The Official Off-Topic Thread: Volume 20

[TheRuckus]

I worked for the radio station at Pitt from the minute I got there until the minute I graduated.

I still miss it. And if I hadn't worked there, my life would be drastically different.

[The A Team]

Most of my friends worked for our piddling radio station at Macalester (air waves barely got more than a mile off campus). So I spent a lot of time drinking in the radio station helping them pick songs and ********.

[CityofTreez]

Ender. That's what I would've done.
Play songs from the 80's that I preferred compared to what the station/callers wanted. I can't even imagine listening to a radio station and following up a REM track with a Huey Lewis bubblegum production. Round of applause for that

Ruckus. Our college has a radio station. It's so bad. Sac State.

A-Team. What was your go to drunken selection of a song?
You had to have 1 song you always wanted to hear while drinking.

[The A Team]

George Thorogood version of One Bourbon, One Scotch.

College stations are always terrible. Occasionally, there will be specific shows that are good.

[TheRuckus]

I didn't do much with the music aspect, as I was in the sports department. I loved that, though. Talk about sports and talk **** with a Mets fan who ended up becoming a future colleague, roommate, and overall good buddy for an hour or two, one morning a week.

He and I made a bet at the start of the '07 season about the status of the NL East when we returned to school at the end of August (we didn't broadcast over the summer, though we should've) wherein depending on which of the Phillies or Mets had the lead, we'd have to embarrass ourselves on air by singing the rival's fight song while wearing our own team's jersey.

We agreed on the terms based on the assumption that, like previous years, the first week of shows at WPTS would be recorded in the quad rather than the privacy of the studio. For unknown reasons, that didn't happen. I still sang "Meet the [****ing] Mets" on-air, at the end of our show, but given the loss of the public aspect of the humiliation, Mike decided he should record the incident on his phone.

He did, and we signed off. That last part is fortunate, because it was about then that Mike noticed he had failed to save the recording, and unleashed a stream of profanity that would have put us - he and I, personally, two broke college kids - on the hook for $100K in FCC fines.

Immediately after this, the Phillies swept the Mets in a four-game set that cultivated with the Tad Iguchi game, and we all know what happened in September. Mike remains convinced to this day that his hubris directly caused the Mets collapse. I've never been so happy to lose a bet.

I ended up moving back to Pittsburgh on two separate occasions after trying to leave, and Mike was coincidentally a central figure in both of them.

Also, ****ing love that Thorogood version.

[The A Team]

We broke FCC rules (accidentally) quite often. We were on about a 10 second delay but we often forgot to push the "Oops Button" until too late more often than we remembered it.

Now, like I mentioned, our broadcast range was dick. A typical broadcast might have upwards of 10 listeners.

Our radio station was in the basement of one of the dorms and was basically fortified. I remember my buddies once advertised tickets to a Guster show. They had like 100 people camped outside the station on that day.

The key word was "to". When they named the winner they handed him two $5 bus passes through the little basement window and quickly closed it. I thought it was a great prank, but some others were less pleased.

[TheRuckus]

We broke FCC rules (accidentally) quite often. We were on about a 10 second delay but we often forgot to push the "Oops Button" until too late more often than we remembered it.

Now, like I mentioned, our broadcast range was dick. A typical broadcast might have upwards of 10 listeners.

Our radio station was in the basement of one of the dorms and was basically fortified. I remember my buddies once advertised tickets to a Guster show. They had like 100 people camped outside the station on that day.

The key word was "to". When they named the winner they handed him two $5 bus passes through the little basement window and quickly closed it. I thought it was a great prank, but some others were less pleased.

I like it.

[CityofTreez]

Ruckus. You're seemed petty, but that's how I want every sports radio show to function. Two opposing fans discussing sports in their biased, but unbiased opinion. Throwing jabs at one another is comedic value to say the least, but you guys at least tried to have fun/attract listeners in a playful manner.

Our school's station cannot stay on topic. Our sports are terrible in our region (professional & collegiate) so the hosts discuss sports, and then jump to academics. There's no consistency, and its easy to tune out. I understand they're not professional radio jockeys, but their inconsistency is so visible I cannot even endure their useless blabber. You were lucky to be in the sports department, but our station incorporates everything together.

I do give you credit for being the Phillies fan in the booth discussing the NL East. I can just imagine being a pirates fan having to hear a Phillies/Mets fan betting on their teams. Assuming you barely referenced NL Central, and poked good fun at the Pirates.


A-Team. Good drunken song selection.
Next question, what did you primarily drink to pick Thorogood in the booth?
Bourbon, Scotch, or both?

[TheRuckus]

Ruckus. You're seemed petty, but that's how I want every sports radio show to function. Two opposing fans discussing sports in their biased, but unbiased opinion. Throwing jabs at one another is comedic value to say the least, but you guys at least tried to have fun/attract listeners in a playful manner.

Our school's station cannot stay on topic. Our sports are terrible in our region (professional & collegiate) so the hosts discuss sports, and then jump to academics. There's no consistency, and its easy to tune out. I understand they're not professional radio jockeys, but their inconsistency is so visible I cannot even endure their useless blabber. You were lucky to be in the sports department, but our station incorporates everything together.

I do give you credit for being the Phillies fan in the booth discussing the NL East. I can just imagine being a pirates fan having to hear a Phillies/Mets fan betting on their teams. Assuming you barely referenced NL Central, and poked good fun at the Pirates.

We're both pretty laid-back, fair-minded people, so it was never really an issue. We found common ground elsewhere, specifically a shared love of baseball and pop culture. So it was pretty much a "two dudes shooting the **** about sports and trying to make each other laugh" vibe. We never really talked about our approach to the show, it just gravitated there naturally and I think that led to us having more fun with it. The GM and department director both thought we had the best sports show, and the GM used to work for ESPN.

[The A Team]

I didn't have a standard drink in college. Or now.

Generally speaking, the answer was bad whiskey, bad rum, bad vodka, bad beer, bad wine, or some combination thereof.

Now I'll drink a handful of good beers maybe once every 6 weeks and then have the occasional one beer or one wine night. If I go out, I'll usually get a tumbler of whiskey. The sheer volume of drink options leave me confused so I keep it simple.

[The A Team]

For some reason, I'm craving some good whiskey. Maybe I'll invest.

[Ender]

You all clearly had more fun than I did.

[sexicano31]

We talking about DE legend Lonesome George?

[The A Team]

Ender,

But you got paid.

[Ender]

$14/hr. cash American.