Are you too busy with holiday cooking and shopping to find time to workout? Well, you don't have to make time for the gym to burn off extra calories. A fun way to get some exercise in and still keep up with your holiday preparations, is to dance around the house to your favorite Christmas music. Sound silly? Yes. But it is fun, and it does work. Listening to Christmas music is already a tradition for many families. Just make dancing to the music part of your tradition and have a healthy holiday. Also See:

I've been on a quest to find a few new music blogs to my newsreader, plus reconnect with some of the ones I've been neglecting for far too long. I discovered Power Pop Review through Last.FM. It's penned by one of my friends/contacts (who goes simply by Power Pop Review), and is a joy for those of who still love flipping through bins of musty vinyl.

You can keep your heart healthy while reducing stress and burning calories. How? Try to get 10 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise each day. Even a small amount of activity can have a large effect on your overall heart health. It's not really important what you do to get yourself moving and your heart pumping, as long as you do something.

Like some people have a soft spot for Christmas music, I'll always love the creepy-kitschy tunes rolled out on Halloween. Now, I like "Werewolves of London" as much as the next ghoul, but sometimes I want my Halloween playlist to have a little more hipster cool. Last year I did fashion a short playlist from Last.FM's vast catalog.

It is if you're John McCain. During an election year, especially one as polarizing as this one, it's no surprise to see celebrities using their voices to support the candidates they most believe in. Or not. And some musicians are not so happy to see their music being used in campaigns. Remember the whole Springsteen debacle when then-president Reagan wanted to use The Boss's hit, "Born in The USA" for his 1984 re-election campaign, completely missing the irony in that song?

More than a few months ago, I wrote about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and its lack of women inductees. It's pretty well established that female artists have been, for the most part, shut out of the hall of fame, despite women's increasing influence in the music business. In the past week, the hall released its latest list of possible inductees. Have things gotten any better for women in the Hall of Fame? Let's see:

Well, it's no "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls, I'll tell ya that. Unlike that romantic anthem to masturbation from 1991, "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry celebrates adultery and tries to resist any hint of homosexuality in a song about two girls kissing - because why on earth would a song about kissing a girl actually involve one's sexuality in any real way?Meanwhile, the darn thing's so catchy you can hardly resist singing it at the top of your lungs.

Four years ago, I finally got to see Patti Smith perform live. Truly a big deal, given that she rarely plays out anymore, and has only been to my city twice.It was everything I expected it to be. More than I expected it to be, in fact. I hate using the phrases like "life changing," and "the best show I ever saw, ever!" but it was. I'm not a spiritual person by any stretch of the imagination, but this atheist got "Re-li-gion." The whole thing culminated in a rousing version of "Gloria," one of her (and the then inchoate punk era's) most iconic songs.

Looks like more trouble for those bloggers who leak MP3s. Kevin Cojill from the site Antiquiet was arrested last week on suspicion of violating copyright laws for leaking nine unreleased Guns 'N' Roses songs. His bail was set at $10,000.

If new music is created and nobody can find it, does it make a sound? Time was you could listen to alternative radio and discover new tunes. Time was you could spend hours browsing the record store, digging up arcane and obscure artists. Time was the music could be found. But now it seems like all the radio stations are playing the same 20 songs (and a zillion commercials). Now CD departments are shrinking and disappearing from the stores. And now internet radio may be about to disappear. If that happens, how will you discover new music?

Growing up in the eighties, Madonna was the cool older sisters you wish you had. So hearing that she turned fifty last week made a lot of those former 80s girls feel a little, well, old.

While television is full of "reality" shows, few shows get into the real lives and struggles of prominent people the way that BETJ's Parallel Paths does.