This American Life

I know I’m late to the party on this, but how brilliant is This American Life? While most shows are about extraordinary events and people, This American Life examines the lives of mundane, ordinary people. They take the time required to find out things like why summer camp is like a cult, or that the simple tale of a family moving to the country might be the most depressing thing you’ve ever heard… at least until you hear Betsy Walters talk about her parents’ divorce. Throw in David Sedaris trying to solve the mystery of who secretly wiped shit on their bathroom towels and you have the greatest radio show I’ve ever heard.

Ira Glass

Ira Glass, host of This American Life
(also, the only person in radio who’s voice matches their face exactly)

 

Chicago AM Stations Heard in Philly?

My brother swears he can get Chicago’s ESPN Radio 1000AM in and around Philly at night. I was skeptical, but then I looked it up on Wikipedia:

Medium wave and short wave radio signals act differently during daytime and nighttime. During the day, AM signals travel by groundwave, diffracting around the curve of the earth over a distance up to a few hundred miles (or kilometers) from the signal transmitter. However, after sunset, changes in the ionosphere cause AM signals to travel by skywave, enabling AM radio stations to be heard much farther from their point of origin than is normal during the day.