I Guess 'NSR' Stands for "No Subscription Required"

    A few weeks ago, I mentioned in a post about a three-month long Sirius XM free trial I had for my car, and how it was getting ready to end.  Even though the free trial ended, I still check back in to the radio every now and again, just in case there is another regular free trial in progress that I hadn't yet received notice of.  I waited a few days after the trial ended to make sure everything was over with before I checked.  First, there was channel zero, the Radio ID.  No audio, just a bunch of random letters and numbers to identify my car's radio from everyone else's.  Boring, but somewhat important.  Next came channel one, Previews.  This one is basically just ads for other channels, programs, and events.  Yes, the radio network known for ad-free music has a channel that is almost entirely ads.  If one is lucky, they can catch the channel listings.  I don't think they run all the time, but they usually are on whenever there has been a channel shake up or if one or more new channels are added/changed. Each genre block gets a mention, with breaks in between to prevent monotony.  In fact, this is how I found out about how the listings changed whenever I didn't have a free trial in my previous car, and I didn't realize that they were also available online.  Still, it isn't an ad, technically, so that counts for something.  Previously, the channel would become a simulcast of the Weather Channel in times of emergencies, such as hurricanes or huge snowstorms.  Sirius would later make it another channel instead, but they have seemed to gone out of the weather coverage.  I don't remember the last time there was a dire enough situation to warrant the temporary change.  At least it was free information when it happened. Normally, these are the only two channels available without a subscription, so I wasn't expecting anything else when I turned the dial again to get back to zero.  However, there was channel fifty-nine, the Kenny Chesney curated "NSR Radio," for 'no shoes required,' I believe. Now, occasionally, a channel pops up after a trial, only for a message to come on saying that it wasn't available, but this time the channel was airing perfectly.  I turned the dial again to see if anything else showed up, but I just went back to zero.  Chesney's channel is mostly laid back country, focusing on his repertoire, with similar country and other artists filling in the gaps.  It is quite similar to 'Radio Margaritaville," just less rock.  Country music isn't a favorite genre, so I never tried to listen to this free channel, but I would come back daily just to see if it was still there. Admittedly, it could have been worse.  I could have gotten a music genre I actually dislike, such as blues or reggae.  I could have gotten one of the Spanish or French-Canadian music channels where I couldn't understand the lyrics being song so quickly.  I could've gotten on of the political talk channels where I don't agree with what's being said.  The worst possibility of all would've been if I had one of the play-by-play channels for an off-season sport.  Nothing but updates about when baseball games were going to start and on which channels, with the occasional score update.  That would have been beyond useless to listen to during my morning commute, when no such games would be played. At least there was a chance for something I would like with 'NSR,' at least a little.

    In all honesty, I have been holding onto this story for a few weeks now.  I didn't want to mention it because I might get in trouble for having a free channel.  I was going to write this last week, but I decided that the Olympic 'junk' story had to be posted as soon as possible to be topical to the meme.  Well, soon after last week's post, 'NSR' was finally removed.  While this meant that I no longer had the situation, I had already planned to write this post for this week's blogcast.  I don't know why I had the free channel, or why it was removed.  Maybe everyone had Chesney for that time.  I never checked online or asked anyone if they had the bonus channel.  Maybe it was finally taken off for the regular Labor Day limited free trial that might be starting next week.  (It would be similar to one that just ended, just minus the channels that normally feature explicit language, such as the rap and most of the comedy channels. Also, no premium channels, and maybe few if any play-by-play channels.) Maybe it was just a random mistake that only I had.  I didn't really care.  All I knew was that I only the two always-free channels back again.  I'm still checking in regularly for the Labor Day trial though. Two weeks of variety for the types of music I rarely find anywhere else, with such a clear signal compared to both the car radio and the boombox in my store is 'hard to beat.'  Yes, one last joke from last week.  Sorry.