Radio waves

Buenos dias compadres! Yes, I am in a good mood, maybe it has to do with my first full paycheck from the new gig, which actually pays better than radio did, how is that for sad, and I am sure the 6 beers I had after getting the paycheck are playing into my better than average vibe as well. Still, lots to talk about, so lets get at it.

First, the new gig continues to go okay, not great, the money is decent, but some of the other stuff I am iffy about. Prime example of the iffyness. I mentioned previously that we get a discount on the stuff we buy there, which is good, don't get me wrong, and the discounts vary based on what we purchase. They range from normal foodstuffs, which we get at 35% off down to cigarettes, which we get at 17% off. Not bad and a kudos to ownership for doing that for their employees. That being said, even with the discount, because we are basically priced along the lines of most convenience stores, it is still usually cheaper to actually shop elsewhere and buy stuff than to buy it in house. All good, there is something to be said for being able to pick something up at work, and there is something to be said for buying elsewhere when one has the time. So anyway, I am sitting at home the other day, actually sleeping because I was working the overnight shift and my phone rings. Mind you, I have answer call (the phone companies answer to actually buying an answering machine) set to pick up after the third ring, so even if I were to get out of bed, the chance I will stumble to the phone on time is suspect at best, so usually I will just let it ring and continue to snooze. Well, as luck would have it last week, it was work and they were calling to see why I hadn't charged anything at work using my employee discount. For me the answer was fairly obvious, I can get the same stuff cheaper elsewhere.

(Excuse me, my dinner arrived, I ordered Chinese in, so I might be a tad distracted.)

Anyway, they leave a message on my machine asking if I know about the charge policy and whether or not I might be stealing from them. Excuse me for being just a little insulted. Anyone who has worked with me would have told them that they haven't seen me take anything plus they have at least 16 cameras mounted throughout the store which they can monitor from their laptops at home should they feel the need to investigate me, without calling me and asking me if I am stealing from them. If I still had the radio gig, it is the type of thing that would have pushed me right out the door, but since I don't have the full time gig to fall back on, I just took the insult in stride and proceeded on my merry way.

We do have radio updates while I think about it. First, I tried calling Doug just before the holidays as it has been better than a year since the radio station let him go, and other than a couple of phone calls, he and I hadn't spoken since. I will take the blame for that, I was not as persistent as I should have been in keeping in touch. That being said, just before Christmas, and right after my dismissal, I tried calling Doug, he used to joke that his next job would be grocery bagger at Kuhns, to which I called and left a message saying I hoped he kept a bagger position open, and he tried calling me back over the holiday, but we just missed each other. Finally a couple of nights ago he called and we actually ended up chatting for a good hour and half.. It was so nice to catch up and he and I blabbered about everything from radio to internet porn. It was the type of connversation that would have been great for radio had we not been shackled by the conservative ownership we had, which would have been offended by such conversation and instead was left to a telephone call a year after his release. I could pluck out at least 5 radio bits we could have done just based on that conversation.

I aslo have been in touch wth Lynn, her and I are still trying to get our schedules together to do lunch sometime in the near future, but just as we were closing in on a specific date was when Mike went into the hospital and everything got put on hold. (Damn, those egg rolls were quite tasty.) Still,  I need to get back into scheduling a lunch date just so we can shoot the breeze. (Egg drop soup anyone? Okay, twist my arm, I will eat it.)

We continue onward with our radio updates, next was the demo I sent to KDKA 1020 AM a couple of weeks ago. You may remember that I was told by Carol (who I used to ride into work with at my old gig) that she had spoke to Marshall Adams, the news director at KDKA and according to her he mentioned that they may be looking for radio producers. Well I found his email address on the stations website and contacted him via email about such a position. Of course as it turns out, he has no say in the hiring of producers, but he did forward my resume (which I emailed him) to someone who does have say in that regard, but as it turns out, he scanned my resume closely enough to notice that I sat in for Lynn, hosting the show when she was on vacation a few times, so he asked for a demo of my work. I had to run out and purchase some blank CDs, then find some content worth sending over to him, both of me doing an interview and with me just taking calls on the fly, and I dropped them off on a Friday morning after work. Mind you, after work for me was 7am, as I did an overnight, and since the station and my job are both downtown, I was at his place by 7:30am, and I left the demos with who I assumed was probably a morning show producer. So I didn't hear anything for about 9 days or so, and I will admit, I didn't expect the best of replies, here I am of little on air experience dropping off demos to a station with a 50,000 KW signal that overnight can be picked up in 38 states, but no reply at all made me wonder if he even got the CDs, so I emailed him again, asking for any criticism he had, even bad criticism can be constructive in my book and you can't do radio with thin skin, so at worst it would be a learning experience for me. A couple of days later I get his reply, and while it wasn't a job offer (radio jobs are being cut so much these days I wouldn't have expected one) his criticism consisted of "You've got talent. Keep in touch." which I will take as a good thing, since I am not by nature a show host.

(Wontons are delicious by the way.)

But wait, there is more radio where that came from. My former employer has seen the ratings for their station, which were never great I might add, but you could at least find them, have now seen their audience dwindle to such a point that Arbitron, the group that measures such things, has deemed the audience to small to measure at all. I thoght the format switch was a bad idea and the only thing better than being proven right is being proven so right that it is glaring in its obviousness. If this were professional wrestling, this would be the point where I would do the DX crotch chop and scream "Suck it!"

Okay, besides radio, I suppose I haven't mentioned that I hate the cold yet today. Yes, it continues to be cold, even though the temps may have reached 20 degrees today. I know, break out the sunscreen kids, summer is right around the corner. The thing is, my apartment is part of a house and the walls are made of brick. It is good in that it is hard to change the temperature in my place, but when the temperature4 of the bricks does change, it is equally hard to change them back to something more comfortable. As a result, this big chill has left my place in a constant 62 or so degrees, regardless of how long the heat is on, the walls just won't warm up, creating that indoor ice box feel I have come to love so much.

Fortune cookie time, which we all know is all kind of American bastardization on Chinese food. Really, there is no need for fortune cookies in China, after all what would they say, "you will paint lead onto Barbie dolls?" What kind of fortune is that? Or maybe "the state will come and knock your door down and cart you away?" Thanks, but no thanks, I will stick with my cookie right here. What do you know, it is a penis fortune "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." Suddenly I don't feel so small. I knew there was a reason I got Chinese food tonight.

Anyway, I should mention that Mike got out of the hospital on Monday. He will not be back to work for a while yet, but he is no longer tied to a hospital bed and is recovering at home for the time being. I'll admit, I am glad I am not there, I can imagine he and my mom will end up getting on each others nerves after a couple of weeks.

The change meter continues to climb, another $2.14 to the kitty and if this keeps up, it could be a good change meter type year, as the new total is $43.64. And to think I started this year under 40 bucks, this might be one of the most productive months in change meter history. Plus I have been scooping up a fair amount of Coke points, just the other day I added 45 points on stuff I had found and I still have caps on my desk to add and I am getting dangerously close to a blog giveaway at current pace.

I did take in some of the Inauguration coverage on Tuesday. Unlike the networks, I didn't devote my life to it. I watched to see the swearing in and the subsequent speech that came afterward, but I didn't get so caught up in it that I needed to see who was wearing what, or how many Balls were attended and all of the silliness that goes with it. I stayed for the truly historic moments, then went back to my life so anyone looking for great insights by me into the parade, or what not will be sadly disappointed, I watched the swearings in and nothing more, and beyond the coolness that goes with the peaceful changing of power from one administration to the next (and kids, we aren't the only country where that happens, then again, I wish every country where that does happen would appreciate how truly significant that is) the one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was that oragami like disaster Aretha Franklin had on her head. It took me a full 2 to 3 minutes looking at it before I realized it was supposed to be a bow, I originally thought it was a paper swan gone bad.

I suppose I could opine some more, but I have to be up in a couple of hours, my body clock is all kind of messed up with the changing of schedules, I am sleeping when I should be awake and awake when I should be asleep. I woke up for my 7am-3pm shift today at 3am, and because the previous week when I was working overnights, I just couldn't get back to sleep. All I know is that I have two more mornings, followed by an overnight and then I get Sunday off. I hope I get the following Sunday off as well, as it will be Super Bowl Sunday, and the Steelers will be playing in it, which would be the glog of glogs as far as this page is concerned. Plus, I don't know if I want to work an overnight if the Steelers win, it could get messy around these parts. But I am getting ahead of myself, first things being first, I need sleep, even though I am not tired. Maybe I will just eat some more Beef Lo Mein instead.