My roommate, the conservative softspoken late-twenties Iowa native that he is, has been taking advantage of being in an urban setting to explore different cultures and avenues of thinking over the past several months, which I'm encouraging him to do (I still think that our apartment -- inhabited by a liberal New England city boy and a conservative Midwestern farm boy -- sounds like a bad "Friends" spinoff and I'm surprised a network exec hasn't knocked on our door with a contract yet) and not just because I'm trying to get him to see the inherent evil that is George W. Moron, but because it's good that he experience the cultural and entertainment options that a city has to offer. He said that the farm his parents own is so out-of-the-way that it's technically not even within a town -- it's just territory that's part of the state of Iowa but is not within the bounds of any particular town or city. Having never lived in a place where there is space between towns, this blows my mind. Hell, I'm completely used to crossing the border into a new city or town every 5 minutes with no space in between them.

Either way, this translates to him listening to music other than the country music that seems to be ever-so-prevalent in the Midwest. (On a side note, there are more country music stations than any other kinds of radio stations in the country -- precisely because of the reason that there are so many in the Midwest.) He's been experimenting with rap lately on Boston's big urban station, but it's actually more amusing to see a six-foot-two rail-thin rhythmless white boy trying to get down to Petey Pablo or Ludacris than almost anything I've seen lately.

His gentle compromise is Kiss 108. For those of you who aren't in the Boston area, Kiss 108 is owned by Evil Megacorporation Clear Channel, and this particular station is -- to put it simply -- bubblegum pop. Quite frankly, on a cold winter day, my music of choice is definitely not sweet-to-the-point of saccharin. But rather than rain on his parade, I'll turn down my computer speakers so he can listen to his shiny happy pop while I brood over the Pixies.