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Sometimes Your Musical Robot Algorithm-Fueled Jukebox Actually Gets It Right

It’s a snow Monday (damn it) here in the Philadelphia suburbs and a two-hour school delay for my kids, so I honestly needed a little something to kick me in the butt and get me going this morning. Thank goodness Pandora was feeling my need and kicked off the morning playlist with this classic white-boy boogaloo college party rave-up some of us actually remember from 1979. Although I really wouldn’t recommend dancing to this in the shower.

It was a great example of the perfect song at the required time, something that I always thought human DJs should aspire to. Thus, it always bugs me a little when real radio people ignore the needs of their listeners by playing downbeat songs at the top and bottom of the morning hours. That’s when people’s alarms go off, after all, and those folks who still wake up to radio need a little something to motivate them out from under the covers and face the day, not bury their heads and hide from it.

So thank you, Pandora, for doing today what some DJs can’t remember to do, even if on a slight delay. Enjoy!

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Happy Tuesday: Your Complaints About Daylight Savings Time Are Now Invalid

Get up, get moving and quit your bitching about the time change. You’re a grown-up, not an infant. If scooching the clock back and forth an hour messes with you that badly, go see a sleep therapist and spare us all your insufferable whining.

So you lost an hour of your life? Here’s a news flash: That happens every time you get on Facebook or let yourself watch two CBS sitcoms back-to-back. Suck. It. Up.

Extended daylight (not an extra hour of the day) is a gift of modernity (and Benjamin Franklin, who thought of the idea in the first place). Embrace it. Like the man in the video says – right thoughts, right words, right actions.

Positive thoughts, people. Positive.

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Your Morning Nerdgasm: The ‘Back to the Future’ Hoverboard, Brought to You by Doc Brown Himself

I can in no way vouch for the veracity of this, but the big names – included Christopher Lloyd – enlisted for this video make it pretty cool anyway. And really, who hasn’t wanted a hoverboard like the one Marty McFly had in Back to the Future Part 2?

So for now let’s just pretend this is entirely real and we can all soon zip around popping hover-ollies in front of those dorks and their “futuristic” Segways.

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Funky Friday: Andy Allo and The Mysterious Process of Character Inspiration

Andy Allo
A character who looks much like this coming soon to a forthcoming Scott B. Pruden novel near you.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Andy Allo – Prince protege and certified bringer of funk in the spirit of all the great multi-instrumental/multi-ethnic soul and funk bands that emerged from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But why is Ms. Allo here today? Not simply because she smokes behind the mic and on the guitar, but because she’s become something of an inspiration.

Continue reading → Funky Friday: Andy Allo and The Mysterious Process of Character Inspiration

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Power Pop Wednesday: Liz Phair and Hermione and Women Who Rock

As a lover of early ’90s alternative rock, it’s practically illegal for me to NOT like Liz Phair.

Liz+Phair+liz2004
Liz Phair, as seen in the dreams of my youth

Oh, Liz, with your girl-I-would-date looks and WAY-out-of-my-league fantastically filthy mind, you charmed me to no end with your ability to wield a guitar and sweet-talk into the microphone with a voice built for power-pop, all while looking … well … like that. *Sigh*

Continue reading → Power Pop Wednesday: Liz Phair and Hermione and Women Who Rock

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Your Midweek Dose of Perspective: We Are All Dust On a Mudball, And Still We Persevere

Saw this video time-lapse of images from the International Space Station today and just had to share, because nothing reminds you of both your own insignificance and the sheer awesomeness of creation like seeing your own planet and everything on it from a few hundred miles away.

Problems suddenly become very small. May yours be infinitesimally tiny as we head forth into the holidays.

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It’s a Short Work Week, But You Still Need to Kick Work’s Ass

Yep, a lot of us still have to work this week. And some (like me) might have some ugly, snarling, drooling deadlines looming over us before the annual celebration of feasting, football and family dysfunction begins in earnest.

So here’s a little something from the badass anime swing jazz noir sci-fi files to get you going and help you grab the workweek by the throat like you, too, are a butt-kicking interplanetary bounty hunter a la Cowboy Bebop.

As an extra-added bonus, check out the FULL (and very hard to find) version of this tune below.