In the 20 years I lived in the Rochester, New York area, I moved from an affection for album rock to smooth jazz and new age FM stations. I still fancy album rock, but the stations have changed. Also, some of the best area stations can't be received in the saddle on a hill that is my neighborhood in West Seattle. The great broadcast from Tacoma's Bates Technical, with its funky student commercials, is inaccessible. My barber receives it fine, but that means I get a fix only every other week if we remember to turn it on. I get my next booster shot on Wednesday. I've made a note to find out if the new owners of the license have preserved the format.

The point: There is/was a station on the Niagara frontier that calls itself broadcaster of "the sound track of Western New York." Nancy's experience with people having the same ambient music while in a chat conference reminded me of that. 

What is the sound track of my life, and what is the sound track for what I am doing right now? I am listening to (while mostly not consciously hearing) the fan in my desktop computer one desk over from me. It is morning and Vicki, who has acutely sharp hearing, is sleeping in upstairs. Time to keep the headphones attached and tune up some internet radio or pop in a CD.

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I took another shot at the music, and it still doesn't play, in either ON or OFF position. I dropped enough protections to download an update to Macromedia Flash, but it made no difference. My firewall tells me that it is blocking mobile code, even when I specifically allow it for that site. That usually means there is some URL or script that accesses a different site for more mobile code, and I am not going to do anything about that. It is too much like running as administrator on an open internet.

I'll have to find my soothing ambient music elsewhere [;<).

My barber tells me that Bates Technical sold their frequency allocation and pored a pot of money back into the school.  The new owner and licensee (however that FCC business works) is broadcasting some sort of alternative, punk, skritchy stuff.  He said I wouldn't like it.  I'm certain too.  The alternative barbershop recommendation is to listen to "The Mountain" except it has gotten much more yak, yak, yak over time.  The radio was not turned on and we did nothing to change that, having an useful discussion about our political inactivity instead.  The weather was delightful. It is Spring in Seattle and the weeds will be knee-high by the fourth of July.