Sights & Sounds

Daily Dose of Music – Pandora

Sights & Sounds /

Thanks to Apophenia I’ve been playing with Pandora aka the Music Genome Project. Right now it is only for invite and if you’d like an invite just let me know and I can send you one!

Pandora runs on your browser so you don’t have to download or install special software and it doesn’t run on Real Player or anything like that. You can have it open in a full browser or in a small “player browser”.

You create your own stations by entering the name of a particular artist or song and it creates a station made up of music that are “similar”. Some of the stations are right on and others are a little odd. They have a lot of Indie musicians, but no Melissa Ferrick. Oddly enough, they have Suzanne Buirgy.

There are no commercials at all and you can skip songs. There’s a menu for each song that is playing where you can find out why they’ve chosen a particular song for that station. You can also say “I really like this song” or “I don’t really like this song”. If you indicate you don’t like something, they won’t play it on your station again.

I like it better than the Yahoo Launchcast but am still not sure I’ll be willing to pay for it when it becomes a paid service.

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Daily Dose of Books – Meme

Books in Bed, Memes and Quizzes, Sights & Sounds /

Profgrrrrl posted this little Book Meme. I’m amused that I got Animal Farm. I’m an Orwell fan, much to Michelle’s chagrin since I made her read 1984 last year (and watch the movie, too). As much as I like this “hopelessly idealistic to tragically jaded” and agree that it is ME, I’m sort of sad that I didn’t get Lolita. I miss my “old image” sometimes. 😉



You’re Animal Farm!
by George Orwell
You are living proof that power corrupts and whoever leads you will
become just as bad as the past leaders. You’re quite conflicted about this emotionally and waver from . Ultimately, you know you can’t trust pigs. Your best moments are when you’re down on all fours.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

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Daily Dose of Education – Homeschool

Kid Talk, Sights & Sounds /

For months now I’ve been reading the homeschool mommies (you can see some of my favorites in the blogroll on the right, just scroll down) talking about their curriculum and school plans for the fall. And they’ve been sort of driving me nuts with this.

Driving me nuts because they have such great plans laid out. They’ve chosen interesting curriculum. They’re excited! I, on the other hand, have one 15 year old, (10th grade), homeschooler who is getting most of her learning courtesy of Florida Virtual School. Sigh.

Part of me loves this, no worries about planning or teaching curriculumn that is just not my strong suit (Maths, Sciences, Spanish) and part of me hates it because these people have COOL IDEAS!

I wouldn’t be sighing so much if Michelle was actually HOME and we were really doing school but she isn’t. She’s doing her schoolwork, some of it, while in NJ but the fun stuff that I’ve planned, (Or Michelle and I have planned), hasn’t started yet because she’s so far away. No daily world religion, no new books to read and write about, no SAT of the day fun stuff and no journaling. I’m feeling totally unfulfilled by homeschooling at the moment and the homeschoolers are making it worse!

You didn’t know that homeschooling was intended to make the homeschooling parent feel fulfilled? Ha, you don’t know much about homeschooling do you (or if you do, you aren’t honest about it then). We’ve only been doing this for about 15 months but I have really loved it, even when the child has driven me crazy with her music or her rambling or her complaints about not getting enough “socialization”. Ha, that socialization in public school is why we pulled her out! 😉

I’ll feel better once she’s home, and I’ll probably overwhelm her with all of these cool things I want to do and she’ll lock herself in her room for a couple of days to punish me – gosh I can’t waittttttttt!

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Daily Dose of Music – Ani

GLBT, News and Politics, Sights & Sounds /

There are about ten posts I want to make, maybe even need to make, and here I am writing about Ani of all people/things. What is up with that? I can’t even say it is because Michelle is asking me if she can use Ani’s poetry for her honors American Government assignment on Ayn Rand’s Anthem. I was already thinking about writing about Ani before Michelle woke up!

Anyway, what was I thinking about? A whole muddle of things, which makes sense because Ani is a whole muddle of things, isn’t she? First, the poor thing can’t tour because of some pretty severe tendonitis. I know there are a whole lot of disappointed people out there but I’ve not been all that impressed with her shows. The first time I saw her, with her band, there were some annoying chicks standing next to us and that might have colored my experience a bit. The second time was at Calliopefest without her band – boring, boring, boring.

And since I’m blogging about Ani, I should mention PBS is rerunning the River of Song series in some areas. I’ve never seen it so maybe I should just see about getting the video or something?

And then there’s the song “4th of July” song that I keep hearing on this Yahoo Launchcast station that I listen to. What CD is this on? I’ve owned them all and been a fanatic over them all at various points in my life and this one has just never caught my ear before.

Oh and if that’s not enough Ani rambling, I need a baby just so I can dress her in this, lol. I don’t think it would suit the heir to the throne, darn it.

And none of this Ani stuff actually led to anything, except that it’s felt like an Ani sort of day. Maybe because I’m not feeling very “user friendly”, something Ani also isn’t. Maybe because I miss my kid again. Mabye it’s all of the Choice stuff flying around the Blogosphere – who can think pro-choice and not think of Ani?

Whatever the reason, I felt like an Ani post and that’s probably reason enough.

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Daily Dose of Kids – Questions

Foodie, Kid Talk, Questions and Answers, Sights & Sounds, Travel Log /

After dinner at the Cuban Cafe around the corner we walked to the other end of the strip mall and popped into the independent bookstore that TW is always begging to go in. (I don’t generally agree because we spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars that we do not have on books! We just got out of debt and I’m not ready for a $500 book spree yet. Ask me again in a few months).

While in Goerings, TW gathered books for me to peek at and put on our library reserve list (I love my library) and had The Kids’ Book of Questions in her hand. The library definitely wouldn’t have that and you can never have too many question books on the shelf if you work in community and live with the woman who built The Question Library, so I bought it. After that, ice cream. (Ugh, the chocolate dipped key lime pie was not a good idea for me.)

While enjoying the ice cream and driving the kids back to the “blue house” TW asked the kids questions. Of course, the over-used and much-hated (by me) question “If you had a time machine and could travel either back or forward in time, which would you choose?” came up. I groan everytime someone asks that question on a message board. I’d rather have someone ask me if my boyfriend will kiss my stretch marks than hear that question. (I don’t have a boyfriend but if I did, he’d better or he wouldn’t be my boyfriend.)

J of course said he would travel back and take over the world so that when he returned from his visit he would still be the ruler of the world. Typical. Boring. I hate that dumb question.

E would go back in time and see how the dinosaurs really became extinct. (What is it about her and dinosaurs lately, weird and I forgot to show her the cute 3 kid circus dinosaur vblog entry today, darn it) Again pretty boring and typical and I really hate that dumb question.

Then, there’s RJ. She’s 9 and I love her. And she finally gave an answer I adore. It’s even better than Blaze, Debra Ginsberg’s son (Raising Blaze) who wanted to travel through time to the Ace Hardware Store, just because that’s where he wanted to go.

RJ said – she wanted to go back to when the earth was created and find out once and for all whether it was a big bang, evolution or creation or WHAT. Ha, nice new answer. One I’ve never heard. One that’s worth going back in time to discover the answer to.

Gosh I love that question now.

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Daily Dose of Anger – Starved

Diet and Exercise, Health and Wellness, Pet Peeves, Sights & Sounds /

I was seeing posts about this “new TV show about eating disorders” mentioned on message boards I was reading and wrote a note to remind myself to check out Starved. I’m glad I waited til after I was officially finished working. Had I looked earlier, it would have ruined what has been “Nancy White Day” around here and made it very difficult for me to keep on working. I’m just that ticked off about this.

* The picture on the network page was enough to trouble me. Not funny.
* Watch the preview clip. A man obsessing over the scale, an anorexic man, maybe the fact that he’s a man is supposed to take the edge off since most people don’t associate anorexia with men? Whatever, not funny.
* Then, we see him eating chocolate cake out of the trash, confessing to his support group and we see a woman in his support group say “If you were a dog, I’d kick you in the face.” Not funny (and where are the PETA people???)

There is NOTHING funny about this, nothing funny about eating disorders. Imagine all of the people out there who are hiding their eating disorders, it is a well hidden illness, having to sit through this show while their family members laugh. All of those people suffering in silence because they are afraid to tell people who love them. Those people won’t be laughing and they won’t find it any easier to tell once the first episode is over.

I don’t generally encourage people to boycott television shows or write to networks but today I am. Join the NEDA and tell these people what you think.

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Daily Dose of Books – and food? and memories?

Foodie, Memories, Sights & Sounds /

I am not a foodie, let me make that point right up front. TW and my job have done an excellent job of allowing me to get a fairly respectable score on foodie tests but I am really NOT a foodie. What I am though, is someone who has learned to find memories through food and that is something that I was never able to do before.

I’ve asked a million foodie type questions in my life and I’ve encourage thousand upon thousand of people to connect their memories to food and address emotional eating issues but as many have noticed, “Denise rarely answers her own questions.” It’s true, I don’t. And in the case of food and memories questions, it is generally because I didn’t have any decent answers.

But now, I can read a book like Garlic & Sapphires, (which I truly enjoyed, except for the ending), and not say “huh?” And I can read a really good book, like The Language of Baklava and almost relate! Well ok, maybe relate isn’t the right word.

I can read these passages about family dinners and father’s cooking and do more than see a hazy memory that brings nothing more than a shrug followed by the “what’s the big deal? People are weird. (That is generally what I’ve done when reading these types of books and message board posts, too!). I can now think back to Plain Grandma and Grandma-Grandma in the kitchen bickering back and forth while making Beef n Noodles and I see what the big deal is. I can immediately get the giggles when I think about me and my brother going around for hours on end saying “pork chops and applesauce” in poor imitation of that Brady Bunch boy every time my mother told us we were having pork chops for dinner. I can smile and chuckle at the memory of my mother making fried apples for us after seeing the episode of Family Affair where Mr. French made these while trapped in a blizzard (the episode is called Marooned).

I may not be able to pull up long rambling memories of exactly what people ordered at a particular restaurant 15 years ago, like TW and her family can, but I do have some very good family food memories!

And by the way, The Language of Baklava brought back more than just family food memories. It reminded me of the time I was on a children’s television show with my brother and friends. That Happy Raine memory just came tumbling back right there in the first chapter of Diana Abu-Jaber’s book. And I enjoyed it, almost as much as the family and food memories.
Pst, I’m not really a Debonair Diner, as suggested by the Foodie Quiz,  but I do a good job of playing one on the internet! 😉

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Daily Dose of Music – and Silence

Kid Talk, Melissa Ferrick, Pet Peeves, Sights & Sounds /

For years I worked from home and insisted on doing so without music in the background. The TV was fine, it wasn’t a distraction. I even spent a couple of years looking forward to working with MTV’s The Tom Green Show and Loveline (I miss Dr Drew and Adam!) in the background. And then there was the .wav fixation, that lasted for all of about 3 minutes. But other than that, silence was my preferred work environment, (or as much silence as you can get with a house full of kids and animals).

That’s all changed and I blame Michelle. She came home from school one day in April of 2004 and never went back! Along with all of the craziness that comes from having a teenage daughter home all day and attempting to home school her and work at the same time, I somehow acquired a need for music while I work! I didn’t even notice it had happened until she went to NJ for the summer and the silence surrounded me!

Well wait, that’s not really true, I knew something was missing when she left but assumed it was just “her” and not the more specific lack of music. I realized it was the music that was missing when I landed on the Yahoo Launchcast Radio page after exploring Yahoo 360° for my boss.

Before I knew it, I’d programmed my own channel, (which I don’t really like because it won’t let me program down to some very specific artists), and then all of a sudden I was listening to the Melissa Ferrick Fan Station all day long while I worked. Ah ha, so this is what was missing! It wasn’t Michelle – it was Melissa and Ani and MUSIC!

And so, all was right with my work world – except for an overabundance of Indigo Girls and Bitch & Animal and a curious amount of Dar Williams (Who may be from the Boston area, (like Ferrick), and may be a folk singer, (like Ferrick), but is really not the same TYPE of musician as the majority of others on the Ferrick “fan station”. Yahoo has created some interesting play lists, that is for sure!).

But alas, something bad happened today – I ran out of “free” airplay and am now floundering around wondering what to do. Do I pay the ghastly $2.50 a week in order to hear too much Indigo Girls and Bitch & Animal? Do I muddle through with a station that I’m really not enjoying? Do I track down a radio station that might be better? Do I grab some CDs and try and find some routine of changing CDs so I don’t find myself listening to The Other Side or Massive Blur over and over again?

I have to do something! I can’t sit here in silence, Michelle will be back in a week or so and we’ll be back to music all day and then I’ll struggle to get use to that all over again.

Kids are trouble.

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Daily Dose of Books – I can’t wait!

Sights & Sounds /

I cannot wait to read the latest! And no, I’m NOT talking about that troubling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, either. (Though while I’m thinking about it – would someone tell the dude who edits the copy for advertisements at my local radio station that the title of the book is NOT Half-Blooded Prince??? It’s driving me nuts! And while you’re at it, could you tell the guy who reads those ads that the it’s SAUSAGE not SAUSICH! If neopets every gives me a free prize code for buying SAUSAGE biscuit, I’m not buying it ’til that dude learns how to pronounce the word!) Oops, sorry I rambled…


I’m talking about the latest DEXTER novel! Dearly Devoted Dexter is due out on the 19th and I cannot wait to read it! I soooo loved Darkly Dreaming Dexter and have been chomping at the bit for the latest gorey installment!

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