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My previous post was about the early pushing of bad Christmas/Winter music. A couple days ago I got in the car and found that XM's "40s on 4" had been replaced by "Holiday Traditions" until after Christmas. The 40s channel was not moved. This is irritating. This is the crap sort of thing that drove people AWAY from broadcast radio in the first place! And it's not as if there aren't other channels that could be used. It's after the baseball season, even I know that. And XM has a scad of baseball (MLB) channels that could have been used.
Right now I'm settling for the 50s channel and occasionally others, but I'm not bothering with 4 for a few weeks. Sure, if it had stayed 40s, I'd have expected some holiday music - but that's it, just some. They DID use dormant channels in previous years. Why did they decide to screw over the 40s channel this year? Is it that Sirius pulls that crap and this is merger fallout? Is it that this forces an audience for a moment, ala spammers? If I want that sort of abuse, I'll go to a damn mall.
Great going XM/Sirius, you make going to an mp3 player look all that much better: no subscription and no bogus channel-format change crap. Hey, I know it's now considered rather Old School, but I still have a tape deck and I'm not afraid to use it.
I hope XM manages to learn not to do that as they managed to learn a bit with the Radio Classics channel. For a few years they'd have a week (only a week!) of all Christmas themed radio shows. Until last year when they had a week with only some Christmas themed shows, and some regular shows - listeners had had enough.
A few days ago I posted a link to a list of questions used in that "30 Questions" thing that's been going around LJ (and, I assume, other places) for a while. Last night someone pointed out another link to the questions. The interesting thing is a comment on that posting, pointing out that some questions had changed.
( Which version did you get? )
The whole virtual gift thing seems pretty pointless to me. Spend real money to send someone a standard-issue bunch of pixels? Why bother? And after the Pepsi-Max fiasco one might expect a certain hesitance and maybe even some thinking things through. One might. One would be overestimating the folks at LJ. There is a new set of virtual gifts that seems designed to result in drama.
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the_lj_herald has a post about upcoming changes and one them is a new set of virtual gifts. Many of them are signs: Ban Me, De-Friend Me, Kick Me, and Troll Me. Virtual gifts can be sent anonymously. With all the people LJ has ticked off, is this really a good move? Or has LJ realized that they no longer have to be concerned about anyone and might as well sell stuff to jerks?
There is a setting to disable receiving virtual gifts. It's near the bottom of this page. The settings are limited: Do not disable, disable all, disable sponsored. There's no 'disable anonymous' or 'allow friends only' so I've just turned the works off. I had only disabled the sponsored (advertizing) stuff, but with this crap coming I'm not taking any chances.
LJ sure does a dandy job of making IJ look good.
Oh, the humanity.
5 May 2004 18:35I'm using some links from the last couple weeks to make a point. I want it clear that this post is not about jmaynard or myself (save for the final paragraph). It's simply that these links all too conveniently make my point.
Someone, ranting about those who call themselves "otherkin," once asked what could drive people to dislike their own species so much that they'd disown them and claim themselves to be some other species or creature. It's not too hard to want to distance oneself from many of those who post followups like these folks and post articles like this. After seeing or experiencing that sort of thing, can it be any wonder some would rather consider themselves alien or animal or otherkin or some such?
There are, of course, those who think before saying things. Some people really are adults rather than "grown up five year olds." One such actual adult is fathead316 who is not at all what his LJ and fark username suggests.
The above is not a defense but an explanation. I am fully aware that I am, indeed, human with all the problems and non-problems which that entails. I am not a centaur; I play one on the 'net. I am not Valentine Payne; I (sort of) play the part on some weekends. Oh, yeah. I'm also, despite my efforts to remedy things, more than a little overweight. I am very aware of this condition. But that doesn't prevent me from occasionally wearing lycra in public.
Addendum: I should note that the above is not the only explanation. It is merely a reply to the posed question what could drive people to dislike their own species so much that they'd disown them and claim themselves to be some other species or creature? which is rather presumptive in nature. See kinkyturtle's second comment below.
