R.I.P. KDHX Radio! Long Live CRSTL.FM!

I came late to the community radio appreciation party, but I've listened to KDHX radio for much of my life. I didn't always like the genre that was being featured from one hour to the next, but they had slots dedicated to Ska, Blues, Reggae, Folk, and World music. There were times for Country, Bluegrass, Classical, and everything in between. A central feature was the local music events and artists featured. It wasn't always my favorite radio station, but I knew people who claimed it as such. And I was always happy to have it saved in my radio dial, and to have a community resource here in my home town.

Well, as of 2025, the holding company that owned and operated the radio station decided to sell the rights to the frequency or whatever to a different company. So when the parent company went to sell, the employees, DJs and a number of volunteers worked on getting a court injunction together to stop them and take over ownership to keep this community resource. But their case was lost. And rather than continue to fight appeals, they decided to pivot their efforts in a different direction. For a brief time, when you tuned into 88.1 FM here in St. Louis, you got a very generic 90s dance music station with no DJs. It wasn't too bad. But that didn't last. Eventually, the parent company sold it to a Christian radio company and they started churning out contemporary Christian music over the airwaves. And I deleted it from my favorites list on the dial. In the general theme of things getting worse in these late-stage capitalistic times, this is one more log on the metaphorical dumpster fire.

As of today (at noon central) the team of DJs, management and volunteers who were part of making KDHX tick launched their new project; an Internet streamed community radio station called CRSTL.FM. You should tune in, but first off, lets take a history trip.

What the HELL happened to KDHX?

You can also learn more about the community being built at LOVE of Community Radio STL.

KDHX is dead. What's next?

The new station launched today and I was listening at noon when the first song played. They started with a really good set of Bluegrass, which is always new to me, and then had a live band in studio perform for a good time. It's worth tuning in and checking the posted schedule.

Embarrassing - The US Government Shutdown is Embarrassing

It's embarrassing. What is happening right now in our country is embarrassing on the world stage.

Did you know that there's almost no other democratic country in the world with a system where, if our elected leaders can't come together and agree on a compromise, then the whole of the federal government shuts down? In fact, there are some countries where, if a resolution can't proceed, then new elections are held and those representatives get replaced (e.g. Australia).

But no. We have a system where fully paid representatives, elected ADULTS, can decide to throw a hissy fit temper tantrum and decide they will just close everything. And real people will suffer because of it. And the elected representative will have no substantive punishments for this, other than an angrier constituency. With how we do our campaigning, both sides point fingers, and nothing changes.

I Am Allergic to Acetaminophen

I need to remember this, so I'm posting it here to remind me. I get a mild itchy throat and a ticklish urge to cough that lasts for about an hour. No other reactions that I can recall from last time. But hopefully this is the last time I try taking it. I'll stick with Ibuprofen when called for.

Basement Flooding --AGAIN! What is This, Part Three?

I posted this on Facebook, but I also wanted to record it here.

Back in early November, I was one of many Florissant / north STL county residents that got a majorly flooded basement due to the ridiculous amount of rain. This happened once before back in ...2014?

It was really a lot worse than simple rain water for us, as the sewer system became "overcharged" (that is MSD's word for it 😒) and backed up into our house. To the extent of 5-7" of... sludge. The damage was... bad. My homeowner's insurance didn't cover anything. MSD gave us a small check for the damages while still maintaining it wasn't their fault. I had a company show up and quote us for the cleanup and restoration and it was ~4x what MSD was going to give us. That wouldn't have covered replacing anything lost, only cleanup and restoring drywall, etc.. I took the money, paid the company for the cleanup they'd done so far and that was it.

You can see that Florissant residents showed up at a city meeting that MSD hosted... If you watch closely you can spot me there. I left that meeting unsatisfied... As did almost everyone that I spoke to there. A lot of customer service and PR folks to explain gently how this wasn't their fault.

I've been slowly and surely cleaning things up myself over the past several months, whenever I can get to it. Progress had been slow.

Well... now it's happening again. A "once in a hundred years" rain storm is happening again this weekend. Because of course it is. This time I was a little better prepared, and I think I'm going to stay on top of it hopefully. How?

First, after November I bought a little drain plug. It was relatively cheap (<$10) at my local hardware store. They come in a few different sizes (3", 4", and such) so measure before you buy. This screws tightly into place and keeps MOST but not all of the water from coming up from a basement drain. You don't want to leave something like this in place 100% of the time, as a burst pipe OR water from the basement walls needs a place to go. But when water begins to come UP you can slow that down.

As I am currently getting water from the walls AND some coming up from the drain. I needed a way to get pump out the water that is pooling there. A shop vac worked for a little while, but I'd have to empty it by carrying it up the stairs and dumping into the backyard. After 15 or more trips this way, while barely keeping up with the water, I decided that was not going to cut it. I have to sleep eventually. So another trip to the hardware store and I now the owner of a small 1/6 horsepower sump pump that attaches to a standard garden hose. A 100' hose goes out my basement window and empties into the drainage ditch at the end of my yard.

Now I just need to turn it off every once in a while when the water is low, so it can cool off and let enough of a puddle form for suction. So that's where I'm at now. Wish me luck on keeping up with the rain. This is NOT what I planned to do this weekend, but we can't always get what we want. Stay safe everyone.

Karaoke @ Murphy's Bar & Grill

I've been hosting a new karaoke night every Tuesday at Murphy's Bar & Grill in Creve Coeur. I was referred to them through Zyi, and it came together pretty quickly after I reached out. This place had a regular karaoke night prior to the pandemic, but it fell apart and they needed a reboot. Here's my invite description.

𝗞𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝗯𝗮𝗯𝘆! Welcome old friends and new friends of 🍀 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘩𝘺'𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘳 & 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭.

My name is Jim and I'm the new host for 🎵 Karaoke Tuesday nights from 8:30-11:30pm. I grew up in Creve Coeur and I can't wait to get this started. We are going to have a good time.

I'm an experienced musician and karaoke host, and it's my goal to provide great entertainment for your evening. Some people are not sure about karaoke and I get that. What should you expect? If you'd like to sing, I'll give you every opportunity to take your turn with the mic. 🎤 Or you can sit back, have a few drinks and enjoy the music with live singers of every possible skill level.

Don't forget, it's also $𝟐.𝟎𝟎 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 all day, so all domestics 🍻 are available for $2 each as well as all night happy hour well drinks. This is a smoker-friendly bar.

Enjoying the description and cheeky emojis, but will probably update this as time goes on. Right now, I'm looking at the rest of the month. We will have karaoke this week for the 17^th but the bar will be closing early on the 24^th for Christmas Eve. However, there will be a special night on NEW YEAR'S EVE, December 31^st where we will have karaoke up to almost midnight and then I'll lead us all in a countdown. I hope you join us!

Wheel of Lunch - another casualty in the death of the Web as we knew it...

A moment of silence please...

I like fun single-use websites. I've written about The Useless Web and other sites like it a few times, and they are fun and goofy. But there have also been a number of effectively useful single-use websites over the years that I've frequented. And right now I find it hard to believe that I've never written about my absolute favorite.

The Wheel of Lunch

Imagine you are with your coworkers or a group of friends and it's getting close to lunchtime. "Where should we go?" you might ask. And then a long discussion begins.

And here's what you should know about me. I am pretty open to most restaurant options, and don't have a strong preference. Basically, once we've decided to eat, I'm pretty agnostic as to the where. When the conversation goes on longer than 2 minutes, I'm politely ready to pick something at random. And for this exact reason exists the Wheel of Lunch.

The screen shot I've saved here does not do this justice. This website has existed since at least 2009. The original version that I was familiar with used Flash (R.I.P.) as a technology. It was later remade with <canvas>. But that was just the front end. The backend technology was pretty genius.

Loading the site at default would give a wheel with ~20 generic options for what to do for lunch (or dinner). You could spin it and get a generic result (like "hamburgers"). But optimally, the site had a connection to YELP, and if you gave it your local ZIP code, the best feature was triggered. Results for the top 20 local restaurants got loaded onto the wheel and then it would get a spin. If you were interested in a specific type of restaurant --for example, BBQ-- you could enter that as a search query and get a list of thosrestaurant types on your wheel.

This was great! Of course, you weren't forced to eat at the first random option. You can always spin again. In coworker groups, the list at least facilitated inspiration and quicker discussion on available options. It was fun for "hey, have you heard of this place?" New adventures could be had.

My wife and kids? Funny enough, they were not fans. They didn't want to trust the wheel for dinner, and they didn't like the clicking sound the wheel makes. And probably didn't want to hear me suggest the WHEEL. OF. LUNCH. one more time. But they are spoilsports who hate fun! 😝

---

I guess all good things must come to an end. Tonight, I went to try it again when we were discussing dinner options and was greeted with the familiar wheel, missing the search options. On the left column was this note:

July 22, 2024

I am sad to report that after 15 years of The Wheel of Lunch, Yelp has decided to no longer provide free API services to the wheel. Yelp’s cheapest API plan is $230 a month! I can't afford that.

The Wheel of Lunch has always been a labor of ♥, and provides zero $ to me (I stopped running ads a while ago). I have no desire to “monetize” the Wheel.

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the Wheel, while it existed. It was from an older, friendlier version of the World Wide Web that was not exclusively about commerce. Many of these sites are shuttered now, and the Wheel of Lunch is just another casualty in the long march to the death of the Web as we knew it.

Have a nice day! :)

Oof. I felt that viscerally. And it triggers a nostalgic feeling for the early web 2.0 peak of the 2010s or thenabouts. I guess the Useless Web is still around, but I'd suggest we all appreciate it before it fades entirely.