A long time ago I bought a two-CD set called "The Cult Files." It pretty much is what it sounds like -- the discs contain soundtracks to various television shows and movies that have established a "cult" following. We're talking some pretty ecclectic stuff here, too. Off the top of my head I can name the theme to "Perry Mason," "The Omen," "Red Dwarf," "The Prisoner" and suchlike as being part of the collection.

In late November of last year I moved out of the apartment in Hoffman Estates like my ass was going to catch on fire. The move was pretty disorganized and a lot of things got forgotten, lost or thrown out in the rush to vacate the premesis. Amidst all the confusion one of the two Cult File CDs went missing and has been absent ever since. I only really thought about it recently when I was ripping my CD collection to high-bit-rate MP3 for storage on the new drive.

Needless to say I was a little surprised to receive word from twanfox about two months ago that he had found the missing CD in the drive of his boombox. Time passed and with all the other things my life has hit me with I forgot all about the disc until he reminded me again. Being absent-minded and faced with a few dozen other things I once more forgot. My attention was grabbed a third time on Sunday night and plans were made for him to drop by my office with the CD in hand. Well, today came and the plan wasn't fouled up too much. It was actually sort of amusing in a way: at around 11:45 RW and I emerged from the elevator in the lobby to get a late lunch since we had both been sucked into an evil meeting. We were walking towards the cafe when I happened to glance up -- and there was Twan rounding the corner with a jewelcase in his hand. I thanked him for the delivery and then invited him to join RW and I for a bite to eat. He accepted the invitation so the three of us ate downstairs. While we were eating the conversation wandered around a bit in the way it always does, with RW and I doing most of the talking. At this point I imagine Twan is glad that he didn't ever get a job offer with my employer -- it should be obvious to all that the company is quite mad.

Now that I'm home I took a bit of time to examine the disc. I'm sure it wasn't in pristine condition to begin with -- almost none of my CDs ever were -- so I wasn't terribly worried when I saw a few spots and scratches on the underside. The reflective coating appeared to be completely intact and I've been listening to it for the last 25 minutes or so without any ill effects. Since I'm about halfway through the disc with no mishaps I'm left to think it has survived and will withstand an encoding into MP3 as long as I don't let the CD go to some ungainly speed like 40x. Once the tracks are encoded I'll be home-free and the CD will serve the rest of its term in my collection as backup physical media should something happen to the sound file.

Thanks again, Twan. I appreciate it.

Words as weapons sharper than knives

Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: The Cult Files -- Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome