SHIT THAT PISSES ME OFF…

Welcome to a fun segment that I hope will continue throughout the year. This is when I rail on things that drive me nucking futs in my daily life. These are things that most would call little, but when they consistently resurface over and over again is when it starts to take my toll. This is column is going to resemble slightly, Peter Griffin’s “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears” from the Family Guy movie. So without further ado… my first subject:


MY SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO – Man, just thinking about this is starting to piss me off.

1. Lack of Reception
The #1 most annoying thing about the radio is the lack of reception continually experienced throughout the day-to-day usage of the unit. I have the Sportster that my pops got for my brother-in-law and I last Christmas. I have a commute of 3 hours daily and can probably get reception about 45-55 minutes of my drive. It’s not like I’m traveling underground here either. I take main highways (NJ Turnpike, AC Expressway and GS Parkway) for over 90% of my trip. I am constantly moving the disc antenna back and fourth on my dashboard trying to get a clear and concise signal. Where the hell are the satellites, underground???

2. The power and antenna chords are EVERYWHERE
The original thought behind this unit was to have it installed on your dash of your car. Good thought. I was going to drive around with it loose until I got time to have it installed. I quickly learned that having it installed in the car wouldn’t make any sense since you need to keep repositioning the antenna in your car for ANY type of reception. The antenna is designed with a 25 foot wire that’s supposed to snake in and around your car once the unit is installed. If you don’t want it installed, you stuck with 25 feet of wire, or basically a tumbleweed of chords rolling around your car, wrapped around your gearshift and generally fucking with my Jeep’s Feng shui.

3. The antenna chord has broken twice already
I had two mishaps with my antenna chord. Well, actually three, one doesn’t count, because I didn’t care about the loss of the home antenna. In the above mentioned ball of antenna situation, one day I was looking for something in the car. I was furiously sliding seats back and fourth in the Jeep. In this moment, the wire was laying across the metal sliding area where the seat goes, and at once, my antenna wire was severed, rendering my radio useless. So I went to Best Buy for a little help. If anyone has EVER been to Best Buy, help does not exist. What bothered me was the fact that the guy dealing with me was a raging prick, so I marched over to the Sirius display, purchased the same unit, went outside to the sidewalk, took the new antenna out of the box and chucked the piece of shit antenna in the box. Took it back to customer service and got my money back. Done and done. Nothing that guy could do about it. Eight or nine months later, same type of deal, except the radio just didn’t feel like recognizing the antenna. This time Radio Shack was my victim. It’s a nice solution. My one suggestion is to use cash, it takes too long to get the $$$ back in the account if you’re using a debit card.

4. I love it and it would take 5 more reasons for me to turn off my subscription
God damn this radio. So over 100 channels of music, Howard Stern, and every college and pro football game you can imaging. PLUS, one of my favorites, Discovery Radio, makes you feel like your getting an education. There’s just too much good stuff on here, to whack the $10 a month subscription. Give me four more reasons to cancel (does it cause cancer? Make you impotent? Make your hair fall out?), then we’ll call it a day.