*gah* Just realized I forgot to change my color profile for flickr!! I have a decades old addiction to radio shows. It started when I found "Joe Frank: In the Dark" on the lower end of the dial on Sunday nights. At age 11, I was heading to bed willingly at 9pm to lie in the dark fighting off sleep to listen to one hour of dry, absurd, and brooding stories. I then became a connoisseur of late night AM radio. Conspiracy theorists were my preferred radio hosts. Aliens, ghosts, political manipulation, anything that would make the conflicts in my day to day Jr. High life seem petty in comparison. These shows usually didn't start until 11pm and they ran all night. Now I spend a good chunk of my non-workday listening to various radio shows. NPR's Morning Edition when I wake up, Lynn Cullen after I grab the laptop, KDKA and its new lunchtime host whose name escapes me but banter enrages me. I used to then listen to Thom Hartmann at work, but I've since changed jobs and now share an office. While cooking, I go back to KDKA because wielding a knife takes on even greater satisfaction if you are also ranting at the right wing even if it is in the privacy of your own kitchen. While trying to fall asleep, I listen to NPR's All Things Considered and feel a sense of dread hoping that I can drift off before it's over but knowing that I often do not. Then I depend on books on CD. It's been Kerouac's On the Road for a few years now and I probably have the first half of the book memorized, but what happens in the second half is distorted in my mind. My need to feel "plugged in" at all times pre-dates the internet, but it sure does make picking and choosing what I want and when I want it a lot easier.

this is the other side of the menu we used for our restaurant ranking. (these are notes from a planning session about a possible food-related cooking show.)