Opening Pandora's Box, Volume III- NSP Radio

From The Commons on Flickr. Most awesome photo and hat, ever.

It’s been a week of Pandora Radio listening, and I have held true to my goal. Even though I’ve reached for iTunes many times wanting to hear a specific song, I have focused my listening completely on Pandora. Which really, really sucks when you want to listen to some pure background music but have to hear some blaring Guns and Roses track for the millionth time in your life instead.

As noted in my last installment, Pandora focused almost completely on indie rockers for the first 10 songs, with some classic ultra-soft rock thrown in for good measure. The only songs that picked up the tempo much were screechy alternative kids trying to sing, but failing miserably. The station was turning out alright, but I wasn’t exactly impressed so far.

The Mighty Boosh Makes My Day Bright

Today's blog post was short because I was busy producing the physical catalog for our latest auction. I manage to put them together in record time, but it pretty much wrecks any creative juices I have for a good period of time. When I feel tired and drained, I just need something silly to lift me back up again. Lately, that thing has been The Mighty Boosh.

It's a thoroughly bizarre British television show that makes little to no sense, even if it does have a plot line every episode. It's also apparently airing on Adult Swim now, though I prefer it in its original, unedited form. The series follows Vince and Howard, two lifelong friends of completely different outlooks on life, that somehow manage to continually encounter surreal, psychedelic adventures and not die in the process, all while never learning anything from it.

Sometimes the humor is downright twisted, but other moments are just pure, simple pleasure, like the "crimp" (short, A Capella song) above. Now I just need to find a bouncy castle to celebrate another project's (near) completion.

-------------Gabe

The Heat Goes On

From the Commons on Flickr.

Nicole and I have received many different responses to our plans to move to Florida. While most everyone is supportive, we still receive some advice and information that’s meant to make us consider our choice more closely. One of the top things we hear out of everything is “You know, it gets really hot in Florida.”

On the surface is a true statement, though one that’s bleedingly obvious. I’ve been to Florida in the summer, and I have experienced the heat. Yes, it was hot, and I did sweat a lot. However, this statement of hotitude also implies something else, that Florida is so much hotter than Indiana. Bull chips.

The Art of Screaming Seagulls- A Winona Lake Evening

Yesterday, Nicole and I made one of our ventures off to nearby Winona Lake. This may seem odd, since we currently live in an apartment across the street from a lake. The big difference is that while our lake is packed with houses and has no real beach to speak of, Winona Lake has a nice beach, a canal filled with turtles and fish to watch, and an entire artist’s colony known as the Village at Winona. As mentioned before, it’s one of the few places I’ll truly miss when we move to Florida.

The Village at Winona has a whole collection of random stores and restaurants packed into a few blocks. There's a barber (who happened to be on vacation, apparently).

Opening Pandora's Box, Volume II- The First 10 Songs

Public Domain painting by John William Waterhouse. Found at http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pandora's_Box.jpg.

To recap, I am only listening to music on my computer through Pandora internet radio this week. This is in attempt to see if I can train a station to actually work with my musical tastes. They are so disparate and random at times that I wondered if the service could truly adapt. Supposedly, Pandora learns what you like in music and plays only things that match up to those preferences.

I decided to record my first 100 songs played, just to get an exact idea of the music presented early on in the process. I also made sure to rate every song in that first 100 as like or dislike, to make sure I gave Pandora plenty of data on me to utilize. Technically, you’re only supposed to like something when you like “all parts” of it, which I started to do when it got past that first 100. As a side note, I do in fact like all parts of “House of the Rising Sun,” and give a little cheer when it comes on the radio.

Halloween Horror Nights and the Fear Sombrero

This is a real chicken, for representative purposes. Photo from The Commons on Flickr.

As I’ve mentioned, Nicole and I plan on making a trip to Florida in October to scope out our new habitat. I also want to spend a few days at Universal Studios while there. Unfortunately, this will be during their annual Halloween Horror Nights. This scares the crepe out of me.

I am a chicken. I do not find this a major fault. Yes, a coward may die a thousand times, but at least I live to die again and again. And really, it’s kind of cool to say you’ve died a thousand times. Sounds like something a Norwegian death metal singer would claim, right before a bandmate stabs him. Seriously, those guys are terrifying enough to be exhibit #1 why running and hiding is almost always the best plan of action.

Opening Pandora's Box, Volume I

I was following and commenting on a post on Twenty Sided (a blog by the guy who brought us DM of the Rings, one of the greatest web comics ever) about the Pandora music service. For those who don’t know, Pandora is a high-minded internet radio service that attempts to define the traits, or genomes, of all songs, and then learn what exactly you like in music. Theoretically, this will result in radio stations that play exactly the kind of songs you’ll like. I mentioned how I hadn’t had much success so far with the service, but honestly it was mostly because of underuse.

The only problem is that I’m already dedicated to another service that tracks my iTunes usage, Last.FM. However, Pandora is more sophisticated at the base level, and allows you to see what it is you like in music. As someone who once had delusions of being a music writer, I find it’s my duty to discover exactly what I like in music.