<p>Sirius is the company you use to pay for radio. I never thought I'd pay for it, but after listening to the Broadway Show tunes station, I fell in love with it. You buy a unit for the car (you can buy a portable one that can also be used at home) and somehow it then works through your tuner in the car (similar, I think, to the ipod deal). You then get all these other stations once you buy a monthly/yearly/lifetime membership to Sirius. The Broadway Station is terrific. I would imagine a lot of people will be buying it this year since Howard Stern is moving over to a Sirius station. (That is not the reason I am getting it, believe me!) Reception also can vary with location. I'm going to get it professionally installed, since I'm not too proficient with adjusting things like that.</p>
<p>samia...i too am a straight musical theater guy...and lots of my friends are...so dont worry...they are a alot of them out there...you just gotta find them...(ps...lots of us wish we could find musical theater girls...)</p>
<p>chris</p>
<p>When/if you decide to look into a subscription radio service (it's similar to the cable service you pay for on TV), also check out XM Satellite Radio. We had it in a rental car in California 2 years ago and if I remember correctly, which is not always a given these days, there were MULTIPLE MT channels. It IS addictive!! and so much fun. Of course you may have to fight for channel selection time with your signifigant other because there are endless live sports, news, music and entertainment channels available on the standard satellite packages. </p>
<p>In truth, I might be tempted to go with XM just to stay AWAY from Howard Stern!!</p>
<p>Ok I am just going to brag about the best present I ever got because my mom is that cool. I walked down stairs on christmas one year and i had one big present. So i got really excited and opened it...it was a suitcase...i was not excited any more. Then my mom told me to open it and it had a plane ticket to NYC for 5 days and tickets to 6 broadway shows. It was incredible! So yeah if you are ever planning a trip to NY make it a suprise, but otherwise its not a common present, we had alot of extra mooolaa that year because my dad was working overtime.<br>
ps those ipod radio things are awsome.</p>
<p>We have XM and the other cool thing is they sell a "home kit" so you can play it through your stereo at home. I use it with the Broadway channel (28) and will tune to one of the Christmas Channels when we have our Christmas party - no more changing cds! You can get a free 3 day online trial to see if you're interested - and after you join, you can listen online anytime. I've heard a lot of new shows I'd never heard of before!</p>
<p>You can now get Xm radio called "My-FI" It's about the size of an I-pod and you can get XM radio wherever you go. It comes with equipped to be used when walking/exercising, use in the car, use with your stereo, etc. It's costs less than an I-Pod.</p>
<p>Samia, your posts earlier made me laugh. My son is another heterosexual guy totally into MT, and Chris, both of his long-term relationships thus far have been with MT girls! You should be in a prime position for pickin' and choosin'. :-)</p>
<p>theatredivasmom-ok...I went with the My-FI. This looked like the best option. I hope the XM Broadway station is as much fun as the Sirius one sounded!</p>
<p>Question regarding an Ipod or mp3 player. I'm really naive about these gadgets. I'm guessing they are both mp3 players and that Ipod is just one brand. Is that right? I understand this would be a great thing for an mt'er to have. I plan to add the recording device that works with it. Wondered about comments about these types of things. Who has bought what and what is working well for your kids? And what is a good buy. what size memory would you suggest, brand, etc. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>razor,</p>
<p>My kids have the Dell DJ...it works very well. A little less money than an IPod.</p>
<p>SUE aka 5pants</p>
<p>I just got back from a quick trip to Borders where a scarfed up a "Grimmery" book- looks cool.
Now if only I could find one of those "straight" guys for my D she would be in heaven for the Holidays!</p>
<p>Har</p>
<p>razorback,</p>
<p>We started out with an MP3 player which for some reason no one seemed to like. My older d got an ipod mini (holds about 500 songs) which is now called the ipod nano. Her mini is already filled up and the nano now comes in 2GB 500 songs($199) and 4GB 1,000 songs ($249). So now it's mine (love it when walking or gardening!) Got her and my son the new video Ipods 30GB 7,500 songs and hours of video for $299. You could also get the 60GB which is 15,000 songs for $399. Prices are consistent just about everywhere. We got a nano for my younger d as well. You could get them right at ipod.com and get them free engraved on the back. Or a good suggestion to me was to get them at Costco online or at the store (if you are a member) because they offer lifetime warrantiess on all their electronics and will take it back easily if problems arise. </p>
<p>It really is an awesome thing to have! Then a good gift from friends/relatives would be an itunes card to help fill up that ipod! Happy Shopping!</p>
<p>razorback,
If your d stays at OCU, she should get an ipod next semester sometime. My s already has an ipod mini, so I have held out upgrading. He is wanting something to make it record voice lessons, and it seems impossible to get that for the mini now. But I don't know if they will get to keep that ipod or not.</p>
<p>ok, i just left best buy and am now an expert. kaysmom's info on the ipods is good as to their sizes and pricing. however, i discovered that you have to buy the battery charger separate, another $30 or $40. And there is a voice recording device that plugs into the ipod, one is made by belkin and i forget the other brand. not sure which ipod it plugs into, the nano i think. it was about $50. another difference with ipod is that you can't use any of your windows software with it, it comes with its own software. also, you can only use itunes to download songs to it. if you get songs from musicmatch or some other site, you have to burn them to a cd, then load them back in with the ipod software. i saw a player by "creative" that i liked. it's not as flat and cute as the ipod, but it does come with some different colored tops which are cute. it also comes with its own charger and has a voice recorder built in and an fm receiver. if i can get these figures right.......for $199 you get 5 gig or 1500 songs, and for $249, 6 gig or 2000 songs. and you can use the windows software and any download location with them. and i hope they will go on sale before christmas. i was told that apple doesn't let them discount the ipods. so that's the scoop i got.</p>
<p>p.s. and thanks for the input.</p>
<p>OOOh Razorback ....Good point. I forgot about all the extras. We don't have a battery charger, we plug it in to the computer or something (not sure what we do to charge it but I know it always sits here next to the computer charging).... I also don't know about the putting music on cd first thing either. My kids do it...I have never done it although I do know we have music jukebox loaded on the computer. They have never complained about how they get the music on the ipod so I never thought anything of it. I am not the most electronically savy person I must say. I Did buy the arm band things for Christmas though, because my kids all train and run in 5K and 10K races and will love having the music with them!</p>
<p>Sounds like you made a great choice!!! What a great option!! Enjoy it!!</p>
<p>Just a reminder, if you have another student already in college, Apple offers many college students discounts through their on-line site. We got a slightly lesser price on the i-pod and Belkin recorder through there last year.</p>
<p>Speaking of MT Christmas presents, my Son needs some help for his sister. She wanted a Wicked/Defying Gravity t-shirt. But the only one he can find on the Internet will end out costing him $42, including shipping. Anyone know of a good web site that sells Wicked shirts? (Don't suggest looking up "Wicked shirts" on the Internet!! Not a good idea!) And, surprisingly, when we looked up "defying gravity" t-shirts, we got a lot of Michael Jordan shirts . . .</p>
<p>Peggy, I imagine that the website your son already checked is -</p>
<p><a href="http://www.broadwaynewyork.com%5B/url%5D">http://www.broadwaynewyork.com</a></p>
<p>They sell official Broadway merchandise for many shows. They seem to have a variety of Wicked clothing, including different types of t-shirts. The Defying Gravity cap sleeve shirts are $28.50 and the long sleeve baseball type shirts are $35.00. There's a huge selection of Wicked merchandise and they are probably the largest marketer of official Broadway 'stuff'. It's unlikely that you'll get licensed and authentic shirts for less than that. </p>
<p>The other option is to wade through the items available on e-bay and see if there's anything there - </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>thanks, lynnm, i'll check their site out. i also found that walmart has a "creative" player, 5 gig, i think, for $178. Then I think the one at best buy that's $199 is 6 gig, and the one that's $249 is maybe 7 gig. wow, how many songs do we need? I also have a best buy "reward card" on which I've accumulated about $40 in coupons so that will be a nice savings. Another heads-up......i received in yesterday's mail, some best buy 10 percent off coupons good for this week. anyway, thanks all for the help.</p>