Well, it's no amazing come-back, open arms to greet the lost noder, but a small feeling of comfort all the same. Little has changed, yet many have.

After over 3 and a half years of not noding, just popping in for a look-see at what is happening from time to time, I noded my first WU today (this obviously being my second). I don't see this as a grand second coming, but should the opportunity arise, and I think of anything interesting, I may pop in and write it up.

Life has been a crazy whirlwind since last we met, oh E2. It has been over 3 years since my last confession.

I have now moved to London from my home country, and am finding a lot of differences over here which should make good node-fodder. I have changed jobs twice, and am seriously looking again. I have obviously aged some, but haven't let this impact on my childish outbursts, or purile demeanour.

Let this be the first of many...

I'm toying with the idea of leaving my radio show for something else. For the past 3 years I've been doing a weekly radio show on WRIU from midnight until 3AM on Saturday night. This automatically ties up every Saturday night and it makes Sundays very interesting.

This idea has been brewing for a while. WRIU's anemic attempts at online broadcasting drove me to mirror my live broadcast on dirtyradio. I started archiving all the broadcasts on my website, and eventually turned that into a podcast. Despite the occasionaly hater (see the podcast node, for example), the podcast version is fairly successful. I tracked the downloads for a guest appearance from the summer, and it had 5 times as many downloads as total live listeners (online and radio).

All this comes at a time when the station management seems incompetent. The general station manager does not have a telephone, and he checks his email infrequently. It took him three months to replace our expired access cards, and the new ones are nonfunctional. The person who grants access to the production studio and the live room, the only area with room for guest performers, is also MIA. The studio equipment malfunctions on a regular basis, and the replacements that have supposedly been ordered have not appeared. Frustration is high.

What has kept me from throwing in the towel? I think there a couple points holding me back from buggering off entirely from broadcast radio:

Licensing: WRIU currently pays license fees to ASCAP, BMI, and SoundExchange in order to broadcast other people's music over the air and online. Even though getting permission to reproduce all the tracks from the copyright holders is probably easy, it's still a mountain of work considering how many records I have.

Community: Two sides to this coin. As part of WRIU, I have other DJs I can talk to. The RPM Department has grown to 5 DJs which is the highest number ever. We cover all facets of electronic music, from accessible dancey stuff to pissed-off skinhead power electronics with homoerotic nazi undertones. It's also nice to be able to find people who aren't looking specifically for a music show. Not long ago, I received an email from a displaced Katrina survivor who had moved to Providence who thanked me profusely for playing what he needed to hear.

Music: Artists and labels send promos to WRIU, not to me. I would probably also have a tougher time getting people to be a guest on just a podcast.

Recognition: Last night I went to a bar where my friend was spinning. I went to the guy who did the booking and told him I was on WRIU. He asked me when I wanted to play at his club. I don't think that would happen if I told someone "oh hey, I have a podcast! Yay!"

Well, I suppose that if I just keep it in my head that the student management will be voted out at the end of the year, I can make it through.