{"id":120,"date":"2005-04-01T09:27:52","date_gmt":"2005-04-01T15:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/archives\/120"},"modified":"2005-04-01T09:27:52","modified_gmt":"2005-04-01T15:27:52","slug":"npr-semi-annual-annual-fund-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/archives\/120","title":{"rendered":"NPR Semi-annual Annual Fund Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noooooooooooooooo! It’s happening again! It seems like just yesterday that I was pledging to Chicago NPR<\/a>. I got in the car yesterday, turned on the radio, and immediately comprehended that it was fund drive time by the chatter and phones in the background, over-enthused announcers spouting the benefits of NPR, and the general lack of normalacy.<\/p>\n

This morning, as I always do during fund drives, I found a different station to listen to. Next up the dial was WXRT. I must have been paying attention to the road (ha!) because I didn’t notice that I changed the dial. XRT seems to be lampooning<\/a> the NPR drive by having their announcers “wittily” recreate the usual banter between hosts during the pledge drive. Once I realized that the telephone ring sound effect was being played exactly every three seconds, I caught on. Why would you parody the pledge drive? Trying to feel snobby? I immediately changed the station, because the irritation a pledge drive really does get under my skin.<\/p>\n

If I hated the general format of a pledge drive, why would any of their usual listeners find it amusing? Any novelty is outweighed by constant over-eager reiterations of how neat NPR is. I bet this doesn’t do well for ratings …<\/p>\n

Then I realized that the reason I loathe the pledge drive is because it DOES interrupt my usual NPR programming. Just like they say. I’m cranky about it because I like it so much. I heart NPR.<\/p>\n

Had I not already “given” to NPR six months ago ($100 and the promise of my firstborn got me a sweet bag and a membership card) I would have immediately, today, in the parking lot. It was a religious experience.<\/p>\n

(Best comment overheard this morning: “I was raised in a Catholic orphanage…”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noooooooooooooooo! It’s happening again! It seems like just yesterday that I was pledging to Chicago NPR. I got in the car yesterday, turned on the radio, and immediately comprehended that it was fund drive time by the chatter and phones in the background, over-enthused announcers spouting the benefits of NPR, and the general lack of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantlet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outsidecat.com\/wordvehicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}