From the looks of things, and without further investigation, I’m guessing that cheapshoutcast.com has pulled the onerously predictable move of going out of business without any advance communication to paying customers. “The looks of things” in this case refers to 3 emails I received announcing that autopay all my radios there had been

The website at cheapshoutcast.com is unreachable. The shit’s just gone. By “onerously predictable”, I refer to the landscape of Shoutcast hosting comopanies that just decide to pack up their toys and screw over ttheircustomers. I will likely not get a refund for the most recent autopayments. It’s not a large amount of money, and even if it was, it’s not about the cash. It’s the hassle, the irritation, the indignity of knowing you’d put your trust in an entity that did not earn it.

I was dicked over by cheapshoutcast a while back, maybe 6 or 7 months ago. My Payphone Radio account was terminated and all content deleted on account of a fictional missed payment. As with this shutdown there was zero communication from the company that my account was somehow in jeopardy. They insisted emails had been sent but they were wrong. Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered for just such an occasion. I was back online quickly and expected to move the radio over to the far more trustworthy Ucartz. But time is scarce with a full-time job and I never got around to it.

I’ll make lemonade from this minor debacle. Time to combine some stations anyway. The phones might be fucked for a while, though.

…

My relatively new decision to walk to the R train in the morning has brought flashbacks to high school, when I drove to school most days in my dad’s old Dodge Dart. The route was usually the same. North Boulevard to Busch Boulevard, then left until Himes. The school was on Himes so I remember this as being the easiest and most direct route. But there were others. I don’t remember the street names now but Armenia Avenue comes to mind. Or was it Armenia Boulevard? You can look up things like this now, in less time than it takes to write this sentence. But I’ll forgo that creature comfort and let the memory lie unresolved. I used to pass the Armenia Sandwich Store, which emphasized the first letters of its name so all I could ever see of it was ASS. Get me something from the ASS.

The walk to Steinway Street feels like that commute to school. The character of the passage changes, at one point evoking a feeling of a wide open interstate that makes the journey seem far longer than it is. It’s about 10 minutes but the varied landscaped make it seem longer. 

I black out portions of the walk, just the same as I blacked out lengthy portions of the drive to school. I would sometimes reach Busch Boulevard with zero memory of having passed Chamberlain High School or the public library. I’m a little surprised how clearly I remember the journey  today, 40-something years later.