The Pandora Gambling Game

I'd like to introduce to you a game developed by my friend Jimmy, my roommate Mark, this other guy Keven, this one other dude Charlie, and me. All you need is a working Internet connection, beer, and cash.

The object of the game is to get Pandora to play an artist of your choice's music. You can choose any artist at all. You will achieve this by creating a new station for a second artist (again, anybody is fair game), pressing play, and waiting to see if this new Pandora station will play the first artist you selected. Before you create the station, you need to declare how many songs you will let the station run for and how much money you will wager. Once you and one other person in the room agree on a dollar amount and a fair number of songs, you enter the second artist's name, create the station, and the game begins. Drink the beer while you are waiting to see if the song will play.

An example:

You and me are sitting around drinking beers. I say, "Hey you."

"Who? Me?" you say.

"Yes," I say. "You're the only other person in here."

"Right. Well, what do you want?"

"I bet you $873 that I can get Pandora to play Marcy Playground in six songs or less."

"Hmmm," you say. "Make it five songs and two dollars and you got a deal."

"All right, let's run it."

And then I type the word "Everclear" into Pandora and press enter. The first song is Everything to Everyone by the band Everclear. We sit through that song and drink a couple beers. The next song is Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. I'm a little nervous now because it seems to be heading in a more up-tempo punky direction than I want, but I'm still cautiously optimistic.

We drink more beers.

The third song is The Way by Fastball. Now we're getting somewhere. I like the more indie leanings of this song and it shows that Pandora is sticking to the correct time period.

"Getting nervous?" I say.

"Not at all," you say, but you are lying. "Care for another beer?"

"Yes, please."

The fourth song is The Freshman by the Verve Pipe. A great song and right in my wheelhouse, but only one song left. We're both sweating bullets. Somebody is about to get two dollars richer. Here comes the last song . . .

"Hangin' round downtown by myself/And I had so much time/To sit and think about myself . . ."

It's the dulcet tones of Sex and Candy and with that, I've won the game. Your two dollars are like double cherry pie. We continue drinking.

And there you have it; the Pandora Gambling Game. A variation that we have yet to experiment with allows each person a thumbs up or thumbs down during the course of the station's playlist. And remember, this isn't a drinking game, it's a gambling game. The drinking is crucial but not compulsory.

Oh, and no fair using Matchbox 20 and Third Eye Blind. It has a 100% success rate.