Monday, September 24, 2007

 

HD Radio, Mark Mothersbaugh, BarCamp notes to come

I have been fascinated from a distance with HD Radio. The rare opportunities I have to hear terrestrial radio have exposed me to the industry's advertisements for this new service. Receivers are rare - if there are more than 5 (excluding car sets, or maybe even including them), I would be surprised. The ones that exist are $400, keeping my curiosity only in the realm of reading about them every now and then. That is, until last week. I happened into the Best Buy in Sanford and sure enough, they had an HD radio setup with an antenna. So I figured out the menu system and did a scan. How many HD stations would you guess Orlando has? 10? Lower. 5? Lower. The correct answer is 2. 2 stations, not including the ones that I heard the ad on. Given that not all area stations here put out RDS, I suppose I am not surprised. Good luck to ye, terrestrial radio. Full disclosure: I am a subscriber and shareholder of Sirius satellite radio.

Can I just say that I am smitten with the Mark Mothersbaugh tracks from the soundtrack to "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou." Aside from the Devo cut, he has four tracks, and three of them are aces. Ping Island is, of course, fantastic. I am also a real fan of "Let Me Tell You About My Boat." It is a cut that is bursting with hope and pride, emotions which were hidden brilliantly in the subtext of Bill Murray's character. I love that scene in the movie for the song and for the visual. Growing up, I had a poster in my room of Jacques Cousteau's research vessel, the Calypso. It was a cutaway blueprint of the ship which I spent many hours scrutinizing. Whether intentional or not, Wes Anderson recreated that poster for me brilliantly in this scene. It was an emotional moment for me.

I attended BarCamp Orlando - a great event. I will post my notes on that shortly. I am enlightened.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?