I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK–WRXP, 101.9, New York City

Since I’ve been talking about Sirius radio, I also wanted to mention this excellent station that was just added to our local lineup. WXRP 101.9 used to be smooth jazz. Then when they realized that people like rock, they went to this new format. It is something of a mix of classic rock and alternative (not heavy alternative, but 80s and 90s style alternative music). It is the only place (aside from my CD changer) where you could hear The Stone Roses, Live, and Pink Floyd back to back. I had the radio on the other day while I was working in the garage, and I couldn’t get over how much I enjoyed this station. It was actually a better collection of music than anything on Sirius (whose stations are actually too narrow to do this mix).

Of course, there were commercials…a lot of commercials. We’ve been living commercial free basically since we got TiVo and we listen to NPR radio stations (even 88.5 WXPN Philadelphia, a fantastic radio station in its own right is commercial free). So, it’s always a shock to hear radio commercials (they are just so terrible). What was especially weird about WRXP’s commercials is that there weren’t for the radio staples: cars and beer. All of the commercials seemed to be about debt consolidation, online dating, and free laptops:services rather than products. How weird. So, in a nutshell: great great great radio station guys. I guess I’ll put up with the commercials.

[DIGRESSION]: A few weeks before this station came into being (Feb 2008, as far as I can tell) I had a phone survey (and I never get phone surveys!) asking me for my tastes in music. It was loooooong…about 30 minutes. And they played snippets of songs, and I liked most of what they played, and I enjoyed doing the survey. I can’t help but think that the survey was about this radio station. And, I like to think I did my small part in shaping the music playlists of tri-state area listeners. Now, if only I could shape the tastes of voters!

[READ: June 10, 2008] Peng

I was pretty excited about this comic. It is all about “The Advanced Kickball Association.” I loved kickball as a kid, and feel that it is underplayed in the adult universe. So, this comic must kick butt!

But, well, I didn’t like it very much. The style was way too frenetic for me. The pages are very busy, very angular, very anime-like, with lots of action lines and explosions. I just got really lost in the whole thing. Turns out that Lewis has written a number of other comics, and many of his characters make appearances in this book. (This is a one off side-project). And I’m gathering that most of his work looks like this.

The basic story is that 4 teams are competing for the world champisonhsip in Advanced Kickball. And it follows a basic sports storyline. The nice thing is that for the most part no one is played as the underdog (until the final match) who you just have to root for. There’s also lot of super skills and a couple of aliens to confuse things even further. I really wanted to like this. Really. And I’m sad that I didn’t.

I can tell it’s just not my style. Pity.