Appliance Repair Wisdom for the Ages

Friday, October 15, 2004

I'm trying to write a new pearl of appliance repair wisdom to post but I keep getting distracted by the good jams they're playing on Sirius. So, I figure I'll just go with the flow and write about satellite radio.

If you haven't checked out satellite radio yet, do it now. You get about 120 channels of music, news, and talk for a just a few bucks a month. The music is CD-quality and 100% commercial free. I subscribe to Sirius because that's what Wilbur sells at the local Radio Shack here in New London. I'm a little irked at Radio Shack Corp., though, because they just started offering a web-only $20 rebate on Sirius Orbiter receivers. This is a weenie thing to do because it undermines the local Radio Shack store owners. Mostly I'm annoyed because I want $20. Hey, that's more than a case of Tuckerman's Pale Ale!

Some of these names can be confusing so lemme clarify some things. Sirius is the name of the satellite service. Orbiter is the brand name of equipment sold by Radio Shack that lets you receive the satellite service. I suspect that Orbiter is one of those Radio Shack-only brands because I've not seen it offered anywhere else.

Anyway, I have the Sirius Orbiter boom box set up downstairs at my main workstation. So, most every night, when I'm down here working on this website, I'm jamming on one of the Sirius rock channels. Sirius has 17 rock channels but, in the evenings, I'm usually tuned to Jam_ON (channel 17) where Adam Foley is cranking out the good jams from 7 pm to 1 am every weeknight. When a particularly good jam comes on, such as Derek and the Dominoes Jam IV, I plug in my Sennheiser HD497's and turn it up without disturing Mrs. Samurai sleeping in the bedroom directly above me.

If you're a talk radio junkie, there's a whole lotta yakkin' going on in the Sirius talk channels. The talk genres tend be mostly from the Republicrat and Demopublican camps--same old brain-dead, party-line fecal matter; nothing very thought provoking. The one minor disappointment with Sirius is the lack of alternative talk shows from libertarians and free-market thinkers. It's not like there's a shortage of libertarian radio personalities. I download libertarian and free-market shows on the web for my Rio MP3 player all the time. Three of my faves are:

• Harry Browne
• Ludwig Von Mises Institute
• Free-Market News Network

But, since I mostly use Sirius for its music, and I have good online sources for my libertarian propaganda fix, Sirius' shortcoming in this area is a trifling thing.

Bottom line recommendation: get Sirius satellite radio. You'll be glad you did.

2 Comments:

I'm trying to find parts for my OrbiterBoombox, the Streamer Switching Adapter Model NO TESA2-1202500 is not functioning. I e-mailed Sirius, they sent me a phone number, I called, it was Sirius help desk, they told to go to Radio Shack (where it was purchased)RS told me they dont carry an adapter, nor do they have a knockoff. Sirius told me to try Crutchfield,they said no parts like that. Now What?

By  Anonymous, at October 01, 2005 8:39 AM  

Radio Shack doesn't actually manufacture the boombox-- A company named Brix makes it for them. These people might help.

By  Samurai Appliance Repair Man, at October 03, 2005 2:22 AM  

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