High Protein, Low Carb Bars

I’ve been REALLY enjoying these lately: QuestBars are the best protein bars I’ve ever tried. I’ve had about 40 of them over the past couple weeks. Dropped a bunch of weight. Just ordered another couple dozen!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Christmas Music?

It’s definitely one of those things that makes Christmas special. Gifts are great…but they cost a lot. Trees are terrific…but they take a lot of time to put together, and more and more people just don’t have the time. Advertising…well, I’m not sure that makes Christmas much better. But, pretty much everybody loves Christmas music…and recently, Christmas music videos as well.

I have a lot of memories of Chrismases past. Candlelight services when I was young, where everyone in the whole church held a candle and the hot wax dribbled down on your hand (of course, insurance issues prohibit that delightful tradition these days). Incredible multi-colored light displays. But…what’s all this with those anemic white “icicle lights” the last few years? Christmas seems to have lost its color. And then, of course, there’s Santa Claus. Can you believe it? There are EVEN some people saying that there’s NO SUCH THING as Santa Claus. Well…bah, humbug!

Some of the house displays are pretty cool. If you’re one of the handful of people who’s never seen the video of Carson Williams’ Christmas Lights display from 2004, you should definitely check it out over on YouTube. Carson lives in Mason, OH…just outside Cincinnati. I wonder what his neighbors thought about all the extra street traffic. Then again…how much traffic can you really draw to Mason, Ohio? I’ve been there. It’s really not that big. But, in addition to the cool technology that made the lights move so fast, you know what made that video so popular? Yep…the music (courtesy of the good folks from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra)!

So, let’s talk more about Christmas (or xmas) music. We’d all love to be able to grab those great traditional favorites from Johnny Mathis and other big name stars to stuff on our iPods. But, Christmas only comes around once a year. So, how much money are you going to invest in music for a 3-week period anyway (and no…no matter what the companies try to tell you, Christmas does NOT start the day after Halloween!)? The truth is…we love the music, but we’ll hear the famous songs on the radio in the car and in the stores while we’re shopping. And there are only so many really famous renditions of Christmas classics anyway. One site is a great resource for Christmas videos from YouTube: http://ChristmasMusicVideos.com/

So how about trying something a bit different? Maybe a nice mix of vocal and instrumental stuff…some traditional songs that you know and love, and some new stuff inspired by the mood and events of the season?

There are a LOT of web sites out there that advertise Christmas music. But it seems like most of them are those cheesy MIDI files that use your computer’s built-in sounds. That’s kinda like listening to music from 1980s video games to relax and unwind. Doesn’t quite do the trick for me. And then there are the sites that try to get you to pay them for the privilege of stealing Christmas music via the peer-to-peer services. If you’re going to steal music, that’s your business. But, good grief…don’t pay someone an ENTRANCE FEE for the privilege!

Anyway…there’s at least ONE really good site that’s full of Christmas music MP3s for free download. Really free…no “sign here and we might let you in”, no strings attached. There are some beautiful vocal arrangements. Check out LaVada Torzewski’s voice on Oh Come Emmanuel, Oh Come All Ye Faithful or Christ Child’s Lullaby on the Traditional Vocal Music page. You won’t find a better singer anywhere. Or, on the Traditional Instrumentals page, listen to the beautiful arrangement of O Little Town of Bethlehem by Chuck Brown (hey, that’s me!). No, seriously…there are some gorgeous performances, both instrumental and vocal, on this site. I am partial to the piano and guitar instrumentals myself…but then again, that’s a lot of what’s on my iPod year-round…so I say, why change my musical tastes for Christmas, eh?

And, as if that weren’t enough on this particular site…there are some other cool resources as well: clip art, recipes, audio stories, sound files, coloring pages…and yes, even some interesting gift ideas.

You probably don’t think I hear you banging on the window demanding to know the address of this very cool web site. I do…but I figured I’d let you work yourselves into a frenzy before I gave up the goods. (grin)

So, here it is: Feels Like Christmas

Have fun!

Chuck Brown is the father of two and husband of one and lives in the Central Ohio area. He makes his living primarily as a male voice talent. He also enjoys developing cool web sites on topics in which he has a personal interest. You can see many of those via TornBread.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=C._Brown

How to Find Great Music For Kids

We all know that the internet has become a dominate force in helping find things and answering questions quickly. One of the questions that arise for parents is “how to find great music for kids?”

Ten years ago people took the time to stop by the local music store and search for music. Stores readily provided a highlight of top selling CDs. This provided a good starting point for people to discover new music enjoyed by others. As we have moved farther into the Internet Age, more and more music has become available to anyone having access to a computer. This has been good from a content perspective. However, it can make finding great music for children a challenge given the volumes of songs and artists available online.

To find great kids music online today, the most popular resource by far is to simply utilize search engines like Google or Yahoo and enter key words such as “Kids Music.” This will yield pages of results, but you can leverage the first page or two in the same way that the record store was used ten years ago. By reviewing the links that these search engines provide, you will quickly find that these sites are either 1) the most popular music groups for kids or 2) the most popular sites to find free kids song downloads.

The second way that parents can quickly find great kids songs is to utilize iTunes. iTunes provides the same search ability so that anyone can quickly search by artist name, song title, or general description. For instance, if a parent enters the words Preschool Music, they will find hundreds of artists listed on iTunes. The good news is that iTunes provides the songs and artists in order of popularity. So again, much like the old record store, parents can quickly find songs enjoyed by the masses and that are typically very good.

As we move forward in the Internet Age, we will certainly find new and exciting ways to quickly and effectively find the music that we want. Over the past few years social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace have grown into popular places for people to discuss and showcase music. These avenues will certainly continue to grow in popularity as people find ways to share information more quickly and as media companies learn to use them as distribution tools for their most popular songs and artists.We all know that the internet has become a dominate force in helping find things and answering questions quickly. One of the questions that arise for parents is “how to find great music for kids?”

Silly Bus is an award-winning educational media company that specializes in the creation of fun, educational music and videos for children. Our team of media, business and educational professionals also partners with companies nationwide to create one-of-a-kind multi-media to help kids learn.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Henneberger