More than you can stick a shake at

Old Tyme Radio Christmas broadcasts in mp3 format. I'm planning on downloading and burning some to CD for my drive home. I'm especially intrigued by the "It's a Wonderful Life" and the Charlie McCarthy pieces. We'll see how many i can grab while frantically wrapping presents tonight... :)

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I just grabbed the following links from laurashapiro at LJ. I can give no better descriptions than she does:

I want to offer this extremely helpful overview of typography (.pdf) to any type junkies out there (lo, I am one of your number) or other interested people. If you've ever wondered what makes some fonts better-looking than others, or what to call the little bit that hangs off the bottom of a "q", this handout will enlighten you. There is also this series of excerpts from The Mac Is Not A Typewriter, a classic which addresses basic typesetting and desktop publishing concepts like widows and orphans. Great stuff.

Well, she's got me intrigued. :)

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Paper Stoats! in both summer and winter varieties!

I so gotta print me out one or two of these. i think they'd look nice on my desk at work which is sadly devoid of decoration at the moment...

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I just found a page chock full of Christmas Hymns. I've been craving more traditional hymns like the Boar's Head Carol, the Wassail Song, In the Bleak Mid-winter, that sort of thing. and this seems like it might be a fine resource for new arrangements for my singing group. yay!

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Who doesn't love Richard Scarry? But have you perused his Best Word Book Ever recently? I thought not. Luckily someone has -- and has pointed out a bunch of differences between the 1963 version and the new and [one assumes] improved 1991 version. Be sure to hover your mouse over the images -- many of them have notes pointing out the specific changes.

I know it's not PC, but i do miss the little indian mouse holding the giant ice cream cone. so cute!

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I've not-infrequently thought that it would be nice to be able to search for a tune on the web -- not by the name of the tune, but by the tune itself. but it seemed to me that describing a tune would have a bunch of difficulties. Even if you had notation for describing the pitch and duration of the notes you were thinking of [and making that user-friendly seemed to be no small task], how would you deal with a song being in the database in the key of C, but the searcher typing in their search tune in the key of D? Or the song being stored in 4/4 time, but the searcher typing it in in cut time? Sure it could all be translated on the fly, but I didn't think the resulting mess would work all that well.

now, i haven't played with this too much yet, but I seem to have been proved wrong: Musipedia. It's even got a piano interface to let you "play" the song you want to find -- or you can whistle if you've got a mic! (i wish i had a mic!)

it doesn't have pop songs in it yet, but i'm sure it will someday. in the meantime it can help with all those classical instrumental pieces that i recognize instantly but have no idea what the name is!

(pointed out by Sara)

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