Obstacles while Traveling the Radio Dial

    Yep, it's another one of those posts again.  I wish I didn't have so many problems with listening to the radio, but I do.  There are four local FM stations that I listen to frequently, all of them Top 40.  The one I listen to the most is WQHY 95.5.  It was once the largest radio station in the region, but I'm not sure about that any more.  As I have mentioned many times before, I have a hard time listening to it at my store with my boombox radio. (I should get a newer model with precise digital tuning, but then such models don't have a tape deck or CD player.)  For some reason, I keep getting intense static, but only for that one station. I've had many, many theories as to why this happens (e.g. boosted signals from nearer stations, interference from a moved light fixture in the parking lot, improved ceiling ballasts light fixtures, random vehicles parked outside, the new VOID phone service), but the problem just seems to be getting worse lately.  If the antenna isn't set at the exact right position, I get barely any signal, unless I am holding it.  Just a background static that I can almost can hear something.  When I don't get it just right, I get the public radio station before Q95 or the contemporary Christian station just after.  I can't get either one that good on my car radio, even when parked as close as possible to my store radio.  What is worse is that I sometimes get a country station or a classic pop (not rock, pop) station instead, and neither one is that close to Q95 on the dial.  It doesn't help that they may have changed music services again recently.  While the local DJs sound the same, the ones from the service have changed, and I am not sure why.  Some of the features have also been changed, leading me to think that they are using an entirely different service, but I can't be positive. My next favorite station has probably been WIFX 94.3.  I first heard it at a clothing store somewhere between Dorton and Jenkins in the mid-80s.  I liked the dance music show being played and got my mom to tune to it in the car.  It has been a preset ever since.  In the past few years, The FOX began to concentrate on more recent music, instead of a wider selection of years and with a fair selection of hip-hop/rap songs, especially compared to Q95.  I mean, the Q almost never has rap, even on the songs whose most common version has a rap segment, and it is fairly common to hear a song from twenty years ago, if not thirty.  Over the last few months, the FOX had a little more contemporary crossover country songs, but since I liked a few of them, I didn't mind it that much.  Last Monday, the FOX started playing all country. Technically, they are airing the Highway 23 country music programming from a different station owned by the same company, but it is still all country.  And while they play some recent hits, enough to get my hopes up that they have returned to their regular line-up, the station's primary focus is regional artists, many not yet widely known. The FOX still has their Fox News update, although they are frequently up to a day behind, and UK. sports, I mostly listed to them for the music. I am hoping that by Christmas or soon after that they return to their previous format. I guess WHLW 94.7 would be the next oldest station I regularly listen to.  It is mostly a preset due to its weather coverage; it is the station to get alerts first, usually.  KLITE has a fairly good selection of current music, slightly more hip-hop to country ratios, although Thursday afternoons are throwback selections.  However, ever since I got my new car in 2019, I have had interference issues.  In many places during my commute, I can barely get a signal, only for my return trip to have a slightly better chance at hearing it.  I believe both elevation and foliage have an effect, beyond just simple proximity.  It is a weaker signal and somewhat far away.  The most recent of my current stations for every day listening is WZLK 107.5.  I have only been listening to this station since I opened my store.  ZRock leans more towards hip-hop/rap Top 40 more than country Top 40.  If I wanted to, I could easily get the station on my store radio, but I don't like its mix of songs enough to listen to it all day, especially since it doesn't offer things like news or weather alerts.  Still, I listen to The Kidd Kraddick Show most weekday mornings, so I have to problems with the station overall.  However, I get the same interference problems in the morning as I do with KLITE.  Worse, the problems persist longer and continue for the same section of the evening commute. Considering that I am closer to its radio tower during those stretches, I can only guess that my car's panel antenna construction might be the cause, but I can't be quite sure.  I only started noticing this with my new car, so I could be right, although I never could get that signal from as far away as I could with the previous three. At least I have a temporary reprieve due to a Sirius XM free trial for the next few days.  Sure, it is limited to the "clean language" music channels and a few others, but at least I can get a clear signal most of the time, and I know where most of the few "dead-air" spots are. Then, a week or so from now, is is back got the static.

Turkey Season. Deer Season. Turkey Season! Deer Season! Penguin Season?!

    This time of year, there are plenty of things to watch out for on the roads.  Some rather close, others not so much. Starting back in late September/early October, I began to notice bunches of turkeys along my regular route to and from work. Mostly, they were groups of two to four, occasionally more, in yards and fields along Indian Creek in the mornings.  In the evening, I would see a few along a certain stretch of US 23 at the top of a hill.  None of the sightings were near the road, but I had to be sure none of them would try to fly across the road.  I almost hit a turkey that way on the Mountain Parkway once, but usually they fly way overhead. (I have also had heron fly alongside my car a few times, but they are not part of this post.)  By mid-October, the sightings started to wane, although I still catch a few now and then.  Just last week I saw a flock of at least twenty all along a hillside on US 23.  Fortunately, they were well away from the highway.  After the turkeys started to disappear, deer started to show up.  One ran down the road ahead of my car on Robinson Creek, but the main sightings were in an abandoned yard at the start of the Floyd side of Abner.  It wasn't that late, but the cloud cover made it a little darker than usual that evening.  That is when I saw the deer on the side of the road, only for then to run off into the weeds along the hillside. They would show up for the next few evenings, but I haven't seen them since.  There have been other deer sightings, including a possible pair that just had leapt over a guard rail a second before I got there.  I just could glimpse a white tail behind the rail before they ran down the hill on the other side.  However, the things I have most seen from the road are decorations, which provide an entirely different level of distraction.  Normally, I would have to wait until early October, maybe late November before the decorations would start to go up.  I saw my first Halloween decorations before Labor Day.  That's right, August. I had never seen anyone put their decorations that early before Halloween.  This is also a reason why I didn't post anything about them before now. Why reward someone for doing something so out-of-season? (Also, I was in the middle of a series, so I didn't want to interrupt it.)  This year, the 'crawling ghost' was ubiquitous, with the eight-legged beast being a little less so. (I say they were spiders.  My mom said they were octopuses. [Octopi is the non-standard plural. {Based on the language history, the proper term might be 'octopedes,' but since I first heard that term on a cartoon, I might be wrong.} Many people think it is an acceptable alternative.] However, how can an octopus be scary enough for Halloween?)  Some people had those giant skeletons.  A few had more than one.  One house also had an entire table of skeletons around a picnic table as if having a party, or playing cards, to go with their two giants, as well as inflatables and a few other smaller skeletons.  Inflatables were all over the place, with The Nightmare before Christmas being the most common. The one house of Indian Creek that goes all out for Halloween didn't disappoint either, with multiple tableaus featuring pop culture characters such as Beetlejuice and Jigsaw.  They also had a trio of skeletons on a fishing boat. One last house didn't put out their inflatable haunted tree until the week before Halloween.  They also had a pair of silver-and-blue penguins.  Apparently, they put out some of their Christmas decor early so they wouldn't have to go back more than once.  Now, while my concerns about using penguins as Christmas decorations in the Northern Hemisphere is well-known, and many don't agree with them, I think we all can agree that penguins are not appropriate for Halloween.  They had put out some Christmas decorations before Halloween.  Now, some might say that isn't too early, I think most will agree that one should at least take down their Halloween decorations before putting up anything for Christmas.  In fact, the Christmas decorations started going up within a week of Halloween.  The biggest ones are giant inflatables, some well over ten feet tall.  Some people still have their giant skeletons up, possibly to put Santa costumes on them to get more use out of them.  One house has a Christmas tree up in every window.  However, a few houses actually have Thanksgiving decorations up.  Mostly, they use inflatable turkeys.  That house of Indian Creek actually repurposed two of their mannequins by dressing them up as pilgrims.  One male and one female, although both mannequins might be women.  Seeing so many different holidays competing with one another is almost enough to drive me to distraction. Not quite literally, but close. At least the animals don't seem to be interfering with the decorations, yet.

And the Number One Song of 2024 Is

    I have no idea.  Really.  Last week's election was easier to figure out than this. [By the way, I have purposely tried not to find out if this number one song has been announced yet.  You may have heard about it by now, but I haven't.  So, I could be right or very wrong in my prediction.] This is coming from someone who has monitored the charts since grade school. Traditionally, Billboard has been determining the year-end charts based on a year from late November/early December.  Last year, the chart-year ended in late October/early November.  I don't know if that is happening this year or not, so I have to hedge my guesses appropriately.  The year-end charts are compiled from the weekly charts.  Each week, a song is ranked according to a combination of airplay and sales, across a number of sources.  Songs are then awarded an inverse number of points, with the number one song getting the most points and the bottom song, in this case #100, gets the least points.  For the year-end charts, these weekly charts are combined, sometimes with other predetermined metrics for bonuses.  When I first started watching the charts, songs that were still going up at the end of the year were bumped over to the next year's year-end chart, while songs going down were included in the current year's chart, with its final weeks estimated.  Later, a song's history could be spread over multiple years, if it bridged the time between them, but only for its original run.  Now, a song can be on multiple year-end charts if it keeps coming back, such as a holiday song around Christmas.  Typically, the number one song of the year is based either on quality or quantity.  A song that spends multiple weeks at number one gets the most possible points per week. This year, that song is "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" by Shaboozie. It has spent over three months at number one this year, possibly over four months based on how the chart-year is determined. The song has just returned to number one, and it could stay there until the holiday songs start to be played non-stop. On the other hand, a song that stays a very long time on the charts can also end up being the top song of the year, regardless of whether it ever made it to number one, just by accumulating so many points per week.  This year, that song is "Lose Control" by Teddy Swims.  It entered the charts last August, [The reason why the song is not eligible for any Grammys this year.  It was released before the eligibility period.] and is still on the charts this week.  The song entered the top ten in January, spent a week at number one in March, and has been in the top ten ever since, save for one week in May when the latest Taylor Swift album came out and took over the entire top ten.  That is an entire year on the chart, most of it in the top ten.  "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" didn't even hit the top ten until the week after Swift's debut, and it didn't get to number one until July, where it has been all but two week's ever since.  In case of close ties, the song with the longer chart run usually wins out over the song with the most weeks at the top, but it could go either way.  I probably won't have time to tabulate my own guess for another week or two, or longer, before I can confirm this either way.  Personally, I'm going for Swims as the number one for the year, but I'll admit that I could be wrong.  Also, "Lose Control" has been on the chart for so long, that it is preventing the follow-up, "The Door," from getting the attention that it deserves.  What can I say? I just prefer the more up-tempo song.

A Chip off the Ole Tooth

    On October 24, I chipped the top back third of my lower front left incisor. I was eating dinner, nothing too hard or crunchy, when I was feeling around and noticed that part of that tooth was missing. I must have swallowed it, because I don't remember chomping down on anything hard.  Naturally, I was worried.  I had a smaller part of that tooth break off the top earlier this year, but this was much larger.  Fortunately, it wasn't deep enough to hit blood or anything.  I wasn't sure what to do, until I remembered that my dentist had texted me a while back to confirm my next regular appointment for cleaning. I texted back, thinking I would get a fairly quick response.  The following morning I remembered that I live in a dead zone without good cellular coverage and the message wasn't send. (I generally don't use my phone to call/text at home, and wifi is more than good enough for gaming.  Yet, my text didn't go through wifi either. Eh.) I tried looking for signal all around my home that morning, but it was a no go.  Worse, when I called using the landline, I found out that my dentist isn't in on Fridays.  Yeah.  When I got into work, I was finally able to send my text.  No response all day, even after I tried very hard making sure that I felt it was an emergency. I guess when they take off for the weekend, they really make sure to leave work behind.  I spent the weekend making sure I ate very carefully and talked as little as I could.  I got help off of social media, but the advice wasn't tenable.  Sure, I could have used dental wax to fill in the gap, but taking it out and putting it back in eight or more times a day wasn't feasible. Just too much trouble.  Anyway, I had to leave for work before I could call the office again.  When I got to my store, I had found that the dentist office had called there soon after I left home. (I found out that evening that they had called home too.  Called ID is good for something after all.) I was able to schedule an appointment for that Thursday morning, Halloween.  They didn't offer any advice though to help with the gap.  I was glad I had an appointment, but I was worried about a shipment due in supposedly any day.  It was supposed to have been delivered the previous week, but got delayed for technical reasons, and it was supposed to be there by Halloween, possibly while I was at the dentist's. I called back Wednesday morning with my doubts, and the office allowed me to change my appointment to an hour earlier, which actually would cause me more problems than just asking for a different day or for expedited service. (Turns out, the delivery would feature a second delay for 'reasons' and should be here on the day I'm writing and posting this. Eh, again.) I just managed to leave in time, but I got behind a slow truck.  I thought I would pick up speed after it pulled off, but I would've gotten behind a coal truck if I hadn't taken an alternate route, one slightly longer. At least I got to hear one Halloween-themed song along the way that I wouldn't have if I hadn't left early. ("Dead Man's Party" by Oingo-Boingo.) I got to the dentist a little late, but not bad.  Soon after I got there, I had to pay a fee for either the visitation or the lateness, don't know for sure. I wasn't there for long before I got called back, where an assistant checked my records while another one came in later to take some x-rays.  I waited a few more minutes before a dentist came in.  Not my regular one, who only does exams in the mornings and not procedures, but a partner. He saw me and determined the best way to fix my tooth, before checking in on the other patients.  After a few more minutes of waiting, an office manager (hard to tell as much of the staff were in costume) came in with a form indicating the procedure and cost, as well as another form in case I needed to be put under. (It wasn't needed.) I waited again, until just after my original appointment time at ten, after an hour in total, before the dentist came in to fill my tooth.  Because of the location of the filling, I had to be placed at a very steep angle.  All the water pooled at the back of my mouth in the sensation of drowning. (Yes, the term 'waterboarding' came to find.)  This happened multiple times, but I made it through without notifying the dentist.  There were some problems with getting the angle right and in separating the filling from the tooth on its left, but everything worked out.  I paid my fee and was able to eat immediately afterwards.  I opened about an hour late or so.  The filling is still a little tight against my other tooth on the left, the angle is a bit off with the tooth on the right, and my tongue still wants to feel around the slight ridge on the bottom where the filling meets the tooth, but it is slowly getting better.  My mother is concerned about the visitation fee, even if it may have been warranted, but I can't get another new dentist this year.  I had to switch after my mother got into a disagreement with my old dentist about wrongful charges on her procedures.  If not for that, I may had been able to get a quicker appointment with him, or at least some advice.  Possibly even reduced prices, but that can't be taken for granted.  At least I could have opened my store up sooner. Let's just hope I don't experience another tooth-shearing emergency any time soon.