I’m talking about Spotify

In Sweden it’s THE new thing for all music lovers, everybody talks about it. But it’s still pretty new. The free accounts are by invite only (like Dreamwidth) and from what I understand it’s only available to certain countries in Europe, so an explanation might be in order:

Spotify is a “proprietary peer-to-peer streaming music program that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay“.
The Spotify company buys the right to the music from the music labels and make their money through paid accounts and free acconuts with ads. Basically it’s a program that allows me to listen to any music I want on my computer – free, legally and instantly!

I managed to get my paws on an invite and have been using the free Spotify for months now, and I’m amazed over how well it actually works. The commercials are short, few and far between. The program is fast, easy to use and manage and I can’t find anything to complain about sound-wise.
The only downside is that they haven’t scored deals with ALL labels (but they seem to try though *lol*) so they don’t have all the music in the world – but pretty close. They have the latest hit music, but I’ve found lots of “unpopular” music too (like loads of small unknown metal bands that I really didn’t think they would have).

Like tonight, I felt like listening to some Tori Amos. I don’t own any Tori albums but I just opened up Spotify, searched for her and voilá! There was pretty much her complete album collection, just click and listen
I can make playlists and share with my friends and I will probably never have to buy or download any music ever again. Not that I’ve ever downloaded illegally, of course… *whistle*

You understand why I’m in love, right?
If you don’t have Spotify already – get it! And if you live in a country where it’s not available yet – just wait, it will probably come to you too and it will be so worth it.

I was walking with Zaphod along a trail when we met an older man on a bicycle.
After him, way waaaaay after (the man was long gone) came a lonely dog trotting. A Bedlington terrier, but it was really small so I assume it was a puppy/young dog.
When it saw us it rushed towards us, luckily it was friendly so I just sent it away and it disappeared down the trail. I assumed it was the man’s dog since I’ve seen him with a Bedlington before (but then it was a big blue one, this one was small and white) and he was the only human I had seen. Anyway, I just shook my head at the inanity of leaving a dog so far behind without supervision and continued our walk.

After maybe 5 min. I suddenly hear barking behind us and when I turn around the same dog comes running after us!
I had probably scared it earlier, because it kept a 10-15 meter distance. I waited for someone to come and take care of it, but noone showed up. Eventually I started walking again and the dog followed us for a long time, until we took another trail that leads out of the forest. Then it stopped and barked after us for a while until it headed back to where it came from.

Jesus…

I know it was that mans’ dog. The other Bedlington I’ve seen him with was also unleashed and I had to defend Zaphod against it. And the man didn’t care at all, he just kept going even though I was shouting at his dog trying to scare it off *grr*
Now I almost regret I didn’t take the puppy with me home. Maybe the man would have learnt a lesson if he had been forced to come pick it up at somebody else’s house

Bedlington terrier

This weekend we celebrate Midsummer here in Sweden. It’s the biggest and most important holiday we have (after Christmas). This is the weekend when we raise Maypoles and dance around them, eat herring and boiled potatoes and party out in the green nature all night long while drinking ourselves absolutely wasted. All in the light of the midnight sun, or at least that’s what we have up in the northern end where I live. In the south the sun will set as usual. Poor bastards.

According to old folklore Midsummer is a time of love and magic. One of the most common love spells to perform on Midsummer’s Eve (yesterday) is to pick seven kinds of flowers and put them under the pillow, then you’ll see your future love in a dream. I’ve done it when I was little, but I don’t remember who (if anyone) I saw in the dream though

Regardless if you believe in magic or not, there’s something special about the northern summer. It’s so short and intense and after a long dark winter that alone makes it seem extraordinary. It’s like plants, animals and people finally comes alive after a long, deep sleep.
And Midsummer is when we celebrate that. It’s a holiday for the earth, the sun and the life it gives us. Rather poetic, huh?

Great article about Swedish Midsummer if anyone’s interested.

Btw, who else is celebrating Midsummer?
It’s more countries than Sweden, I’m sure. Norway? Canada? And how do you celebrate it? I’m curious

Thank you all for your support and input on the last post, I appreciate it a lot

I figured I have nothing to loose, why hesitate? Worst case scenario would be that I’ll have to change back, big deal.
Everything should be up and running, almost all pages are validated and I’ve checked the site in Opera, Safari and IE7. I decided not to convert my old FanUpdate posts to WP, I want a clean fresh database to play with And most of the old stuff is just pointless gibberish anyway.
Now I’m just gonna add some plugins and take down the old page files.
Let me know if you see something weird anywhere!

(And Taversia, I now expect loads of <3<3<3 comments in the future )