Some parts of western Yurp, as you may know, got a good bit of snow over the last few days. Here is my report from the scene: The good news about driving a Mr Bean-style Mini in heavy snow is that it handles well and gets good traction. The bad news is that it sits *really* low. I gave the middle of the road a light plowing this morning with my front bumper.

In other, only slightly-less-light news, I learned today that a final decision has been made and that Air America Radio's "Morning Sedition" program will soon be dead. That sucks. I really like that show.

I started listening to AAR on its very first day. "M.S." started out a bit slow, to my mind, because there were some chemistry and role-playing issues (the original line up included Sue Ellicot, who left relatively quickly), but it hooked me pretty early on. I also loved (and preferred, I think) "Unfiltered". That got killed a few months ago. It was replaced by Jerry Springer (who I find unlistenable).

I'm not sure what's going on with AAR. I hope they are making these decisions (the ones related to my two favorite shows) based on ratings information to which I'm not privy (and in which I have no real interest). I fear they aren't, though. I also wonder what's going to happen after Franken leaves (assuming he runs for the senate) and Garafalo (who annoys me the more I hear her) acts.

Two odd innovations of late do not bode well. One is that they have you register to listen. Or rather, they did. I've only had to enter my password once (perhaps it remembers my IP address: in the interim I have installed a new browser). The other is that they have started playing "Dueling Banjos", the theme from "Hawaii Five-O", the ballerina song from the 70s (that piano number), the theme from "Chariots of Fire", and other old public domain tunes as filler music when they don't have ads. Even worse, they play the same ads over and over (which, back when I was in the radio business, meant "we ain't makin' no money") and even *worse*, they sometimes just play the songs bookended with ads (no content at all).

I'm not yet at the point of swearing off AAR, but I do vow to stop buying Flexofactor, SmokeFree, term life insurance, Trinity debt relief, and Funny Times magazine. If they fuck with me, I'll delink them!

On a not-unrelated note, what's the deal with Sarah Silverman all of a sudden? She seems to be the "it" girl for left leaners. I must have come across 5 or 6 extended comments on Silverman lately, and all of them involve some sort of "should we be laughing?" handwringing. Seems a bit silly to me. It ain't like she's reinvented the wheel or anything (see Cho, Rickles, Pryor, Kennison, the Diceman, Diller, Rivers, Bruce, et al).