My Favorite iTunes Radio Stations

I recently rediscovered the little radio feature on iTunes. When it first came out awhile back I listened to it regularly, but then I kind of forgot about it. They have hundreds of radio stations playing a lot of completely random and sometimes weird music. It's great. As if I don't already have more than enough music to listen to!

Anyway, I found the best radio station to ever exist called Martini in the Morning. They basically just play standards...Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald and the like. You can also listen to it from their website, www.martiniinthemorning.com. I highly recommend it.

My other favorite iTunes radio station is called Illinois Street Lounge on SomaFM. Not exactly sure what that means. Their description reads: "Classic bachelor pad, playful exotica and vintage music of tomorrow." I don't really know what that means either, but if I was in charge of writing their description, it would go something like this: "Random instrumental pop songs that go on forever and could have easily been taken straight out of a 60's Doris Day movie or Napoleon Dynamite."

Other great stations include Beatles-a-Rama, an all show tunes station, and Fistful of Soundtracks, all movie music. They seem to be adding new stations all the time...who knows what will come up next!

Easter Parade P.S.

My favorite part of watching Easter Parade last night came when one of my guy friends likened Fred Astaire's slow motion dancing during Steppin' Out With My Baby to The Matrix. Fred was pretty ahead of his time, I guess. I love watching musicals with a bunch of twenty-somethings.

Easter Parade

Instead of watching The Passion of the Christ to celebrate Easter like a good Christian, I went ahead and made my friends (and some family) watch the Judy Garland classic, Easter Parade. It's a pretty perfect musical...good songs, a few laughs, Judy Garland. It's not my favorite Judy movie, but it's pretty great. Fred Astaire always seemed too old for her, and he was, but after enough viewings you come to accept it. Gene Kelly was originally slated to play Fred's character, but he injured himself and couldn't do it. Fred Astaire came out of retirement to take the part. I'm much more comfortable with Fred in a top hat anyway. I always kind of wished she would just end up with Peter Lawford, he's much cuter and has a British accent, but I think we all know that's just not possible. Not in a musical anyway.

They came out with a 2 disc DVDa couple years ago and I recommend it if you haven't picked it up already. It has quite a few great features including two documentaries...one about the movie and one about Judy...plus an outtake of the entire Mr. Monotony song. Some clips of Mr. Monotony showed up in That's Entertainment 3, but not the whole song. So the DVD is definitely a must for any Judy fan!

Wizard of Oz at McDonald's

I hate to admit it, but I kind of enjoy McDonald's every so often. At the moment, I'm sitting at my desk munching on my chicken nuggets with honey and enjoying them immensely. But my chicken nuggets with honey are not the best part of my meal today, nor are they my reason for visiting McDonald's in the first place. That honor goes to the sweet toy I got with my Happy Meal. That's right, McDonald's is giving away Wizard of Oz Madame Alexander dolls in Happy Meals. Apparently this has been going on for a couple of weeks and I was unfortunately unaware. Now I'm trying to catch up and collect them all which means I will be eating way too many fake chicken nuggets in the next few weeks. But sometimes you have to take one for the team. The team being me. So far, I have Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. There are 8 total, so yes, I still have a ways to go.

In other Judy Garland news, I learned today that The Pirate will be coming out on DVD in the kind of near future. It's been ages since I've watched this movie. Mostly because the only copy I have of it is taped off the TV and not in the best shape. It's not really one of my favorite Judy movies, but it has some hilarious moments, and I am looking forward to watching the DVD.

Happy Birthday Debbie Reynolds! (Continued)

While looking through my Debbie Reynolds pictures, I found some (possibly illegal) videos I took of the show. I can't believe I forgot, but she did do a Judy Garland medley. It was amazing. She said that Judy is one of her favorites. :) So here's a video of the Judy medley...

Happy Birthday Debbie Reynolds!

That's right, today is Debbie Reynolds 75th birthday. Debbie is always a good time. I can't say I've seen a ton of Debbie movies, but I did see her live last year which was great! I took some photos (I don't think I was supposed to) and they didn't turn out too well, but you get the idea. She puts on a good show, and she's completely hilarious. I was thoroughly impressed with everything she does, especially at her age. She does a fabulous impression of Barbara Streisand, but the best part is when she shows clips from her movies and sings along with them. She also has a great montage of old movie bloopers that she shows...stuff you probably won't see anywhere else. I highly recommend the show, if you ever get the chance to go.

So, to celebrate, I'm watching Singin' in the Rain on TCM! I love TCM. And Debbie Reynolds.

Beatles + iTunes: Pretty Please?

I'm starting to get upset. Despite various rumors that have been circulating for the past year or so, Beatles songs are still not available on iTunes. They keep promising that it will happen, but nothing yet. This is the latest I've heard on the issue.

All the trouble is caused by the whole "Apple" name...Apple computers and the Beatles Apple record label. Lawsuits have been filed and settlements have been made...it's time to resolve our differences! They're only hurting themselves. They would have made a ton of money off me so far, but too bad for them. They're just being selfish by denying me (and countless others) the joy of instantly downloading some sweet Beatles tunes.

In other iTunes news, I have iTunes at work and we can share our music libraries over our network. So there is an incredible amount of music that we can listen to, which is great. When you share your library, you have to pick a name for your list that will be displayed to everyone else in their iTunes window. Generally, people use names such as "Kim's Music" or "Todd's Mix" and so on.

If you've been watching American Idol this season, you're no doubt ill from having to watch Sanjaya, the talentless skinny kid with too much womanly hair, "sing" and prance about the stage like he's God's gift to teenie boppers. As a result of this teenie bopper following, he stays on the show, despite his obvious inferiority. The painful reality of having to see him every week so far apparently got to be too much for one of my coworkers, and in a fit of rage, she named her iTunes library "Why is Sanjaya still on American Idol??". This amused me to no end, so I named my list "I can't stand Sanjaya!". This trend quickly got out of control and today, more people started jumping on the Sanjaya/iTunes bandwagon. Here's a sampling of some of my coworkers' lists showing up in my iTunes right now:

-I'd rather poke my eyes out with Q-Tips than listen to SANJAYA!
-Sanjaya Love
-I liked Sanjaya in Nacho Libre
-I Had A Bad Case of Sanjaya Once

I am impressed with their creativity. And we should probably all get back to work now.