Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Comparing radio stations that cater to my interests in Buffalo to those in Syracuse, I find that Syracuse gets the edge. Buffalo's main oldies station is much better than the one in Syracuse, which was a grab-bag station of oldies and "sunny hits from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s". (Oh, by the way, oldies stations across the nation take note: Just because the Beach Boys did the song does not make "Kokomo" an oldie. The song dates from 1985 or so, for God's sake!)

But as for classical stations, Syracuse gets the edge with a selection that I more routinely enjoyed, coupled with the fact that they listed every piece they played on their website, so if you joined a work in progress you had merely to note the time it was on so you could look it up later if it was to your liking. The Buffalo classical station is good, to be sure, and it had a particular show that I liked which Syracuse didn't (Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas), but on balance I liked Syracuse's station just a bit more. Maybe it was their "Morning Sousa Wake-up", when they'd play some obscure Sousa march during the 8:00 hour.

Syracuse walks away with the prize, though, in the NPR Category. I love Buffalo's NPR station, but it does double-duty as a jazz station, whereas in Syracuse it's all NPR programming, all the time. In Syracuse I was able to hear a lot of NPR programs that I never even knew existed in Buffalo (although one big favorite of mine, Thistle and Shamrock, apparently is unavailable in Syracuse). Syracuse does have a jazz station, but I didn't listen to it very often. For various reasons I just don't get into jazz as much as I used to.

And in one random non-radio category, Buffalo is a far more driveable city than Syracuse, even given the fact that it's twice as big. This is for one simple reason: I have never in my life seen such a large concentration of "No right turn on red" intersections outside of Pennsylvania as exists in Syracuse.