Opening Pandora's Box

This afternoon I was sitting at La Spiaza (my fav coffee shop in Downtown Wheaton). I was supposed to be doing homework and writing curriculum, but I was beyOND distracted. I'm not sure what it is, but I need a certain balance of privacy and stimulation when I have to concentrate. If I stay home, there's privacy... but there's also a lot of stuff to distract me (DVD's, wii, Shannon, books, Tivo, my Rubik's Cube, Keena). That's why I usually head to a coffee shop when I have to concentrate. There's privacy in anonymity, but there's also enough background noise to keep my mind from going numb.

But then I have those days when the balance is almost impossible to strike. Either, I keep getting distracted by listening to the random conversation’s going on around me (I’m nosy… sue me), or I get annoyed at the typical annoying coffee-house music playing. It’s usually some combination of classical music and obscure indie artists… so as to make all of us coffee-house junkies feel like we have ‘artsy-indy-street-cred.’ Well, today was one of those days. I was caught between two women gossiping about the pastor at their church and a mix CD of Death Cab, Flyleaf and Dashboard.

I just needed something interesting enough not be annoying, and discrete enough to ignore. I though I’d give online radio a shot (as I didn’t have my iPod and I have only Podcasts on my computer). I did a Google-search for ‘streaming radio’ and found this lovely website.

Pandora.com
Most streaming music sites I’ve visited are simply radio stations streaming their shows (commercials and all) on the web. This is completely different. It’s JUST music. And the best part, you can pick the artists you listen to. Today, I created my own ‘radio station’ and filled it with music I thought would help my situation. But about 3 songs in, I started hearing songs I did NOT know… but really liked. The website makes decisions for you based on the artists/ songs you’ve chosen! I have to say, the website figured me out pretty well (ironically, the website wanted me to listen to a good amount of Death Cab).

And an hour later, I still had yet to do any homework…