Today I want to talk about music, right after I recommend a slick new movie: The Illusionist, a turn-of-the-century mystery-romance starring the incomparable Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel. It kept me guessing till the end. Anyway, music…

First of all, I am mourning the loss of one of my favorite radio stations, Smooth Jazz 107.5 The Oasis. Monday afternoon the evil leaders of Infinity Broadcasting transformed one of the few unique stations in the Dallas area into yet another station that plays hip-hoppy music. I intend to send them hate email after I finish today’s entry. I suggest you do the same.

Second, I’m exploring a new hobby: guitar. That’s right. I borrowed Jenny’s mom’s acoustic/electic guitar, found guitar.about.com, and started tinkering with it on Sunday. So far I’ve played 9 chords, if you can call them chords, plus a lot of really bad combinations of notes, buzzing, and dead strings. But sometimes the chord sounds halfway decent. Acoustic guitars soothe my soul. The first song I’ll try to play is “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.

Third, I want to introduce you to a fascinating internet radio site called Pandora.com. This is only worthwhile for you broadband types, If you’re still on dial-up, let Pandora be your wakeup call to upgrade. (It might even be cheaper than AOL.) Anyway, you tell Pandora a song or artist you like. Pandora responds by gradually building your own “station” or playlist with that artist plus many other similar artists. You can give each artist a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and over time Pandora learns your tastes and refines your list. You can have many different stations for yourself. It’s lots of fun, and it’s free, so check it out.