Look at the present I received this week:

Of course, 96 Rock has been off the air for nearly a decade. The channel that became Project 9-6-1 is now Power 96.1, a "top 40" format. It is no longer programmed into my car radio, but it will soon appear on my car bumper again.

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It is not uncommon for me to drive through Atlanta late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. When I do, I always listen to Handel on the Law on WSB AM 750 (or preferably on FM 95.5, which typically gives me a more widely-dispersed signal). Bill Handel spends three hours a week yelling at people for getting into legal predicaments that are generally pretty avoidable. It's a great show, and I give it my highest recommendation.

I've known a few lawyers in my life, some of them pretty well. From them I've learned several specific lessons which I will now share with you, dear reader.

1. Lawyers think they know more than you do about everything. This may or not be true, but that has no impact on whether the lawyer thinks it.
2. A lawyer's life is just as messed up as yours, but probably moreso. Therefore, never take advice from a lawyer about anything other than the law.
3. And most importantly, never, ever support a girlfriend/boyfriend through law school. They will eventually leave you. I personally know of no cases where this is not true.

Why am I not a lawyer? Sure, I'm argumentative, prone to obsessing over pedantic trivia, and I know more than everyone else about everything. But I'd really like to do something with my life other than be a total douchebag.

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Today the West Georgia radio newsreader informed me that a local group was joining efforts in "tracking where sea turtles go on the internet." Isn't it just like people to harass those poor turtles who were minding their own business? Just because they have shells doesn't mean that we need to climb all over their backs.

It seems to me that those turtles should be allowed to go wherever they want so long as they are old enough. While I don't think it's appropriate for confused li'l sea turtles to go surfing for pron, I can certainly understand why they might want to hit Wikipedia to study the "jumping the shark" phenomenon. Some of the more advanced turtles may want to take an online course to upgrade to sea++ turtles.

Why can't those turtles be left alone to follow their own hopes and desires? What do we care if they are trying to emerge from their shells via seaHarmony.com? What business of ours is it if they want to reconnect with old friends on Facebeak?

I say let those turtles be! At the very least, they may be the last significant of users content with the download speed of dial-up internet connections, and that's got to count for something.

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Back on October 24, I blogged about my affinity for Atlanta radio station 96 Rock, which has been on the air in the Atlanta area for my entire life. Apparently, Clear Channel Communications was listening. And 96 Rock is no more, out with not quite so much as a whimper.

As of November 17, 96 Rock has been replaced with Project 9-6-1, moving their focus from "classic rock" to "active rock." Frankly, I don't know what's so active about their rock, since their website advertises that they play songs from "Metallica, AC/DC, Pearl Jam, RHCP, Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Pink Floyd, Green Day, Ozzy, Nirvana, and Korn," 11 bands who have combined to release 4 albums in the past 3 years. Four of these bands haven't released an album in a decade!

Rodney Ho of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote an article on the changeover that was published this weekend. It includes the following great quote:

John Dickey, an executive vice president for Atlanta-based Cumulus Media, said he hopes this move will benefit his station, the struggling alternative rock station 99X. "I'm surprised they dropped the name 96rock," Dickey said. "It's like blowing up the Varsity and renaming it Project Fast Food."

I suppose that there is a lesson to be learned here. Since Aesop would say that I usually learn the wrong thing, I don't think I'll dwell on this one for too long.

So long, 96 Rock. Thanks for the good times.

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Now that the White House has weighed in, I can speak up, too. Just what the hell is all this furor over Don Imus' insult of the Rutgers women's basketball team? So he called them "nappy-headed hos." And now everyone is up in arms that he made a racial slur.

Excuse me, people, but perhaps, just perhaps, calling someone "nappy-headed" is not as significant as calling a bunch of women "hos." The first describes kinky hair, which is usually undesirable. The second labels a woman as a whore. What Imus suggested in his statement was that the winning basketball team was made up of prostitutes with unflattering hairstyles. And this is to some degree a true statement given the nature of NCAA exploitation of athletes in profitable venues and the fact that the Rutgers women's basketball team members have unflattering hairstyles.

Now Al Sharpton is screaming about the slight and Don Imus has a two-week vacation. What amuses me about this is wondering if he had just called the team "hos" without mentioning their hairstyles, would he be in this much trouble? (Last time I checked, Al Sharpton doesn't rush to your aid unless you are a member of a minority or a Thanksgiving turkey.)

And I'd advise the Rutgers women's basketball team to stop blaming Don Imus for raining on their moment in the sun. Ladies, no one watches women's basketball. (For example, at the University of Georgia, women's season tickets for our competitive SEC program sell for $25. The horrible, horrible men's team sells season tickets for over 10 times that. Apparently in sports, dicks cost more than tits, which is oddly very contrary to the dating scene.)

May I suggest to you, Rutgers, that while you may have provided the sun, Imus and Sharpton provided the moment.

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This weekend I was thinking about how pleased I am that baseball season is over because it means that after several months of self-imposed exile, I can listen to Atlanta's 96 Rock radio station again. During the season, 96 Rock - Atlanta's oldest FM station, number 96.1 on your analog radio dial - forgoes classic rock 'n roll for Atlanta Braves coverage. It sucks to tune the radio in hoping for AC/DC or Tom Petty and hearing Skip Caray lamenting weak batting instead.

I suppose it's a trade-off for the Clear Voice >shudder< owned radio station: losing the listening audience like me that tunes out because we're not hearing music versus the increase in listeners due to the broadcast of a baseball game. But who even pays attention to baseball anymore?

Television ratings for baseball games have been gradually declining for decades. Major League Baseball frequently points out that revenue is up and allowing for inflation, ticket prices have remained relatively consistent over the past half-century. This really means that revenues aren't so much up, they're just much larger numbers thanks to that same inflation. So baseball revenue has been largely stagnant for years, indicating an overall decrease in interest among a growing American population. America's Pastime? More like America's Past Time.

I'm pretty sure that radio ratings are falling across the board as people are given more options in the home, office, and car. (I looked at the internet in an attempt to verify this, but all I could find were sites maintained by radio advertisers such as the Radio Advertising Bureau, and they are the last group of people who would willingly confirm this.) I'm not surprised that broadcasting baseball games may provide a shot in the arm for declining ratings in an industry besieged by the variety of popular entertainment. However, I would think that weakening your listening base by bisecting your listenership into summer sports fans and winter rockers would only damage your all-too-important brand loyalty.

So give it up, 96 Rock, and give me America's other dying amusement: rock and roll.

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