I just made a very sad discovery...

For months, maybe even years, I've been playing this woman named Anna C. on SongPop.  She had an attractive profile picture that she never changed and was supposedly from New York City.  When she first started playing me, she was not a particularly good player.  It was easy to beat her.  Then she got a lot better, even to the point of scoring impossibly high by picking the right songs almost instantly.

I also noticed that Anna never seemed to make any progress toward mastering a certain playlist.  I wondered how it was that she could play certain playlists over and over again and never make progress toward completing them.

Yesterday, I got a random challenge by some person in another country.  I usually get irritated by these requests because a lot of the time, the person's music tastes are not compatible with mine.  I end up having to guess on playlists from Brazil or horrible techno rap or something.  So I went looking to see if I could find a way to stop the random challenge requests.  I was unsuccessful in my search, but then I found a discussion going on about SongPop's computer generated "bots" that trick players into thinking they are real people.

When it comes to SongPop, a little goes a long way.  I like playing a couple of games a day, but I don't like it when someone constantly wants to play.  Besides that, I think it's creepy that there are random bots out there trying to start games with people.  Why not let me know you're a bot before we spend months or years challenging each other?  I guess if that were possible, Anna would be a human and not a bot, right?

I probably should have realized she was a bot when I saw that she had so many games going.  I have enough on my hands with less than ten games.  Some people have over 100 games at a time.  Who's got the time or the patience for that?

Ah yes... the things I do to keep from going crazy from boredom.

Uploading like a fiend...

I see it's been awhile since my last post.  I've been pretty busy with stuff other than musical crap from the past.  Lately, I've been adding a lot of songs to SingSnap's community songbook.  I probably shouldn't be doing that, but I like having decent stuff to sing when the mood strikes.  

I was actually only planning to add a few songs, but unfortunately, I kind of got carried away.  The other day, I got a notification that I'd uploaded fifty songs.  I need to stop doing that and enjoy more of the ones uploaded by other people.

I haven't run across any old songs on SongPop that inspire me to post... so I'm sorry it's been awhile since I last wrote anything of substance on this blog.  Most people come here to read about The Carpenters, though, so I guess it's no big deal.

Maybe I'll be back later this month with some new stuff.

Jude Cole...

Where has he been all my life?  From playing SongPop, I became reacquainted with his music.  The song "Time For Letting Go" keeps popping up on my quizzes.  I like the way it sounds, so I downloaded his 1990 album A View From 3rd Street.

If you watch this, you have to do it on YouTube...

I ended up buying the whole album and I have a feeling I'll like it a lot... I love it when I find good stuff from the past.  

I don't care about SongPop...

I know I've written about SongPop a few times on this blog and my main one.  It's actually become a source of intense irritation for me lately.  I have several games going with strangers.

For those who don't know what SongPop is...

Naturally, most of the people I play with are people whose musical tastes don't exactly match mine.  I should probably quit playing, except sometimes I hear a song I haven't heard in 30 plus years and I get all excited.  Also, sometimes it is fun to play... although a lot of times, it's just annoying.

I wish I could think of something else to write this morning, but I can't.  My mind is too blown by the craziness of the world today and worries about the future.  I have been doing some singing on SingSnap, which I think is somewhat good for my mood.  But I worry about that too, since I uploaded songs to the new community songbook... I probably shouldn't have done that, but felt compelled to.

Anxiety is fun, isn't it?  So is mindlessly blogging when you don't have a specific topic to write about.  I fear this blog may have reached the end of its usefulness.

Me... a music blogger...

Happy New Year, everybody!

I started this blog so many months ago after a particularly entertaining evening on Facebook with two friends who were born the same year I was.  We were remembering all the songs we heard growing up.  To me, it seems like music has changed so much in forty years.  When I was a kid, most people listened to the radio and stations were staffed with actual local people.  You could hear a variety of songs from different genres.  I remember hearing Earth, Wind, & Fire and then Led Zeppelin right next to each other on the very same channel.

Nowadays, it seems like music is a lot more categorized... and much more dance oriented.  I quit listening to the radio a long time ago, mainly because I wasn't liking the new stuff so much.  And now the new stuff is old stuff that I've never really been exposed to.

I've been a top reviewer in the music category on Epinions for quite some time.  I am also Facebook friends with a lot of other Epinions reviewers.  One of my Epinions friends plays SongPop with me and I often beat him.  More than once, he's complained that I'm pretty good at the game.  It so happens this friend works in marketing and has a music blog that has been languishing.  He asked me if I wanted to work on it and perhaps earn some ad revenue.

I jumped at the chance, mainly because I have a lot of time on my hands and I really enjoy writing.  So pretty soon, I will be writing on another blog, which means this one might eventually go by the wayside.  Or maybe it won't.  I do really enjoy writing about quirky stuff I hear on the airwaves or Internet as the case might be.

Another issue I'm having right now is that my Internet connection really sucks.  My husband and I live in a rural area, so we have to use Windstream to get on the Internet.  Lately, Windstream has either been ignoring necessary upgrades or trying to serve too many people or both.  Consequently, our Internet connection is ridiculously slow to the point at which I can't watch videos because nothing streams worth a damn.  Hopefully, this situation will be fixed soon because it's driving me crazy!  Either that, or I hope we can move before too long.

So...  although this blog doesn't get that much action, I hope those of you who do read it will stay tuned for what comes next!

A new Facebook game...

My friend Summer introduced me to a fun game on Facebook which I think will lead to all sorts of new Dungeon of the Past posts.  The game is called SongPop, and it's basically like the old game show, Name That Tune.

You hear samples of songs from different genres and try to guess the name of the song or the artist.  You earn coins so that you can buy new categories.  The more you play, the more songs you unlock for each category.  The faster you identify each song, the more points you earn.  Summer and I are pretty well matched, which makes it fun to play with her.  We are equally strong in several categories, but there are others that she's better at than I am.

It helps to have a speedy modem when you play this game, since you're timed on how quickly you react.  Summer lost several games at first because her Internet connection was slower than mine.  When she switched computers, she became a lot harder to beat!

I recommend SongPop.  It's a lot of fun, especially for music fans wanting to kill some time.  Check it out if you're on Facebook!

This isn't me and Summer; it's just some random YouTube user...