OBSOLETE CONTEST DAY 4 WINNER: AM Radio

From Craig Poirier of Halifax:

“It first happened in 1989 when CBC Radio One’s Halifax, Nova Scotia’s station 860 CBH shut their AM transmitter off for good and adopted the new call letters CBHA on it’s new permanent home on the FM dial at 90.5 MHz.  It next happened in 2006 when Nova Scotia’s oldest commercial radio station 960 CHNS shut off their AM transmitter and switched to the FM band at 89.9 MHz.  Then in 2008, my personal favorite, 920 CJCH shut off their AM transmitter in favor of a new home on the FM band at 101.3 MHz.  Finally, in a day that I never thought I’d see, after almost 47 years of broadcasting the very last AM station in existence in Halifax, 780 CFDR [aka 780 Kixx Classic Country], shut their 50,000 watt transmitter off for good on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 10:00 Atlantic Time, changed ownership and their format and moved to a new home on the FM band at 92.9 MHz.  As a lifelong fan of AM radio listening, it really is hard to believe that there are no longer any local AM stations left to listen to in Halifax.  Unless you are a fan of DX’ing (i.e., distant reception listening, done primarily at night), AM radios have sadly become a combination of both useless and electrical paperweights in this part of the world.”

OBSOLETE CONTEST SUBMISSION DAY 2: Male subway etiquette

From Vicki Morgan, NYC:

I’ve noticed that male etiquette on public transportation is obsolete. Men often sit with legs splayed, taking up two rather than one seat. Six men on a row of seats can take up the room of twelve people. They do not stand for pregnant women, older women, or any women. Women who know the weight of pregnancy and discomfort of menstruation and tiredness of age will stand up for another woman and keep their knees discreetly together to allow for another person to sit.

(Click her for contest information)

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CONTEST: What is obsolete in your life?

Today, we experience more change in one year than previous generations experienced in their lifetimes. Sitcoms from ten years ago look as if they might as well have been made in the 1700s. See the size of the cordless phones Ross is using? How were they able to make so many storylines that revolved around answering machine bloopers? Just think about all those disastrous blind dates that Jerry and George could’ve avoided if only they could’ve looked each other up on Facebook first…

Our lives are packed with ideas, objects, and habits that likely won’t exist for very much longer. What is obsolete—or on the brink of obsolescence—in your life? Every day for the next ten days (now through September 21), I’ll be accepting submissions to this website: photos, videos, short essays, audio clips, etc. Each day, the best submissions will be featured on the site; each day’s winning entrant will receive a free signed copy of OBSOLETE.

To enter, please email me your submission to ObsoleteTheBook@gmail.com or use the form here. Make sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you win.

But wait! There’s more! If you are a TUMBLR or FACEBOOK or TWITTER user and you reblog or mention this post, you will receive a little token of my appreciation. For free! Via mail! Old school, right? All you have to do is email me a link to the reblogged post, or a screen shot, and your mailing address.

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