Last year's collection is now available to HOB fans whose mailing address is known to the author.

This year got off to a slow start after the wget script started misbehaving. Somehow one of my favorite bits of code was commented out:

oldIFS="$IFS"; IFS="
";

This causes the list of wgotten mp3 files to be parsed by line, rather than by space. Without it, my working directory was sprayed with dozens of annoying empty file fragments, each one having the name of a single word in an mp3 title.

That's fixed now, and auditing of 250 new tracks began last week. This produced so few picks that I began to doubt the adage that (only) 99% of what's on the internet is crap. The best of the worst:

Jim Noir: Don't You Worry

The Postal Service: Brand New Colony fair warning: contains 8-bit indy pop

There were also inordinately many drunk/drinking songs this time, many of which I tracked down to one generous post. Here's the only one I kept from the lot:

Tom Waits: The Piano Has Been Drinking