Radio cure
I got a Sirius radio. It's great! The same one in all of the MySpace ads, actually.
You can pause and rewind stuff up to 44 minutes back, so I can like, leave the room and come back and see if "Left of Center" (their indie station) or "1st Wave" (their classic alternative station) played any songs I liked while I was away, or if I don't want to leave in the middle of a great discussion about George Takei having gay sex. Plus, there are artist alerts, which means you can program it to tell you when a band (up to 20!) you like comes on any of their stations, which is totally rad. You can do it with sports teams, too, if you're into that kind of thing.
I could also set it up in my car but it's kinda cumbersome until I get a second antenna, and my commute to the newspaper is pretty short.
I'm very lucky for how it all turned out, because I was thinking about getting it for a while, and my brother got it for Christmas and he was raving about it, and with Stern starting this week, I was like, hmm, I probably should get on that. So on Sunday I went out to get a player, and it was like this:
RADIO SHACK: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is.
CIRCUIT CITY: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is. ["Service is state of the art" my ass, right?]
BEST BUY: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is.
RADIO SHACK #2: We only have three receivers left! Luckily for you, it's exactly the one you wanted!
So that worked out nicely. And they were out of the "home kits," so out of the box you're supposed to only be able to play it in the car, but me being the smart guy I am, know that the home kit is only an extra antenna, an AC adapter (it only comes with one of those cigarette lighter things), audio cables to hardwire it to your stereo (I already had that), and a metal stand (not exactly essential). So I was like, "Hey dude, this is Radio Shack, don't you just HAVE one of those AC adapters laying around?" And the guy was nice and like, "Hey, that WOULD work!" And even found the right "adaptaplug" to work with the receiver ("H," in case you're curious. Nope, not sure what that means). AND THEN he forgot to charge me for the ($17.99) adapter. I'm not sure if he forgot or if he "forgot," but whatevs, yo.
Anyway. I heard lots of horror stories about a) people waiting 9 hours on the phone to get it activated b/c it was the day before Stern, and b) problems getting reception indoors, but I activated online (saving a cool 5 bucks in the process) and it was as easy as can be! And I've been getting great reception, just having the antenna laying on my floor. I didn't even have to put it outside or on the roof or anything.
And it's a great service, of course. Whether you want to listen to "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive, or the audio feed of "Anderson Cooper 360," or "Lighten Up With Richard Simmons," or maybe some BBC news, or Canadian music, or perhaps the aforementioned discussion of gay sex with George Takei, those options are there. If none of those things interest you, we probably aren't friends. But there's other stuff, too.
FM radio is dead! Except any station I may be working for at a given time.
You can pause and rewind stuff up to 44 minutes back, so I can like, leave the room and come back and see if "Left of Center" (their indie station) or "1st Wave" (their classic alternative station) played any songs I liked while I was away, or if I don't want to leave in the middle of a great discussion about George Takei having gay sex. Plus, there are artist alerts, which means you can program it to tell you when a band (up to 20!) you like comes on any of their stations, which is totally rad. You can do it with sports teams, too, if you're into that kind of thing.
I could also set it up in my car but it's kinda cumbersome until I get a second antenna, and my commute to the newspaper is pretty short.
I'm very lucky for how it all turned out, because I was thinking about getting it for a while, and my brother got it for Christmas and he was raving about it, and with Stern starting this week, I was like, hmm, I probably should get on that. So on Sunday I went out to get a player, and it was like this:
RADIO SHACK: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is.
CIRCUIT CITY: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is. ["Service is state of the art" my ass, right?]
BEST BUY: Sorry man, we're all out, everyone is.
RADIO SHACK #2: We only have three receivers left! Luckily for you, it's exactly the one you wanted!
So that worked out nicely. And they were out of the "home kits," so out of the box you're supposed to only be able to play it in the car, but me being the smart guy I am, know that the home kit is only an extra antenna, an AC adapter (it only comes with one of those cigarette lighter things), audio cables to hardwire it to your stereo (I already had that), and a metal stand (not exactly essential). So I was like, "Hey dude, this is Radio Shack, don't you just HAVE one of those AC adapters laying around?" And the guy was nice and like, "Hey, that WOULD work!" And even found the right "adaptaplug" to work with the receiver ("H," in case you're curious. Nope, not sure what that means). AND THEN he forgot to charge me for the ($17.99) adapter. I'm not sure if he forgot or if he "forgot," but whatevs, yo.
Anyway. I heard lots of horror stories about a) people waiting 9 hours on the phone to get it activated b/c it was the day before Stern, and b) problems getting reception indoors, but I activated online (saving a cool 5 bucks in the process) and it was as easy as can be! And I've been getting great reception, just having the antenna laying on my floor. I didn't even have to put it outside or on the roof or anything.
And it's a great service, of course. Whether you want to listen to "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive, or the audio feed of "Anderson Cooper 360," or "Lighten Up With Richard Simmons," or maybe some BBC news, or Canadian music, or perhaps the aforementioned discussion of gay sex with George Takei, those options are there. If none of those things interest you, we probably aren't friends. But there's other stuff, too.
FM radio is dead! Except any station I may be working for at a given time.