I am actually still adding old stuff that I used to have. I have done so today, in fact. I’m always done going through the A-Z list I had previously. Then I’ve got plenty of other recordings I have yet to add to the playlist.

Toastie Radio is part of who I am, so it’s not going away. I just don’t update it as much as I wish I did.

And I did cut down from 40 max slots down to 25, to save some cash. I never have 25 concurrent listeners anymore, anyway.

Well, Mark (the only remaining loyal listener I have that I know of), the site is back. It was some strange bug. And obviously the music is still going. Don’t worry that I’m going to cut it off. I may reduce the number of listeners that can tune in, but that won’t impact you.

I just recalculated the Top 25 for the first time in four months. Since no one really rates songs anymore (listening is generally a prerequisite), there has been no need to recalculate these ratings weekly as I had been doing. I realize there was no reason to do them weekly when I did them weekly. In a parallel universe, these weekly ratings were eagerly awaited, like fans used to wait anxiously for Dick Clark to reveal the top songs on American Bandstand. A hobby is fine, arguably, for one’s own amusement, but after six years, and when one acts as if there are others who are amused when there really are not, one has to ponder calling it quits.

A couple of people have emailed or left a comment to let me know they still listen. The broadcast still exists in Second Life, apparently. But most of the listeners I used to have didn’t follow me when I got a new stream URL a few weeks ago. I suspect most of the listeners were just bots, ripping streams.

Average # of listeners:
March 2007: 20.7
September 2007: 14.5
March 2008: 14.3
April 2008: 5.1

For the record, I was never a big Delilah fan. I don’t gravitate to everything that is sappy, not even half of it. However, in the early 90s, I’d listen to a request show out of Philadelphia. I forget the guy’s name (Dan something?)but Christopher Knight (had to Google this, glad to see he’s still doing radio…for SoJO…South Jersey’s OWN 104.9…I didn’t know South Jersey had its own anything), he’d say, “You’re listening to Between The Sheets, on Star 104.5″. I had a couple of pathetic dedications go on the air. And then I’d be terrified to go to school the next day, even thought the odds of anyone in the school having hear the dedication, let alone the object of the ridiculous dedication, were about the same as Mike Gravel winning the North Carolina Democratic Primary.

Anyway…that was certainly an occupational aspiration, to host a dedication show on the radio. Like Casey Kasem? No. I’ll admit, some of the “long distance dedications” Casey would read during his weekly Top 40 shows were wonderfully weepy, but I didn’t aspire to read those. No, I wanted to host that Between the Sheets show. Like Christopher Knight.

I’ve digressed from my original intent, but, then again, now I’m right smack in the heart of the actual original intent of my blogging, which, as I’ve said a million times now, was actually to do the same journaling I was doing way back when…like back in 1990 when I’d write about how I needed to call up Between the Sheets and dedicate a song. If the internet were around back then (I’m not counting Prodigy), I’d be spilling my mind to the internet. I had no desire to keep my thoughts stuck in a stale notepad for the rest of eternity.

Ok, let me turn this ship back around to whence it came. So Toastie Radio…it’s been the main thing to fill up the imaginary “hobby box” for six years, and the fact is that it’s not much of anything. Regardless of one’s opinion of the music I was playing, at least I could say once upon a time that I damn good at collecting all the music. I haven’t bothered broadening my horizons (the playlist) within the last couple of years.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this…I’m just lamenting that a hobby that I hoped to be more than a hobby has ultimately been a bust.

Now Playing Corey Hart - Never Surrender

New URL to bookmark for listening

(the old one will cease to function shortly)

The current stream will be dead after this weekend, as I’m not paying for it anymore. EGI Hosting, an outstanding stream and server hosting company (they’re not paying me to say this), has graciously extended me for a couple of days, since I didn’t get my new stream service (a lower-cost solution, still with EGI Hosting), started up yet. I hope to get that done this weekend, at which time there will be a new stream link.

I don’t know if anyone actually reads this, but I do have some news. I almost decided to pull the plug on Toastie Radio, but I decided I’d just scale it back. I’ll bring it back to where I stream it from my home PC to a streaming service, which is cheaper than renting a whole server by the month. This will give me a chance to redo the playlist, which hasn’t been redone in awhile.

For six years now, I’ve asked listeners what they want to hear, but I think I may be through, at least for now, with any attempt to appeal to greater numbers. Toastie Radio will be just whatever I want it to be. I want to be able to tell someone that the music I like is what can be found on Toastie Radio and not have any outliers that I keep on the playlist for the benefit of someone else. I do not mean to disregard listeners. The ratings will still matter, as far as weight in the playlist. I just may be adding more music that I know few people care for.

I’ll have a new stream URL soon, which I’ll post whenever it’s available.

I’ve compiled the top 100 songs in the playlist, based on on-line voting begun in May, where a song needed 6 votes to qualify (as opposed to the 7 I’ve used of late to qualify for the Top 25).

I’ll be playing the Top 10 as a series from time to time this month.