goddess of clarity: a blog about politics, culture, and serenity

Archive: March 16 - March 31, 2007

March 21, 2007 —18:28 EDT

Yesterday a friend of mine turned me on to this completely amazing site called Pandora. It's been around for nearly two years, so you may already be familiar with it. But it was new to me and I only wish I learned about it sooner.

The idea is this: you enter the name of a song or band that you like, and Pandora creates a free, online radio station of music based on that song or band. You can create multiple radio stations, share them with friends, give individual songs a thumbs down if they don't fit your taste, even buy the song from iTunes or the CD from Amazon.

Pandora is powered by something called the Music Genome Project, which maps several charcterstics of the song or band you enter to its vast music library to generate your own personal radio station. It's one of those beautifully simple ideas that the Internet makes possible in our lives. Better living through networked databases!

This afternoon, I typed in "Union of the Snake" and got the following tunes in rapid succession:

• "New Moon on Monday" (Duran Duran)
• "It's Alright" (Pet Shop Boys)
• "Melting in the Sun" (INXS)
• "Touchy!" (A-Ha)
• "Some People" (The Fixx)
• "Your Love" (Midtown; punk 80s remix)
• "Playing with the Boys" (Kenny Loggins)
• "Funkytown" (Pseudo Echo)
• "Success" (Sigue Sigue Sputnik)
• "The Politics of Dancing" (Re-Flex)

Retro, party of one!

—lori.

March 19, 2007 —14:31 EDT

Three Haisku* : The Iraq War

When a butterfly
(Ballot) flaps its wings, chaos
Storms across Iraq.

How to celebrate
The fourth anniversary
Of a huge mistake?

No good way to leave,
Can’t stay either—can we
Call a “do over”?

*Many thanks to Fishsuit for the clever pluralization.

—lori.

March 16, 2007 —12:07 EDT

So how are everyone's NCAA brackets looking this morning? (I'm shocked—shocked!—to find that gambling is going on in here!)

I lost one of my final four picks in the opening round (every year I pick Gonzaga and every year I wonder why), but other than that I'm lookin' pretty good. I got the VCU upset over tournament whipping boys Duke. I'm tied for fifth place in a pool with over 135 participants, so that's not so bad.

Now I just need to hope for my next upset pick—Albany over Virginia—to pan out this afternoon, and I'll be laughing! Albany very nearly toppled #1 seed UConn last year, they're returning three starters from that team, and Virginia should prove more of an even match for the Great Danes with their guard-dominated offense. Go Danes!

(Oh, and if you think I understand a word of what I just said, think again. I just get swept up in the $2 excitement.)

—lori.