With Pandora One Expiring Thinking About Slacker Radio Plus Once Again

 So about a year ago I made the decision to choose iTunes Match and Pandora One for my music needs. By December 20th, my Pandora One subscription will expire and I’ve decided to use Slacker Radio Plus this time around. As much as I enjoyed Pandora One, I missed listening to radio stations offline a lot more than I thought I would. Also I’ve noticed that I in fact cannot tell the difference between 190 kbps (Pandora One sound quality) or 128 kbps (Slacker Radio). Since I cannot tell the difference between those sound qualities, Slacker’s music library and ability to cache their stations for offline listening seems more appealing to me than Pandora this time around. Also, unlike Pandora, when I’m listening to a genre of music, Slacker’s music stays consistent within that genre. That wasn’t always the case with Pandora. Sometimes with Pandora there would songs that would be completely out of left field of the genre that I would be listening to.

So Pandora One is out and Slacker Radio Plus is now in. And what about iTunes Match? Oh that’s still in. You can’t beat all your songs backed up for only $24.99 a year.

Debates Worth Watching

I’m sure a lot of people are disenfranchised about today’s politics as I am and I was especially dissatisfied with the last presidential debate of this country’s mainstream and overexposed candidates and their lackluster and uninformative debate. It was nothing but propaganda and talking points that have been regurgitated for so many years by both parties that it has become nothing more than white noise.  If you heard this weeks presidential debate you will have heard nothing new except for a lot of lies and misapplied facts that did nothing more than perhaps confuse an already uninformed public.

A good alternative I found to this was the “extended” debate that was held by Democracy Now! with the 3rd party candidates from the Green and Justice parties. Not only did you hear the nonsense that was spewed by both Romney and Obama but you also got to hear alternative opinions that you won’t be hearing during the regular debates (because the Commission of Presidential Debates are run by both the Democratic and Republican parties and the one thing they both agree is to keep 3rd party candidates out of the debates and the public eye).

Also, John Stewart and Bill O’Reilly decided to have a debate of their own. Even though they aren’t running for president and they aren’t politicians, it was still, in my opinion, more informative and definitely more entertaining than the real one. They tackled a lot of serious issues and contrasted their pundit point of views on some of the issues that were discussed in the Presidential debates plus other issues that weren’t. I believe that John Stewart of course came 0ut on top by pulling the veil from a lot of O’Reilly’s props that he used to push his “fair and balanced” arguments. I had no problem spending $4.95 to download and watch this debate and I recommend that anyone who is politically and socially conscious or who has questions about the state of this nation should find $5.0o and download this immediately. You’ll laugh, you’ll scream in anger at the opposing point of view, but more importantly you’ll be informed.  And that should be the point of a debate.

Definitely check out both these options to get a better picture and scope of the issues that are affecting our country and what other options you have as a voter.

The Seduction Of Escapism

Once again this blog of mine has fallen into a lull and I haven’t really written in some months. And the story is pretty much the same or close to it. These past few months have been hard financially which resulted in me becoming more self-loathing and looking for ways to entertain myself at home rather than going out to comedy shows because of lack of funds. This in turn made me become more reclusive and less sociable and I began to look for fictional and more interesting worlds to escape into. The medicine of choice these past few months have been mostly anime and manga. As much as I tell everyone and anyone  how crazy I believe the Japanese are they make some amazing fiction. I couldn’t believe I haven’t fallen into that void sooner. I had a few run-ins with anime in high school and College (the last great anime shows I saw in those days were Cowboy Bebop, Big O and Inuyasha) but with Netflix having such a large selection I started dabbling and neck-deep I went in to the anime pool.

I then came to realize that there are a bunch of sites where you can read manga and I started to read the manga versions of the anime I was watching. I came to realize that the mangas were several times better and I just kept going deeper and deeper into these fictional worlds and completely forgetting about this blog and anything else in the real world (well within reason, I still go to work and take care of all my other adult real-life responsibilities).

Anyway, long story short, I started coming out of my anime/manga haze a little and realized that it has been many months since I blogged. And I posted one or two entries since I came to that realization but it has been a chore. It so much more fun and easier to continue on in escapism. When I wasn’t reading manga or watching anime I was of course reading other works of fiction and watching other shows (I recently watched all of “Revenge” and now know what all the hype is about).

So here I am back, for now. Don’t know when the next compulsion to completely indulge into escapism will take effect but I’ll try my best to moderate it somewhat. It will be hard, no lie. Especially with all the TV premiers coming back. Anyone watch Castle or Parks and Recreation? They’ve been good thus far. Glad to see them back.