So, the new pickup has 6 months of free satellite radio.
We’ve driven over 4000 km in it over the past three weeks, giving me ample time to play around with the channels.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
1. Satellite radio is a bit like cable TV: It’s possible to have scores of channels and yet not find something worth your time.
2. On one of the three satellites (not sure if it’s three different satellites or a way to organize channels) I have Channel 6 set for 60’s music, 7 for 7’s, 8 for 80’s, 9 for 90’s and 10 for Y2K and beyond.
I often find something I want to listen to on 6, more frequently on 7 and 8, rarely on 9, and so far only once or twice on 10. I’d rather listen to the wind blowing through the tie downs on the canoe on the roof rather than most of the new stuff. “This is of course a statement of my preferences not the relative quality or value of the music.” (Wink)
3. There seems to be very few comedians who don’t rely on profanity for punch lines. Those who don’t are often extremely funny.
4. Flipping back and forth between MSNBC and Fox during a “breaking story” related to you-know-who removes all delusions of accurate, unbiased news reporting.
There’s a huge space out there for someone to start a news service that simply reports what was said and what has happened without editorializing.
5. British people speaking in a British context are almost incomprehensible. I’m sure there’s some good stuff on BBC but I have no idea what they’re saying. (Ok, maybe it’s the wind blowing through the tie-downs on the canoe…)
6. Jamie Foxx has his own channel.
7. Bloomberg and NPR have some real nuggets from time to time, as does Business News.
8. Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is played a lot. I hear it once on almost every trip.
9. The controls on my steering wheel allow me to flee from country music at the first twang. Country may in fact be the reason they invented the “Block Channel” function. But they still sneak the occasional song into other channels based the decade the song came out.
10. Why is it that I feel the need to make ten points instead of nine or eight? I think there’s a name for that.
