The summer heat is not very conducive to serious listening. Deciding to warm-up the amp and cool-down the listening room (while the rest of the family suffers the heat) is not an easy one. More often, I find myself deciding to share my a/c with others and turn on the bedroom system instead, with internet radio in the background.
To date, I have not invested any time and megabytes to downloading music and building up my own digital library. However, rather than getting started on that road, streaming music over the Internet and listening to my own playlists (instead of the internet stations') via websites like Rdio.com, Pandora.com, Last.fm, Maestro.fm seems to be the way to go these days.
Do any of you have experiences with any of these cloud-based music sites? I know Pandora is good but is not available outside the US. Are the others available here? If so, which ones have you tried and like best?