Hey… this whole radio thing isn’t all that bad. First I landed an endorsement with Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow…. and now I am an official endorser for Charter Communications - purveyors of fine cable broadcasting, high speed internet, and now Charter Telephone.

Now I have to go rid my home of my satellite dish and DSL modem. (sorry, Jess )

As a young child, I would never sleep. If there was any sign of life roaming around my house, I had to be awake; I needed to know what was going on.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was, but either my mom or my dad figured out that if they turned the radio on, I would stay in my bed and eventually fall asleep. (coincidentally, the station that they used to turn on, W-cough-K-T-cough-I, still puts me to sleep. )

To this day, I can still see that ugly, baby blue clock radio. The digital display had a horrendous orange glow to it, and the colon between the hour and the minutes would flash an annoying flash that looked like a strobe light in my dark bedroom. Still, it put me to sleep every night. I finally tossed it out when I was about twelve-years-old, right after it electrocuted me.

Flash forward twenty years. My daughter now asks me every night, AND every afternoon when it’s nap time, to “turn the radio on, Daddy.” She will listen to anything. Talk radio. Country. Classic rock. The only thing I can’t turn on is jazz, because instead of sleeping she immediately starts to dance.

My girl has good taste.

Maybe I’d better start prepping for her to take over my show in 16 years.

If you feel like seeing me after you get out of bed this morning, I’ll be doing my annual Full-Shelf Food Pantry food drive at the Mineshaft on Main Street in downtown Hartford. I’ll be doing my entire show (6a-10a) live there today. Bring in a non-perishable food item, and I’ll give you a pair of discount tickets to Country USA in Oshkosh.

You have seen/heard/smelled Hollister. The clothing store that looks like a tiki-hut and you cannot see inside because it is obscured by wooden doors, plants and other misc debris. KDWB’s Dave Ryan and his daughter did a great parody of Fergie’s “Glamorous”…I give you “Hollister”. Also, see the attached glossary below if you are lost on some of the lyrics.

Hollister, Carribou, Jamba Juice, American Eagle, MySpace

Who doesn’t love those WACKY morning radio show DJs? 

Found this for our favorite caffeine-free radio-guy, Fuzz.

There are more photos of the head-shaving festivities at the FM website: http://home.wbwifm.com/

Every guy (well, almost) at the radio station shaved their heads in honor of one of our account executives that has cancer. I was one of the first victims.

I’m not even going to complain about it being the coldest weekend of the winter… that’s why they make hats.

Coincidentally, this is how I got the nickname “Fuzz.” What? You thought my mom named me that?

First, a definition.

Stunting: In radio, the word “stunting” refers to a radio station switching from their normal format to something “wacky” or even just “different” in order to draw attention to themselves. Stunting often occurs just before a radio station switches formats to something that they are going to stick with (i.e., playing hip hop before a station flips from rock and roll to oldies.) Stunting can also occur for a brief period of time when a station just wants some extra publicity, including April Fools Day or during the start of a ratings period.

Now, my story:

A radio station (we’ll call it XX.X) recently played all Christmas music for a few months. This morning they switched back to their previous format. For a brief period of time this morning, though, they stunted as Spirit XX.X. In other words, they pretended that they were a Christian station before switching back to their normal secular format.

I don’t normally bring up what other stations are doing on this website because, well, it’s not very ethical, nor do I normally care enough talk about competition. Besides, stations do this for publicity, and it’s not my place to give them any. This stunt, however, really struck a nerve. How can a station play Christmas music (albeit a watered-down secular Christmas format) and then “pretend” that they are actually going to play Christian music. The mocking tone of the stunt was very insulting to me, as a Christian.

The stunt was neither necessary, nor funny, nor tasteful.

KDWB, here in Minneapolis has been running a promotion where Lost fans can win a trip to go see the season 3 premier at (morning radio personality) Dave Ryan’s home. The chances to win were all based around Lost trivia questions.

I have been calling in for the last 4 days trying to get on the show and answer questions. This morning my dreams came true as they had a 3 contest “Lost Jeopardy” type show. I called in and was put on hold. Then I found out that I was caller 4. So, great…the 3 ladies had the following questions asked:
1) What was the name of Charlie’s band?(Driveshaft)
2a) What is Sawyer’s real name? (James Ford)
2b) Where did Desmond and Jack first meet? (In a football stadium running stairs)
*Question 2a was thrown out because it was deemed “too hard”.
3) What was the flight number of the plane that the Losties crashed in? (Flight 815).

Each of these ladies got 1 questions and each of them COULD NOT ANSWER THEM. They all claimed to be huge fans. I was yelling at the radio. I was so pissed that I got kicked off so these people could suck so bad. So I called back in, quickly hoping to get on and answer any question. So, Dave asked to the general audience:

4) Where is the character Henry Gale from?

Someone called in and said “Minnesota”…but didn’t know the city. I did….and was on hold. I got on and said, proudly “Wayzeta Minnesota, Dave”.

So, tonight, my wife Mary and I are headed to Dave Ryan’s home in Chanhassen to watch the premier and a chance to win fabulous prizes! I’ll post pics and such tomorrow.

(Sorry to pimp another radio station on your site Fuzz, but it is out of your target market =) Wish us luck!

The first one is called, “Wisconsin Men of Greed.” While I agree with the concept, I believe the singers sound too much like they are singing “Wisconsin Men of Green,” which is totally the opposite of what they are going for.

Forgive me for not keeping you up-to-date on what happened last weekend at the Women For MACC “Shoot For A Cure.” It was a great time. Michael King and the rest of those involved are always extremely accommodating.

In the first round, I shot 19 out of 25 birds (don’t worry, they’re clay pigeons, PETA fans). That was good enough for second place on my trap, and it tied me with Hartford’s (awesome) Mayor Henke. So… they put six of us in the final instead of five.

The final was “hunt and cover” style. For those of you who don’t know, “hunt and cover” is where one person calls “pull” and then takes the first shot. If he or she misses, his or her teammate takes a second shot at the target. I had never shot this way before. I sucked. We ended up with 12 out of 25. I felt bad for the young man shooting with me (pictured below) because he was very good at what he was doing, and I didn’t keep up with him.

Just so you know… I am going to take a vacation all next week. I’ll be around… just not on the air. Mike Elliott will be my special guest host while I’m gone. (thanks to Mikey, btw, for helping a brother out.)

I’ll be back on the air on Saturday the 2nd.

Garrett posed the question, just what is HD Radio, exactly?

I guess, being in the industry, I have been blinded by the “everybody knows what I’m thinking about” bug.

Here is what HD Radio is, in a nutshell:

HD Radio is digital radio that is capable of broadcasting many different “channels” on one station.

Here is the bigger, dorkier explanation:

HD Radio is a new way of transmitting/listening to existing radio stations.

In the past, radio stations broadcasted analogously. Analog radio is bulky. It’s kind of like playing records instead of listening to an MP3 player. The bandwidth used by radio stations is not used to its full potential, and even though there is a lot of information plugging through the signal, the quality isn’t all that good.

IBiquity Digital Corporation, decided that what we’re used to wasn’t good enough. They developed a technology which allows stations to broadcast digitally, thus freeing up a ton of a station’s bandwidth to allow for other things. For instance, HD stations can now “multicast.” That is, they can have two (or more) stations on one signal. Imagine 92.5-1 and 92.5-2. With an HD radio, a listener would be able to listen to country on 92.5 channel 1, and let’s say chinese mandolin music on 92.5 channel 2. That is hypothetical, of course, we haven’t done a market study on chinese mandolin music, nor are we capable of HD broadcasting or even multicasting at this point.

There are many stations in Milwaukee that do multicast, though. I wouldn’t feel right plugging other radio stations on my website, though, so you are more than welcome to search for those stations on your own.

At the moment, listening to HD radio requires that a) the station you are listening to broadcasts in HD and b) you have a stereo capable of decoding HD radio. The stereos are priced ridiculously high right now, but they will come down. And, just like satellite radio, eventually every car you purchase will come stock with an HD radio - in fact, every radio/stereo you buy in general will be HD equipped.

Unlike satellite radio, by the way, HD radio is free to the listeners. It is just like regular radio, except there is more of a selection, and the sound quality is mp3-player like.

Also, since HD radio is local radio, radio stations can provide you with news/traffic/weather/other local information at the push of a button - in textual readouts on your car stereo display - or as audio alerts available to you at the push of a button. Really, the technology is limitless.

I encourage you to read more on HD radio, since eventually HD radio will be referred to as “radio.”

Here are some links for you:
iBiquity Digital Corporation
WikiPedia: HD Radio
HDRadio.com
And this link is a research project I did for school on HD Radio. Microsoft Word Document

Image above courtesy of HDRadio.com.

I logged on to Amazon.com this morning to check on some of my college textbooks that I have for sale. On the homepage, I saw an ad for the new Boston Acoustics HD Clock Radio (this is totally the wave of the future, btw). I clicked on it to see if I could afford one, and lo and behold, it was on sale!

Check out the huge savings:

That’s a whole 0.33% savings! AWESOME DEAL!

Another August, another Shoot for a Cure. I’ll be taking part in this year’s “Shoot for a Cure” celebrity trap shoot at the Hartford Gun Club, this Sunday, August 27th, from 1-3pm.

Stop by and watch me get my ass kicked by a female TV celebrity, again this year.

Thanks to Shawn Boudry for the gun. You won’t have to worry about me shooting it too much, because I’ll probably go out in the first round… AGAIN!

You can now find out exactly where I will be, thanks to Google’s public calendar feature.

To see where I’ll be, look in the sidebar. At the bottom, you will find a link to my “Public Appearances” page.

My little one just turned 2 years old two weeks ago. Listen to what she sang today… (yikes!)

There is a commercial on the radio that makes me chuckle every time I hear it. The commercial is for a builder that talks about these lavish homes with extravagant accountrements. At the end of the commercial, the owner says, “a Christian-based company.”

I like the thought of having an indoor pool, an indoor basketball court, or even his and hers master bathrooms. I don’t, however, think that Jesus would build a 4,000 sq. ft home with an observation tower. (though he would deserve it)

By the way, this is not slam on the builder. I like the delivery of the commercials, and I have been in their homes - they are beautiful. I just think the commercial is ironic.

The new anti-smoking commercials are getting on my nerves. Don’t get me wrong, the message is right - kids shouldn’t smoke. The problem with the ads, though, is that they think they need to say “fuck” in every ad to make kids listen. We have pulled the radio commercials from the air because they say “fuck,” bleeped out, of course. Just tonight, in fact, I was watch television and an anti-smoking ad came on. At the end of the commercial, some person was holding a director’s sign that said “WHUDAFXUP?”

Whoever is getting paid millions to put together that campaign should be FIRED!

UPDATE: Here is the WHUDAFXUP website: whudafxup.com