Pandora

Thanks to my college friend, I have discovered Pandora Radio. This has to be the greatest thing ever! Just choose a genre and Pandora plays an endless stream of music. All free. Free of cost, free of mindless commercials, free of annoying announcers making sexist fart jokes, free. I'm listening to Bebop/Combo jazz now. Thanks to Pandora, I might actually finish this consulting project that I'm working on.

You can also choose an artist or song, and Pandora will magically play music by that artist or music that sounds like that artist. You can bookmark music so you can remember what you liked. But, before you think that the folks at Pandora are musical communists who believe in equal distribution of resources, they don't let you just listen to specific songs whenever you want. No, you need an iTunes playlist for that. On Pandora, you hear it once, then it moves on. But, Pandora provides an easy link to Amazon or iTunes so you can buy the song with one click of the touchpad. Ah, capitalism.

Check out Pandora at: http://www.pandora.com/

With Pandora, NPR podcasts, BBC News online, and DVDs on Netflix, I offically declare my independence from the oppressive TV and radio schedules that used to dictate my life. I am no longer tied to the arbitrary whims of media moguls who think they know what I want to watch and when I want to watch it. I am no longer at the mercy of radio DJs who sound like the boys I avoided in high school. Farewell to four-minute blocks of commercials with scantily clad women gyrating over a shiny car while men drink beer and tell fart jokes. As God is my witness, I will never listen or watch on someone else's schedule again! (Until I quit working to watch the Top Chef season finale at 10PM tonight.)

Pandora is the greatest thing ever. According to the website, there's a gizmo that will let me stream Pandora through my home stereo. What more would I need? This must be what it would be like to find the Holy Grail, and I didn't even need to know the windspeed velocity of an African swallow.

Yes, I'm still watching a 17-inch TV and my home phone doesn't have caller ID. And yes, I realize that many of you probably found Pandora years ago. Call me a dinosaur, I don't care. I can't hear you over Pandora.