2 posts tagged “road trips”
Show us a great smile.
For my former, beautiful smile, have a look at some older photos. Hell, I think you can see my current, awful smile in some of the pictures I've already uploaded here.
The photos to the right are actually photographs of photos... sort of. At Chuck E. Cheese, Jennzah and I had our picture taken and the booth spits out a pencil drawing version of your photograph, "signed" by Chuck himself. Ever the scatterbrain, I have yet to reconnect my scanner to convert actual photographs. Yes, moving the scanner a bit closer and plugging in two wires is that difficult. (Sarcastic and scatterbrained!)
I don't know if you can tell - I'm obsessed with teeth in general, therefore the condition of my own is quite apparent - my teethies over there are not so nice (as described above).
Mary is sporting a nice smile, however. 'Tis good to see her smiling in general.
Back to the tooth whitening issue: Charles informed me Crest White Strips Premium are responsible. I have since purchased them, and they actually work! I'm not done with my kit yet and there have already been dramatic, noticeable results.
I've been photographing my teeth to chart my progress. Those pictures are not for public consumption, just for personal reference.
And here we have more from the Seneca Lake Wine Tasting Trip. More great times and great smiles.
I'm sure I have more smile-centric photos, but I suspect I've already shared a great deal of them here on Vox.
What's your favorite radio station, past or present?
Presently I avoid FM radio whenever possible. In fact, I'm not sure if the radio in The GrapeMobile has any "tuner presets." Her (yes, my car is female) stereo is XM capable, but that's too pricey for me. Why bother? I have my own CDs to listen to and the FM stations around here leave a lot to be desired.
I get stuck listening to the radio when in someone else's car, house or sometimes in public places.
Through the "internets" (he he), I like Pandora. (It's part of the Music Genome Project.) Pandora compiles information about the songs and artists you dig, then searches for similar music. The site explains it better:
"Pandora™ is the doorway to this vast trove of musical information. With Pandora you can explore to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you."
I would use Last.fm, but unfortunately I signed up without using an e-mail address and no longer remember my password. (My username is echolalia) At the time, I was thinking something like, "I don't need to be reminded, I'll definitely remember this one." Every once in a while I'll sit at the login screen trying all different types of passwords to no avail...
Enough about that, let's talk about the past! How college radio probably saved my life!
Aged 11, I was hanging out at my best friend's house and she had the radio on. Something fascinating was happening. Really good music, music I'd seen videos for on MTV, but was "mysteriously" missing from our local radio stations, was coming out of the speakers.
Then the big one occurred: Suddenly, suddenly, all of a sudden, Depeche Mode's Never Let Me Down Again came on. It was on the radio! I'd never heard it on the radio, ever. Furthermore, NLMDA was an "older" song, having been released a few years ago.
While marveling about this, I questioned the friend, "What station is this?"
It was a college radio station. Marywood College, to be exact. VMFM 91.5 instantly became my favourite station. They played "college music" - which I came to understand meant music that I liked. Sometimes this stuff was called "modern rock" or "alternative music."
(Just an aside: the term "alternative music" was later co-opted by the mainstream and used in reference to some truly godawful music. As much as I love grunge, its popularity ended up causing the masses to associate it, and eventually all kinds of derivative, watered down garbage with the "alternative" label. I'd get further into this, but I'm already way off-topic.)
This "modern rock" business was something I was already into (obviously). Before the radio discovery, I had to get my fix from MTV's 120 Minutes and Post Modern MTV. This was back when MTV actually played videos, so sometimes I got a slice of R.E.M. or The Smiths during "regular" hours.
From the time I found out about VMFM, it was pretty much all I listened to... Until I discovered Wilkes University's station a little while later. I subsequently discovered 3 other college stations available in the area.
Marywood had my ear longer than the others because a) it was the first one I knew about, and b) the daily roster of DJs seemed to be more in sync with me.
College radio certainly saved me from some kind of musical death. I don't want to think about what would have happened if I hadn't been exposed to an almost constant steady stream of great tunes. (I say almost because back then the college radio stations went off the air at 12 or 2AM, depending on the season/semester.)
The following stations will forever have a special place in my heart: 91.5, 90.7, 88.5, 99.5 and 89.1
I don't listen to them anymore (as I earlier stated), but I will always be thankful for them.
I'm now reminded of my first trip to Boston to visit (or pick up?) my sister. It was either late '96 or early '97. As we were getting closer to the city, I had the radio scanning the stations, hoping to find something to listen to for more than a few seconds. I caught something good (don't remember what) on a commercial radio station, stopped the scan and left it on.
This led to another "WOW!" moment in my life.
I Wanna Be Adored by The Stone Roses came on... ON A COMMERCIAL RADIO STATION!
My mother, who was driving at that point, probably had no clue why I was practically jumping up and down in my seat. I know I tried to explain it, but none of us have ever been quite able to convey why a big city is so much better than our hometown.
I had never heard that song on a commercial radio station. And it didn't stop there - IWBA is from 1989 and is a definite classic, in all senses of the word.
Woo! In a real city, I can hear "my" classics treated as such and played on the radio!
Damn, where I grew up and still live - which is a medium-sized city that acts more like a small town - that doesn't happen.
Unless you're listening to a college radio station. And I can't even be sure about that anymore.
