Video Game Music Mayhem:

I found out I was missing some songs from my FF8 and FF9 libraries.  A lot of them were in my music folder but not on itunes for whatever reason.  This disrupted everything again, and it's been music mayhem ever since.

Finding the proper ranking for all these new songs is difficult, but so is figuring out who to demote in order to make room.  And if you demote a guy from the 6 star list, that means demoting a new guy from the 5, 4, 3, and 2 lists as well.  The issue just cascades.

Having checked the first 20 seconds or so of every song on every playlist, just to familiarize myself with the song and make sure it belongs on the tier it's in, I can say I've finally got this beast back under control again.

My 6 star tier remains more or less untouched by all the activity going on beneath its feet.  It did receive the new FF8 song 'Find your way' and the new FF9 song 'Unforgettable Face' though.

My 5 star list is composed of:

26 Chrono Cross
6 Chrono Trigger
15 FF 1 & 2
24 FF 10
8 FF 10-2
63 FF 11
49 FF 12
24 FF 14
14 FF 15
12 FF 3
14 FF 4
9 FF 5
6 FF 6
18 FF 7
24 FF 8
46 FF 9
1 FF Crisis Core
6 FF Tactics Advanced
32 FF Tactics
2 FF Type-0
11 Lunar 2
10 Lunar
4 Star Ocean 3
2 Ogre Battle
15 Ogre Battle 64
5 Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis
30 Tactics Ogre
13 Tales of Berseria
28 Tales of Destiny 2
4 Tales of Destiny
10 Tales of Eternia
10 Tales of Graces
6 Tales of Hearts
5 Tales of Innocence
3 Tales of Legendia
8 Tales of Phantasia
6 Tales of Rebirth
5 Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk
22 Tales of Symphonia
21 Tales of the Abyss
1 Tales of the Tempest
8 Tales of the World
13 Tales of Vesperia
3 Tales of Vs.
5 Tales of Xillia 2
10 Tales of Xillia
19 Tales of Zestiria
9 Xenogears
11 Xenosaga Episode 1
1 Zelda

366 FF, 203 Tales, 131 other.  It largely mirrors the 6 star list but just with slightly worse songs.

My 4 star list has 204 FF, 464 Tales, 32 other.  It's basically the 'good Tales music' playlist.  Everything at this level is still very solid.

My 3 star list has 331 FF, 275 Tales, 94 other.  This list specializes in shorter songs, which makes it less epic than the ones above it, but by no means hard on the ears.

My 2 star list has 202 FF, 392 Tales, 106 other.  This song primarily hosts my FF 13 and 13-2 songs, my Xenosaga 2 and 3 songs, and a bunch of relatively bad Tales songs.  If I'm in the mood for it, these songs can be catchy.  Usually there's better hunting elsewhere though.

My 1 star list is where unlistenable songs go to die.

So long as I don't discover major new gaping holes in, say, my FF 10 music collection, this should do it.  Minor changes will still occur regularly, but I don't foresee any more of these gigantic sea changes.

What's great is I've managed to corral 4 playlists of 700 songs I have zero complaints with, and a fifth of 700 songs that's still better than nothing.

If you start at my childhood when I first started listening to Final Fantasy music, and then move up to my recent Tales listening project, then to my grand music melee, and finally to my constant editing since then, this has been the work of a lifetime.  I finally feel like it's complete and completely worthy now.  Up until earlier today neither of those statements were true.  It's just been a marathon.

Meanwhile, the press is trying to get Trump unelected via fake news.  There's no evidence Trump or any member of his team did any crime, so it's impossible for him to be obstructing justice when no one's even accused of anything.  It's also impossible for Trump to leak confidential information because he can declassify anything he wants anytime he wants, he's the president.  But the news just keeps screeching anyway.

Let's make this simple.  If the press/judges/FBI/whoever can remove Trump from office despite the people putting him in there, then this country is not a democracy.  Our elections are just as much a sham as Saddam Hussein's were.  If there's some greater power than the President, the Senate, and the House all going republican, and in the end that greater power makes all the decisions in this country and the elected representatives can do nothing but bow down and lick their boots if they want to stay in office, then we are no longer free and this is no longer America.

"land of the free and the home of the brave."

Remember that country?  Well if we allow our freedom, our democracy, to be plucked away from us like this via these evil instruments of tyranny, then we're clearly no longer brave enough to be worthy of it.  Because that brave part is what comes next if they take our free part away.