I’ve been thinking about getting rid of my XM Radio subscription for years now but I have a number of family and friends as the additional units on my account for the discount rate so I’ve held off the decision on their behalf.

Since then, the rates have gone up, my favorite channels are gone, and I can’t even listen online for free anymore and the merger with Sirius was just murdered what was left of the programming. So at least I can trim my own spare second unit from the account.

Not so easily.

If you go online to manage your account, there is no option to remove a unit, only to upgrade or change the service. To me this is just paranoia. Perhaps I bought a better receiver and I just want to make the transfer.

This is either obnoxious customer service or a feeble attempt to hang onto subscribers for the dear life of the company. Either way it’s suspicious. There’s no better way to tell what a company is about than the way they treat their customers, because after all, that’s where the money comes from.

I’ll have to phone them tomorrow morning to do this and I’m sure it’s going to be a pain. Rather than waste that phone call on just one adjustment, I’m going to end my relationship with them. It was dysfunctional anyway and my friends and family will just have to understand.

Right now we’re being faced with a lot of decisions about the way we survive in an information-based economy. People will be thinking more carefully about where they put their money and what services they really need to keep their mind in shape. I’ve spent a little time around the talk radio dial lately and it’s just sad, when it’s not just insulting. It’s time for someone to tell you the truth instead of telling you what to think.

I’ve resisted the podcast/online model because I don’t feel that it’s interactive enough to be interesting. There’s been some movement at major stations in my local area and I’m looking into those but I’m interested to hear your suggestions. I’d almost prefer a slightly smaller station with syndication possibilities as long as it gave everyone a chance to participate.

Society is being bombarded with media and very little of it is a wise investment of your time. It’s time to change that and I’d like your suggestions.

This whole process, to me, just points out what’s really wrong with radio, and media in general.  Everyone demands that you label yourself.  Am I a Conservative, a Liberal, Left Wing, Right Wing?  They really want to know if the conversation is to go forward.

The problem is that labels are so counter-productive, especially when the labels mean such different things to different people.   For instance, there are conservatives who aren’t fundamentalists and there are some who are.  Most people do or do not make the distinction depending on how they want to manipulate the listener.  The same thing goes for liberals, greens, etc.  They’re all just imperfect labels people use to describe each other and they are more often abused then embraced.

I decline to state.  My views are my own.  Others may agree and groups may subscribe, but my ideals were not supplied by any establishment other than my own experience.  If I’m going to be labeled, I’d rather that words like “realistic”, “pragmatic”, and maybe even “objective” come to mind.

The problem is that there’s also no such thing as  “The Objective Station, Where People Think For Themselves”

Since there’s no technological barrier to stop them and the laws against this are generally unenforceable, what can you do about it? You can play the game I’m inventing called “Grand Theft Attention”

Duck Season, Vol. 3 (Instrumentals)

This Is The One You Were Looking For., March 21, 2009 By Desmond Crisis (Treasure Island, CA) – See all my reviews Sometimes a little determination goes a long way. I’ll admit that I didn’t even know who Babu was when I started this. I just heard this one song on a Grey Goose Vodka commercial called “Cocktail Party” and I couldn’t get it out of my head. There’s a whole series of those so it took a while to find the right one. Somehow I found DJ Babu and saw him in action on YouTube. Really amazing. He’s a master and his ear for samples is right on. I’ll be his newest fan until you hear it. The Song from the commercial is “Guns Gon’ Blow” but you could previously only find it as a rap tune with lyrics. What I was looking for was the jazzy instrumental. This is it. This is an instrumental version of the hip-hop/rap album and I’ve only seen it as a download here (the link to the “CD Version” goes to the lyrics version, look out.) I like the album but I just bought the one track. I would have bought the whole album but they still demand that you use the downloader application for full albums. It’s not an option for me as my Windows 2000 (which I still prefer) isn’t supported! They refuse to sell an album and let you individually download the tracks. They need to fix that, it shouldn’t be a big deal to do. That aside, this is a nice collection of mostly soulful, downtempo beats, well-selected and presented by my new favorite “Turntablist.” It’s the perfect thing for your rooftop, word of mouth, no guest list, cocktail party.

Recently, an old friend that I hadn’t seen much in the last twenty years passed away. He was a definitive person, talented, and with such a unique personality that while many of my memories faded, I always remembered who he was and why he was special. When I bumped into him at a party a couple of years ago, it was a great feeling to know that he was still there, and I should have followed up on it. I’m envious of his friends who remained close because he really was a great guy and they were able to enjoy him more. I love hearing their stories but wish I’d had more of my own to share.

As I was growing up, I never really felt like I belonged to any particular group. My group of friends in grade school just defied any particular description. Most of them held together through middle school but I moved away for just one year and when I came back had no idea where I belonged.

High school was full of more defined groups and identities and I suppose I was looking for that. I wound up identifying with a group that was arguably the most visible.

Since then I’ve done a lot of things, been a lot of places, and met whole lot of people.

I don’t remember as much from high school as I thought I would. You could say that we had a strained relationship. Unfortunately, it seems to remember me all too well and there are many things I hope it forgives me for.

On Wednesday, I had an unusual opportunity. The group of friends who are basically the evolution of my friends from grade school (some subtracted, many added) were gathered together. The first thing that struck me was that I was having a really hard time recognizing people. Since I’d moved out of town twenty years ago and hadn’t been back much I had too few memories of these people between graduation and now. Aside from Facebook I had no connecting images of them and in twenty years, people can change.

What didn’t change was their personalities and I’m grateful for that on many levels. I learned many things that I hadn’t expected to on that day. I refreshed my memory of what great people they are, articulate, smart, caring, and full of personality. Each one unique but as a group even more so. I found myself chatting with people that I hadn’t identified as my closest friends in school and feeling like they actually were, even twenty years later. Either I had just been away too long and forgotten or I’d misplaced my identity back then, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that these opportunities are far too rare and they often come at too high a price. It’s unfortunate that we wait until we are forced to come together rather than find ways to make it happen. Social networking has effectively removed the excuses for not reconnecting.

I just hope that it’s not too late for the rest of us, that we don’t wait for the next necessity to bring us together.

Because the identity I never knew I was so proud of is still …”a friend of Dan.”

…Maybe there will be a “Random Bag O’ Crap”

My carrier is fine and there are still enough friends who use Push to Talk that I’ll miss it, but the company seems really focused on the PCS side of their network as far as data goes.  I like the phones and service they have for PCS and I’d switch to get the data services I want but the PCS coverage doesn’t reach my house.  To be fair, I’m in an unusual location that is centered in-between a large number of cells.  Only certain carriers can reach it.

So I’ve started shopping for a phone again.  For all of the effort I have gone through to try and understand how these plans work and what the phone will actually do with them I feel like the phone should ship with a postgraduate degree in the box.

One way to start is by picking out the phone…  The easiest way is to identify it by group.  There’s phones, smartphones, and PDA’s.  They’re all different.  Some “phone” phones will get email and do some web browsing within the confines of the carrier.  Real web browsing, not so much.  They’ll do email in some cases, but all carriers seem to handle that differently.  Some have email compatibility through text messaging (called SMS by some, MMS by others.  So far the only difference I can work out is that the MMS can handle attachments, other than that they seem to be the same.)

The “Smartphone” may have more of a browser, or do video, or have a calendar you can sync but I’ve never felt like I understood how “smart” a “smartphone” is.  Since all of the models are different it’s nearly impossible to tell.

The PDA-phone makes more just a little more sense but makes of for that in new questions.The operating system is usually a known-quantity like windows mobile but some “WinMo” phones have a shortened feature set, most commonly they might let you view files like word and excel documents, but they won’t let you create new ones (the Motorola Q does this, it was dissapointing.)

The next consideration is the price.  I’m pretty cheap and I typically buy behind the curve.  As much as I’d like the latest thing, I’m usually happy with the thing from 6 months ago isf the price its right.  A fringe-benefit of this is that most of the bugs are usually worked out by then or at least they’re well-know and written about.  The biggest difference  between this generation and the last is that everyone is trying to make an iPhone-killer.  I don’t really care so much if it looks like an iPhone or even is an iPhone as long as it does what I want.

What do you look for and how do you find it?