If you're in Bemidji on May 4...
...go to the premiere of Doing Anything, the latest from Aaron (Robert) Reini. It'll be good. Visit Aaron's blog for more info, and for some good reading material.
April 2006
My Music Sources
I'm a big fan of music. At least, I like to think so. I know there are others who know more, have more, go to concerts more, whatever. But lately, I've really been into new music (or, at least, new music to me). I've probably bought seven or eight CDs in the last two or three months. That's more than I've bought in the three years before then. I've got another six or seven on my wishlist, too. I've gotten most of my music at CD Warehouse lately. Costs a lot less, but it's sometimes tough to find what you're looking for.
I think a big part of my reason for buying so many CDs is that I'm not so much into downloading music anymore. In the past, if I liked a song, I'd download it. Now, I'll go out and buy the CD. And while I do like iTunes for my music library, I'm not likely to use their store (unless it's for the free music they do every once in a while. Here's how I find out when they're giving something away.) The reason: I've got an iPod on loan from work, but when that goes away, my other MP3 player doesn't support iTMS's DRM. I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of music that I can't take with me. And I don't want to go through the hassle of burning them to CD and then ripping them back down to MP3s.
The other great place I've been finding music is Last.fm. I don't really understand how it works, but it's basically a custom streaming radio station. You can have it find similar artists or use "global tags" which have been set by other users. It also plugs in to iTunes to see what you've been playing, which helps it know what other stuff you might like. I've been hearing a lot of Counting Crows, Ben Folds, Death Cab for Cutie, Iron and Wine, and the like. Even a little bit of Johnny Cash, which I've really been enjoying. I'd highly recommend it.
New Car
Well, it's certainly been a while since I've posted. And a lot has gone on in that time. I've been really busy at work, I moved my Mac Mini out to the living room so I can listen to some sweet music out there, we've seen a couple of movies, and all that jazz. But the big news is that I got a new car. My parents bought a new minivan, and when they did, they sold me their 2002 Intrepid. I'll try to get some pictures up in the near future.
On a related note, I'm selling my old car. It's a 1994 Pontiac Grand Am in somewhere between fair and good condition (Blue Book-wise). I'm asking $1500 for it. It has about 161,000 miles on it, I just had the brakes worked on, and the tires are less than 2 years old. They're in pretty darn good condition. It runs well and has been pretty cheap. A good college car.
And, on a completely unrelated note, Mandy asked for a recipe for Tequila lime chicken the other day, and I haven't had time to write it up. But I got it off of Digs Magazine, and you can find the recipe here.
