Hijinks Inc.

Author: Dave Sack

  • Hijinks Reviews: TuneUp

    Are you one of those people who rip CDs without taking the time to name each track? Or maybe you are one of those individuals who doesn’t exactly buy most of your CDs, you simply acquire them from various locations online, which can lead to a very jumbled messed up music library. Perhaps you have a friend who gave you a large collection of music, but he labels it all differently than you do.

    Whatever the case, there’s a number of ways your digital music library can get screwed up beyond all recognition. I know mine is, and it’s due to all of the reasons I listed above. Enter TuneUp.

    I don’t remember how I stumbled across this iTunes plug-in (now also for WMP), but it’s freakin’ awesome. I threw everything I had at this thing and it probably fixed over 90% of it with ease, some of the albums were ‘Unknown Artist – Track 01’ and it still found the right CD, correctly updated the metadata, added the cover, and even gave me a few YouTube links about the artist. I emphasize the word correctly because I tried other programs and ended up having a number of my CDs mislabeled, which only complicated matters. The few times TuneUp missed on it’s first try, it gave me a few options of possible matches, and I was able to get it set straight right away.  You can even customize the program to fit your desired naming system. I haven’t gotten through my entire collection yet, but it was almost unmanageable before, and this makes pretty quick work of it, all with drag and drop ease.

    You can try out the demo, it will help you through 100 song clean-ups and up to 50 cover art saves. I can safely tell you though, if you have a library that needs some work, you will fall in love with this plug-in before the demo runs out. I don’t like paying for computer programs, but this is definitely worth the price. They’ve even provide quick and timely customer service.

    I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to get through my entire music collection, if you want to whip your music collection into shape in a hurry without the headache, don’t bother with anything else, go get TuneUp for PC or Mac.

    TuneUp Media

  • This Week In Sports Tomfoolery: Let’s T.W.I.S.T. Again (July 27-July 3)

    If you’ve read my terrible joke of a headline and still chose to glance over the article, I’d like to take a moment to thank you. With the World Cup wrapping up and the football season still about 2 months away, this is the painfully slow portion of the year for sports fans, I feel your pain. Here’s your quick hits from the world of sports:

    NBA

    There’s some talk that the 3 big free agents in this years class (Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, and some dude named Lebron), the ones half the teams in the NBA have been preparing to get for the last 2-3 seasons, may all end up in Miami. This free agent class is perhaps one of the best of all time, and if Miami can indeed fit those 3 under their salary cap, they’ve locked up title contention for the foreseeable future. As much as I’d like to see this, I think there’s a better chance Bosh and LeBron end up in Chicago with someone like Carlos Boozer ending up in Miami with Wade. I’m still holding out hope though that at least LeBron and Wade end up together somewhere. And the latest rumor has Wade interested in Chicago!

    NFL

    Brett Favre has been throwing to the local high school receivers again since late May (which is becoming a yearly tradition in this ‘will he or won’t he?’ saga), and he went and had the surgery he’d need if he wanted to continue playing… let’s face it people, the man is coming back. He might be the first NFL player ever to die of old age on the football field. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – UFC 116 Aftermath

    The greatest heavyweight fighter of all time fell last week to a triangle armbar submission. This week the two best heavyweights the UFC has to offer went toe to toe and one of them was bound to be knocked out. So of course that’s not how it turned out!

    Quick Recaps

    Win or lose Lesnar was going to walk away from tonights fight with 10 times more money than Carwin. Carwin owned the first round, taking the fight to Lesnar in a big way, but he completely punched himself out and Lesnar managed to survive into the 2nd round. Lesnar easily took Carwin down early in the 2nd and was able to keep the fight there for the rest of the round until he submitted him to hang on the the belt. Lesnar probably gets Cain Velasquez next in a title fight. (more…)

  • Saturday’s Shenanigans: Recent Entertainment News

    Welcome to the first edition of Saturday’s Shenanigans, another series I hope to bring you on a regular basis. I’ll just bring you some quick takes on some of the recent news from the entertainment world.

    I’m sure most of you know that Spider-Man is heading for a reboot and we now have our new Peter Parker: Andrew Garfield. Yeah, I’ve never heard of him either. On selecting Garfield, director Marc Webb said, “Though his name may be new to many, those who know this young actor’s work understand his extraordinary talents. He has a rare combination of intelligence, wit, and humanity. Mark my words, you will love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.” Yeah, let’s hope so, otherwise you won’t have a chance to screw up the 3rd movie like the old group of guys did.

    It looks like we’ve come full circle and Peter Jackson is now slated to direct The Hobbit, which will be split into two films. He was initially planning to only work in an ‘overseer’ role, but really, it just makes more sense for him to do this thing on his own. This movie is still a very long way from making it to your local theater, but in my opinion, this is a big step in the right direction.

    Steve Carell plans on leaving The Office after the upcoming 7th season. The Office used to be my favorite show on television, but it’s really been lacking over the course of the last year or two. It’s time for them to call it a day. I’ll hold out hope that they can get the show turned around with him and then continue without him, but I don’t see any way of them making the show work without Michael Scott. It still wouldn’t surprise me if they tried. If this is, in fact, the end, it will be sad not seeing Pam, Jim, and Dwight up to their regular antics along with the rest of this outstanding cast.

    (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin

    Even though this card features a title unification bout, I’m not particularly worked up about the card this weekend at UFC 116, but that’s hardly the UFC’s fault. They originally had big names like Wanderlei Silva, Nate Marquardt, and the Ultimate Fighter 10 winner Roy Nelson, but a variety of things went wrong and they had to be replaced or moved to later events. Perhaps some of the biggest news regarding this event is Chris Leben filling in for the injured Wanderlei Silva and fighting on two weeks notice, after winning Knockout of the Night at the Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale on June 19.

    As the event stands now, we’ve got 5 match-ups on the pay per view main card and 2 preliminary fights to be aired live on Spike TV, check your local listings for time and channel information. Here’s the lineup per Wikipedia:

    Main card

    After a pedestrian 2-2 on my picks last week at Strikeforce, I hope to fare a little better this time around, although I’m going with quite a few underdogs. I’m picking Carwin over Lesnar, Leben over Akiyama, Brown over Lytle, Soszynski over Bonnar, and Sotiropoulos over Pelligrino.