without a "box" joke

I was setting up to write about sci-fi web sites I read regularly, and somehow wound up at Pandora instead. I haven't tried to push it too far yet, but when I gave it the name Sigur Ros they started a stream that does, in fact, all match in style.

OK, I spoke too soon. After 5 tracks, the music stopped, and there's a box that says "It's taking longer than expected to figure out the perfect song to play next." They also mention, in tiny print at the bottom of the page, that they are only for U.S. listening, due to the DMCA.

Oh well. I suppose I can download stuff from bittorrent if the notion of background music becomes compelling enough.

While I'm near the topic, let me recommend Foobar2000 as a music player. It's small, efficient, and thus far, hasn't caused my firewall to freak out and warn me of mysterious attempts to contact the mother ship. In fact, the first time it tried to contact the internet was just now when I gave it the address of a stream to play. I notice this in contrast to the default player, which continually tries to contact the outside world in spite of my wishes.

I had a long bitch about word processors in this part, but deleted it. I'll say that, given the state of the art of word processing software, I've discovered a fondness for pen and paper, and lament that I let my typewriters out of my grasp.