It's been a couple years now since I got my XM Roadie2. It had a lot of use over 2004 and 2005. I really enjoyed the service...no commercials on the music stations, lots of different music stations to enjoy, and I didn't have to worry about finding new radio stations to listen to on long road trips.
During 2006, it seems like something happened to XM. Commercial music stations came up. I didn't listen to those stations anyway, but Margo did. Then it seemed that the playlists at drive time for my mainstay channels (Squizz, Boneyard, Fred, Ethel, Lucy) started getting really short and repetitive. Then the DJs started coming out to jabber more. This is the kind of stuff that got me to stop listening to FM radio.
In response, I started listening to my iPod a lot more. There's a bunch of podcasts that I listen to now, and with some playing around with my playlists, my music rotation is a lot more interesting. Around summertime, I noticed that I hardly ever even turned my XM unit on anymore. That continued through Saturday when I called XM to cancel and I removed the Roady from my car. Margo hates what has happened to XM too but I don't think she wants to mess with hooking her iPod up to the car yet so XM still has one customer in this house yet.
The funny thing is that when I got the Roady, I was trying to decide between getting it and an iPod. I figured that XM had better access to more music than I do, so I went with the XM. Eventually, when I finally got an iPod it took over my music listening in the car and at work. I could have probably saved myself a lot of time and money ($10 a month?) if I would have just gone with the iPod in the beginning. Oh well.
Update: Just to be clear, in the car, I have the iPod plugged into my car's stereo system...I don't drive with the earbuds in like I see some people do around here. I'll describe my at-work setup in a future post.
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