AudioScrobbler

Some of you might have heard of this service, some of you haven't. For those who haven't, I'll explain it since it is a very, very nifty thing in case you have a keen interest in music.

Some 4 months ago someone passed me a link to a site which kept track of what you were listening. Figuring it would be yet another one of those endless 'Now Playing' services I checked it out with caution. Once inside I found out it is much deeper. AudioScrobbler, as it was called at that time proved to be the #1 stop if you want to get acquainted with new music, bands and songs. It does keep track of what you are playing, but it throws your taste into the huge bin of all the other users' tastes. Based upon that info it gives you recommendations of other bands and songs that are roughly in the same style as what you've just listened to. It also 'matches' you with other users who are into the same kinds of music. Checking out their profile and tastes provides you with yet another source of new artists to discover.

Due some plugin issues I haven't been able to use the service for a while, but this week I got it working again and yet again I have added another load of artists to my personal wishlist, names that I surely want to check out in the future. In the meantime the website itself has changed quite a bit, making the service more streamlined and easier on the eyes.

It is now called Last.fm, but it is still the same thing in a new coat. For those of you who are interested in my tastes, check out my profile. I'm also very curious to get to know your tastes a little better. In case you already have a profile, would you mind sharing it with me (and others) so I can take a look?

In any case, music lovers have to check this out. It's very fun to play around with.

Darts

The mindless game with the little darts, yes. It's a British sport and over the past decade the Dutch have gotten really good at it too. I am a player myself, for about 10 years now. It doesn't go much further than the occasional game at home or in the pub, but I'm not that bad at all. My brother isn't either, and he asked me to join his team.

My brother has been playing darts for a long time now and he's pretty fanatic at it. Needless to say all this practice has made him fairly good at the game, and his soccer team fortunately also has a few guys who can play a good game. They decided upon founding their own 'team' which would join the local darts competition. This is more of a 'Battle of the Pubs' than it really is a fierce competition, though. Things are very, very easy-going and laid back. Back to my point: They had six people in their team. You need at least four to play a game, but it is always good to bring a substitute along. And very often one of the teammtes might be unable to participate due to other appointments, so you need at least six players to make sure you can get four people ready to play every week. My brother's team had six.

However, one of the players dropped out just before the competition was starting and decided to join another team. My brother and his friends were quite devastated by this, they had looked forward to getting this thing going as they all love to play the game. I was the only person left that could help them out as I'm capable of playing a nice game myself. I know how much this means to them, so I decided to be the good guy for once and join in so they could get the team going.

Yesterday was our first match and boy it was fun. I had never expected the atmosphere to be this great. On top of that my brother's friends are superb. They are not the brightest and their sense of humor is quite, to use a Dutch expression for once, 'flat-floored' (a lot of dirty jokes) but they are so nice, helpful and enthusiastic that I'm really liking them. The best thing even was that we won the game. It was a close call, but we won. A very good start for the team, and seeing the happy looks on the faces of my teammates made me happy too. As I've said they had been looking forward to this a lot, I'm glad I could help them out.

I'm sure we'll be doing fine. And to me the fun matters more than the result. And I surely did have fun yesterday.