¡Feliz Navidad!

(First an apology. My illustrations using YouTube videos have ads that you have to endure for a few seconds before you can dismiss them. YouTube needs to make money, after all.)

Years ago I was bewildered by the popularity of José Feliciano's Christmas tune "Feliz Navidad." It has a catchy tune and two lines that are repeated over and over and over.

A web site that gives us songs' lyrics gives us this:

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad

Prospero Año y Felicidad.

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad

Prospero Año y Felicidad.

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas

From the bottom of my heart.

[Repeats]

"Repeats" is putting it mildly. 

The song got a lot of airplay when it was new. I didn't really like it then but the rest of the world seemed to love it. It came back year after year. I was hoping the interest in the song would wane and we could get back to more complex Christmas tunes.

I made a game of my bewilderment. I deemed a successful Christmas season as one when I didn't hear that tune played even once. It is difficult to avoid. Shopping malls play Christmas carols and you can't avoid shopping malls at Christmastime.

Its popularity spread...it's not just for shopping malls anymore. It has invaded classical radio. It can't be avoided. The Three Tenors™ sang a version of it. They livened it up a bit with some extra lines. Plácido gives us the line "I want to wish you a Merry Christmas with lots of presents to make you happy!" It doesn't help. It's a dull song even when given superstar treatment.

Christmas 2012 is not a success. I got to hear a very sappy rendition of it today in the bathroom of the restaurant we had lunch at today. Today is still September.

I don't think I have gone a year without hearing the song since I invented my game. Sigh.

Good Friends

Mom has always been a Reduce, Reuse, Recycle person. When we were kids, she reused a plastic can with a perforated top. It's label had peeled off probably from having been washed before being reused. It was refilled with some scouring powder. Was it bought in bulk, further reducing waste?

Peggy made sure we knew what was in the can. On its side she wrote something like:

Bon Ami

French "good friend"

from Latin "bonus amicus"

That little bit of etymology introduced me to the notion that words aren't simply sounds that have had some sort a meaning assigned to them but rather have rich histories and meanings built right into them.

But not everybody has figured that out. Every day at work I hear people using words that pretty much sound like the words that they want to use. I know what they're saying but it bugs me that these highly educated people are just making sounds and not employing words that are full of meaning.

Some examples:

• When someone isn't making progress he tries a different tact.
• When something is irrelevant, it has become a mute point.
• When a skeleton of an idea needs more substance, its details get flushed out.

I grimace each time I hear those (and I hear them a lot) but I keep my mouth shut. That last one gets to me the most. I never hear anybody use the word they really want.

I'm sure somewhere in this post I have committed my own sin. But that's OK. You know what I meant.

Another trip to Springer

I'm off to reform school again.

I don't know what prompted this one or when it happened.

Jack is clearly making a joke here. But Jack, the kid you were kidding never knew you to make a joke and was too young and naive to figure it out. The kid knew that you (probably) couldn't just ship people off to reform school. But things like this made it very clear that you didn't want him around.

But if I had been locked up in Springer, who would have passed the tools to you when you were under a car changing the oil or replacing the U-joints?

Curb your enthusiasm

"I have an analytical mind" the scientist father would say while sagely tapping his temple with his index finger. He'd say this with a tone that conveyed the rest of his thought: "you idiot child!" This would be in response to such things as his son's putting the wrong sized nut on a bolt and asking for help undoing it or accidentally knocking a "precision instrument" off the table.

One thing that bewilders me about this analytical mind is that it never lifted a sage finger to try to pass on the love of discovering the unknown. He never was involved in my education where I loved science. He never tried to encourage that interest.

In the second grade we had an assignment to do an experiment for our science fair. The best experiments of each class were entered in the school's fair. We had a book of experiments to give us ideas. I chose one that demonstrates that salt water is more buoyant than fresh water. My exhibit showed that a pencil weighted with a thumb tack in its eraser (to keep it from simply floating on its side) floats higher in a glass of salty water than in unsalted water. My entry didn't make it out of the classroom.

That was my only entry in a science fair. I've never been good at finding problems to solve. (I am very good at solving problems that thinkers come up with.) I wonder how things might be different if my father had been involved by challenging me analyze things better. Or to come up with questions that need to be answered then trying to answer them.

I guess he felt that teaching kids the the arts and sciences was the work of school teachers. At home kids are to learn such useful skills as how to fetch a 5/8"—11/16" box-end wrench from a horribly unorganized toolbox in less than two seconds.

Even when I misunderstood something in his area of expertise, chemistry, he wouldn't take time to teach anything about the subject. One morning while eating my Malt-O-Meal, I mentioned that when I add the sugar to it, it seems to get a little more watery than it was before. In school we had recently learned that when carbohydrates burn they turn into water and carbon dioxide. I speculated that maybe there was a chemical reaction going on where the sugar, a carbohydrate, is turning into CO₂ and H₂O and the newly formed water was staying in the cereal. He replied, in his analytical mind tone, if that were so that I could achieve the same result by just tossing in a lump of coal.

First, Mr. Scientist, my speculated reaction doesn't work with elemental carbon. It needs the hydrogen. And, besides, why not take the opportunity to do something useful like explain osmosis? Scientist, indeed! Analytical mind, bah!

OK, maybe he did occasionally encourage scientific investigation. He gave me the Edmund Scientific catalog. But he didn't often help me choose stuff or help me learn things from the stuff I got.

Music, it turns out, became a very important part of my life.

In the fourth grade I took up the violin. In the fifth grade I was going to try out the deeper, richer sounding cello. Here, my father was much more supportive than with the sciences. He encouraged my musical education with the little contract added to the bottom of this form:

Springer is where the New Mexico Boys’ School, a detention center for male juveniles, was at the time. I was threatened with being sent to Springer for things as minor as looking at him with crossed eyes. Since my father never exhibited a sense of humor, these threats must have been real.

By the time I got enrolled in the music program they had run out of cellos. I took a stab at the violin for another year. I'm sure I didn't practice daily but my contract became null and void when they ran out of cellos. No reform school because of a technicality!

Of course my father's taste in music didn't include what comes out of a cello or violin. His taste was that served up by K-Circle-B in Albuquerque. That was middle-of-the-road popular and country music. So he never really encouraged my musical education. (He probably discouraged it...the screechiness probably hurt his ears tremendously.)

I wonder how my life would have been different if I had gotten some encouragement in my attempts at learning music.

But if things had been different, I wouldn't be who I am now. I'm pretty happy with how I turned out.

Still, a little enthusiastic encouragement can go a long way. (I might have even had some happier memories to share.)

Even Microsoft admits what everybody says about Vista

I installed Microsoft's Service Pack 2 to my weather station's god damned Vista system yesterday. (The software that manages the weather station's data runs only on Windows systems.) I figured that this update couldn't make things any worse.

After it was done I checked that it had actually done the update to their crappy operating system. It said it had and had a link to their site where I can give Microsoft even more money to get even more crappy software.

On that site they had a field where you can search the web using their "bing" search engine. I had never used it (and plan to keep using Google). But, since I was in a foul mood about Microsoft's crappy software, I did a search using their search engine:

The Windows Vista home page is the Number One result from bing's search "windows vista is a piece of shit."

Ain't it the truth?

Don't take my Kodachrome away

You've probably heard that Kodak is discontinuing its Kodachrome film.

KRSN/KRSN-FM Stereo, Los Alamos, had problems with Paul Simon's "Kodachrome." The first time I heard it, the D.J. apologized for the offense that it would produce but played it anyway. Well, they bleeped the offensive bit.

When I think back on all the *bleep* I learned in high school it's a wonder I can think at all.

I had to switch to one of the enlightened Santa Fe stations to hear the dirty word. It took a while but I finally heard the unexpurgated version.

"Crap."

"Crap"? That's the dirty word? "Crap"?

Boy, KRSN was really watching out for all those sensitive ears in Los Alamos. I was disappointed.

They eventually removed "Kodachrome" from their playlist altogether. I supposed they figured that everybody knew what the offensive word was and that we all filled it in when the *bleep* happened so they were essentially contributing to the naughtiness of Los Alamos.

KRSN was a nice, little station. They had something for everybody. They had Rock and Roll in afternoons for the school kids. They had Classical music in the evenings for those of us with more taste. They had Paul Harvey for the rest of the stories. And when they were signing off for the night, they had H. L. Hunt's "Freedom Talks" for the patriots.

And they had "Test Your Knowledge"!

"Test Your Knowledge" was a call-in quiz where they'd ask a question and the first person to call with the correct answer won a prize and a chance to win the weekly fabulous grand prize. The answers could all be found in The World Almanac and Book of Facts.

I won the fabulous grand prize once. It was a real silver dollar!

Another time, I answered the question right. I got 50 cents! I was proud of my accomplishment...getting through before anybody else with the right answer. I didn't even have to consult the almanac.

Dad wasn't so impressed. "It'll cost more than 50 cents in gasoline and wear and tear on the car to drive up to North Mesa to pick up the money."

I was such a burden.

What is it with women?

I've had a problem with women for years that I need to get off my chest.

Why is "women" an adjective?

The news is always telling us about "women firefighters" being heroic and "women doctors" performing miracles.

We don't have plural adjectives in English. We don't pause in our hectics days to smell the pretties, reds roses.

And why is it that only adult females get this treatment? We'd scoff at our newspaper if they told us about "men nurses" being in short supply. And we never hear of Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin being referred to as "girls detectives."

I'm not the only person bothered by this. A Google search for "women adjective" gives you many discussions of this issue.

Is "female" a dirty word?

Share the road (dammit!)

Rat and I sometimes have similar feelings. Today is one of those days.


One day I was looking at the local traffic map and I clicked on one of the diamonds that indicate traffic problems. Here are the details of the incident:

Traffic Hazard - Harmony Grove Rd at Country Club Dr	10:41 AM
* Riding East in the Roadway	10:41 AM
* 4 Bicyclists in the Roadway	10:41 AM
* They Are not Riding in Single File, Taking Up the Roadway	10:42 AM
* Reporting Party States Nearly Hit One of the Bikes	10:42 AM
* 19 ; Public Affairs Coordinator Highway On Ramp to South 5	10:43 AM
* CHP Unit Enroute	11:02 AM
* Thomas Guide Map Coordinates: Page 1129, Grid 5D

I've never thought to sic the Highway Patrol on packs of bikes that are leisurely riding down the highway five abreast. But I do wonder what they're thinking.

I say that sharing the road is a two-way street. Bikes really ought to share the road with the big, fast, heavy, damage inflicting cars. There are usually bike lanes for them (that are sometimes cleared of rocks and other hazards).

Waste not

Our morning newspaper is delivered inside a plastic bag.  This keeps it dry in the rainy season.  The rest of the year the bag doesn't do anything that a rubber band can't do other than give us something more to store then haul to the recycling bin at the grocery store.

Today's newspaper's plastic bag had helpful water saving hints printed on it!

But wait!  The stop-wasting-water bag was an extra!  Inside it was the newspaper inside its usual plastic bag.

Let's hear it for reducing waste!

I became a man 40 years ago today

This note is in the box of memories Mom kept for me:

I have an odd notion of what happens when a man notices that his son has started growing some facial hair. First, it would be a moment that fills the father with a feeling of accomplishment, of transition, of pride ("My boy is becoming a man!").

The father would then load the son into the jeep and drive to the drug store where they would look over the shaving equipment. The father would point out the different kinds of razors with double-edge blades or single-edge injector blades. Maybe the father would even suggest an electric shaver, or, better, steer the kid away from ever using such a device. Then they'd consider the shaving creams. The father might explain why he prefers foam, gel, or maybe even soap and a brush.

Then the father and son would take the supplies home where the father would demonstrate good shaving technique. "Shave in the direction of the hairs' growth" (but then a kid with a little peach fuzz can't really see what direction the fuzz is growing...it's just growing out). Maybe the father would give advice about how to deal with nicks.

And, if the father is bold, he might even take this opportunity to explain what is going on in the boy's body that is causing hair to grow in new places and, if he's really, really bold, he might even use the event as an excuse for the dreaded, full-fledged birds and bees chat.

But that's not how life is.

What really happens is the father says "Beth, show your brother how to shave."

Beth showed her brother a razor that was in the bathroom. It was designed, at least marketed, to be for a woman's legs. And a bar of soap. Jack used an electric shaver so there were no real shaving supplies on hand. I don't know if Beth actually supervised any actual shaving that day.

For years shaving was an awkward, even shameful, activity. Nicks were especially scary. They gave the world proof that I had engaged in that ungodly behavior. I think Jack sensed my shame and enjoyed pointing out that I had nicked myself.

I don't know how long I used that ladies' razor. I don't know who else might have been using it at the time. Sometime, somebody gave me a little travel razor. It was in a tiny zippered case. Its tiny handle screwed onto the head that held a double-edge blade. That thing was a godsend. I finally had my own razor! And it was small enough that I could sneak it into the bathroom where I had it perform its shameful duty. I wonder where it came from.

But you know what? I know where it is! In my box of treasures! My happy little razor:

I eventually figured out shaving on my own. And I even got over the shame.

The birds and bees chat never happened.

Bless you!

The habit of blessing a person who sneezes is one of those customs, like greeting someone with "how are you?," that really isn't doing anything more that acknowledging something about the other person. As far as I can tell, nobody really thinks that they're providing any real blessing to the sneezer since nobody knows where the custom came from. When somebody blesses me for sneezing I simply make a half-hearted attempt at a smile. I certainly don't say "thank you" since, being an unreligious person, I can't bring myself to encouraging religious behaviors (even though I don't think religion enters into it in anybody's mind when the blessing is going on).

Even a nonreligious "gesundheit" seems to me to be an unnecessary pointing out that somebody had an involuntary reaction to a tickle in his nose.

To me, all this seems about as necessary as hearing "who cut the cheese?" when somebody makes a different kind of involuntary emission.

I have a neighbor at work who quietly murmurs "bless you" whenever she hears a sneeze. The sneezers can't possibly hear these blessings. If the person she's addressing can't hear the blessing, is the blessing conferred? If so, couldn't it be done completely silently? If not, what's the point?

I lied. She doesn't bless everybody who sneezes. She blesses only those who can't hear her. If I sneeze I don't get blessed. My colleagues don't get blessings when they sneeze.

Does she hate us and wish us the evils that these "blessings" are supposed to ward off? I'm miffed. Confused, at least.

Sexism

Let's dig a little deeper into my storehouse of grudges.

When I was going through elementary school we had an annual citywide track meet where the fastest, or otherwise most athletic, kids would represent their classrooms in various track and field events. With any luck our classroom's entrants would bring home a ribbon.

One year, the fifth grade, I think, I got to run in the 50 yard dash. I think I was eliminated in the first heat. But I was the fastest boy in my classroom in short distance running! I had no expectation that I'd get a ribbon.

Boys and girls didn't compete against each other. Except for a few events, they don't compete against each other in the Olympics. But I had a little problem with that notion back then.

There was a boys-only event and a girls-only event. The boys had the Football Throw. Big whoop! Throwing footballs was something I had never considered being a worthwhile use of my time.

The girls got to compete in the Jump Rope. The competition was simply who could skip the rope the greatest number of times in something like 30 seconds.

I was the champion rope jumper in my fifth grade classroom. I wasn't a girl so I couldn't compete in that event of the track meet.

No fair!

I'm sore to this day.

I really wasn't a champion rope jumper. I could turn my own rope and jump very fast. But I never could do the Double Dutch. I never figured out how to get started. I would always snag one of the ropes.

I really wanted to jump Double Dutch. That is what really is gnawing at me after all these years.

Copper Canyon

I've been bewildered about the trip we took to Chihuahua, Mexico, all those years ago to take the train through the Copper Canyon. Once we got to Chihuahua it was decided that we'd rather just take in the history and scenery of Chihuahua and not bother with the train trip.

I've been wondering all these years why we didn't do what was supposed to be the whole point of the trip. Was it money? Did we kids rack up too many demerits on the way down? Were there terrorist threats to blow up the train?

I suppose I do have memories from that trip that few people have:

• Touring Pancho Villa's house, shown by his actual widow!, including his Death Car.
• Seeing "Aeropuerto" in English with Spanish subtitles. What I found most interesting about that experience was that the reactions of the people reading the subtitles happened at different times than the for the people listening to the English soundtrack.
• Eating on a ghastly 50-pound bag of cacahuates. We lugged that huge burlap sack of burnt peanuts all the way home and I kept eating them for a while (they were peanuts, after all!).
• Touring some hacienda. I don't remember whose it was.
• Not getting Montezuma's Revenge (ah, the advantages of not eating indigenous foods).

But those memories really don't make up for not seeing what I understood was some spectacular scenery. And a train trip, even it didn't have much scenery, would have had a lot of appeal to a 15 year old.

Somehow I don't see myself going down there and taking the train. I'll never know what I missed.

Sigh!

Yesterday, after four weeks of antici......pation, we got a call from Costco telling me that my film-to-DVD transfer was ready to be picked up. We raced over to Costco to get it. We didn't need to do any shopping so we just went out to their food court for supper. I got a slice of cheese pizza. Jerry got two hot dogs and two drinks. (You get a drink with each hot dog.) While Jerry was loading his dogs up with condiments I opened the package with the movies.

I got a disappointment.

The label told me that the movie's length is 1:03. Minute and seconds, not hour and minutes. The cases for the DVDs have images for each of the chapters. There were images from the frolicking in the creek and a few from the jumps onto the picnic table. There were 54 of these images.

Apparently these movies are limited to six banks of nine chapters. The movie had 54 chapters of about one second each. So the discs ran out of chapters long before the movie ran out. It didn't even make it to the picnic table!

I took it back tonight. They're going to do it over. They're putting a rush on it.

The images were clearer than my digital camera captured from the projected image. But at least I captured nearly five minutes.

You'll have to be patient for a while longer. Then I'll have to figure out how to get it to YouTube. They'd better not make the discs copy protected. They're my images after all.

In the meantime, you can relive the banana here.

La bohème

Today's Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Puccini's La bohème was great. The singing was great. The Franco Zeffirelli production was mind-boggling. This time even the camera work was good. They didn't keep us looking only at the principals. In the Café Momus scene they let us see a lot of the activity that was going on around the lovers. And it's a good thing I had my tissues. The end really gets my eyes and nose running no matter how many times I've seen or heard it.

The first time I saw La bohème was at the Santa Fe Opera. One day I was in the Mesa Public Library and ran into one of my little high school group who said she and her mother were going to the opera that night and her father wasn't going to be able to make it. She asked if I wanted to use his ticket. Well, yes, I'd like to see the opera.

So they picked me up that evening and we saw the opera. On the way home we talked about how it affected us. When they dropped me off it was time to settle the bill.

I had thought that it was a situation where they had a spare ticket that they didn't want to go to waste and they had found a friend who would appreciate being treated to the opera. But no, it was a situation where they found a buyer. They didn't make that clear when the offer was made. (I think I had enough money with me. Maybe I had to settle later.)

I'm surprised they didn't ask for gas money as well.

Simple Grudge Index

Let's make up a new measurement: The Simple Grudge Index. This is a measure of how long a grudge has overstayed its usefulness. Well, grudges usually aren't very useful but we'll assume that there is some time that a grudge can be held that gives the grudge holder some time to ponder the reasons for being unhappy.

My Simple Grudge Index is just the time the grudge is held divided by the time the grudge should have been given up.

Before we get to my grudge, let's consider a hypothetical case.

Sister's Selfish Coat
Let's say that a person has gone off to work and sends money from each paycheck home to his widowed mother. Now this hard working person finds that one of his sisters has the audacity to buy herself a coat rather than giving the money spent on the coat to their widowed mother. It might be understood that this hard worker could be upset with his sister's spending money on herself when he's helping their mother get by but you'd expect him to get over that in just a couple of days after he realizes that it might be cold and the sister needs a coat or that maybe Mom can survive without another ten dollars.

So let's say that this grudge is held for around 30 years and you'd expect it to be dropped after three days. That would make the SGI around (30 years * 365.25 days/year) / (3 days/grudge). That comes out to more that 36,000. That means the grudge is held about 36,000 times as long as you'd expect. That's a lot.

Master's Degree Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation ideas: Grudge indexes that include more factors such as the intensity of the grudge, secondary grudges of others, and tertiary grudges of those who have incidental effects from the original grudge.

Now consider my grudge.

Missing Point
In my first semester of college in 1973 I took Physics 101. One of the first labs was to measure the Earth's gravity. It involved measuring the distance a marble dropped in a known time. We had a stick hanging on a nail with some carbon paper attached to it. We pulled the stick to the side and held the marble at the pivot point. We released the stick and the marble at the same time. We measured the distance from the pivot point to the spot the marble and the stick collided (a mark was left by the carbon paper on the stick where the marble hit). Now, we know that the period of a pendulum is constant no matter how far it swings so we didn't have to measure how far the stick was pulled back. Maybe it was another experiment where we determined the period of this pendulum.

Now, the teaching assistant had us record how far the marble fell measured to the nearest quarter inch. We repeated the experiment several times and averaged the results to come up with our estimate of the Earth's gravity.

Since our measurements were to to quarter inches, my averages were rounded to the nearest quarter inch. In my lab report I reported my numbers decimally so some of my numbers were something like 12.75. The T.A. took off a point because my reported results were too precise. I was told I didn't measure to the hundredth inch.

I know I didn't measure that precisely. I didn't report them that precisely. It's just the nature of quarter inches reported as a decimal fraction. All of my results ended with .00, .25, .50 and .75. That was reported in exactly the precision we were told to measure.

I WAS RIGHT AND THE T.A. WAS WRONG! I should have marched up right then and there and demanded my point back. (That was one point out of 25! That's four percent of the lab!) But was shy then and I hadn't learned to challenge authority.

I hold this grudge to this day. I want my point back.

My Simple Grudge Index. I should have gotten over it in about 10 minutes (the time it would have taken to talk to the T.A.) I've held the grudge for nearly 35 years. So, let's do the calculation: (35 years / 365.25 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour) / (10 minutes/grudge).

My SGI is around 1,840,000. I've got the hypothetical Sister's Selfish Coat grudge beat 50 times over. I'd say it's time for me to drop it.

(I want my point back.)

What's so funny?

Is there something wrong with me? I have a problem with several types of laughter. I usually like laughter but sometimes people get carried away and drive me nuts. In order of increasing annoyance, here are my problem laughters.

Inappropriate Laughter
There are people who litter their conversations with titters much like people use “you know” to fill up their turns at talking, you know. I guess they really aren't very aware of their laughing and a laugh sometimes comes out at a very bad time. I overheard a conversation that ended with something like this:

Person 1: My cousin died.
Titterer: I'm sorry to hear that. *titter*
Person 1: (silence, followed by) I don't understand what was funny.
Titterer: Sorry. (Then some sort of explanation.)

(I don't remember what the bad news was but it wasn't funny.) I don't let this one bother me (and I don't run into it a much these days) since I figure it's just a bad habit that can't be broken.

Inflated Laughter
Then there are people who laugh louder and longer than necessary. For a while my office was near somebody who would laugh at everything that wasn't sad. If something deserved a smile it got a laugh. Something deserving a chuckle got a belly laugh. Something that was funny got long, loud gales of laughter. A problem with this is that the people involved in conversations with the guffawer would laugh along (and those laughs would be funny and would provoke more, louder laughs). The constant state of levity wore on me.

Laughing at One's Own Humor (or nonhumor)
People who laugh at everything they say bewilder me. I feel if you say something funny, the people who are listening to you should have the opportunity to let you know they found it funny before you burst out into laughter to let them know they heard something funny. And most people, even comedians, aren't saying something funny all the time. Sometimes it takes two or three sentences to tell a joke.


I bring all this up because I sit in a wing of our building where there is someone who combines Inflated Laughter with Laughing at One's Own Humor. It's getting very old. It's so loud it can't be ignored.

I wonder if there something wrong with me that I find all this laughing not funny.

Classical Radio in San Diego

San Diego used to have a classical radio station that had the most powerful transmitter of all San Diego's stations. With the most powerful signal a station can reach the greatest area. Covering the greatest area means that it potentially has the largest number of listeners and can possibly charge the highest rates for advertising. But classical music has a few problems when it comes to advertising. The music that gets played is just too long and that doesn't leave much time for ads. And classical music's audience isn't the 15 to 35 year old males that advertisers love so much. So they changed to a format (then another and another) that can make more money from advertising.

They sold their record collection to an AM station that changed its format to relaxing classical music. This relaxing classical programming came from a station in Boston that went out to many commercial stations. (They never did much local programming with the record collection they bought.) The programming had to accommodate all the stations' advertising needs. So they played a lot of short pieces that stations could either play or replace with commercials.

There was one short piece they were especially fond of. They seemed to play the Minuet from a Boccherini string quintet many times a day. They played it so much that they often wouldn't bother telling us who the composer was or the what it came from. They would just call it "The Minuet." I would call it overkill.

Their main programming was never very bold and never played anything that took more than 20 minutes.

I wasn't thrilled with their very safe choices of music so I took up listening to Internet streams from stations like WQED, WQXR, and WCPE. That worked pretty well but only at home. I want to be able to listen to music on the road.

So we got Sirius Satellite Radio. And we're glad we did. They've got three classical stations that now includes Metropolitan Opera Radio that plays live broadcasts three or four times each week all through their season. We get to hear all the operas that the Met performs several times each. That's way better than Major League Baseball, I'll tell you!

Anyway, one morning last year I woke up and didn't want to get out of bed so I turned on the radio and pressed my preset buttons to listen to some relaxing classical music. There wasn't any. It turned out that they couldn't attract enough advertisers that they switched to some other format. This left San Diego with no full-time classical radio.

The public radio station in San Diego took up playing classical music in the evening and early morning. They even play recordings of the San Diego Opera performances. Their programming is set up to let stations play five minutes of news at the beginnings of each hour so that means that no piece of music can be as long as 55 minutes. I don't think I've heard them play anything longer than around 40 minutes. So no Mahler symphonies. What a shame. Life without Mahler is not a good thing.

So all of you out there be happy that you can tune in to classical music.

Verizon Wireless made me grumpy

We decided to get new phones for cheap in exchange for promising that we'll remain Verizon Wireless customers for another two years. It was not a pretty experience...

We went to a local store and browsed the gazillion phones and I started hyperventilating and we left. We shopped online instead. Their web store made me grumpy. I had to reenter information I had already entered when a reasonably designed shopping site would have remembered it for me. After re-re-reentering information I finally hit the "I'm done, let's pay for it" button. Their web site said that an error occurred and I had to start over. I started over and at the end the same error occurred. I did it a third time. This time when I said I'm done it showed me what I was ordering: six phones and six sets of accessories. All this time their shopping cart icon at the top of the page assured me that it had been empty. Then, their poorly designed shopping cart made it very hard for me to empty it and redo things yet another time.

Next day: American Express put a hold on the charge because I hadn't used that card with Verizon before and it raised some sort of red flag. Verizon took the hold to be a full rejection and they canceled my order. I called Verizon to try to straighten things out and first person I talked to transfered me to the money end of the business and was on hold for at least 10 minutes. The person there had no idea why I had been sent to her and she transfered me back to customer service. This customer service person tried to fix things and get the order redone but needed to call me back in the morning right when he gets in at 8:30. He never called.

I tried their online store again and it would not let me in. When I signed in it told me that I could not use that service and I needed to call customer service.

So I called back and spent an hour haggling with the nice person who was stuck with me. I reluctantly ended up spending more money than I had bargained for on the Internet but now that's done and I can put this all behind me. Susan, the very nice Verizon person, handles very unhappy customers very well. She deserves a bonus.

But there is a lot of residual grumpiness. The phones are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I hope we like them. They have cameras for our blogging pleasure!