What Happened to my Girl's Computer?

June 6, 2006 11:31 PM

Incredibly strange happening last night. Is my girlfriend's computer haunted? Does my house have a gnome/stalker? Some language possibly NSFW

Ok, so here is a very strange story that has no readily apparent explaination. My gf was over at my place last night working on a project for her anthro class and was up particularly late. I went to bed, and about two hours later she joined me, leaving my two housemates up for another few hours. I get up early the next morning to go to work, and all seems normal. About 8:00 PM tonight the lady calls me and says "Big Boy Nut Sack, huh?" Naturally, I am confused. Turns out that when she went back to her computer (12" powerbook G4), the name of the CD in her computer had been changed to "The Sack Chronicles," the artist to "Big Boy Nut Sack" and the genre to World Music. Originally, the album was titled "beat," and no other fields were filled in. She thought it was a clever prank played by us boys on her unsuspecting computer, but this is simply not the case. None of us have any idea what the deal is with her computer, or what the meaning of these changes could possibly be. These changes were only performed in iTunes, and not the actual files if that matters. The best guess we have now is that someone did it in their sleep, but that seems like a pretty intricate task for a sleepwalker to perform, and none of us have a history of sleepwalking, especially when sober. And what of the bizzare track and album titles? Do these mean anything to anyone? Have iTunes tracks ever changed for no good reason on anyone else's computer? Am I a goofus for even asking these questions?

posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice to grab bag (12 comments total)

Automatic CDDB lookup, perhaps?
posted by roomwithaview at 11:45 PM on June 6, 2006

occam's razor says this is your housemates making the changes and not fessing up to it.
posted by juv3nal at 11:59 PM on June 6, 2006

I think roomwithaview is right.
posted by Venadium at 12:03 AM on June 7, 2006

the housemates did it
posted by bd at 12:04 AM on June 7, 2006

Roomwith a view and Venadium, I thank you. So, here's what happened: My house has no wireless network, so when she put the CD in there was no attempt to name it. When she went to class, however, the campus network must have kicked in and done a CDDB search without her noticing. The one track on her CD (it's an interview) must have matched up with The Sack Chronicles enough to allow CDDB to take a shot in the dark. Strange coincidence, but there it is. And so continues the strange promotion of Big Boy Nut Sack's magnum opus. Follow up question: anybody heard it?
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 12:15 AM on June 7, 2006

I went to bed, and about two hours later she joined me, leaving my two housemates up for another few hours.

It was your roomates.
posted by sophist at 1:14 AM on June 7, 2006

I think roomwithaview is right.
Fair enough, but given the nature of the band name/title (and the fact that neither term returns any relevant results with a google search) we could hardly be faulted for thinking the housemate prank explanation more likely.
posted by juv3nal at 2:46 AM on June 7, 2006

If you have ANY internet connected computers at home, I still vote housemate prank. Put the CD in the drive, submit it to CDDB as Big Boy Nut Sack, put the CD back in the laptop, and poof, you have an untraceable prank. Unless CDDB lets you look up when a particular artist/CD combination was submitted.
posted by antifuse at 2:49 AM on June 7, 2006

juv3nal : if iTunes uses Freedb or another "open" CD database, it's entirely possible that this is real.

If you burn a CD of a single song or whatever, you can name it and submit it to Freedb. When I've burned single song audio CDs for clients in my studio, and then put the CD into iTunes, it often pulls up truly bizarre hits for that track.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 3:52 AM on June 7, 2006

BBNS needs better PR.
posted by grabbingsand at 5:42 AM on June 7, 2006

I have had iTunes pull up incorrect track information before, so that isn't a surprise.
posted by drstein at 12:05 PM on June 7, 2006

Was your network connection secure? The little shit next door called his computer BIG POON. We changed it to "you should be ashamed of yourself, you limp little prick.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:34 PM on June 7, 2006