Ways to manipulate time between posts

Frequent readers may be familiar with these tricks. They start by dating this post April 11, which is most certainly is not. And the tricks mostly end there too.

You must believe that I am writing between posting what I write, and that posting just takes more time. One falls behind. You must believe it because you have nothing else to stand on. But I have a list of topics here beside me, and we will work our way through them over the next "10 days" to bring you up to date. You're going to have to pace yourself here, because it could be another 10 days before I reappear.

I am having trouble keeping up with my own blog reading -- with whether Sparky has been born, or Karen's heart will mend, whether the Orange family has survived school break, or Diesel has gotten trapped inside a nap-pod. [you see what I did there - tried to distract you with links] My point is, I know how it is to get attached to a site like a weekly series and then find a month full of REEpeats. (You have to accent the first syllable, southern style. Perhaps I should launch a "2-parter," or a very special episode.)

Blogging takes longer than you think, which is your punishment for using it as a verb. I have just spent 45 minutes on 3 paragraphs (because I too was distracted by linking). This is another reason I list before blogging. Besides listing being so sexually invigorating, it helps me organize my thoughts, links, pics, and balance a nice long post/short post cadence. Everything I needed to know I learned from yearbooking. That is not a post. Just a sad fact of my life.

You are on your own for how you manage this windfall. Pour coffee and read straight through, ration yourself, read first/link later (Arthur Link-later. Kids blog the darnedest things), give up on this entirely because certainly blogging is dead by now, isn't it?

Let me use the rest of this space to go on about Pandora.com - where music and geeks meet to form "interactive radio." If you are tired of online radio buffering interruptions and AOL-XM's "parents the anti-drug" commercial campaign (soon they will just say, "hey, a*****e, get off the computer and find your family."), you may wish to explore Pandora.

Why "Pandora"? I don't know, but nothing good ever came from opening that box.
[Sketch Idea: Pandora the Explora. Go]
But here's the concept: the Music Genome project has mapped popular music by style, and not just overlapping Grammy categories, but actual arrangements, like G-funk synth line" and "chromatic harmony."

You start with an artist or song you like (I chose Robert Goulet - oh yes I did) and the genome starts branching. Your job is to trim and steer by giving thumbs up or down to selections in order to isolate the gene. If you are bored already, I'll stick with their tag line: "only the songs you like!"

I learned that Robert Goulet radio was not enough Broadway and too many standards, so I split the gene into "Showtunes radio" by adding Julie Andrews, Judy Garland, Howard Keel (come ON, there is not enough Howard Keel on the radio), with frequent pruning of Andrew Lloyd Webber required -- because I just plain hate Phantom of the Opera. "Standards radio" became where Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Diana Krall go.

So here's what else I am listening to - designed and maintained by DJ Me.
Billy Joel radio - 70s balladeers who do occasionally rock it.
Nancy Griffith radio - trad-folk singer/songwriter chix
House o' Blues radio - self-explanatory
Merseyside radio - a Beatles base with Monkees, Hermits, and a dash of Decemberists
Jars of Clay radio - contempo christian/sensitive new age boy guitarists

There are also some pre-sets to enjoy - like AOL without the commercial breaks. In the drawing-in row, we like Bubble Gum classics. Bobby Sherman, where have you been?

Must start my day. More to come through the weekend... er --- week of April 11, because, yeh, that's what day it is.