Sirius, now with XM! Permission to freak out is granted.

Disclaimer: I've been a Sirius (Canada) subscriber for two years and have never been an XM subscriber.

Monday, Sirius and XM swapped numerous channels as a result of thier recent merger. Naturally, people freaked. As usual, there was no announcement that changes were to be rolled out. Or that NBA fans on Siruis would have to go over to XM. Or that many favourite specialty music channels would be swapped. Apparently the channel-swapping was disclosed (but not detialed) during the merger hearings south of the border, but I never got the memo. My experience was hopping into the car Monday morning and putting my Siruis reciever into the car dock, turning it on and getting the dreaded "updating channels..." message. At lead I dread it because previous updates have wiped my favorites, even when the specific channels hadn't moved. I then had my own little freak out when the channel description read "Siruis XM U" rather than the 'old' channel 26 "Left of Center".

Now that I've had a week to live with it, I've realized that "Sirius XM U" is still Left of Center in every material way, just re-branded with XM and the dumb "U" for University, plus what I assume is a swap of one of the three DJs. While I'm sure this is an allusion to the long-standing popularity of indie music on college radio stations (the genre was called college rock during the pre-Nirvana era), its still a poor name with more letters than actual words and implies that the station is aimed soley at post-secondary students. Also unchanged was my second-favourite station, Sirius 14 Classic Vinyl, with the exception that some of the DJs feel the need to say "Sirius XM Classic Vinyl" every 5 seconds during brief between-song breaks. I guess that mean I'm lucky, having not had either of my favorites moved to XM.

I'm sure that some will suggest that people upset with the changes can always go to the other provider. This falls down beacause, although reciever kits are cheap, getting out of your subsription could be a hassle and if you have a car pre-wired for either Sirius or XM, you're stuck with that. Worse, a reciever that is capable of handling both services seems to be a long way off. Sirius shrugs this all off by saying that you'll still get 120 (110 in Canada) of music, entertainment, and sports. But if you don't get your one all-time favourite channel, that might not be at all reassuring.

It's the little things in life.

Some jokes just write themselves. National Geographic recently ran a photo of the winner of the "most beautiful goat" competition in Saudi Arabia. Need I say more? But if you're ever over there doing the tourist thing, you might want to keep that remark to yourself as this is one of the last countries in the world to use beheading as a punishment, for a variety of offenses.

One other thing I wouldn't recommend doing in public is being caught dead using a periscope light to read your Kindle. As if simply having an e-book reader didn't up your nerd factor, this would certainly put you over the top. Oh, and it also is a protective cover, pen holder, and notepad. But the addition of the bulky, obvious reading light really ruins and bussiness-like appeal. Tragically, Amazon could have nipped this in the bud if they had simply incuded a backlight in the Kindle's design. As it is, the cool kids will need no further excuse to beat you up and steal your lunch money.

Amazon has otherwise been a good corporate citizen as of late, annoucing an initiative that will see many of its products transition from traditional plastic clamshell packaging to plain paper envelopes and brown cardboard boxes. You know, what packaging used to be like before some tool invented plastic clamshell packs that have to be opened with explosives (or at least a very sharp knife, with the attendant potential for serious injury). The "frustration free packaging" also cuts down on the total amount of packaging required and is 100% recyclable, and hence is good for the environment. And that's something we can all feel good about.

Back overseas now, the the lovely land of Sweden, where The Pirate Bay bittorrent tracker now reports a record 22 million users, despite recent attempts to shut the site down. Instead, TPB has racked up an additional 10 million users in the last seven months. Not that I'd be encouraging piracy for the sake of piracy, but in many countries theres only a few ways to get your favourite shows if you happen to miss an episode, without forking over cash to iTunes or waiting for the DVD set (assuming you like the show enough). Some might point out that full episode streams are now routinely available in the US through Hulu and various network sites, but of course that doesn't work outside the US, unless you want to spend the time setting up a spoofed IP, which sort of spoils the convenience aspect.