Radio Sweethearts

We’re about two weeks into being homeowners, and we’re still without internet at home. Sort of. Right now, I’ve got myself tucked away in a corner, sniffing out whatever dregs of internet seep out unprotected from the neighbors’ houses.

We’ve been trying to unpack, but the thing is, most of our boxes are packed tigher than an easy game of Tetris, and wait, what’s that you say?

The featured story on this week’s “On the Media” is about Tetris?

What a coincidence! I love Tetris! It’s a major contributor to the fact that college took me two tries. It’s also a major contributor that I once moved everything I ever owned in one trip in a minivan (with the seats in the car and up), and why I’m finding it difficult to unpack certain boxes. I’m really wishing that, in life as in Tetris, I could complete a line and have it vanish.

But I digress.

Bob Garfield gets to interview Alexey Pajitnov, the Russian programmer who invented Tetris.

Do I even really need to specify that he’s a Russian programmer? Pajitnov invented Tetris. That’s like calling Dostoyevski a Russian novelist or Tchaikovsky a Russian composer or Badenov a cartoon Russian spy. I mean, we know. It’s obvious.

I assumed for years that the Tchaikovsky-esque music that plays and plays and plays while the blocks fall from the sky were a) actually Tchaikovsky and b) the Soviet National Anthem.

It’s an awesomely geeky interview, and both Bob and Pajitnov geek 0ut about Pong – Bob mentions an embarassed love for Pong, and Pajitnov pats him on the back to say, Yes, my Western capitalist friend. Me too. Only in Soviet russia, Pong, it plays you.

Okay, so that was stupid. And it’s the last time I’ll do that. But the game sort of did play Pajitnov. Glasnost wasn’t glas-enough for the programmer, and in order to get Tetris published, he basically had to donate his rights to the game for ten years to friggin’ Elorg or whoever it was who wrote those painfully long legal warnings that showed when you turned on your Nintendo.

So even though Pajitnov did invent the most addictive game this side of Klondike Solitare, he’s not rich, even by the dirty chic mid-80′s Moscow middle class standards.

There’s no conclusion here, except that my hand, too, extends out to both Bob and Pajitnov. My name is Matthew Crawford-Trisler, and I, too, love Pong.

Now, all of that rambling is by way of glossing over pretty much the entire episode. There’s a story about Iran’s “elections”, one about the Boston Globe. There’s a particularly good repeat story. And the TV Digital Switch. Which I could care less about. I listen to the radio like normal kids watch TV.

Brooke was out this week, which means that the lovely Katya Rogers was left to edit the show. Bob sounded disappointed while announcing this. Which is sad. We know he’s way into Brooke and everything, but Katya’s cute. And amazingly sweet.

And crazy talented at the mixing boards.

We’ve been in their studio; I know. Their mics are nothing fancy. (I could use the model number off the Shure that Brooke uses, by the way.) Katya keeps ‘em (our hosts) sounding like they’re in the room with you. It’s impressive, and she deserves a few crushes headed her way.

Today’s OTM Recap was written by Matthew and edited in spirit, if not in body, by Kerry.

In Pajitnov’s words, “Yes, and thank you for having me at your show.”