Wednesday, 4/2

You knew it was Hungarian, didn't you?

I did indeed resurrect the old habit of writing a blog and then posting in a strange language yesterday for April Fools Day, and having read several books on strange languages the past few years figured Hungarian would work just fine. For some reason, it's not really related to any other European language (except Finnish, for some bizarre reason) and so there are few recognizable words for someone who speaks a Germanic language (like English) or a Romance language (like Spanish or French) to recognize.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me in my flight of fancy. It actually puts you in good company these days, in the company of the people taking part in our “Easter Parade of Colors” contest. If you've been listening, it's a contest built around a whimsical theme—that we're now broadcasting in color, and people can use their new color radios to guess the color of an Easter egg I hold up to the microphone.

The amazing thing? So far every single person has played along with the gag.

And it IS a gag. After all, sound doesn't come in colors, and even if it did, you'd need a color radio, which according to the promos we're running are available at stores like The Sound Center and Colorvision, both of which closed over 30 years ago. The whole contest is basically one giant whimsical joke, and I have to say I've been heartened that everyone (at least so far) is in on the gag.

And we're going whole hog on that gag, now that we're broadcasting in “full color” (as many of our liners say). Of course, I suppose it helps that we're giving away almost $700 in prizes. A total like that will almost certainly lead someone to willingly suspend their disbelief long enough to qualify. But the way that listeners are willing to play along with such a straight face warms the cockles of my weird little heart.

And we all know how weird THAT is.

So over the next two and a half weeks, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everyone keeps playing along. And if they do? Maybe I'll amp up the whimsy even more.

I just probably won't try to take a qualifier in Hungarian. That might be a little too much.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)