My iTunes Favorites List…
You can tell a lot about people when you can associate them with a group of disparate items that they handpicked. I like looking at what people have in their shopping charts when they’re standing in the checkout line at the supermarket. Is their cart full of fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen dinners, alcoholic beverages, junk food, and/or ice cream? Do they buy individual spices, or do they buy blends? Paper or plastic?
The same goes for music playlists. In my iTunes Top Rated list I have less than 10% of the more than 2000 songs in the entire library. The erratic list includes such different artists and songs as:
- Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer
- 20 songs by The Beatles (about an 8th of my entire favorites list)
- an even greater number of Disney-related tunes
- classic rock from Elton John, Billy Joel, Elvis Presley, Pat Benatar, and Sting
- relatively more modern rock from Huey Lewis and the News, Duran Duran, Fine Young Cannibals, and The Cars
- several island-ish hits from Harry Belafonte, English Beat, and Jimmy Cliff
- a few hick tunes from artists such as The Judds and Toby Keith
- lots of electronica from artists like Erasure, New Order, Information Society, Yello, Yaz, They Might Be Giants, and Propellerheads
- a few James Bond theme songs to get the blood pumping
- oldies from Simon & Garfunkel, Nancy Sinatra, and The Monkees
- select tracks from vastly different movies as Moulin Rouge, The Goonies, and Cool Runnings
- pop staples that include Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, The B-52’s, and George Michael
- a surprisingly vast number of relatively new artists including Aaron Carter, Baha Men, Christina Aguilera, Hilary Duff, Jessica Simpson, and Shakira
The same holds true for other collections. My web browser favorites list is just as muddled — including topics such as the game World of Warcraft, genealogy websites, recipes, obscure Celtic art, web design, blogs, 3D modeling, craft projects, and soap-making techniques. My bookshelves hold science fiction classics, fantasy novels, a year’s worth of Maxim, medical dictionaries, the Latin versions of Harry Potter Year One and The Cat in the Hat, tomes on obscure word origins, unusual historical references, a 2662-page English language dictionary (the last definition is of zyzzogeton), and two entire shelves are crammed with technology-related guides and manuals.
It appears that my library, my web interests, and musical tastes are all equally sporadic, erratic, and eclectic. What does that say about me?! 
