da | Quitting time

The auto shop called and our car is finished, done in two days instead of four. Yay. Total cost to us, $50. Work done: replacing 'O rings' (was Richard Feynman my mechanic? Dunno.) and everything having to do with the 5th gear. They're open till midnight, so I'll probably take the bus down there shortly.

I'd hoped to leave work before dark, but I was getting a lot done, so I stayed. This end-of-term crunch is a pain; but at least I think it's mostly all doable.

Over the last two days, instead of listening to my mp3 player at my desk, I've had a pandora.com station going (thanks again

joymoose!) It works like audioscrobbler/last.fm, you give it a starting song then vote thumbs-up and thumbs-down on subsequent songs, then save the results as "stations". It's Flash-based, so it works fine on Linux. My dance-music station has given me close to a dozen new bands to try, so I'm quite happy. My favourites: Assemblage 23, Johnny Vicious, and George Acosta. And a new Moby track I like, and Paul Oakenfold has a cover of U2's Beautiful Day.

"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features use of call-and-response vocals, melodic part writing, a tight kick sound, a highly synthetic sonority and prevalent use of groove"

Um, yeah. Just keep the music coming. Oh, and you can drop that "groove" thing. I don't "groove".

Thank you.