B’s brain on iTunes

I was listening to music on my iPod this morning while also doing chores and housecleaning, and I found myself following many different streams of thought triggered by the different songs one after the other (I had the iPod set to shuffle). It occurred to me that doing this intentionally from time to time while also writing about whatever came to mind triggered by the music might be an entertaining experiment.

I was toying with the idea when the song, Lou Reed – Satellite Of Love, came on. And what was triggered in my mind was a memory, not related to this particular song, but related to another song by Lou Reed. I remembered stopping by the place where my friend Finley worked years ago in Warrenton. I forget exactly what the place was called, but the gist of it was that it was a convenience store that you drove up to and the cashier came to the door and took your order and then got what you wanted. You didn’t have to get out of the car, although you could walk up too.

Anyway, in my memory I was just hanging out there and drinking a soda and the song, Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side, came on. I don’t have any idea why this memory sticks in my head. It wasn’t the first time I ever heard that song, but for whatever reason I just remember being in that place and hearing that song on the radio.

So there I was this morning, listening to Satellite of Love and thinking about Walk on the Wild Side and recalling that memory, when what should come on next but Walk on the Wild Side. Now, I don’t know what the odds are of that—I’ve got over 600 songs on my ipod at this moment, so I guess the odds are somewhere in the range of 1 in 600 when the iPod is set on shuffle, which it was.

I’ve decided to take this as a sign that I should do what I was thinking about and write and let the music lead the flow. Right now this isn’t a true example of it, but I thought I’d recount the origins of the idea, and I expect I’ll try and do a true instance of it in the very near future.

But right now I’m going to watch some more of this football game. Panthers are up 14 to 3 over Green Bay at the moment.

Couch time at approximately 45 degrees from yesterday

This is two weeks in a row when I didn’t get up and ride my bike on a Sunday morning. And it looks like it’s a lovely morning outside. I’ll probably regret the missed opportunity in another week, but for right now I feel kind of like I’m in a recovery or rebuilding time. Like I’m taking a little time off the recharge the enthusiasm.

So I spent this morning lying about on the newly re-aligned sofa. Marcella and I re-arranged our living room yesterday afternoon. We really didn’t plan to do it, but we got back from running errands, and I pulled out the vacuum to do a little cleaning and I was looking at moving some things around to get the vacuum around efficiently and I just started eyeballing spaces and thinking about what would fit where, and then Marcella asked me what I was thinking about, and soon we were moving the furniture. That’s how it goes. I think the sofa was rotated about 45 degrees, and the entertainment (TV) center was moved along to be centered on the big wall instead of in the corner. I feel like we’re making more use of the living room and it feels a little less crowded.

While lying on the newly rotated sofa, I’ve been checking out events on facebook, and listening to some music…just a random mix from iTunes, and working through some spanish flash cards. There are a couple of my current vocabulary words that I’m having a hard time keeping the articles straight…is it an “el” or a “la?” I did let everyone know that I’m taking a night time spanish class once a week, didn’t I?

If anyone is interested in seeing what I’ve been listening to this morning just click the “Lifestream” link at the top of the page and look for the entries with the little red icon next to them. Like I say, it’s just a random shuffle of songs from my iTunes library.

For the rest of the day I’m thinking there is more house-cleaning on the horizon. There’s always a litterbox to be cleaned. And I also want to spend some time reading. I read about half of Fragile Things last weekend, based on Finley’s vote as to what my next reading project would be. I’m hoping I can make some more progress this weekend. I was enjoying it, but somehow didn’t manage to read much during the week. There’s also the possibility of a little chess playing over at chess.com. I’ve got games going with Finley and Scott at the moment, my two most frequent opponents.

Well, I think that probably sums up my Sunday…past and future. What’s up in your world?

Speaking of Music

Check out this article at marketwatch. It seems that Starbucks and Apple are teaming up again to give away a song a week starting this week.

Visit your local favorite Starbucks and let me know if you find these cards with the song code. Not a bad way to find some new music, I guess.

I’m not sure if I’m really interested in a few of the artists that are mentioned, but I’ll give them a try. I’m also unclear whether the songs will be DRM free or not.

I found this story first at TUAW, which in turn linked from iLounge.

Music online

I’ve been trying to listen to a little more music recently, and find new artists and songs. I signed up yesterday at Last.fm. It is a social music site. Basically it recommends music based on your listening habits and according to what others on the site with similar tastes listen to. They’ve got a bit of software to download, although you don’t have to, and that syncs with their website and communicates what you are listening to with iTunes. Eventually it builds up enough of a history that it makes recommendations of other music it thinks you might like.

But that’s not all it does. You can also type in an artist and it will play a song by them, but then it will keep going playing songs of a similar or related type. The idea is that you will discover something new.

And finally there is the social aspect. You can check and see what other users are listening to, and as you add friends you can see what they are listening to and communicate about what you like and share songs with each other and so forth.

It is a neat idea. I’ve got to spend more time playing with it to see how good a job it does at making recommendations, but I already had some fun by just typing in the word “blues” and seeing what songs it started playing for me. I did already dump my iTunes play history into it, but I haven’t yet got it sorted out with my iPod.