Music Minutes by Year 2

It's been a couple of years since I last charted the number of minutes I had of music from each year. I've bought a number of albums in the past couple of years, including several jazz albums, which was previously not something in my collection. I like jazz, though I prefer to listen to it live; still, with my parents traveling with me for a bit and with their absolute hatred of contemporary music, I had to find something we could both be satisfied with. No show tunes or big band for me, no alternative rock for my parents, so jazz it was. Let's see how the years fared:

Looks like the 1990s are still where most of my music collection resides, with a fairly heavy drop-off in the 2010s. There's been a small uptick in the 1980s collection, probably because I've been replacing tapes with CDs where possible. I could suspect several reasons for the current drop-off in CDs: digital online music means that used CDs for contemporary music are more rare (I buy most of my music from used CD bins); I'm less familiar with contemporary music (indeed, I listen to college radio less than I used to, as it has been overrun by stupid talk shows; I go out to see bands less frequently than I used to; and I pay less attention to music blogs than I used to); and there are fewer music stores at which to buy music (again, I still tend to buy CDs rather than downloading, which means that a number of artists' new works are still on the to purchase list, since the dearth of local record stores means I can only check one or two venues to see if an album is in stock rather than five or six as I used to be able to).

Amount Saved by Place of Abode

I wanted to see how much each place I've lived has contributed to my savings, as it's likely I'll spend down much of this in the upcoming year. Here's the amount compared by percentage:

The amount I lost in Mississippi isn't surprising, except maybe in the fact that it was so little: I was in graduate school and had to live very cheaply. Texas didn't treat me very well, it appears, as my nearly five years there actually led to a negative cash flow balance.

Amount Saved by Decade

I wanted to see how much each decade has contributed to my total savings, as it's likely I'll spend down much of this in the upcoming year. Here's the amount compared by percentage:

What I hadn't realized? Just how bad the 1990s were for me financially. They actually made a negative contribution to my life savings!

How Far the Team I Was Cheering for Advanced in the Playoffs

So baseball season is nearing the World Series, and this year my home team (well, home when I was a kid) made the playoff hunt. I have my sets of favorites, and I was wondering how, in general, the teams I cheer for have done in the playoffs. Even though there is no direct correlation between my cheering and the team winning or losing, I'm curious to know how my "luck" and the "luck" of my teams has fared:

Looks like if I'm cheering for the team, you have a good chance of winning the division series you're in, but if you're aiming to win the pennant, your chances are less than fifty percent what they should be statistically, and the World Series the same.

Church Retreats

Each year I attend a convention held by my church. I've done so since I was a baby. I only remember the locations from age five on. I've gone to sites outside the United States six times (to Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, and Spain). Here are the states I've been to and how many times:

What I Did This Weekend

The weekend seemed to fly by, and I didn't--as often seems to happen--accomplish near as much as I would have liked. In fact, I feel like the weekend was to a large extent wasted. Let's break it down then by activity, starting from 5:00 p.m. on Friday until 8:00 a.m. on Monday (63 hours total):

After looking at the chart, I can see that I wasted almost five hours online--not really accomplishing anything, just scouting around (although part of that time was spent looking for jazz music to play in the car on an upcoming trip, so not a complete waste). Still, I can see that I treat the Internet much as I used to treat television--and that in turn is why I rid myself of television. Sometimes I think I might do myself a favor by ridding myself of the Net; the problem is that the Net is much more interactive and useful, so it's not as easily abandoned, given that it's the main way I stay in touch with some people. Still, far too much time is spent essentially doing the equivalent of watching TV, so this is an area where I need to improve.

More Spam

The spam at work seems to be getting worse. It's not even going into the junk mail folder most of the time anymore, which makes for a lot of wasted time deleting stuff. I read how one company actually did away with e-mail because of how much time it often wasted. Alas, e-mail is probably my favorite way to communicate at work, and possibly anywhere. I don't think I'd like that. Here are the spam totals from a few days in August.