I recently discovered Pandora.com.  Basically, it’s internet radio.  You put in some bands or songs that you like as seeds to your “stations”, then it plays stuff it thinks you’ll like based on those seeds.  As it plays songs, you can give them a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to let it know further what your tastes are.  And it’s all free and legal and the only ads are on-screen ads (i.e. no audio ads that you have to listen to).

I was skeptical at first, but I’ve been using it for a while and I’ve been surprised at the number of times it has presented me with a song from a band I’ve never heard of but which I actually liked.  For someone who hasn’t purchased a CD (or acquired new music in any form, really) in something like three years, this is a pretty great way to find something new to listen to.  And it’s much better than real radio.

(I’m going to start ranting now.)

I really don’t understand why radio stations insist on playing the same twenty or thirty songs over and over again.  With the internet being around, music distribution is so much different than it was even ten years ago.  The industry can support so many more bands, because music can be recorded, produced, and distributed digitally at a fraction of what it used to cost.  It seems like a radio station could easily fill a 5-hour rotation with only music recorded in the last year that is decent that fits the station’s genre, without repeating any songs.  Not that I have anything against music that is more than a year old; I’m just saying there is lots of music being made all the time which is at least decent, so I don’t see why I have to hear crappy Nickelback or Papa Roach songs every time I turn on the radio in my car.

Seriously, who really wants to listen to Chad Kroeger sing about his sex life?

I just watched a TV show (Chuck) which featured a sepia-toned flashback to the summer of 1990.  Although I was only eight years old at the time, I distinctly remember the world consisting of more colors than brown.

So I mentioned in a post over two years ago that I was going to start reading The Chronicles Of Narnia.  Well I just finished them over Thanksgiving break, and I thought I’d share my thoughts.

First of all, it didn’t take me two years to read them, I just read a lot of other stuff in between.  Especially after I finished The Silver Chair, I think it was over a year before I went back to the series.  I can easily say that it was my least favorite book in the series.

As Jonah mentioned in a comment on that post, the books were not written in the order in which the story takes place.  The Horse And His Boy and The Magician’s Nephew were written after The Silver Chair, but before The Last Battle, although the stories take place much earlier in the Narnia timeline.  I think The Magician’s Nephew needs to be read next-to-last to be properly appreciated.  There’s just too much in the story that you wouldn’t understand or appreciate if it was the first Narnia book you read.  Of people I’ve talked to who have read the series, they either didn’t like The Magician’s Nephew at all, or they liked it but only when they read the series for a second time.  I thought it was great, which is probably because I read it next-to-last.  Reading The Horse And His Boy where it is presented chronologically, however, is probably not going to detract from the story.

I will avoid spoilers even for this fifty-year-old book series (although, really, isn’t there a statute of limitations on spoilers?), but I have to say I was disappointed with the treatment of one character in particular.  Seriously, I think this character must have been named for a person who C.S. Lewis really liked when he started writing the books, but while he was writing the last book this person must have run over his dog, repeatedly.  The ultimate treatment of this character was just unnecessary.  In a way it reminded me of the gratuitous demise of Chef on South Park.  If you’ve read the books I’m sure you know who I’m referring to.

(Actually, I’m avoiding spoilers because Stephanie is reading the books now, so don’t leave any spoilers in the comments please!)