Brindle Media

Posts Tagged ‘San Francisco’

I was running errands this weekend and listening to the audiobook of Michael Chabon’s “Manhood For Amateurs” when I was surprised to hear Chabon talking about KFRC-FM, San Francisco and how its format change which essentially eliminated the Motown-British Invasion-Beach Boys music from the station’s playlist had affected him.

Chabon pointed out that most of the songs which he listened to on KFRC were already on his iPod but he observed that his reaction to the music in that context just wasn’t the same. “No medium is so sensuously evocative of the past as radio.”

That particular observation caused a low-level ecstatic reaction within my soul since the majority of my career has been invested in radio broadcasting. The irony, of course, is that I wasn’t listening to the radio in my car. I was listening to an audiobook which was talking about the radio listening experience.

But the real surprise for me was when Chabon mentioned that, while living in the Washington, DC area in 1972, his mother’s favorite radio station was WMOD-FM (“Stereo Gold”). I was an “on-air talent” on WMOD, (OK, a “DJ”) at the time.

In this chapter of “Manhood For Amateurs”, Chabon talks about how he listens to music radio virtually every day and about how that experience impacts his life.

For some reason, I feel grateful

OK, I admit it. I’m living in prehistoric times with my old Blackberry Curve.

But my wife bought me an Apple Store gift card for my birthday and she’s been bugging me to get an iPhone. It’s obvious that technology is changing rapidly. Both our daughters have iPhones. But I’ve got a couple of dilemmas.

First, our AT&T contract. Now, of course, all the Apple people sneer at AT&T and we don’t get good reception at our home because we live near an airport where new construction for cell towers is prohibited.
But Verizon doesn’t work very well at our house either.

Our oldest daughter switched back to AT&T from Verizon because she wasn’t happy with the Verizon’s coverage. So, that complicates matters. Which carrier to choose?

Then, there’s the matter of which iPhone. The 5G is coming out in August but I’ll leave that one to the early adopters. The real question for me is whether to go for the 4G or the 3G.

In Shelly Palmer’s review of 3G vs. 4G devices, he points out that AT&T 4G is only available at full speed in Northern CA, Greater LA, Greater Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Charlotte, Baltimore, Buffalo, Boston, Providence & Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Verizon’s 4G is only available to 1/3rd of the US right now and won’t cover most of the country for almost 3 years!

Plus, if you own a 4G phone but a 4G network isn’t available, your phone is actually running at 3G anyway. But, if you don’t turn off the 4G radio, the phone keeps searching for a network and eats up your battery.

You can read Shelly’s complete review here:
http://www.shellypalmer.com/2011/04/3g-or-4g-battery-life-vs-bandwidth/

So, it sounds like I’ll be going with an iPhone 3G. But which carrier:
Verizon or AT&T?

This is too much work for a phone!