Mmmmm, Internet Radio

Imaginary readers, I ask your indulgence. I have done a terrible, terrible thing.

It was cyber Monday. I was browsing for a gift for my parents (which, for the record, I did find and purchase--we'll see how they like it). CNET had a gift guide, and it told me about a hot deal on an internet radio. So I bought one.

I've been looking at them for a long time. I miss my WNYC (I can get it at work, barely, but by the time I get home, it's hopeless). I miss BBC World Service when it's not 4 a.m. GMT. I am often curious about what's on my college radio station. God help me, sometimes I wonder what ever happened to Gene and Julie. Also, I can't wait until CD's are a thing of the past, like in Star Trek, TNG (although if my Squeezebox fails to interface with me via Majel Barrett's voice, I'm okay with that). The possibilities of an internet radio were tantalizing.

I had been looking at the Grace Wireless, mostly because the Squeezebox was way out of my price range. Well, on cyber Monday it fell briefly into my price range, and I was working a friggin' 14.5 hour day at work, and I thought, what the hell, I'm single and I can buy myself a hugely expensive radio if I want one. And yes, I know that represents a reprehensible and unhealthy coping mechanism. But I have a new toy and I'm excited and I don't care.

So far it is very sexy. Setup took about 4 minutes (20 if you include loading all my favorite radio stations, my podcasts, my entire music library, and my purty screen saver, plus setting my music settings and my alarm). There are things I'm still not sure about--can I sleep to one thing and wake to something else? Will I find an easy way to listen to my audiobooks using it? Will I listen to more music than I do now? I'm looking forward to finding out.

And I am really looking forward to hearing Soterios Johnson's voice tomorrow morning, for the first time since I left Brooklyn. Everyone on morning radio is more chipper than I am, but somehow Soterios managed to make me just a little more chipper myself...and that's not easy at 5:30 in the morning.