Our minivan has Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
I love it.
The car came with a three year subscription, and for three years we have listened to mostly commercial-free music.
Love.
I say mostly, because for some reason I cannot fathom? The Disney Radio Channel plays endless commercials. WHY IS THAT, PEOPLE OF SIRIUS? What makes Disney so fucking special?
We just renewed the subscription, which you would think would just be a matter of sending some money to the good folks of Sirius.
Dear People of Sirius . . . Here is our money. Just keep doing whatever it is that causes the commercial-free music (plus commercial-clotted Disney) to play when we press selection buttons in the car. Thank you.
Not so fast, say the good folks of Sirius.
Not so fast.
Mark turns to me, “OK, in order to activate the subscription, I have to go out in the car and turn the radio on. I’ll call you from the car and then you come over here and press the activation button.” He points to his computer screen and then presses his finger to the proper spot in case I am suddenly a lot dumber than I was the last time he checked, “This button right here. Press it when I call.”
“I should just press your monitor with my finger, then?”
“What? Don’t be annoying. Click it with the mouse.”
“Oh, that makes more sense. Sure.”
I sit at his desk as he heads out to the car.
The phone rings.
I pick it up, “Hello?”
“Press the button.”
“Who is this?”
“Kris, just click the damn thing.”
“Clicked.”
“What happened on the screen? Is there a progress bar or anything?”
“Nope. Nothing happened. Let me click again.”
“And?”
“Still nothing. It says it might take 15 minutes for the signal to be activated. Why don’t you just come in the house?”
“Because I can’t just leave the car running out here in the driveway for 15 minutes.”
“You don’t need the car running to play the radio, babe.”
“You want me to freeze my ass off? It’s cold out here!”
“But if you were in the house, you wouldn’t need to . . . oh, never mind.”
“Are you sure there is no progress bar on the screen?”
“There’s nothing.”
“Did you look at the bottom of the screen?”
“Oh wait! Let me just look at the BOTTOM of the screen, because that so did not occur to me. I was all tunnel-visioned on that one clicking spot and did not even think to view the screen as a whole. Hold on . . . . I have almost looked everywhere . . . hold on . . . nope, there’s nothing.”
“You are such a smart ass. Click again.”
“Hold on! Sirius has important directions . . . Did you check to be sure that the antenna is pointed skyward? How dumb are people, anyway? I was so going to use this here metal thing on the car as a divining rod and point it at the ground as we drove. Find us some water! But now you tell me to point it skyward and it will suck music from the sky? That’s like magic, right there.”
“Click the button again.”
“I have clicked a bunch of times, babe. Nothing is happening.”
“AUGH! This is just a way to make me look stupid! I am just an idiot sitting in his car in the dark wondering if music is coming.”
“You are not as dumb as some Sirius customers, though. Did you see the warning about making sure you don’t sit in your running car waiting for music while the car is parked in the garage?”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“You suppose anyone has ever actually died waiting for Sirius music to be delivered?”
“Click the button again.”
“Done. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Kids . . . Daddy’s dead but he has not died in vain. He sacrificed his life so that you might listen to commercial-free radio.”
“It’s cold out here.”
“Daddy’s a hero, that’s what.”
“I am hanging up now, Kris. I’ll just stay out here for another ten minutes.”
He hangs up.
I click the activation button one more time.
And then I get a huge red error message.
YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF ACTIVATION SIGNALS ALLOWED WITHIN A 24 HOUR PERIOD. PLEASE CALL LISTENER CARE TO REQUEST ANOTHER SIGNAL.
Oops.
I call Mark’s cell phone.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, apparently all my clicks were going through even though nothing was happening on the screen. So now I fucked it up and you have to come in and call Listener Service or some shit. Sorry about that.”
“Who is this?”
Snort!
Sirius/XM is the best thing in the history of ever. I grew up listening to Old Time Radio shows and Broadway musicals and there are stations for both those things, so all we have to fight about on road trips as a family was whether it was time to sing or follow the action packed expense account of Johnny Dollar. If the kids have never listened to an episode of Charlie McCarthy you should keep an ear out for it on one of the old time comedy stations.
Sadly? We only have Sirius in the car, and in the car?
Music is required.
We are a singing dancing obnoxiously loud sort of family in the car.
I cannot imagine getting the girls to listen to old-time radio shows.
Sigh.
hmm…not even old timey Super Dramatic Soap Operas back when they were actually sponsored by soap? Or Radio-plays of actual movies? Seems like someone as formal as Maj would enjoy the melodramz, but alas…
I would love that stuff.
The girls not so much.
Kallan would die.
Thanks for a good giggle on a Friday evening! What would we do without all that technology??? LOL or as you would say *snort*
Love ya!
Reena -
Love you as well!
If it has escaped your attention? I have made it through Spring Break! YAY FOR ME!
A weekend ahead, but Mark will be home.
Happy sighs at having survived and at having managed to put up a post every day.
Yay!
LOL’d and then read it to my husband (as I do so often). After he finished laughing, he said: “you know what the funniest part is? I can totally see us doing that!” Yup. It’s my life. Right there.
Sam -
Yay to another awesome couple who would maybe be able to make the radio work without inadvertently dying of carbon monoxide poisoning!
What?
I am the only person in the history of ever who doesn’t care for the satellite radio.
Mark has it and I’m mostly like, “meh. Can we play my iPod?”
And no one had to warn me not to activate my iPod in the garage!
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Satellite Radio is awesome.
AWESOME.
Also?
I am thinking your son is not old enough to have strong musical opinions.
Play my iPod?
That just does not happen.
aha! and that is where you are wrong. he may be three, but he has very strong opinions.
and his choices are not found on the Disney channel or the Broadway channel or the Frank Sinatra impersonator channell or the Pink Floyd cover band channel.
they are found… wait for it…
on my iPod.
Kid music or adult music?
Curious, because Mark and I so thought that if we just played our music for the girls when they were young, they would grow up liking our music.
THAT SO DID NOT WORK OUT.
A mix. He’s really into Neko Case and the Decemberists for grownup tunes, and he has three or four playlists of kid’s music I’ve made for him from my vast nanny cache of non-ear-bleeding inducing tracks.
He likes the Sandra Boynton books of songs, and the soundtrack instrumentals for his favorite movies…
oh, and brass. Kid loves brass. The Forties is the only Sirius channel we all agree on.
Cameron -
Just you wait. Just . . . you . . . wait.
Can you say Kesha?
Hee hee!
So many things are wrong with me.
I’m not going to stress about my Sirius issues.
Get it? Sirius issues?
I maybe need to go to bed.
Yes, I get it.
The title of this post is “Are you sirius?”
Silly you.
Get some sleep.
This probably is the totally wrong time to mention that my hubby is a rocket scientist and actually worked on the Sirius XM Satellite. We live on the other side of the planet now, so we don’t get commercial free music. Yeck, we are just happy to have radio.
That is just fundamentally unfair.
Poor you.
That’s just not fair.
No worries, I create my own commercial free music with my ipod.
Okay. I am just thinking it must be AWESOME to have a husband who is a rocket scientist.
Because if you ask him to do stuff you can be all sassy like “It’s just LAUNDRY. It’s not ROCKET SCIENCE!”
Except it could backfire on you. Because maybe you ask him to open a jar and he is all “Babe, it’s just a jar. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to open it.”
Seriously. Endless possibilities.
Their customer service leaves something to be desired too… I’ve had XM for something like 6 years now, I think. My first radio died two years ago. The hoops I had to jump through to get a new one about killed me.
And? I don’t get a signal while under overpasses, in parking garages or next to mountains, WHY would anyone think that trying to activate while their car is in the garage would be a good idea?
Oh. And the whole commercials on Disney Radio? Kills me. I swear there are more commercials than music. For crap kids don’t want, and parents don’t need. What is that all about?
The girls have mostly outgrown the Disney Channel.
I could not be more pleased.
Bring on the slutty tweenie music!
At least it’s commercial-free.
Mark tried to call the AUTOMATED Listener Service line at 8:01 pm.
He was robotically informed that Listener Services end at 11:00 pm EST.
What the fuck?
And yes . . . we have noticed the mountain issue, the parking garage issue, the underpass issue, and even the tall trees next to car issue.
I still love it.
If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t have paid for it for the last six years. I’ve learned where it’ll cut out (next to semi trucks in addition to all those other places) and I just deal with it. Or switch to my iPod if it’s more than a quick thing.
Yes!
You are all addicted, just like me.
I love, love, LOVE my satellite radio. Got a handy-dandy portable XM unit forever ago and then my Ford Escape Hybrid came with a Sirius unit included. Between the Broadway, 60′s, 70′s nd 80′s stations, I NEVER listen to regular radio anymore.
I LOVE THE DECADES STATIONS!
So awesome.
I just love them.
You know I remember listening to one of the comedy stations on Sirius with young sleeping child in the back. Of course traffic, time and laughter woke the child up while still on said channel.
And now said child tells adult jokes to young children. Good times.
From this post and all the comments this satellite radio thing is sounding pretty awesome.
Minus the part about suffocating yourself in the car.
I would so do that by the way.
And then people would read about it in the paper and they’d be like “What? She died from THAT? ARE YOU SIRIUS RIGHT NOW?!”
And it would be sirius. I’d be siriusly killed.
Not that I want you to die, Haven.
But that would be the best newspaper headline ever.
Woman Siriusly Killed
So awesome.
I dunno, guys. Somehow I’m thinking that Sirius wouldn’t be as thrilled with that headline as we are, LOLOL!
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Isn’t that what they say?
Snort!
It might be what they SAY but while they’re seating in the bathroom, they’re prolly taking loads and loads of Maalox. Just sayin’…
Snort!
Whenever we get a rental car with Sirius it’s fun but the problem is finding something we can agree on. So we end up listening to 70-80′s music, which is what is on the main radio station we listen to anyway.
By the way, read this blog entry by Roger Ebert on his adventures with being an Amazon Associate. Very funny.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/03/my_career_in_retailing.html#more
Roger Ebert is fabulous.
That is all.
Sirius radio? Awesome beyond belief; we have it in the vehicle that replaced the White Car of Doom. LOVE it! Husband wants to install it (aftermarket; of course) in my vehicle. No way! He’s not touching my funmobile! Besides; If he does it will the death of one of us…
Although; do not tell him (secret and all!)…the best way to get even? Wait until the other half is getting ready to jump in the van? Then tune in a station he’ll detest and crank it up. I’ve not done that. OK. Maybe a few times.
Soon I also may be also a Woman Siriusly Killed. But then? I shall haunt him. Hee Hee!
Brenda -
When I drive with the girls, I generally let them choose the music, and I generally let them play it really really loudly. Sometimes, I forget to turn it down before I turn the car off.
Ahem.
Mark LOVES when that happens and he is the next driver.
Related news?
Mark knows all the words to Britney Spears “Would You Hold it Against Me?”
Hee hee!
No!! You’d never let your children know all the words Ms. Spears. Now Mark?
Well… let’s just say you need a pole. Just don’t let your peeper watch through the window!
Mark? Treat the mom of your babies right or no… never mind.
Kris? Did you get the DVD collection; yet? Rod Stewart was hooootttttt in his shiny spandex, strutting, and well; I understand the rumors. Heehee!!
You make me giggle.
A stripper pole?
Snort.
Look, I already pay for cable, a cell phone, the internet, Thai hookers, an extortionist and a weekly bag of very expensive recreational pharmaceuticals from a special “doctor” that is all that keeps me from going up into a bell tower with a high-powered rifle and getting even with society for what it’s done to me.
If I had to pay for satellite radio, I might have to give up my expensive coffee drinks.
This ain’t rocket science, you know.
Hmmm . . .
I think you could give up the cable TV. You don’t watch anything good anyway. Yay! Problem solved.
Now about those drugs . . .
My iPod has none of this hassle.
Actually, I’ve been considering XM or Sirius for some time now, but I keep backing off. Not sure why, really. The sports packages are appealing.
But you make it sound so complicated. I’m sticking with my iPod. All Chris-Music, all the time.
Big baby.
Once you get that button pushed correctly (and assuming you don’t die in your garage like an idiot), satellite radio is quite awesome.
Quite.
And wait. Don’t you have kids and a wife? How can it be all Chris music all the time?
Your frustration tolerance level is higher than mine. I would have gone berserker about him not just leaving the accessory on and coming inside… but I’m crazy that way.
I gave my husband a Sirius radio 5 yrs ago and they have still not figured out that they have never billed him. We started service with a gift card and it just kept going!
Erin -
Sirius does not seem to have the most intelligent billing system . . . I have a friend to whom the exact same thing happened. Three years of unpaid service so far that started with a $30.00 gift card. He is not inclined to bring it up with them.
Snort!
We had weatherband radio in our old Subaru and it turned me into a weather geek. Which is not at all as cool as satellite radio. But i suppose anyone who admits on the Internet that they enjoy weatherband radio isn’t worthy of cool anyway.
Dana -
Babe? Your coolness has indeed dropped a few degrees.
Wait . . . what?