Just here for the old music clips? Go here.

The end of a short strange week. I don’t know why it felt so odd. Summer weather, the start of September (the very word makes me want to change the site palettes to autumn hues), back to school, Monday on Tuesday, not enough done at all to justify myself. Also the horrible realization that I made a slight coding error in the 2014 overhaul of the site that requires a minor adjustment to at least 300 pages - to fix something that would probably never happen anyway, unless people are using monitors the size of 47” television sets. Dissatisfaction with some of the new designs and the progress so far; I’m trying to do at least 150 pages a week, but should be doing twice that if I want to finish it by the end of the year.

It’s what I do when I wake up. I have a quick breakfast, then while daughter is getting ready for school, I sit in front of the computer waking up, and do repetitive cut-and-pastes. There are mornings when I open up a subfolder buried in a subfolder and check the size, and see that it contains 1,712 items, and just weep.

Took daughter to the doctor for a check-up; said there probably wouldn’t be any shots. She didn’t mind; getting out of school early was the BEST and we would have Bubble Tea afterwards. There were two shots and a blood test, something she informed me about in an ALL CAPS TEXT while in the examining room; I said they were intended to treat overuse of the Shift Key, and obviously necessary. Afterwards she had that wonderful feeling you have when you’re a kid and the shots are over and it’s time for a reward. It used to be stickers from the gift shop; now it’s this thick drink that contains something I call “phlegm balls,” since that’s what they seem like. They have the same consistency. We sat at the table, chatting, and I pointed out that the slogan painted on the window - don’t leave your buds hanging, or something odd like that - had cast an interesting shadow on the wall.

We both grabbed our phones to take a picture, and I suggested we Instagram the same thing. She declined to Instagram it, for some reason, and made fun of my paltry posting schedule. Said people unfollow you if you don’t post enough. Really? Why? “People think you quit.” But why remove them? Wait a year, maybe. It’s one thing to quit people whose content is boring, or there’s too much and it’s stupid, or you don’t like them personally, but to quit someone for inadequate updates seems to enforce a standard that’s hard for most mortals. Produce constantly or I will remove you from my world.

She would have unfollowed J..D. Salinger after seven months without another book.

Just as well, too.

Anyway. We went to the Cheap Grocery Store afterwards, and got what she called “discount salad” from the salad bar. A more unpalatable selection of things I’ve never seen. A pan of congealed guacamole with prominent corn, which reminded me of a Martian diaper. Chicken strips that were all the same size, with identical grill marks. Carrot slices in grey water. We settled for the Presumably Washed Spinach, then walked around and judged package designs and brand names.

On the way back she said she’s seriously thinking about advertising or some sort of design career. She’s interested in why things look good and what makes things look bad. We have this thing whenever we see Papyrus font: point and sigh. Hobo and Comic Sans are worthy of ridicule, but Papyrus, at this point, is just sad. Then we talked about college, and the wisdom of taking a year off between high school and college to earn money, work a crappy job, and choose your classes carefully because you made the money you're spending. We had a grand day out.

A shadow. They don't speak out loud, for good reason.

I don’t want this smartwatchphone. Wired says:

The slightly bulgy piece of wristwear works in conjunction with Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets so you’re not pulling them out of your pocket every time they ping or vibrate.

No, you’re just looking at it. And then dismissing it. Or feeling as though you should act. The idea of a phone that tells me I have mail or a message or a tweet or something sounds like a device you’d get in orientation in Hell.

If that’s all an Apple watch does - assuming they make one - then I’ll pass. If it has a ton of memory and can beam music into wireless headphones, great! But my phone does that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the form factor was different from what people expect; everyone’s thinking it’ll be a square or a rectangle. I can imagine a tapered oval. Yes, I can! That’s what I do sometimes. I just close my eyes and imagine a tapered oval.

Here’s an interesting problem: there’s nothing I don’t want my devices to do that they don’t do. No one’s come up with anything that does something I didn’t expect.

Now, the Cues! Do I have to explain? Fine. As I say every week: if you're just joining the Listen project, it includes a selection of music cues gleaned from old radio shows In this case, "The Couple Next Door," the wonderful 1958-1960 radio show written by, and starring, Peg Lynch. It's library music the producers dropped in to get them in and out of scenes. It's the background soundtrack for mid-century life.

Many more can be found here, although it's lacking the last few weeks. I'm trying to piece together the disparate clips into groups, for no good reason other than it should be done by someone. The incremental differences make me think “this is new,” then make me think “no, it’s the same, just slightly longer,” then “I am really wasting my time with this; who cares?”

#167 For example: I know I’d heard the opening melody here, but then it turns into this charming little loop-de-loop and ENDS. The ones that end instead of fading out will be helpful in putting them all together. (Not splicing them together, but grouping the various versions into buckets.)

#168 This could be post-war modern music played for an audience of well-heeled snobs who are outwardly pleased to be hearing a new composition, but privately bored stiff with more of this nonsense:

#169. This is almost boilerplate, but my ears perked up at the end: there’s a quick four-note sequence I hear again and again.

#170 It’s here again. This is the one whose instrumentation and tonal palette remind me of a Ravel suite. Thought I’d include Margaret Hamilton at the end; there’s something a bit surreal about divorcing the clips from context like this.

#171 Slightly boozy flummery music with slight wah-wah mocking:

#172 When you really need to pack excitement and resolution into nine seconds:

#173 Busy morning that leads to a moment of relaxation when the chores are done:

#174. Triumph and happy vindication that comes at no one else’s expense:

#175 I know this is new:

#176 Again, leaving the dialogue in makes it seem peculiarly cryptic.

#177 Finally! The end of the sequence that uses funny old car-horn sounds:

#178 It’s the second violins that carry this one - the melody under the melody.

This episode is hilarious, by the way; I was listening to it this morning - while doing rote work - and thought "I should give her a call." I thought that once before and she called me that evening.

Missed a phone call this afternoon: it was Peg.

Let's see what kind of Jell-O week it is this week! Take it away, Don Wilson:

That's it for this week. Column up here; scroll down to the COLUMNS pane.