Pandora's Box

My new favorite Internet thingamajig: Pandora.

This is so, so cool.

Haven't you been frustrated with the recommendations that you get from, say, iTunes? I have. "Other people who bought this also bought..." helps me...not at all, because my interest in / love for the song amounts to a lot more than genre or artist. Just because I like Lauryn Hill doesn't mean I like ALL hip hop, and I can like one OutKast song and hate all the others. (Same goes for you, Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com: Just because I once bought "A Brief History of the English People" doesn't mean I want to buy EVERY BOOK YOU HAVE about British history.)

Pandora looks beyond genre and artist and captures the *mood* of the song by filtering it down to the fundamentals: rhythm, melody, harmony, vocals, lyrics, key, cultural inspiration... This makes perfect sense to me. Bravo to the Music Genome Project.

New pictures!

Well, old pictures, but maybe new to you: Wadi Rum, Petra, and various iftar activities in Jordan. More to come, but not for a few weeks.

Distraction

Introducing: Google's newest way of distracting us.

Now you can, for instance, find out that far more people in the Philippines and Ireland googled Pope John Paul II than in the US, but no one really cared much about googling the pope until he died. People in Halifax really like Oprah. And Britney Spears has been on a downhill curve in popularity with only a few spurts when something exciting happens, like babies. Besides that, more people in Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Portugal, and Finland care about Britney than in LA. (Besides that, they wanted the news in Danish, Spanish, and Swedish.)

Think of all the wonderful things you can explore when you should be working...

WMATA

Dear Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority,

I realize that summer is approaching and the outside temperatures are rising. However, this does not mean that all the metro trains need to have the air conditioning set to 40 degrees.

Thank you.

We Are Scone Models

This weekend:

Lisa came to DC! We ate scones on the Mall!



Life is good.

Summer Means ... Farmer's Markets!

10 Reasons to Eat Local, posted on the Eat Local Challenge blog.

Community Supported Agriculture : What it is, why it's good, where you can find it in your area.

Every city has Farmer's Markets, right?

If you're in DC and you're interested in home delivery, sign up here.

Spread the word!