I was a Mobile DJ for 15 years. Started in college, and did it full time for a while after that, and then part time for years. I mostly played college and high school parties because they were a lot more fun than weddings and corporate gigs.

So music is pretty important to me. Strangely, I can't listen to music while I am working, even though I used to do it all the time when I was younger.

But when I'm not working, I love to have good tunes on, and I can't listen to radio because of the commercials. (Tivo trained me that way.)

We do a lot of entertaining at my house, so I have some pretty good music systems throughout, and now I've got my music sources down pat.

Pandora

http://Pandora.com

Pandora is an amazing, free web site that streams music through your internet connection. I have a wire running from my computer into my stereo system so it plays throughout the house.

What makes Pandora amazing is that you start by creating your own radio station based on a couple of songs you enter - or artists you like.

Pandora takes it from there, and automatically creates a play list based on that music. They actually have musicians who categorize every song that comes out, ranking them according to hundreds of attributes like vocal style, instruments, beat, melody, harmony, etc.

Pandora looks at what you said you liked, and then they serve you up more songs with similar attributes. As each song comes up, you have the choice of giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down, and it learns from that.

It's a cool way to find new music you may never have heard before.

You can set up different stations, too.

Napster

http://napster.com

Remember when Napster was the outlaw of the internet?

Well they're not any more. Napster is now a legal music site that works on a subscription basis. I pay around $13/month and for that I can build play lists out of millions of songs. One of the reasons I like Napster is because with one account they will support up to three MP3 players and let you download as many songs as you want onto those MP3 players.

Since I have three kids, this is perfect. Each kid can get the music they want on their own MP3 player, and I'm not paying $.99/song until I'm broke. (This helps me keep the price of Quickies down :)

I can also build my own playlists for specific occasions.

My son, Ryan, has a phone called a Juke, which is a cross between a phone and an MP3 player, and Napster supports that as well. He's my biggest music consumer, so Napster works great for him.

Rock ON!