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More tales from the Parallel Universe(tm)

Some may wonder how I got to posting on various radio forums. We will go back in history to July of 2001. The great frequency swap had taken place. That's where WHK-AM went from 1420 to 1220, WKNR went from 1220 to 850, WRMR went from 850 to 1420, WHK-FM went from 98.1 to 95.5(became the Fish), WCLV went from 95.5 to 104.9, WAKS went from 104.9 to 96.5, and WKDD went from 96.5 to 98.1(whew). By the way I did that by memory.

Aro-10und that time I discovered the Listening Party forum on Cleveland Live. It was being used in leiu of bathroom stall walls by the radio employees and looked at non professionals, including former broadcast school students, like we were intruders. At the time, no one had to register a forum name, so there was alot of nonsense, like "Doncha just love Gary Dee?" or "ffffffffffffffffffun", and alot of insider rumor mongering. Like I said before, my type wasn't appreciated on the board, so after awhile, I did more reading than posting.

Then came the revamping of the forum, and the debut of 74WIXYgrad. I took the name for obvious reasons, but being the insecure person that I am, I still let the pros post.

Around that time, I also discovered Radio-Info.com. For awhile there was no registratione
needed, so I posted there more often. Later they too required registration, and for awhile there
I was WIXYGrad.

Radio-Info had all the pros posting there, or so it seemed. They also had a real live moderator on each board, so nonsense didn't last too long. Only problem was for awhile I was out of my league over there, as I never learned the fine art of faking people out. I would post something on a thread and for the longest time there the thread would die. I learned alot from those who would post there. The cast of characters included OldAkronite, nate81, JohnnyMorgan, BigWoody(now known as VODood), and others. Those that I haven't introduced to my non-forum friends are Nate81, who is a twenty-five year old broadcast student, who has a broadcast encyclopedia crammed into his young head, and VODood, program director of a radio station in Toledo, and owner of a thriving voiceover business.

OldAkronite in June of 2005 started his now very popular blog "Ohio Media Watch". It was partially based on his many posts at Radio-Info.

I was keeping one eye on the listening party forum. It seemed that there would be some real spirited discussions on the board, sometimes causing the board to "flame". It was after one of these "flamings", caused by spirited discussions about the last Super Bowl, that I started posting with any regularity. Of course I was among those taking pot shots at JimOhio123(it was like shooting fish in a barrel). As I said in my last post, Jim is the ultimate talk radio fan.

I found out this past spring that the listening party was taken over by baby boomers, so I joined in. It was after one of Jim's very annoying posts that Lynn had remarked that he was one of those that hadn't worked in radio. I then responded that I was never in the business, and Lynn told me that I wasn't an idiot either. Danny Wright then posted that he was surprised about that. And that started my current life as a forum poster. I've also made friends through e-mail and phone calls. Hopefully I know my limits, and don't post when I don't know.

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