Website(s) of the week

Website of the week: online mixtape sites
(for more music sites, click on the word 'music' in the delicious tags to the right)

When I was a kid, making a mixed tape (especially off the radio) was a painstaking process involving lots of stop, record, rewind...ugh. By college, things had gotten easier with mix CDs and in the past few years CDs have all but disappeared and now we make playlists for mp3 players like ipods.

Meet the newest evolution of the mix tape: online mix tapes.

Muxtape.com and Mixwit.com are sites that allow you to create your own 'mixtape' and then share it with your friends through MySpace, Facebook or even here on Blogger. Of course you can also just send your friends a link to your mix (muxtape allows you to do this). So far mixwit is considered legal (they've worked out licensing deals), but muxtape is a bit murkier.

Here's a short mixtape from Mixwit:

First TAG Show Podcast!

It took me a few tries to get it right; sorry it was messed up before!

Drum roll please...here is the TAG Show!



Or go to the Switchpod page to hear our podcast!

Here's how we made it:

1) Download Audacity
2) Download LAME (instructions here) so you can turn your .aup file into a .mp3
3) Create an account on Switchpod (click 'Register' and register for a Podcaster account)
4) Go to your 'Control Panel' and click 'Upload Now' to upload your .mp3 file
5) Use the tools on Switchpod to 'Get a List Player' like ours above or publicize the podcast to iTunes, etc.

It's really pretty easy!

New books!

J Fiction:

Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes
Confessions of a Serial Kisser by Wendelin Van Draanen
100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson

YA Fiction:

Me, the Missing and the Dead by Jenny Valentine
Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers
How to be Bad by e. lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle
The Market by J.M. Steele

Science Fiction:

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks
The Gravity Keeper by Simon Bloom

Surfing the Web video

Our first TAG video! Watch it here or go to YouTube to watch it.

New books!

Fiction and SciFi
First Shot by Walter Sorrells
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Lucky by Rachel Vail
Skin Hunter by Kathleen Duey
FrostBite (A Vampire Academy Novel) by Richelle Mead
Borderline by Bonnie Rozanski

Graphic Novels
A Nightmare on Elm Street by Dixon/West/Almond
Laika by Abadeis

The Host by Stephenie Myers

Stephenie Myers is best known for her Twilight series for teens. The love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob (go Jacob!!) is exciting and engaging. I've loved all of her books so far and often find myself reading late into the night to finish them.

The same has so far been true for her newest book. The Host, which is marketed to adults, but is definitely appropriate for teens (so far) is Myers' first book outside of the Twilight series. In the book an alien species called 'souls' has taken over earth and possessed almost all humans body-snatcher style. The souls are implanted in the brain and completely take over the body...most of the time. The book is told from the perspective of Wanderer, a soul who has already traveled to nine planets. Wanderer has been implanted in Melanie's brain, but Melanie hasn't disappeared. In fact, Wanderer and Melanie are co-existing and Melanie slowly exerts her control. Eventually they find their way to an enclave of humans who have escaped implantation and are living underground out west. The humans, who know Melanie, immediately know Melanie is no longer herself. But they are merciful and although there is conflict, Wanderer/Melanie becomes a part of their world. Besides all of this, there is also a bit of a love triangle...but I don't want to give anything more away so I'll save that for you to find out on your own.

So far (page 265 out of 600 as of now), this book is completely absorbing the same way all the rest of Stephenie Myers' books have been. If you want to read it, be sure to put it on hold as soon as possible!

UPDATE: It only took 48 hours to finish the book and I loved it. I think I liked it more than any of the books in the Twilight series. It really was that good!

Meeting minutes

Great meeting today, everyone! I'll get those pen pal letters out and we should have responses soon. We're coming along with our podcast and vodcast scripts...let's try to start recording at our next meeting! Also, get ready for our first game night in June. Hooray!

See you next Thursday, May 15th at 4 p.m.!