Thursday, September 25, 2008

BlogMeet; Radioactivity; Oh G-d My Life

Remember, the September BlogMeet approacheth! (Oh yeth it doth!) You don't have to be a blogger to attend -- blog readers, family members, friends and idle gawkers are all welcome. Festivities commence this coming Sunday(unday, unday), 28 September 2008, 3:00 p.m. at Broad Ripple Brew Pub and continue until we run out of grog. Or steam. Or steamed grog. See you there!

After having installed one (very high end but disappointingly insensitive in plain-FM mode) , I have decided to give olde-timey over-the-air broadcast radio one more chance, in the form of HD Radio™. The one I put in at work was getting gawrshful signals...until the IBOC*-digital locked in, at which point it was as good as being there. And much like Dogitall, er, Digital TV, there's more "there" there, with most stations adding at least one extra program stream. Then there's the $50 mail-in rebate, good through mid-October, which takes a lot of the sting out of a $100 tuner.

...I'm looking forward to the ragged tail-end of this week and the weekend with a mixture of joy and trepidation -- things are stacked up at the Skunk Works like an accident on the freeway involving a semi-load of live hogs, a tanker of molasses and 250 Smart Cars; I've somehow been talked into shooting at bowling pins, which I have never yet done and may find my 9mm and .38SA a bit undersized for, not to mention that my predilection for carryable sidearms means a certain lack of what I'm told the kids today are calling "sight radius," as if they were still half-round. It will be a genuinely humbling experience, I suspect. And at some point in the not-too-distant, I have got to run by the bank: living in 1937 means no electronic banking. (But by jasper, the food's good and nobody freaks out over bacon and eggs).
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* "In-Band, On-Channel:" the HD Radio™ signal is tucked up underneath the basic original-style FM (or AM!) signal like High School students sneaking into a drive-in under a blanket in the back seat.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll be interested in your experience with the HDR.

I've held off buying one because of the reports of reception problems (not really interested in stringing an antenna for what's supposed to be a table radio).

That and the suspicion that, no matter how innovative the sub-streams might be right now, if they ever get a measurable audience Clear Channel and the gang will turn them back into the same-10-songs-and- 20-minutes-of-commercials-per-hour programming they have on their main channels. (After all, look at all the programming diversity multiple-station ownership gave us!)

Somerled said...

I think you could do quite well with the pins with a 9mm with 147-grain bullets or a .38 Super. Go get 'em--"Front sight, press" x 6 and sweep the table.

Turk Turon said...

I'll lend you a 10mm.

Roberta X said...

Ah,Turk -- and a set of wrist braces, too? ;)

Srsly, what time's that caravan hit town? Maybe you otta take those pins in with a 10mm!

Presently, I'm torn between the 9mm Witness and Star model BM; I have more than one magazine for each and they both shoot well. The Witness has larger magazines. I may just clean 'em both up and decide at the last minute.

OTOH, I'm told there's a .22 category, too, and my Mark II is a tackdriver.