Spartan Training
Let me start with when I first realized that I wanted a satellite radio. It was way back in October when it became very apparent that I would NOT be able to get any Internet access at my house….I never really understood the need for satellite radio before this. I personally hate listening to the private/commercial radio and love listening to my own music. Furthermore, if the desire arose that I did need to listen to the radio, I could always stream it from the Internet, easy peasy. Okay, so a couple of things, first, there are no FM channels where I’m located so I can’t listen to the FM radio if I wanted to, which is find except for one little thing that actually proved to be really important, most of you know what I’m talking about…..there is a three letter acronym for it, you guessed it, I can’t live without a healthy does of NPR. Call me what you will.
Any who, last fall I tried to buy a radio online, but got really confused. I usually prefer to buy stuff in a store because I like to do my research, talk with people, and touch the product before I make a purchase…it’s called being cheap, I get it from my Grandmother (Lorraine). No worries though, because last October I went to Anchorage (for a conference), where I went to a Radio Shack or Best Buy in the mall to make my purchase. Except they don’t sell satellite radios in Anchorage because they can’t receive satellite radio transmissions that far north. F! Now, I know that I can get satellite radio here in Coffman Cove because everyone has one. I literally live thousands of miles south of Anchorage so I know that I can overcome this geographical obstacle.
Okay, back to the original plan….online, still can’t make a decision on which one to buy so I decide to wait until I go home at Christmas to make my purchase. This is truly where the drama begins. Before I go any further I have to mention that I had several people here tell me that I HAVE to buy a Sirius Radio and NOT XM because XM does not work here.
Tacoma Best Buy, Christmas time, is pretty much my definition of hell. Tons of people consuming at an alarming rates, whatever, I need this f-ing radio. I talk with one of the sales people….I tell him my situation, I’m living in rural Alaska, I need to buy a radio and a docking station before I leave, I don’t have access to a Best Buy where I live, blah blah blah. I ask him which radio I should buy, he tells me any of them, I tell him that I have to buy a Sirius Radio, he tells me, NO you don’t because Sirius and XM have merged, they are one in the same, synonymous if you will. Okay, great (I think to myself), I’ll buy this fifty-dollar XM radio and a docking station to go with it. Decision made, problem solved, let’s get the hell out of Best Buy. Except its Christmas and naturally they are out of the radio I need. NO worries he says you can buy it online, FREE SHIPPING. Great, go home, try to purchase it online, EXCEPT they refuse to ship it to a PO Box, and we don’t have a mail delivery service on the island so I literally cannot get it shipped to me. F! Okay, so I’ll just have it shipped to the store and then pick it up and take it back to Alaska with me. Naturally, the radio arrived at the store the day after I left. No worries, Shane Costello (long time friend and number one hommie) agreed to pick it up and send it to me. Yay!!
Two week later, my radio arrives!!! I’m way more excited than I should be. I leave school and rush home to set it up. NPR at last! Oh wait, there’s a problem. I call SiriusXM customer service only to find out…….that while Sirius and XM have merged, they are officially one company, XM radios are only able to receive transmissions from XM satellites and as I was repeatedly warned, we can only receive transmissions from Sirius satellites. OMFGGDMF!?!?##$%$Q%#
I cried. I am so f-ing pissed off. I tried to explain to the person at Best Buy who I was talking to that it’s not so easy to just return it and buy a new radio. I live in rural Alaska, we’ve had exactly four mail planes since Christmas AND you MFers won’t ship me a new one because I don’t have physical mailing address. Furthermore, I can’t get a newspaper here, there are no radio stations and I don’t have Internet at my house. This radio is a lot more than access to 5,000 stations; it’s my connection to the outside world. I actually had visions on going back into the Tacoma store and hurting the asshole that sold me the f-ing radio in the first place, which is highly unusual for me.
Any ways, I’m almost over it. I’m going to buy a Sirius radio from the nice people at Amazon who still ship to PO Boxes and start my campaign to run Best Buy out of business.
PIC: kids doing yoga on icy rocks = danger disguised as Spartan training.
Check out the big move on this map
