What type of people listen to Rush Limbaugh? This type:
Neighbors say they are fed up with a man who has been living in a parked car in his back yard for at least seven years, and who they say is disturbing the peace with loud music and obscenity-laced tirades.
“You can’t enjoy your back yard,” said Linda Sanders, whose back yard is across the alley from the car in which Steven Graham is living.
snip
“Every day he’s out there. He never goes into the house,” Kenny Waring said. “He sleeps out there, he eats out there, he watches TV, he plays guitar. … Everything that you do in your house, he does out there.”
Graham acknowledged that he watches TV, listens to music and at times sleeps in the vehicle year-round, but he stopped short of saying he lives in it.
“I’m living anywhere I’m at,” he said, pointing to the chair in which he was sitting outside the home. “I’m living right here, right now.”
The car, a blue, 1989 Buick Century, is parked on a concrete slab in the back yard of Graham’s property. A large, blue tarp covers about three-quarters of the vehicle, including the back window and license plate. The tarp is secured with bricks and cinder blocks.
An extension cord runs from the house to the car, providing power for a 13-inch TV that rests in the passenger seat, an oscillating fan and a radio.
“I get better reception there than I do in there,” he said, pointing at the house. “I listen to Rush (Limbaugh) every day just about.” (bolding mine)
(via Mike Crowley at the Plank)
Since the beginning people have wondered when XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio providers, were going to merge and this past weekend the two companies finally announced plans to join together. Who cares? I'll admit that in the beginning I thought satellite radio was kind of a cool idea; certainly the appeal of not listening to commercials is a strong one (in D.C., in the morning, its basically impossible to hear any music on the radio, just the dumb talking heads).
But the only time I'm tempted to listen to the radio is in the shower (I like to sing along and as The Roomie is usually gone by the time I'm in there, I have no fear of embarrassing myself). I walk to work and rock my iPod. When I'm in my car, which is becoming rarer and rarer, I plug in the iPod. To my mind the iPod is the satellite radio killer. Why would I pay something like 10 bucks a month, as well as get special equipment, to listen to commercial-free radio when I can just listen to my own music that I already know I like?
Ultimately I think XM and Sirus will fail, just as over the airwaves radio will fail, as the iPod (or other mp3 players) becomes more ubiquitous in cars. If I can listen to the songs and podcasts that I want, what do I need the radio for? To listen to brain dead morning radio hosts? Surely you jest.
Huh, lots of news surrounding two of D.C.'s priemere sports figures of late. Wednesday we learned TK Stackmoney is coming back to radio (finally) and today word breaks that Michael Wilbon, TK's partner in crime, has inked a 4 year, $8 million deal with ESPN. Thats some serious loot. Harry Jaffe in the Washingtonian:
After Mike Wilbon cut his new four-year deal with Disney for just under $8 million—which will pump up his presence on Disney-owned ESPN and ABC—he approached Washington Post chairman Don Graham and executive editor Len Downie and offered to resign as Post sports columnist.
“I don’t know if you want me in this capacity,” he told them.
Both said they wanted to keep their star sportswriter in the Post fold. But there might less of Wilbon on the sports pages, and more of him on the washingtonpost.com site.
Says Wilbon: “I might write columns for the Web. I might have a blog. I might do something with Tony [Kornheiser] on the Web. I’ll do whatever Don Graham and Len Downie want me to do. ESPN did not create the Wilbon-and-Kornheiser brand. The Post did.”
But that brand is certainly getting a lot bigger on television. Wilbon and Kornheiser have been co-hosting Pardon the Interruption, ESPN’s popular talk show, for five years. Under his new contract, Wilbon will appear with Dan Patrick and Mark Jackson on ABC’s studio team broadcasting NBA games. He’ll also do analysis of some NFL games.
Post sports editor Emilio Garcia-Ruiz says Wilbon’s relationship with the Post will not change, but there’s no question he will have less presence in the newspaper.
“I never had a set number on my columns,” Wilbon says. “But the number of columns in the Post will be reduced. I’m not going to write two to three a week.”
Now on the one hand it sucks that Wilbon will be less of a presence in the paper (though hopefully more online?) but its kinda cool seeing these two guys I grew up reading make the big time. There's some local pride there in seeing TK and Wilbon do well. And with the amount of money these guys are raking in you can certainly say they are doing well.
(via the Big Lead)