I love XM

Let me explain why I love XM Satellite Radio. I'm driving home from work yesterday and listening to channel 44 (otherwise known as Fred) and enjoying the Fred Essentials countdown, where they play a list of the most popular classic alternative music from the 70's and 80's all weekend long. Yesterday, I was rocking out to Jocko Homo by Devo, House of Fun by Madness and Orgasm Addict by The Buzzcocks; tunes that you would never hear on regular radio any more. There's nothing offensive about the tunes, they just don't fit neatly into any of the very narrow categories on regular radio. Furthermore, because regular radio plays 20-30 minutes of commercials every fucking hour, they don't have the time to play 2,044 different tunes (not an exaggeration, by the way) over an entire holiday weekend. For a music lover who can't be bothered with the effort (and expense) of legally downloading a bunch of music that I will probably only listen to once in a great while, XM is a godsend.

Another example occurred last September with an event simply called "IT." The premise was that they played every single top-charting pop song ever made from the 1930's through the 1990's in chronological order. This event spanned all of their "Decades" channels and took a little more than 3 weeks. The great thing about it was that, while listening to a certain time period - let's say, June of 1977, for example - memories would flood back of what I was doing during that timeframe and listening to those tunes on the radio. It was exhilarating and magical, as well as enlightening. For example, listening to the segments during the mid-1980's, I remembered why I listened to a lot of alternative radio around that time; music was massively overproduced and boring as hell!

The diversity of music that you find on satellite radio is what really makes it worth the subscription price for me. If I get tired of listening to classic alternative rock, I can switch to gut-crunching metal, punk, hip-hop, funk, bluegrass, folk, country, blues, electronic, reggae, or even reggaeton. The channel that was the most pleasant surprise for me was channel 27 - Cinemagic. The premise seemed pretty stale to me at first - they only play sound clips and the soundtracks from movies. However, I have discovered wonderful films like Kinsey and Whale Rider that I wouldn't have even considered before just by listening to a clip of dialogue that normally wouldn't make it to a trailer. I have also found myself picturing scenes of movies that I love by listening to the soundtrack. For example, just this past Monday, my son and I were listening to a track from The Incredibles where we could picture the whole scene unfolding. We were laughing about how much we could peg each part of the scene to each movement of the soundtrack.

Everybody I work with asks me about why I would pay money to listen to the radio. I always explain to them that people used to say the same thing about cable or satellite television, and now people can't see why you wouldn't. I also warn them that the same thing holds true for satellite radio; that once you go satellite, there's no going back to regular radio, especially if you drive a lot.

Weights & Measurements

I was thinking about the methods of measurement that people use in describing absurdly massive quantities, and I managed to boil it down to three popular terms:

• Shit-load
• Butt-load
• Fuck-ton

Normally, most people use these terms interchangeably, without any rhyme or reason. In an exceptionally uninspired writing session, I got to thinking about how to quantify these terms with respect to potential measurements. Now, I'm pretty sure the fine folks at the International Bureau of Weights and Standards never really gave these terms much consideration, but I guess somebody's got to be the maverick. Anyway, let's start at the bottom and work our way up (no pun intended).

I put shit-load at the bottom because, when you think about it, shit is held in the butt; therefore, to accommodate this mass, the vessel must be at least as large as the payload - ideally, it should be larger. Ergo, the butt-load is larger than the shit-load.

Now, I should mention here as a small aside that I have a real problem with the term "butt-load." Seriously, how much stuff can you pack in a butt, anyway? I mean, I have seen some pretty massive shit piles, but a human butt can only hold so much, even when taking the abnormally corpulent Northeast Ohio butts into account. I think that many of the folks who use the term really mean to say "boat-load," but are either ignorant asses or just want an opportunity to interject an obscenity. I don't really have a problem with the obscenity part, but I do have a big problem with ignorant asses. However, that's a rant for another time.

Which brings us to "fuck-ton." Let's face it: a ton is pretty damned heavy. Also, any time you have to use the word "fuck" in conjunction with anything, it's pretty fucking serious.

There are some who would argue that the shit-load and butt-load should outrank the fuck-ton, since "fuck" is an act and not a measurable physical entity like shit or butts. Those same people could also argue that the ton is a finite measurement; whereas, "load" is a more nebulous term that could theoretically surpass a ton. These arguments would have so much more merit if we were talking about actual, quantifiable measurements instead of some goofy-assed colloquialisms. As such, I'm afraid this particular debate will rage on until some half-assed government official steps in to legislate it.

Let's try this again

What a fucking slacker I am. When I started this blog over 2 years ago, it was with the intention of updating it on a daily basis with whatever random thoughts traversed my feeble mind. Clearly, I underestimated the awesome feebleness (feeble-icity?) of which my mind is capable. I could use the excuse that my life has been incredibly busy in that time span, that I have been involved in perilous situations, valiantly battling the onslaught of evil that permeates our world today. The truth is that it's really just laziness. That, and I have the attention span of a 5-year-old.

Honestly, though, a large part of why I haven't kept up with this is because I fear that there really isn't anything worth writing about in my life. Then, I started reading some other blogs and realized that nobody else has anything worth writing about, either. I also realized that I shouldn't worry so much about what to write, just that I should write. So, I'm gonna give this another shot. Wish me luck.