the goddess of rock

At work, with the help of my new headphones, I've fallen in love with my goddess of rock, Pandora. R told me about it recently, but I totally spaced, which happens often. More recently, one of my coworkers told me about it because she was trying to make a contact with the people who started it and suggested that maybe we do a story on it. Since I'm obsessed with work, I tried it out immediately, and immediately, I fell in love.

It allows you to make your own radio stations based on a band or song that you really liked. I was trying to be clever, but not too obscure, so for my first station, I opted for the dearly departed Meat Puppets as a starting point. The first song Pandora played me was a track off of Huevos, and I was impressed. However, during our first meeting, Pandora could only whisper her sweet nothings to me through the rattiest pair of headphones in the known universe. One of the speaker arms was broken and latched precariously to the headset via old electrical tape that had all but lost its tackiness, so that it took on a somewhat slimy and gummy consistency. Also, neither of the speakers had its factory-issued felt covering, so when I wore the headphones, the hard plastic dug into my sensitive ears. They're sensitive, dammit. They didn't sound very good either. But I put up with it, basically because I'm broke and really, really lazy.

For Christmas this year, I asked only for one thing--a nice pair of headphones. Nothing too fancy, just something nice and comfortable with good sound. Santa Parents responded with a pair of Sony MDR-V150 Dynamic Stereo Headphones. Compared to where I've been, these things seem like heaven. I can even hear bass. Bass!!! And the separate channels of the stereo are dynamic (as the name would lead one to believe). The best part is, though that the ear pieces are lined with two ring-shaped cushions. I'm wearing them right now, and I'm not even listening to anything! They can also get pretty loud if I want them to, so I'm able to drown out office noisiness and transport myself into J world, which is where I like to spend most of my time.

Anyway, the Meat Puppets station is working out even better than I thought it would, and today was particularly mindblowing. I heard "Negative Creep" by Nirvana, two songs by Hot Snakes and the most perfect song ever created "My Sharona" by the Knack. I think on a subconscious level, every song I like follows the same structure as "My Sharona," or at least, I process the song in my brain so it sounds like "My Sharona." I don't know what's going on, to be honest. It's just amazing. Anyway, I've also been turned on to a couple new tracks, well, new to me, that I really like. The best one being "Sheila" by the Georgia Satellites, which is the band that did that country-ish song "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." I really liked that song growing up, to be honest, but "Sheila" doesn't sound anything like it. It's more power pop and rocking without the kitschy twang. It's super super good.

While I was at lunch, I got a phone call from my friend back home. He and his wife are having a baby (well, she is, but you know), and today they had the first sonogram. It's going to be a boy. I tried to convince them to name it after me, but I don't think that's going to happen. They're going to go with Lucas instead. The nerve. I'm really excited about tricking this kid into calling me uncle, though. One of the women I work with also had a baby recently. In fact, she had it on New Year's Day, and it was actually the first baby born in the county, which made the TV news and the front page of two papers.

In March I'm going to have two new roommates, but luckily, I won't have to move. If I did, I'd probably just leave the state, because I think it's ridiculous having to move three blocks away from your old place. This will be the first time that new people will be moving into my house. I've only had experience filling spare rooms in other people's homes. I'll try to keep the suspicious glances to a minimum.