Time out of mind?

After poking around at the XML file that iTunes stores my music library in, I decided to calculate exactly how long I've spent listening to music (at least since I started using iTunes). The Perl script below multiplies the play count for each song by its total time and sums the results. It seems I've spent a total of 3531385497 milliseconds (or just under 41 days) listening to music since October 2004. You?

grep -e "Total Time\|Play Count" ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music\ Library.xml | perl -ne '($time) = (/<integer>(.*)<\/integer/) if /Total Time/; if (/Play Count/) { ($count) = (/<integer>(.*)<\/integer>/); $total += $time * $count; $time = 0; } print $total, "\n";' | tail -1 | perl -ne '$_ /= 3600000; print $_, "\n"'

Mac users should be able to run this command unchanged at a Terminal prompt. It will print the number of hours you've spent listening to music in iTunes.

Jews Scream for Ice Cream

My dad's collection of ice cream sheet music includes the following dialect for “I Scream – You Scream – We All Scream for ICE CREAM”:

I scream, you scream, ve all scream for Ice Cream, RAH RAH RAH
Ve're not caring if it smells from herring, SHA SHA SHA
It's malicious – in big dishes
Ve like it covered with – gefillte fishes
Iceberg, Lindberg, and Goldberg and Ginsberg, Ice Cream COHN!

Not particulary politically correct, I suppose, but funny, and we're allowed to make fun of our own heritage, right? I have to say, however, that despite my willingness to eat fish from a jar, I hope never to be served ice cream topped with gefillte fish. One right after the other, maybe, but not together.

How Legos are Made

In case you've ever wondered how Legos are made. Warning: Flash Player required.