(From a Plinky.com prompt: "Do you ever listen to the radio anymore?"

Car Radio

Ah, radio. My old friend. We do have our moments, don't we?

I tend to go through phases with radio. At times, I listen relatively frequently. Other times, I don't listen at all.

My relationship with radio at this point is centered entirely around my car. I do not remember the last time I turned on the radio in my house. If the radio's on, I'm driving. That's all there is to it.

But even then, it varies from time to time. For the longest time, I had two or three radio stations that I listened to regularly. If I was in the mood for country or contemporary Christian, I was probably listening to the radio. If I wasn't, I wasn't.

In cars past, a lot of my driving time was spent listening to the iPod. My current car, unfortunately, was made in an unfortunate point for iPod-listening -- too new to have a tape deck for an adapter, too old to have an audio input line to hook up to. I can listen to my iPod, but I have to do so through a radio transmitter, and that requires enough set-up time to be a commitment.

Which means, in this car, the choices are radio or CD, and that gets into a mood thing. The CDs are a known quantity. If I'm in the mood for one, I listen to it. If I'm not, I don't.

The latest development in my love/apathy relationship with radio is the launch of Journey 93.3.

Back when I was in high school, 93.3 was one of the two leading rock/pop stations, and I listened to it frequently. Then it became the Possum, and at the time I had no interest in country, so it dropped off the dial as far as I was concerned. By a few years ago, it had changed a time or two since, and was a different country station, the Wolf. I was listening to country then, so I listened to 93.3.

And then, one day, I turned on the radio, and they were playing songs that had no place on the Wolf. The first one I thought was a fluke, but after the third one, I realized 93.3 had changed formats yet again.

Now, it's what once would have been called a classic rock or oldies station, playing stuff that's 10-30 years old.

Meaning that 93.3 is once again playing a lot of the same music it did when I was in high school. And, embracing the fact that I'm apparently officially old, I'm listening to it now just as happily as I did then.

From the Plinky prompt: "Here's $1000. Spend it in the next hour or lose it. No online shopping allowed."

iPad & Friends

Ah, the old "Brewster's Millions" conundrum, rescaled for the current economy, huh?

There's an Apple store five minutes from where I work. The high-end iPad would take care of almost all of it. A good cover and some peripherals would take care of the rest.

From a Plinky prompt: "If you had to listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

The Russell Angel

"For reasons I cannot explain there's some part of me wants to see Graceland."

First, to be fair, I couldn't do it. I couldn't imagine listening to only one album for the rest of my life. Wanting to hear particular music generally has little to do with the merits of that particular music; it generally has more to do with the music that matches where I am at that moment.

But that's part of why, if I had to choose, I would go with Paul Simon's Graceland.

It's a brilliantly diverse album, in sound and mood, while still maintaining a cohesiveness amazing for something that literally covers an entire world of inspirations.

As much as I love the sound of the album, however, what would really earn it that distinction is the writing. Paul Simon is a master of telling stories that have the line here, the phrase there, the idea here that make them almost universal reflections of the human experience. He rarely comes out and says things directly, but instead lets us see ourselves in the stories of others.