are me, you would naturally start to play out the first twenty minutes of Enemy of the State in your head. Did Jason Lee drop this in my shopping bag before he rode his bike in front of a bus?! Is Gene Hackman standing on my roof?! Are a bunch of people going to try to kill me?! What is going on?!?! (Apparently, in my head, I am played by Will Smith.) (I imagine that actually casting the role of me would involve doing a wikipedia search to see if William Hung is still around and then calling the South Park guys to see if they still have the puppet they used in Team America).

I think it was someone’s homework. I hope that person worked it out, as this CD been in a box for years. In any case, I can cross that off of my list. CDs I never look at have been messily labeled. Good. So that way when I put them back in the box and not touch them for three years, they will at least have the words “mp3s” or “pictures” scribbled on the front of them. I can sleep soundly now.