Like snow in California

Those who have driven in my car know that one of my favorite possessions is my XM radio. In my opinion, they do a terrible job marketing this thing, because it is just a fantastic service. Now, it's true that I mostly listen to the Comedy channel (and let me tell you, that ALONE would be enough for me to pay the monthly fee), but my tastes rotate. 

For months, I've been content to listen to people making dirty jokes. But Fall is here, and with the change in season comes a change in taste. I want music, I want chord progressions and interesting lyrics and in particular, I want to hear stuff I've never heard before.

This was satisfied for awhile with the purchase of an LP from a local (well, Virginia Beach) band called "Tokyo" which opened for Oppenheimer a month or so ago -- but there's just so many times that you can play a five-song album before you get a little bored with it.

A good friend proclaiming that it was "bland" certainly hastened my boredom.

In terms of discovering new music, XM does me proud. Every time I surf through the 15-20 channels dedicated to the various forms of "rock," I see artists and tracks I've never heard of. I often find myself exercising my short term memory as I frantically try to store the names of artists and songs in my head to download (and yes, pay money to) as soon as I get to my destination.

The other main benefit of XM is the quality. It's not great, certainly not CD quality, but better than you'll get from terrestrial stations (and better quality streams are available online). So I can, in fact, turn up the volume and hear some sort of vibrancy in the music that traditional radio is missing.

And really, what is the point of listening to music if you can't hear the highest highs and the lowest lows?

Perhaps now you can possibly understand my frustration when I turn up a song that is particularly groovetacular and I hear a loud annoying buzz somewhere to my right. At first I believe it's just something loose on the dash or in one of the pockets.

Nope.

Busted a speaker. This can happen for many reasons, but if I had to choose one, I'd have to say it was due to my awesomeness.

Or just the fact that I like to play music pretty loud with factory speakers.

So I'm left listening to the radio at a totally reasonable volume -- that is to say a totally unreasonable volume for me -- until I find the time to get my car into the shop and fixed up.

Bugger.