5 of the Now

Some new tunes to bump to, not really any theme this time around, just stuff I have been finding interesting. No links right now, the iTunes link maker thingy/pile o' crap is not working at the moment. I'll try to add them later when it is fixed. All of these are available on iTunes.

Scientific Lifestyle - Flight 273 - The Arrow EP
I chose this song, because this was the one that Blender was showcasing that led me to find this group. I like the whole EP quite a bit, and their other album available on iTunes as well. Smooth beats, with some interesting vocals. A good blend of mellow and beats.

Big and Rich featuring Wyclef Jean - Please Man - Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace
In this case, I chose this song to spite several reviews who have trashed it (plus I know nobody will listen to it anyway...). First, this whole album is incredible. In fact, the only songs I'm not sold on are the 2 more stereotypical-styled rockabilly songs (and the horrendous cover of "Shook Me All Night Long", that should be surgically removed from all future CD printings). Everything else on here is solid, modern country and done fantastically.
This song however, is all about just having fun. Wyclef gets it, these guys have always gotten it. Sometimes it's more important to just have fun with music, than to produce some epic. Great stuff.

Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (Dr. Luke Mix featuring Lil Mama) - Girlfriend Single
I'm throwing this on here first because I think it's cool that this made it out as an officially-sanctioned remix. Second, it's on here because it's one of the few tracks featuring lil' mama that you can get from iTunes right now. The original song I can pretty much take or leave, but I'm extremely impressed right now with lil' mama's rap skills. She has some fierce flow to her rhymes.

Air - Alone in Kyoto - Lost in Translation Soundtrack
I finally saw "Lost in Translation" this past week (yes, I'm not sure why it took me so long). Great movie, and the soundtrack is equally on-par. I have lots of other stuff by Air already, and I think this is one of the top 2 tracks on the soundtrack. Jesus and Mary Chain would be a close second.

Carbon Leaf - Learn to Fly - Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat
I would have never heard of this group if one of their videos wasn't playing on a cruise we took a few months back. More on the alternative side, but this is just generally a good song. Doesn't hurt that they cribbed the title of a great Pink Floyd track either...

Map 2 Text

So, apparently the hot new thing to do right now is send maps to your cell phone via text message.
Josh is in the middle of pulling off a nice hack to do this with weather map information. In his case, you send a text to an address, and get back a map.

Now, I see today that Google is letting you call their 1-800-GOOG411 number, say "map it", and then they'll text you a map.

Now, how about marrying it all together. Have Google wire it up so you can email like in Josh's solution, and then have Google add weather maps as a service. Best of all worlds.