Congratulations to the Savannah Sand Gnats for winning game two of the South Atlantic League Division Championship. We had the bonus tonight of seeing Johan Santana open. He helped moved the game along quick-like. It was over before 10.

One victory more and they win the whole Division. We bought tomorrow night’s tickets on the way out of the stadium tonight. Go Gnats!

A huge thanks to whomever turned in my wallet that I dropped on River Street this weekend. I really can’t believe I was able to track it down. May much good karma come your way!

Project Caravan is rolling through Savannah. I am now enlightened to the fact that the world will end, or judgment day, or the rapture, or something like that is scheduled for May 21, 2011. I’m actually relieved to learn this since it’s after May when it gets really hot here, hurricane season starts, and our power bills surge to mortgage level prices. I’m looking forward to this. Think I’ll go spend all my money. No point in saving any more. Hallelujah! Amen and what not.

It’s getting late here on the east coast. Children are nestled, parents are doing whatever it is parents do on Christmas Eve. Off in the distance I hear a sound. It’s coming closer! Whatever could it be?
.
.
.
Why…It’s the STREETSWEEPER!

Jingle, jingle, beep, beep, beep.

Straight from the You-Have-To-Be-Freakin-Kidding-Me-Department…WTKS am (previously discussed here), has sunk even lower than I thought they could go.

In what appears to be a very not-at-all-thought-out part of their reprogramming line-up, WTKS has replaced the classic rebroadcasts of Art Bell’s Somewhere In Time on Coast To Coast AM with…get this…The Money Pit. A lame ass show about home improvement. Pause…absorb…yeah, that’s right. They are broadcasting a homefixit show at 11 pm – just about the time of day, er night, I’m ready to be thinking about making improvements to ye olde Gull Reef Club. WHA???

This has got to be one of the stupidest broadcasting decisions I’ve been subjected to in a long time. I know in the grand scheme of life, this is petty. Yet, as I’ve already explained, I KNOW am radio. I know what works, and I KNOW that I will NEVER EVER NEVER EVER listen to this suck ass home improvement show in lieu of Art Bell classics. I’ll find Art Bell online and skip the radio entirely. Again – pause…absorb…this hardcore am radio listener will skip the radio if necessary. We may like our ruts, but we’re also no dummies. If we need to seek our ruts online, we will.

Attention WTKS advertisers!!! I will not hear your expensive ads because I am now turning this station off more that I turn it on. Think about that the next time your perky sales rep stops by.

WTKS you now officially suck. You suck even worse than you did on Monday for bringing in Michael Savage.

I wasn’t kidding when I said this earlier – we ARE witnessing the death of am radio in Savannah. Good riddance. AM radio deserves to go by the wayside if stations are unwilling or unable to consider their audience. Long live internet radio, where the listeners are king!

Savannah has limited options when it comes to am radio. As you may have guessed by the whole America’s Debate Radio show, I am sort of a talk radio junkie. This city’s selection leaves me wanting.

A few weeks ago, what I consider to be the lesser quality of the two stations, WBMQ quietly did away with its only, weekly local program hosted by a guy named Ray Steele. They brought in a nationally syndicated dude whose name is too long and lame for me to bother typing. They never explained this and they provided no warning. Not cool to do that to am radio listeners. We’re a fiercely rut-inclined bunch and don’t like changes, and we really don’t like unannounced changes.

Then today, the other am station, WTKS did the unthinkable. They booted Neal Boortz, a fun, Libertarian leaning, Georgia guy for one of radio’s most hate-filled broadcasters, Michael Savage. I am at complete loss as to why anyone would have thought this to be a reasonable, much less good, decision.

I wrote to the station’s operations manager:

Hello Mr. Richards-

I am disappointed with the recent line up changes at WTKS. It’s a shame that a Georgia broadcaster, Neal Boortz, was dropped for an acerbic, inflammatory man from San Francisco. I can assure you, I will no longer prepare my evening meals tuned to WTKS while Mike Savage is on. I strongly urge WTKS to reconsider this horrendous change and bring Boortz back.

Respectfully,

Jaime

I got a polite thank you, which didn’t seem like a bot, but it didn’t say anything promising or offer any explanations. Not a surprise, though.

These types of programming decisions have me wondering if we’re seeing the final days of am talk radio altogether in Savannah. I’d be sad if both stations went by the wayside, but sad in that Darwin Award sort of way.

There exists a distinct difference between the way northern and southern Americans give directions. I was recently reminded of this disparity upon visiting the Flannery O’Connor/Andalusia Foundation site. Were I to visit Andalusia in the remote Milledgeville, I apparently must take the following route:

From Savannah, take I-16 West and exit Highway 441 North at Dublin. Follow 441 North to Milledgeville. Take Highway 441 Bypass North until you intersect with Highway 441 again on the north side of town. Turn left on Highway 441 North. As you travel north past the Wal-Mart shopping center, look for Badcock Home Furniture on the right side of the highway as you leave Milledgeville. The driveway to Andalusia is located on the left side of Highway 441 just beyond the furniture store.

So let me see if I have this down – I get on 441, which intersects with 441, and then I turn back onto 441 and begin looking for a quasi-pornographic-sounding furniture store, after the obligatory Walmart sighting. Once I find said store, I continue on 441 to the lovely Andalusia. Got it.

And that’s what I like about the South…

In an elevator today, I over heard the following conversation between, what appeared to be, two co-workers. Both were women, early-mid 30s, white, middle to upper middle class. One was blond, one was a red head. Their conversation:

Yellow: Oh, is that that oatmeal? (Red is holding what appears to be a Starbucks coffee cup but it has different coloring than normal).
Red: Yaaah, I’m really liking it.
Yellow: Yaaah, I heard about that. So it’s good?
Red: Yaaah, but you have to keep the lid on the cup for, like, 3 minutes or you know, it won’t, like, set up right, or cook right or something.
Yellow: Awwww, cool.
(Brief silence)
Yellow: Yaaah, I gotta try that sometime. It seems good.
Red: Yaaaah.

I lost brain cells. I KNOW I did. I’m so glad I got off on a floor before them and didn’t have to listen to that any longer. Yaaaah.

Suggestion: just because there is an opportunity to talk doesn’t mean you have to. Silence is nice, too.

Fires in cities are always big news. No exception was today’s fire at the DeSoto Hilton here in Savannah. I was witness to it from about 7 stories up and a few blocks over. The garbage shoot running up the entire height of the east side of the building (being used for renovations) was on fire. It was quite a spectacle seeing flames leaping off the hotel from that high up.

Here’s a snap a friend caught with her cellphone. She didn’t get the flames, just the smoke. The flames didn’t last long. Our firefighters are fast.

Local news: WSAV article

When running (actually walking) errands in the historic district, I am always sure to never take the same route when possible. Since the city is on a grid, jockeying through the squares and residential streets doesn’t really delay me at all and I get the bonus of seeing the remarkable beauty of this place. I also get the bonus of having these infinite only in Savannah moments.

My errands today brought me through one of the residential streets lined with opulent, preserved mansions. Along the middle of the block was a lovely brown stucco home with a grand staircase leading up to the front entrance. At the top of the steps sat a woman, probably near my age, with a dog, large and long haired, breed unknown (the dog, not the woman).

The scene was normal in all other aspects except for the fact that she was reading from a children’s book … to her dog. Full of warm emotion, her voice sang through the air in the melodic tones that can only mean a book is being read to a child. No, a dog. She was reading to her freaking dog.

Maybe she was practicing for a big speech she was going to give to a group of 3 year olds. Probably not. This is Savannah, afterall. Good doggie.