On Demand Lazy

(I had this radio, in mint green - LOVED it.)

It's true... On-demand programming is making us even more lazy than we've already become, and I know lazy - it was my major in college.

The other day I tweeted that I was waiting for Click & Clack to start on NPR when someone responded that I should just download the podcast. I have, when I used to commute into the city. I loved listening to Ricky Gervais's podcasts on Bart - made it fun, and Bart is never fun.

But now I rarely have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time I can devote to hovering near my computer and I don't use my iPod anymore. I suppose I could while vacuuming or something, but see above re. lazy. I vacuum about as often as I churn butter.

When I'm driving all over the Bay Area for work, I'm always tuned in to (or tuning back to) KCBS for traffic updates. With an older car that uses an older iPod adapter, I couldn't negotiate between that and the radio without driving off the road. Just too much trouble.

I grew up listening to the radio. It was always on when I was wee - Mom listened to KCBS at home and in the car she listened to a classical station. (KKHI?)

I got a transistor radio for my sixth birthday and ran down the battery every night listening to KFRC. Before too long I upgraded to an AC model I could leave on 24/7, which I did. My brothers and I made cassette tapes from radio broadcasts, some of which I still have.

Through high school and college I was always tuned in to KFOG, KQAK, KITS and sometimes KFJC and KSCU. Not a lot of variety in the Bay Area, but I grew to love DJs on every station - friendly voices connected to the big wide world beyond my little neighborhood.

What I loved most was finally hearing my favorite song come on after listening to a bunch of stuff I didn't like. Enduring 45 minutes of mediocre stuff just to get to the best 3 minutes of the hour teaches one patience, and you can do other things during that time.

Listening to a podcast means devoting a solid half hour to active listening, without any convenient commercial breaks. Forget pausing - where's the sport in pausing any time you want? In MY day, we had to learn how to pee, make a sandwich and get a drink all within 3 minutes' time.

Not only that, but you can learn lots of fun info from a good DJ. Trivia about bands, upcoming tour dates, who's in rehab, etc. Stuff I'm sure is all over the internet today, but who has time to go look up all that random crap?

Plus, if you knew a certain show was going to be on, you made a date to listen. If you missed it, you missed it. No downloading the program later like a lazy ass. You had to care about showing up to tune in.

You kids can keep your on-demand podcasts. As Elvis Costello said, Radio! Radio!

Driving a Robot

I drove up to Alameda in Dad's pimpin' Chrysler 300... What a fantastic robot that is.

If it starts to rain, the wipers come on automatically. Sounds great in theory, but the car needs a few minutes to evaluate how much it's raining. At first, the wipers are infrequent.

You sit there waiting, wondering when they'll make another pass across your obscured view, anxious for the car to make its complex precipitation calculations, not wanting to hurt its feelings by overriding the controls so you can see where you're going.

Finally it figures it out and there they go, wiping diligently as you drive through the rainstorm on the Grapevine... which quickly passes... and the wipers continue with gusto as the windscreen squeaks with each unnecessary pass of the dry wiper blades...

Then there's the automatic headlights... Most new cars have these, but Chrysler forgot about needing to see the dashboard information in daylight. If the lights are on during the above-mentioned rainstorm, as they have to be by law, you won't be able to see the electronic display.

Other than that, it's a fantastic ride. When you stop & remove the ignition key, the seat slides back and the steering wheel tilts up - cockpit open. Better than that though, the radio stays on until you open the door. I love that.

Lots of bells and whistles, tons of horsepower and a four-body trunk. Nice ride, Pa! Thanks!

It's Seriously Time...

...For robot insurance.

Mmm Cloned Meats

The USDA has decided that no special labeling will be required for "cloned meats," as they said cloned meat is "essentially identical" to non-cloned meat.

I guess I can understand that, but it seems wrong. Like maybe it's time for Robot Insurance. But if the world is about to run out of bacon, they'd better clone the hell out of all the pigs.