Quickish (but relevant) Stuff

Radio: Yes, I'll be taking over the airwaves yet again...  Thursday evening (22-Feb), 8:00 p.m. here in the eastern USA at WPRB-FM, 103.3 FM in the lovely Delaware Valley and wprb.com for those on-line (streaming in RealAudio, Windows Media, and MP3).  The recap will appear here shortly afterwards, perhaps with some excerpts in that popular MP3 format, but I'd love it if you could join me for some portion of the festivities.

Blogvergence: I've been fortunate enough to be selected as a judge for a fantastic contest that melds Deadly Tango and the Malt & Barley Chronicles -- naming the top 100 drinking songs of all time.  Big Rock Candy Mountain is hosting the whole deal, and the current list of 350+ presented to the judges is strong (if a little countrified).  Here's one that I'll be adding to the list shortly -- a song about drinking, a song I like to hear while drinking, a song perhaps recorded while the band members were (or had been) drinking.

Listen to The Cannanes -- "Take Me To The Hotel, Johanna (And Let's Trash The Joint)"

(From A Love Affair with Nature, Feel Good All Over, 1991)

The contest timetable is a little uncertain, but I'll keep everyone posted as the project moves forward. Your suggestions are also welcome... the more, the merrier.

Shop Talk: XM and Sirius announced their intention to merge. Amazingly, the surviving entity would really be Sirius (from a legal perspective -- XM shareholders will receive Sirius stock).  I'm not excited about this proposal, as I noted over at Gizmodo. This deal could spell the end of satellite's free pass on content restrictions if it goes through, and the FCC certainly has the personal incentive (in the form of Howard Stern) to hold up this deal for a while. Add a loss of competition for true national coverage (mobile broadband isn't sufficiently ubiquitous to be a replacement) and a fight over spectrum (with the FCC likely to take back some of the combined company's bandwidth), and it's going to be a long, hot summer for Messrs. Karmazin and Parsons.