Little Stories

Just two little stories because really not much is going on worth writing about.

Still a Geek Calling the Radio Station

Two weekends ago I was driving and listening to the radio station. This most amazing song came on. Fantastic guitar, very metal, but oh, such skill evident in the playing. The song definitely had two parts--the first half, which included the singing, and the second part, which was a classic metal anthem with lots of fantastic electric guitar. Very Metallica, but the voice wasn't gravelly enough. The song was long--I reached my destination and sat in my car for another minute listening to it end. Of course they didn't say what it was. I got home later and popped up MusicMatch to listen to samples of the latest Metallica disc, but it wasn't the same. I hopped around listening to other metal bands, but they didn't match either.

Zoom forward a week. Saturday night I'm out driving again, and here comes the song again. And again, it is a truly great song. And again, it is played without identification. I absolutely had to find out what the song was. So when I got home I raced to the computer and found the station's website, but there was not any kind of "recently played" list. There was no way to chat with the DJ. I hunted through the pages of the site until, really little, I found what might be a phone number--and it was. And after describing the song to the DJ (which really makes one feel like one is a geek still in junior high) I found out that it was Metallica, in fact, it was 1984 Metallica, Fade to Black. So now I have downloaded my beautiful song and I can listen to it whenever I want, like, for instance, right now.

Weather Report

The first winter storm came through. Nothing makes a teacher happier than the prospect of snow. A lot of teachers wouldn't openly admit this - as though telling the truth were unprofessional - but I do. I love a snow day. I love an excuse to stay in the house sipping hot chocolate and watching movies, and I love having a bonus day to catch up on the correcting. So Sunday night as the weather reports were all about the incoming storm, my eyes were glued to the TV for updates.

One update, though, really left me giggling. The oh-so-serious talking head weatherman guy was pointing at his map, which showed the state divided into bands according to the heaviness of the snow that was going to fall, and each little band was labeled with something like rain/sleet/snow or 1-3", but on the band that represented the most snowfall, the label was FALLS LIKE LARD. Think about that one a second. I don't know how lard would fall, but I do think it would fall more heavily than even the heaviest snow. I was in stitches. I called my dad to tell him about it, so yesterday he left me phone messages like "CNN is reporting a storm in your area, but they didn't say anything about larding." The thing is, the weatherman must have realized how dumb it looked, because the next time he came on the label was changed to HEAVY BAND? Hooray for local television.

The snow was enough to close school an hour early yesterday. I'm hoping for full closure today, but I fear that the best I'll get is a delayed opening. The precipitation was too light too early last night. I was cruising around until about 8:00 getting bills in the mail and really, the roads were perfectly safe. It's currently 30 degrees. So maybe things have frozen up a bit, but I am resigned to getting ready for school like normal today. Bummer.