I came home for a few days, since a friend of mine was going to be here for two weeks. We went to see Blade: Trinity, which I guess was better than I expected, aside from being the world's longest iPod commercial. Ryan Reynolds was funny (watch out for the vampire pomerenian!) and Jessica Biel was her lovely self. I didn't know she was born in Ely, Minnesota. Oh, and she's much better as a non-blonde.
Some unexpected expected things happened for my friend, so we didn't hang out yesterday. Hopefully we'll do lunch or something today.
I sprayed fungicide on my mom's rose bushes on Tuesday. It was cold out, so the leaves got fungicidecicles. I also helped fix a festive deer that we have. One of those white wireframe jobbies that has Christmas lights strung through it. I had to go and replace about 20 light bulbs to get it to work, and then there were a few faulty ones that took a long time for my dad to track down with a tester.
MPR announced WCAL's new format and the call letters the station will start using in January: KCMP. The station's program director will be Steve Nelson, who reportedly helped create Radio K back in '93. He might still have a close affiliation with that station, though he had been working at MPR recently. They also moved a guy from MPR's distribution arm over to be music director: Thorn Skroch, previously of Rev 105 back in the '90s (I guess Nelson worked there too). If you haven't figured it out by now, the station will pretty much be what many observers expected: a mixture of everything.
MPR has set up a weblog for comments on the format. A few people are concerned that the station will stomp on the toes of KFAI, Radio K, and other community outlets. Hopefully there will be some differentiation, though KCMP will have a definite advantage over the community stations since they have a 100kW transmitter, just like the big boys of commercial radio (even though it's located in/near Northfield, which is on the southern edge of the metro area). I'm glad they have a repeater in Rochester, though. Then I'll be able to listen to it when I visit home ;-)
The Strib already has an article on the station and the call letters. KCMP apparently doesn't stand for anything, though it rhymes ("KCMP 89.3"). I suspect it'll be hard for the station to differentiate itself from “triple A” outlets around the country (and even around here), though Nelson has been calling it an “anti-format” station. So, KCMP is trying to be the new Rev (with more wattage than they ever had). I'm still excited. And no commercials! (Er, dramatically reduced from what you get on Clear Channel, Viacom, and Disney, anyway).