The Love of My Life; Spotify.

"May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung. And may you stay forever young."
- Bob Dylan

Perhaps I haven't mentioned it yet, but I love Spotify.

A tragic thing happened to me last semester where 50% of my iTunes songs went missing. They were still listed in my library, but when I attempted to play them, I would get a little "!" along with a message that said the file couldn't be found. I think these were mostly songs that I had uploaded to my library without backing up with a file on hard drive somewhere...so of course, the fault is all mine. It was around this time that Spotify surfaced. And because I wanted free music that I could organize into playlists, I jumped on board. While I don't own any of these songs (so I can't burn them to CDs) I can listen to them from any computer that has Spotify (like at work) and an internet connection.

What I came to find in Spotify was the perfect music discovery platform. So, I hear a song on the radio that I love and I think: I gotta look that up. I search: "Blue on Black" and get a list of results. The first listed song is the one I want so I listen and drag the song to the appropriate playlist: "Get Yo' Craft On" and "Cruise". Then I look to the artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd. I don't know him, but I like this sound. So I click his name, which is a link to his artist profile. Here I see is discography, with the most popular songs listed seperately at the top. I click the next most popular song and scan his Biography as I listen. Once, I've read, I decide I don't like this song as much and click on the next popular song as I scan the related artists. I can click on some related artists and explore from there, or I can "Start Artist Radio" and continue my work while I listen. Simple as that, I'm finding new artists and songs that I would have never found otherwise.

Individual songs are one thing. I very rarely find an artist that I just love everything they do (Matchbox 20, Frightened Rabbit, Miranda Lambert, Mumford & Sons, Tom Petty), but songs, I love at least one from almost everyone I hear. These are the artists though, that I found or were fed via Spotify and actually like a gaggle of their works:

Agnes Obel
Audra Mae
Birdy
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Bobby Long
The Bonfire Band
Dan Auerbach
The Devil Makes Three
Donovan
Ed Harcourt
Good Old War
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Ha Ha Tonka
James Blake
Joe Pug
Johnny Flynn
Kenny Rogers (no, really)
King Charles
Langhorne Slim
The Lumineers
Manchester Orchestra
Mick Flannery
The Mountain Goats
Pearl and the Beard
Pistol Annies
Ryan Adams
The Steeldrivers
Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers
Talking Heads
Trampled By Turtles
Turnpike Troubadours
Van Morrison
The Wailin' Jennys
The White Buffalo

I recognize that these aren't like obsure, cool, unknown, hipster artists. But the point is, you have to fine new (to you) music somewhere and these I found on Spotify.

With the offering of Apps, Spotify conslidates all kinds of music programs to suggestion new recommendation, organize playlists, keep you up-to-date on new releases, etc. I haven't quite mastered the use of Apps, but I am trying. I use Filtr, Last.fm, Top 10 and We Are Hunted. But I don't use them very well.

There are some downsides to Spotify, besides the inability to burn or transfer the songs to an iPod. While it advertises itself as being a "social network", it is not set up very well for this kind of interaction. There is a feed of what your friends are listening to, but these "friends" include all of your Facebook friends. And sorry, but I'm not interested in your Wiz Khalifa playlists. Furthermore, you can't comment, or like anyone's activity within the actual program (you can on Facebook). This is such a disappointment, because that's where I get most of my musical inspiration. I love to creep the playlists of (the three) people (who's music I actually like) and find new artists. But Spotify does not make it easy.

Another downside is the pathetic search result. First of all, I'm a god awful speller. And the Spotify search engine has the reading level of a second grader. Where Google knows what I meant to type, Spotify won't give me any results for "Miranda Lamberty"...and I think it's pretty clear what I'm looking for.

Like Pandora, there are the occasional advertisements; a little more occasional than Pandora, probably. They run in doubles and are very repetitive. I'm not entirely opposed to advertisements, but play me something I want to hear and don't play it on repeat. Furthermore, the advertisements are very general. I have a very specific musical taste, that I should be able to help advertisers target me directly...play music I like in the background, create a profile according to musical taste, reference artists I listen to. I KNOW interactive advertising is advanced far beyond what Spotify is doing and if they really want to make their ads effective, they'll get up-to-date.

The Wellness Initiative

I'm trying to get my life together.
At work, one of our intern projects is developing a wellness intiative for employees to participate. We have a newsletter, a Facebook page, a series of events and a kind of log to track your wellness. I designed these things for the initiative:

Back to me. I never really care about my health. At all. Any of it. But I have always liked the challenge of following a program. In our wellness committee (at work), we discussed that personal wellness involves more than just eating healthy and working out. This kind of blew my mind. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of it before, but I just never did. So. I went home, got inspired and came up with my own wellness proposal. These are the categories and the goals within each category:

A) FITNESS
- run on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday (attempt to increase milage appropriately)
- 100 abs and 40 arms every day
- participate in an extra activity once a week (ultimate frisbee, sand volleyball, tennis, wiffle ball, etc.)
B) DIET
- attempt to eat healthy (includes cutting down on snacking, eating smaller portions, minimal desserts, plan meals as to not eat out constantly)
- no Coke
- 5 to 8 glasses of water a day
C) ALCOHOL
- maximum of one drink a day
- 2+ drinks allowed on two nights a week
D) FINANCIAL
- $25 to spend on food or alcohol (besides at the grocery)
- $10 to spend on extra
E) EDUCATIONAL
- minimum of 30 minutes a day reading
- minimum of 30 minutes work towards online class daily
F) SOCIAL
- initiate an activity with a friend who is not in my immediate circle (Casablanca residents, Taylor, Allie, Trever) at least once a week
- text someone different and unexpected once a week
- write a letter each week
- complete at least one blog post per week
G) CULTURAL
- once a week watch at least one movie from my list
- check followed blogs daily
- spend 30 minutes of the day researching current events
H) GENERAL
- be asleep before midnight on week days
- take vitamins
- be at work on time

And of course, I will reward myself for these accomplishements:
1 month of success or improvement = 2 Cokes
All summer of success = Road Trip to Chicago
1/2 Marathon Complete (Sep 22 in the Roots and Blues) = iPhone

To track my success, I made this at work:

Can you even read this? It's cool. I promise...

Another thing. Check out my Tumblr! I just got one and I think everyone should get one...so it makes mine seem less pathetic. Abbie has one two. Follow us!

Sweet Sweet Saturdays

Oh the sweetness of a Saturday in Summer...

Abbie and I rose early this morning, bound for Olean, Missouri and the world-famous Testicle Festival. We had heard raves about this event from our Eldon friends and decided we had to see for ourselves...and OH BOY were there things to see:

THIS was the line for the one food truck serving turkey testicles.

Proof. We came, we saw, we balled.

There they are! Taste kinda like chicken, with a funny texture
...then you realize what's in your mouth :/

Our second snack of the day...

Fried Twinkie and Oreos, surprisingly good.
Though overwhelmingly sugary

Thank GOD they were selling bed sheets...?

Where did I park my bike??

Abbie finally got her kettle corn.

And I got a sweet shirt.

Needless to say it was eventful. We had to leave early to get home and get Abbie back to work, but the "backroad" I was so sure would take us back to 54 was a little windier than I imagined. However, the ride was beautiful and we jammed to Third Eye Blind until we got her to work.

After I dropped Abbie off, I got a craving for some antique shopping. I don't think you can really understand how much I love to just wander around huge, roomless buildings filled with things that other people have used and are now attempting to sell. It's a game. Find things that are worth more to me than the price someone has declared them worthy. It was my first time at the Mid-Way Antique Mall (only open on Saturday and Sunday) and it was thrilling...I shopped for four hours. Here are my conquests:

Game Day Dress = $10

Rug to Become a Satchel = $1
Click to see the inspiration

Set of Drink Glasses = $1

Trever's Birthday Gift = $5

Taylor's Birthday Gift (Set of 4) = $3

Addition to My "Ginger" Collections = $9
(the second to last one on the right)

Simple Silver Bracelet = $1

Coral Beaded Indian Necklace = $5

As you can see. I was definitely a winner. And I'm counting on the fact that neither Taylor or Trever even read my blog, so they'll never know what they're getting.

I came home and stressed over this ridiculously difficult video I made as a guest post for Emilie Bell's Blog. It's a cooking blog, you see. But I don't actually have any cooking skills, so instead we decided I would make a specialty of mine...drunk omelets. The filming went well, but when I tried to upload the files to iMovie (which is a depressing transition from Final Cut Pro) it simply would not read the format (.mpg). I ended up having to convert it just so it would play on my laptop and then FILM the FILM with another video camera I have and uploading it from there as an .avi file. Just ridiculous. And as the video exports to iTunes, I just realized that I spelled "omelet" in the opening credit. I'm going to kill myself. Anyway, look for that lovely gem a video in the future.

Goodnight to all!