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Welcome to “This vs. That,” a new series where I compare and contrast two similar products or services, and declare my eventual winner. You may feel free to disagree! Leave your thoughts in the comments.

This time: Internet radio services. Our contenders are Sirius Internet Radio and Pandora One.

I am a Sirius subscriber, and have been for several years. I used to use a portable device in my old car, and then when I got my xB, I upgraded to the integrated Sirius tuner. I like Sirius a lot – though I originally subscribed so I could keep listening to Howard Stern, as time goes on, I listen to him less and less and instead find myself listening to the music and the NPR stations. The only drawbacks to regular Sirius satellite radio service are the fact that you lose the signal when you go under bridges, tunnels, etc.; and the fact that it keeps getting more and more expensive every year. Case in point: the Internet streaming service. It used to be included with subscription plans for the satellite service, but now if I want to listen to Sirius on my computer, I have to add it to my subscription, for $2.99 a month.

Now, I might have seriously considered doing that and not looking back, but I already sprung for a Pandora One subscription for $36 annually. Pandora does have a free service, which I recommend very strongly if you’re looking for a way to listen to high-quality music online for free. Pandora One offers some enhancements and actually I’m on my second year of it, and I do like it quite a bit. Still, I went ahead and used a free seven-day trial of the Sirius Internet Radio service, in order to contrast and compare. Was I making the right choice with Pandora, or should I switch to Sirius?

After trying out the Sirius service and analyzing both products, I came up with this little list of pros and cons:

So, in case you can’t tell from my table, I’ve decided after listening to both, that I’m happy with Pandora One, and I won’t be adding Internet radio to my Sirius subscription. In fact, as far as Sirius goes, I do love it but…dang, it is getting SO expensive. Next Spring, when my subscription comes up for renewal again, I may just bite the bullet and cancel. I’m starting to think I can manage to live without it. But Pandora, well, I love it. Totally worth $36 a year.

And that’s this vs. that!

We took Bean to the cardiologist this morning. She hadn’t seen anyone in her pediatric cardiologist’s practice in about two years, and we were anxious to have an EKG to find out if she had outgrown her WPW. (The awful story of how we learned all about WPW is here.) Sometimes, apparently, babies with the syndrome do outgrow it as their hearts grow and develop. Bean has been doing so well, we were optimistic, but I admit I fully expected to find out she still had it, and we would need to schedule her for catheter ablation next summer.

I was pretty happy when the doctor looked at her EKG and told us that he sees no evidence of WPW anymore. He mentioned a slight heart murmur, which is apparently normal for her age and nothing to be concerned about. He listened to her heart via stethoscope for a long time, then they ran an electrocardiogram, just to be sure. Everything looked good. My baby is cured!!

They still want her to endure a Holter monitor, just for thoroughness. I suppose I shouldn’t fault them for that, but try explaining to an active four-year-old why she has to wear all those stickers and some device for 24 hours (along with pulling off the very sticky leads later). Not fun. So we go back in a week and a half to get that. Then we just have to follow up every two years or so.

And THAT news is good for MY heart.

It freaks me out how fast she’s growing up. But just tonight, when we were eating dinner, she stopped me in mid-sentence (I don’t even remember what I was talking about) and asked, “But Mommy…I’m still your baby, right?”

Aww.

Last night, my contribution to dinner was a salad. I used several weird things that we just happened to have on hand, things that you wouldn’t normally think go together, but even the hubz commented that the salad was delicious!

Start with some greens, a cup to a cup and a half per salad. I like Wegmans Organic Spring Mix:

Then get some baby beets and slice them up, about 3/4 cup for two salads. I use these Melissa’s baby beets, which are steamed and peeled:

Add about a tablespoon per salad of marinated, roasted garlic cloves. I get mine off Wegmans olive bar:

Toss all of that together. Because of the olive oil and stuff on the garlic cloves, and the beet juice, you won’t need any dressing at all. Finally, top with about a teaspoon per salad of slivered, honey roasted almonds:

Sounds strange, tastes delicious, full of healthy things that are good for you (and negligible amounts of things that aren’t).

..the first time I ever saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show?” It was some time in the late 80s. A friend took me to a midnight screening (of course) on the East side of Cleveland, in a glorious, run-down old theater that actually had a balcony. It was fabulous from start to finish, but specifically, I won a fabulous prize. Before the movie started, one of the “hosts” went into the audience and held a number of silly contests. I won a can huggy (long since gone, sadly) by guessing exactly what vegetable he had in his pants.

It was a squash. And that is why, to this day, watching RHPS makes me think of squash.