04 November 2009

How to escape terrible radio

I get two stations at work - 88.5 (wamu), the local NPR station, and 107.3, the local pop and "personality DJ" station. Mostly I divide my time between the two of them, but every now and then - and more and more frequently these days - I need a break. I was reluctant to use Smudge* at work because when my boss needs me, I don't want to have to take out ear buds before I look attentive. Or miss him when he calls for me.

But then one day ... then one day ... ** then one day I realized that even though the external speaker makes the sound a little teeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy bit tinny, Smudge still lacks the static of my radio and I could hear it just fine even without the ear buds.

So now when I need to avoid hearing about Virginia politics on NPR or to avoid being subjected to the biggest blowhard DJ in radio on 107.3, I grab Smudgy, chose a random song and hit "genius." Et voila!***

Sometimes I use the wi-fi network that I can get to and use Pandora. Also good. Thank you, Modern Technology!


* My name for my iPod Touch because what have I re-learned from having an iPod Touch? That human beings are greasy little animals.

** Oh crap. I cannot seem to stop quoting from Edward Albee's The Goat. That is so not fair.

*** I've done this a bunch of times, so I really should stop looking over at Smudgy as each next song comes up and thinking "Oh! I like that song." Of course, I do. It's on my iPod.

2 comments:

Brett said...

My only add in would be to download any free samples you can find anywhere, any musical genre. Most is just filler, some is horrible, but every now and then you find a gem. Itunes has free songs every week, there is a facebook group that alerts you when they come up and Amazon has a huge pile of free samplers you can download. I love hearing my old favorites, but I sorely miss being led to great new artists by WHFS back in the day. My new method is throwing darts blind, almost all misses, but enough gems turn up to keep me downloading any sample song or album I can find.

Leta said...

Oh, I do! I found some really nifty music that one. One of my favorites is "Trains to Brazil" by the Guillemots. They have a kind of 60s British invasion feel with a peppy percusion line.