Twi
Tamika and I invited Twi over for dinner last night; it was spur of the moment and we ordered subs and cheesy fries from Pizza House. It was nice to just relax. We talked and laughed, and watched the BET Awards. Good performances.
At one point Chris Brown did a routine with Ciara in which they used a huge waterfall mechanism in the background, which spelled out shapes and letter as they performed. I thought it was a pretty cool effect.
Troy
I talked to Troy when I got home from work; and he had bad news. Troy had been employed by a landlord of one of the houses on our street; Bill Pound.
Troy had been doing general repairs as well as some plumbing work in the house, but unfortunately, he and Bill had a falling out. Troy had been storing the parts (the axle, among other things) behind the house, and after their falling out, Bill had cleaned up the backyard and thrown everything away.
Troy was very apologetic about it, and said he was just going to buy the parts from the scrapyard again in the morning, since it was his fault.
In addition to this, Troy hasn’t been able to find the keys I gave him to the car. He said he would buy an ignition and door locks if he wasn’t able to find them.
I asked him if he would also check the tire pressure for the wheel. When the SUV hit the Mercury, it may have bent the rim. In any case, the tire won’t hold pressure anymore. Fortunately, there was a full size spare in the trunk of the car, which Troy planned on putting on my rim. If it doesn’t hold air, I asked him to get me a new rim too.
Free Music
Back in 1999, Napster was my friend. I loved free music. I was a poor MK, so buying $20 CDs really wasn’t in my budget. It was right when my family had come down to the States, so I had a lot of music to catch up on. And so, with an old 286 that my dad had spraypainted the case of (my present for Christmas) I was a downloading fiend. Armed with a CD burner and a RCA Shockwave CD player, I was a king.
Two years later, Napster was dead, and I had turned to other things like mp3.com and Epitonic for my free music buzz. When they moved on, I discovered Pandora.
Now, I’ve discovered that some sites offer mp3s over RSS feeds. Which means if you have Google Reader, you can play, and decide to download them right there (no visiting numerous sites to try and find music). Whenever music is uploaded, it shows up in Reader. And if you really like the song, you can click on the link and see the rest of their work.
Here are a few feeds I’ve found so far:
http://www11.nrk.no/urort/ – a Norwegian music site. Wide variety, including a surprising volume of english material
http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/ – Keeps track of the free music that iTunes periodically releases (you must have a (free) iTunes account
http://freemusic.freeculture.org/media/feed/atom/media – Very wide variety, but typically lots of World music. Pop and rock mixed in there too.
Let me know if you find some more!