Less and Less a Luddite

Lookee what I got. That's one of them thar newfangled saddle-light radios. The way it works is there's a flying saucer in the sky, and it shoots laser beams and moondust at my house and makes the tiny martians inside the black box sing. I don't think it will brainwash me or turn me into a zombie, or even give me cancer, but just to be on the safe side I left it in the box for three months before activating it.

That's only partly a joke. My birthday was in May. My brother got me the car kit for my birthday. When it got to the point where I had to dust the box for the second time, I took a deep breath and got the boombox kit and activated it today. Despite my resistance, it was not hard. All I had to do was plug it in, plug in the satellite dish and set it on a window ledge, and pop the radio faceplate onto the boombox. Actually, the hardest part was figuring out how to turn it on. I kept pressing the wrong button (hint: there are two power switches), and then realized the remote needs batteries. Doh!

I don't know what it is with me and technology. You'd think I'm a little old lady, the way I shy away from it. I fought against getting my first computer, and I still refuse to get a cell phone. Ditto for web access and cable, and every month I want to cancel the cable rather than keep paying for something I barely use.

But Sirius is different. When my brother first got it, I was instantly entranced. Love at first sight. We were at the lake house in Michigan, which means a radio buffet of Jesus, pop-country, and Notre Dame football. Any one of those is about a perfect guarantee that I will break out in hives. I would rather listen to children whining on a rainy day than listen to any of that crap.

But my brother plugged in the Sirius, and omg. We had music. Good music. Three whole channels of classical, one of which is all symphonies, all the time. An entire channel for punk, and it's not all that pop pseudo poser crap -- this morning, I've already heard one deep cut from "Kiss Me Deadly" by Generation X, which remains one of the best albums of the later part of that era.

In fact, I strongly suspect that "Come On, Eileen" has been banned from all Sirius channels because they obviously broadcase only good music regardless of the station. I don't even know how many different rock/alt/oldies channels there are. Then, just for comic relief, they throw in a channel of Elvis and a channel of Sinatra. It's so incredibly good that it's hard to communicate how good it is.

And you never, ever have to listen to someone sing "five-eight-eight, two-three-hundred."

This is exactly what radio should be. And I'm a very happy semi-luddite today.




















Just so we don't think I've lost my anti-newfangled-machine posture completely, here's a sock update. I finally found a way to get the second Gypsy Girl sock to almost kinda sorta match the first one. The stripes are angled more sharply, and they're thicker, but it's close enough for me to breath a sigh of relief and knit on.

Let me point out, this is the exact same ball of yarn for both socks. The exact same needles -- not merely the same needle size, but the same exact set. The exact same stitch count, the exact same cast on method. The stripes should be identical too, but, well....sigh

They match enough. I've got enough of this ball to finish the sock leg. And after that, well, I don't care. I'm tired of fighting it. Mondrian can live inside my left shoe for all I care anymore.