NPR Flashback.

When I was in college, I worked for a public radio station operated by the University of Iowa. It was an NPR affiliate, with call letters KRUI

I didn't work there very long, because it was so boring and stressful. As announcers, we had to speak in a boring, slow, hushed tone where we had to an-nun-ci-ate. There's nothing wrong with speaking clearly, of course, but this is how we spoke:

(Music ends)
(Pregnant pause)
"Sonata in B minor"
(Pregnant pause)
by Franz Liszt
(Pregnant pause)
Performed by the Minneapolis Symphony orchestra under the baton of conductor egghead longhair
(two pregnant pauses)
...and you're tuned to KUOW. Classical radio for Eastern Iowa. 94.9 on your FM dial. The time is 1:53pm.
(pregnant pause)
A look at the Weather: Expect high clouds and low precipitation for the duration of the day. Highs in the low to mid 50's, lows in the 30's.
(and so on....)

WSUI (the AM affiliate) was only a little bit better. We could speak more normally, but we had to give farm reports with prices for things like "Barrels and Gilts" and give traffic reports (not that there was much traffic). We didn't have to worry about traffic reports on KSUI, because hardly anybody listened to it, and the people who did probably didn't go anywhere.

BTW, the KSUI audience was entirely pretentious bitches. Mispronounce anything, and you were sure to get a condescending letter from Professor Passive-Aggressive who would take out their frustration and hatred of students by writing scathing and condescending letters.

Anyway, this all came flooding back to me because I read a webblog where people were bitching about how boring the Seattle NPR station, KUOW, is. I don't think KUOW is boring at all, indeed I find it very interesting. Certainly oodles better than KSUI or WSUI.

But just to make sure I hadn't made KSUI or WSUI more boring in my imagination, I surfed on over to take a listen. KSUI is still playing chirpy music, and WSUI is still going on about the price of barrels and gilts (I still don't know what that means) I even sat through one of the interminable symphony in e flat minors or whatever just to listen to the announcer - believe me, nothing has changed. This is one piece of nostalgia I take no comfort in.