I have many, many complaints about the current state of radio in Chicago. (I know there are people out there making faces and saying "why do you listen then? Radio sucks, and so does MTV, they're all just tools of The Man designed to steal your money and rob your culture.") Damn it, I like the radio. Really, I do. The radio goes well with my short attention span. I can rarely, if ever, listen to an entire CD in one sitting when I'm driving around in my car. If I listen to the radio, I can flip between the nine pre-programmed stations without fussing with CD cases or putting things away when I'm finished listening to them. If I don't like a song, I just change the station.

I have a fairly wide variety of stations preprogrammed on my car stereo. None of them are indie stations or alternative stations, though there's several good college stations in Chicago, but I can't pick them up where I live because they're mostly on the far north side of town and I'm on the far south side of town. There's two Top 40 stations (the aforementioned R&B/hip hop only one, which I prefer; and a station that plays everything Top 40, regardless of genre). The Everything Top 40 station has been playing unnatural amounts of Creed, Train, Incubus, and Crazy Town lately, and they've been ramming that goddamn Nelly Furtado song down listener's throats since last December. However, it's the only Top 40 option on weekend nights, because the other Top 40 station plays really bad house mixes all night.

Embarrassingly enough, I've been getting into the pre-disco 70s station. They play a lot of Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, and they have the most cloying station promos on earth. It's this man who speaks in a soft voice, like he's getting intimate with you, and he always says things like "this is our music." He makes all these statements that are probably supposed to appeal to baby boomers who are mourning their lost early-70s rock years--stuff about how bad the commercialization of radio is, and how this station offers something completely different because they don't have a morning show or contests or hype. Most people my age find baby boomer "those were the good old days" affectations to be laughable and just slightly annoying. The promos on this station take it to a whole new level. But the DJs tend to stay out of the way (DJs should just shut the fuck up and play some music, instead of making inane jokes) and, well, they play Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. And, sometimes, if I'm lucky, The Who. Of course, they also play Bob Seger and the Eagles, so the suck/not suck ratio is fairly even, if not tilted slightly towards "suck."

The other classic rock station has been a lot more metal lately. They also play too goddamn much Journey and Rush, and they've started playing that fucking Train song. I had originally programmed it so Ray would have something to listen to when he was in my car, but it grew on me, so it's still there, though I find I listen to it much less often these days.

And how could I forget the 80s station, which became the "80s and beyond" station, which is now the "best of the 80s, 90s, and today" station, thus making it pretty much the exact same thing as the beyond-crappy station that I unprogrammed in order to add the 80s station to my lineup. They barely play any 80s music now, just a bunch of pseudo-alternacrap from the mid-to-late 90s (stuff along the lines of Live and any of the 6000 Pearl Jam rip-off bands that popped up back then) and that fucking Train song. That fucking Train song has replaced that fucking Vertical Horizon song as the musical bane of my existence. Seriously.

Not that Champaign radio is going to be any better. The big university station pretty much sucks, and there's an awful lot of country music stations down there. I may need to figure out how to have a longer attention span, or I may just need to drive less. (Actually, driving less is part of the plan when I'm down there. I'm hoping that I'll be able to walk to classes and work, and maybe take the bus when the weather sucks. That doesn't seem unrealistic at all.)

Oh shit, I haven't mentioned moving panic-and-stress yet. I start moving in six days. I've given up on packing. I'll do it after the first day's worth of moving is finished--that way, I'll have a better idea of how much space I've really got and where the hell I'm going to put all my crap. I suspect that I'm not going to be able to take everything with me.

Finally, something I swiped from Jejune, which I really should visit more often (and would, if I wasn't in the midst of moving/thesis related stress): Heinz is releasing a purple ketchup in September. The green ketchup did nothing for me, but purple? That's cool.

1. When I think about him, do I mostly imagine his head on a stake in my front yard?

2. Does he only seem to contact me when he wants something (i.e., a floor to sleep on, food, cheap wine, etc.)?

3. Did the end of the relationship leave me with a longstanding dislike of him? (Temporary dislike, of course, is acceptable.)

4. Does he owe me (or any of my friends) money?

5. Does any form of communication with him leave me with this really disgusting feeling that I've made some sort of pact with the devil?

6. Do I only read his website because I like to laugh at his misfortunes?

In order to actually get the much-sought link, I must answer "no" to all of these questions. And really, I think there's only one ex-boyfriend for whom I would answer "yes" to most of these questions, so most of them have it made. When it comes to getting a link, that is.

So, yeah. Here's the (very complicated) explanation of what's been going on with Matt and Brian's Bipolar (which I can't link right now because it just doesn't exist right now) for the last several weeks. People who regularly (or even sporadically) visit their site probably noticed some weird problems (particularly slow loading of the "weblog" sections). Anyone currently hosting (or planning on hosting) their website with DBWired should probably beware and/or switch hosts.

Mickey Mouse College gave my boy Quinn some bonus points. Good for you, Quinn. I'm so glad you actually earn your grades over there.

I need to get back to work. I'm going out tonight, which probably isn't the best idea in the world, but I really want to see as many people as I can before I leave. And I leave in...uh...a week. (Well, I'll be back and forth until Saturday the 18th, but still...once the stuff starts getting moved, I've started leaving.)

So I had that job interview on Friday afternoon. It went reasonably well, but I won't know if I got the job until at least Wednesday. But it's out of my hands now, and I don't have to think about it any more. I'm sending out another resume/cover letter for a job this evening, and I'll just see what happens. I can afford to pay for a semester's worth of school if I don't get an assistantship, but a tuition waiver would kick some serious ass.

Tim and I had dinner with Ann and Captain Sensible over at Hema's on Saturday night. Ann is great, and she's the sort of person I'd really like to hang out with more often. We had a good discussion about the shortcomings of our respective schools, and it was nice to talk to someone who knows how bad this place can suck.

This past weekend was my ten-year high school reunion. I didn't go. I did, however, spend some quality time watching part of the MTV retrospective on 1990 and 1991, and I came to the somewhat frightening conclusion that my date for the Turnabout dance during my senior year was wearing a suit similar in style (particularly the cut of the jacket and the somewhat balloonish pants) to the suit that MC Hammer wore in the video for "U Can't Touch This." For some reason, I find those MTV retrospectives to be completely riveting. I ended up throwing a tape in the VCR and pressing "record" just so I could tear myself away from it to leave the house. Now I have six hours of stupid MTV retrospective to watch! (Actually, I only have four hours, considering that I stayed up late last night watching the tape. It's amazing how the theme song from 120 Minutes and the voice of Dave Kendall can trigger memories.)

Two net-related things that irritate me: being added to mailing lists I don't want to be on, and bandwidth stealing. I've had irritating examples of both of these in the past week, so they're on my mind. Ever since I took over the news editor position at Pitchfork, I've been getting an increasing amount of music-related spam. Last week, some dork at a "punk" label sent me some spam about a new booking tool on his website. I don't have a band, so it's of no use to me. I asked to be removed from his mailing list, and in response, I got "what makes you think this is a mailing list?" Well, dipshit, probably because it's unsolicited information that's of absolutely no use to me.

As far as bandwidth stealing goes, here's a rule for anyone unfamiliar with the concept: don't link to images off someone else's server unless they explicitly state that it's okay to do so. Copy them to your own server, or don't use them at at all.

Now, some scattershot bits: Nick is back, with a really great new design (I like empty space--not that you can tell from the clutter on this page).

Most of you who are rabid and obsessive fans are probably already aware of this, but Bjork will be touring the U.S. in October.

Look! It's Ray's new journal! (Actually, it's Ray's old journal at a new domain.) I must make it clear that he's cuter in real life. That's not a very flattering picture.

Posts will probably be a little sparse for the next few weeks because of the whole moving/thesis thing. Not that I've been updating all that often these days, but I felt I should make my excuse now instead of waiting until later.