Droids and Ghost Drivers

Earlier this year we upgraded our phones and got our first "official" Verizon phones since Alltel was purchased by the V. Being the Technology loving geek, and opponent of anti-freedom corporations, I was happy to purchase me one of them fancy Droids. I really like this phone, it feels like a solid piece of equipment (fancy talk for it's heavy as a brick), and it has some really nice features. One of the most fun features of the phone is the fact that I can listen to the radio on it. This feature is made even nicer by the fact that the radio in my car has been on the fritz for quite a while. It doesn't do FM or AM, but connects to the webcast of the station. Which means that I can listen to any station that actually features a webcast. Any station, anywhere.

So naturally I am now driving around in my non-radio-entertained car, while listening to German radio stations on my phone. My #1 station is Antenne Bayern, one of the local stations from where I grew up. Most of the songs that are popular there are the same as here in Oklahoma, but I do enjoy the local flavor of having British and German songs in the mix. I also really like the German morning shows and the afternoon program. The only problem is my work hours, and the fact that Germany is 7 hours ahead of the local time. So when I drive to work at 7 pm and listen to the radio, it is 2 am in Germany and the middle-of-the-night program is not the most entertaining. For the ride home at 8 am I listen to the 3pm afternoon show, and for the rare ride to work at midnight I actually get the true Morning show. Another fun feature is the local news, the local weather, and the local traffic report. It is important to know that there is a stalled vehicle on the side of the road of the A9 by Schwabach Sued while driving down I-35.

Another interesting phenomenon I was reminded off while listening to the radio, both here and while in Germany, is the "Geisterfahrer" or "Ghost Driver". In Germany you frequently hear the broadcast interrupted with the urgent news that somebody on the Autobahn is driving the in the wrong direction. I don't know if that particular phenomenon is really that much more common in Germany than in the US, or if it just doesn't get as much attention over here. But as soon as there is any info on the Ghost Driver the local radio stations will stop whatever they are doing, ala the "BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP" of severe weather warnings in Oklahoma, and let everyone know what is going on. The people driving on the Autobahn will then slow down, rank up single file in the right hand lane, and try to give the Ghost Driver a free lane to be along his merry way. Germany does not have open medians like we do here in Oklahoma, even though most Oklahoma Interstates are getting the cable barriers installed. So it is not really a case of people skipping over the median and then driving the wrong way, they have to go down the off-ramp to make it on the Autobahn in the first place. Also, I have no idea how they came up with the name "Ghost Driver".