Well, now I’m addicted to Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/). For those who haven’t messed with it, it’s a pretty simple thing to understand. It’s one of, if not the only front end for the Music Genome Project. You can find out more about that here http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml if you’re interested. But here’s how they describe it:

“Over the past 6 years, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.”

But to me its like having a friend who has the exact same musical taste as I do, but that friend knows more about music and has listened to more music than I ever could. It really allows you to create free online radio stations that only plays songs you like. From a technology standpoint it has to be one of the most en genius use of the Internet I’ve seen in a long time. You just put in a band or a song and it finds and plays similar music based on something like a quadrillion criteria. And here’s the amazing part: it actually works. Plus, when it plays a song that it thinks you’ll like, you can give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. So you’re basically teaching it what you like. The longer you listen the more accurate it is in guessing what you’ll like. Amazing!

Now, I started out one station with Squirrel Nut Zippers and after a while ended up listening to Cornbread Nation, which seemed odd, so I click this little button and it tells me why its similar to Squirrel Nut Zippers. Sweet! See, I have this thing where my taste in music seems, uh, arbitrary at best. Everything from Ska to Rufus Wainwright, Macy Gray, etc. It’s just weird. And then there’s music that I don’t know what in the hell it is or if it even has a genre, like, say, Tom Waits album Bone Machine. It’s really hard to find something similar when you’re out that far into the musical abyss. As a result, I end up listening to the same 5 or 10 albums for years because I never stumble across other similar stuff - well not any damn more!!

I know this service has been around for a while, but with my attention being on wheel borrows and electrical wiring I’ve sort of fallen behind in technology things. This really is a great find though since I spent all day listening to it while I was working on the drawings for remodeling my shanty. Which, I should mention that Punch! Home Design - Architectural Series 4000 is the shiznat! It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to use but you can model your house and actually walk through the model in 3-D which is nice when you’re remodeling. Sometimes I feel like its kind of a waste of time and I should be actually working on the house but I know it’ll save me money in the long run.

Speaking of saving money, the ol’ guy across the street is tearing down his house and said I could have his brand new gutters that’ve only been up about 2 years and are in perfect condition. It’s really about the nicest gesture to me. I’ve felt so isolated and alone in this whole house project. No one comes by (not that I blame them - sometimes I don’t want to be here) and everyone’s so busy that its difficult to find help and even more difficult to work alone. Overwhelming at times really…Standing there with a crowbar looking at the chimney and thinking ‘God I hope that big bastard doesn’t fall on me’. Eh, everyone’s over worked and exhausted lately.

I went out with an old friend from work yesterday and he’s moving back to Malaysia. Work visa problems, rebuilding stress, and here’s something I didn’t think of, he has a young daughter (less than a year old) that’s been plagued by respiratory and digestive tract problems ever since they came back to the city. The kid was otherwise perfectly healthy. So there you have it: Malaysia heads; New Orleans tails; and we lost the coin toss.

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2. katrina made normal people do strange things.
3. New Orleans Cuisine Post-Katrina
4. “All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario”
5. Worst Tourist Trap