It turns out that the disappearance of Miami's Zeta radio (WZTA)--and the identity crisis of my replacement for it, 100.7FM I wrote about earlier this week--is part of a nationwide trend, according to this excellent article in The New York Times.

None of this is surprising. Music genres come and go. After the grunge revolution in the early '90s, a more sanitized format some call "alternapop" dominated airwaves in the late '90s, but it couldn't last forever. How many songs do we really need with the same four chord progressions and lyrics about the same three topics?

I think a few factors are contributing to this change. First, although it's hard for me to tell from here in NYC, I think people are listening to less radio. It's too easy for you to carry around the exact mix of music you want, right in your pocket, without any commercials or annoying DJs.

Second, it's all about remixes these days. This has skewed overall tastes more toward urban, dance club and electronic flavors (Exhibit A: Moby) that sound more similar to remixed material. Who's going to remix Weezer? In fact, Pearl Jam's recent compilation rearviewmirror contains remixes of two grunge anthems: "Alive" and "Once." This is odd at best and it's not immediately clear what the innovation is in these versions. The upshot is that the hipness of remixing is at odds with the essence of alternative rock.

Finally, coincidentally enough, I think some enthusiasm for today's new rock may have been displaced by enthusiasm for yesterday's. As the Times article notes, '90s rock flashbacks are hot. In the anecdotal evidence department, Barrage's '90s night on Wednesdays has been so popular that the lounge has added Monday as an additional "1999" theme.

Yes, "Shut Up" by Simple Plan sounds like Blink 182, and "Float On" by Modest Mouse has hints of U2. Maybe people would rather just listen to the originals. But it's too soon to write off some of these new bands. They may have to tweak their sound a little, but some variation of new rock is likely to stick around.

In the big city, it's always nice to find the set of local vendors who know you. Like the fruit stand guy on the corner of 72nd and Columbus.

En route to the gym, before lifting, I always pick up a banana. My loyalty has won me some good deals. One time I didn't have a quarter, only a $20 bill. The guy told me not to worry about it and just gave me the banana, free.

Yesterday, I thought I would get rid of some loose change, and gave the guy a dime, two nickels and five pennies. He gave me back the pennies and said forget it, just take the banana. 20% off, just like that, even though pennies are perfectly liquid.

The corner fruit stand is a great place to get rid of change. I used to rely on Commerce Bank's Penny Arcade to process extra coins, but have since trained myself always to bring some change whenever I go out. Now I rarely have more than $1.50 in change outstanding--in part, thanks to the flexible and familiar fruit stand guy on 72nd and Columbus.

Is text messaging rubbing off on song titles?

Kelly Clarkson's chart-topper is "Since U Been Gone." David Morales has "How Would U Feel." Whatever happened to the word "you?"

Here are some text message abbrevations of some songs in my existing library:

"u oughta know" (Alanis Morissette)
"what wud u say" (Dave Matthews Band)
"u njoy myself" (Phish)
"2nite 2nite" (Smashing Pumpkins)

At any rate, if you want any hope of locating these songs, u better get ur txt lingo str8.

Dinner at World Resources in South Beach was terrific. The salad with miso dressing featured exquisite greens; the ginger scallops came with scallions, bell peppers and onion in a tasty broth with rice on the side. The restaurant is on Lincoln Road Mall, so we ate outside. After a quick stop at Score, dessert was at Gelateria Parmalat. The chocolate gelato was incredible--almost as creamy as ice cream. Bright lighting and modern design made the visit to this upscale dessert outpost fun. I loved the Parmalat balloons anchored from the counter.

The drive back and forth was again quick and easy, but the radio selection in the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area has become terrible. I always used to listen to Zeta 94, a modern and alternative rock station. This station changed formats, so I found Y100, but the mix on this one is strange. They alternate modern rock with urban R&B, resulting in a sequence with no continuity or momentum. You can't have "Somebody Told Me" by the Killers followed by a slow urban track followed by Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." I'm all for diverse formats, but this is like sticking a "Golden Girls" rerun in the middle of two World Series highlight reels.

Back to NYC today. Looks like a long flight--winds are out of the west at FLL, which would mean taking off to the west (and out of the way); winds at EWR will be out of the southwest, so we'll have to circle around and land from the north. Of course, Continental is at Terminal C, the north end of the airport, so we'll have to taxi all the way back.

Ray Lines defends his DVD-sanitization business by saying he's doing no worse than airlines in showing cleansed versions of movies. Try again, Ray. The airlines aren't making money from selling movies. When DVD retailers and rental services start making unauthorized changes to movies and harvesting a profit from doing so, that's bad.

While this seems to be a values and censorship issue headed toward some kind of litigation, how about a business resolution? The "family" market (e.g. those people offended by language, bodies, pictures, weather, sports, and anything else possibly infringing on their right to Disney grade culture) actually represents a new market with potentially new profits for film distributors. You want to alter my movie to take out what you think is offensive? Pay me. You're getting the benefit of adjusting my product to your market, and I may have something to gain. Add a disclaimer that what people are seeing has been altered but with consent of the filmmaker (who may be more receptive to more changes if there's new money to be made). Everyone wins.

If you make a film and object on principle to any change, you don't have to participate in this sanitized aftermarket.

Lines complains that he's stuck because sometimes he wants to see a movie but part of it is offensive. Too bad. The foundation of our country's intellectual property laws are that creators can make things and retain control over who duplicates and changes them. If Lines wants to profit off infringing on this fundamental right, he should compensate the creators of the films he is renting.

I've been to Fort Lauderdale enough times so that for most of my short trips within the area, I know all the shortcuts and don't get stuck in traffic. A few key tips: Las Olas is much faster from the beach to downtown (because you can use Birch Road as a parallel alternative to A1A); NE 13th Street is terrific east-west to avoid Sunrise Boulevard; and NE 3rd Avenue is great to get from downtown up to Wilton Manors without using Federal Highway.

I am still stumped, however, by the trip from the beach to my grandmother's.

Yahoo! Maps suggests Sunrise Boulevard the whole way. This works, but you'll have traffic from the beach to around Andrews Avenue. Then Sunrise is fast until NW 56th Avenue where you start hitting suburban traffic again.

You could also take Route 1 south to I-595 (the bright orange east-west line on the map south of Fort Lauderdale) and speed west to Pine Island Road, but this involves going south and then going north through potentially heavy traffic.

Any way you cut it, it's 35-40 minutes--it depends if you want to go slower, then fast, then slower, or just want a moderate pace. Of course I'm still trying to figure out the best possible way.

It's just weird, because it takes the same amount of time to cross Fort Lauderdale to one of its western suburbs as it did yesterday to get to South Beach. But once you're on 595, it's all highway, 595 to 95 to 195. Even though you have to go back inland before cutting back to the beach, it still moves quickly (as long as it's not rush hour).

Having trouble attracting customers because your product demonstrates incompetence? Then lobby the government to shut down competition.

That's what's really going on here. Accu-Weather, a private (and dreadful) weather service in State College, PA, seems to have successfully convinced its senator Rick Santorum to sponsor a bill that would severely restrict free online information from the National Weather Service.

Contrary to what Accu-Weather says, this isn't simply about the NWS duplicating private information. No--it's about the fact that the NWS is far better than Accu-Weather, and consumers are relying on the NWS, not Accu-Weather (which itself has its own free online forecasts), as a result.

Accu-Weather's track record on the Web has been awful. It's been clobbered by The Weather Channel both in usage and in design. In its city-specific forecasts, the advertisements it runs are from sketchy money lenders. It's the best they can do with limited competence in business development and even worse meteorology skills.

The NWS office in New York isn't always perfect. But it still has by far the best range of narrative and descriptive products around. Its short term forecasts will pinpoint the progress of a line of thunderstorms or a sea breeze. Its zone forecasts explain that the day will begin partly cloudy before a chance of rain--unlike the simplistic icon slapped on an Accu-Weather Web page.

At the end of the day, this isn't about the line between the private and public sector. It's about a bunch of losers out there in State College, PA that can't run a business and want the government to bail them out.

* The trip down to FLL was fine, thanks to Continental Airlines. It's nice when brilliant advertising actually has good service behind it. Of course, what I noticed most was that at Penn Station, where I caught the EWR AirTrain, Verizon Wireless delivered a perfect signal where AT&T Wireless was nonexistent. Newark Airport is okay, but LGA is still my favorite.

* Among numerous excellent articles in this week's New Yorker: a short piece about a thwarted documentary about Madison Square Garden. In typical fashion, Jim Dolan appears to have thrown a wrench in this project without having ever seen the movie. From what the article says, though, this film would have conveyed what Cablevision has been unable to: that Madison Square Garden has unparalleled magic as a sports and entertainment venue. On the balance sheet, MSG accounts for a miniscule amount of Cablevision's business, but it is the company's vanity trophy.

* Recent weather in New York has been terrific; the big news was not so much the heat, but the extreme dryness. Dewpoints near the coast remained below 35 and in interior New England stayed in the single digits, registering relative humidities of below 10%, exceptionally rare for anywhere east of Denver. But it's not time to put away those jackets just yet; you really can't bank on consistent warm weather until at least Memorial Day, thanks to the threat of sea breezes and pesky coastal cutoff systems.

* The summer tease inevitably brought some browsing for new summer gear. Memo to clothing retailers: John Deere t-shirts are no longer funny; their ironic hipness has evaporated into stupidity. I think they're even more stale now than hooded sweatshirts that say "Brooklyn."

Apple's new operating system, Tiger (OS 10.4), comes out in ten days. It looks pretty good, but I'm still on 10.2.8 and staying with it for now. Of course, I'm the one that stayed with MacOS 8.6 for years and years--it was such a great operating system.

You'd think someone with my experience in technology would want to be on the cutting edge, but this plays precisely the other way. I've seen (and had to explain) just about everything that can go wrong. I'd never upgrade to a new operating system the day it comes out--let everyone else experience the bugs, and give me at least six months. Right now, my configuration with OS 10.2.8 isn't perfect, but is entirely manageable. There's an odd printing bug where, every so often, something won't print--easily corrected by unplugging and re-connecting my USB cable. Once in a blue moon, an envelope will print incorrectly. No problem--just delete the printer from Print Center, restart, and add it back.

New technologies bring their own new collections of quirks and bugs. If you have a situation that's manageable, you're doing just fine. In addition, I just don't have time to take a risk on unknown wrinkles and the hours spent ironing them out. Maybe if my computer were a toy this would be the case, but it's not.

Tiger looks great. A complete lack of aggravation is even better.

The idea was so simple: turkey and pastrami on rye with avocado. But today, for the first time I can remember, Lenny's screwed up.

Lenny's is an unbelievably professional and efficient deli and cafe; the one I frequent is on Columbus and 74th Street. Order anything in any permutation, and the speedster talker quickly relays the instructions to an army of food preparers behind the counter. Today, the speedster wasn't in, and this may have been the problem.

First, they produced turkey, pastrami and avocado on a roll. I showed them the order slip, which clearly said "rye." They said okay.

The second production consisted of turkey and avocado on rye. Wrong again.

By this point I was ready to leave and not in the mood to wait for a third attempt. I explained the situation to the cashier. Without one second of hesitation, she said I was absolutely right and promptly refunded me the cost of the sandwich.

Lenny's still makes the best sandwich on the Upper West Side and this is an admirable customer service approach. But we have to be careful not to be too pleased when mistakes are corrected; sometimes people are so excited to see the mistake corrected that they reward the service provider even more afterwards, increasing the incentive to get things wrong.

Bob Herbert writes today that the grand vision proposed by FDR would be "radical" by today's standards. Fair enough. But the more important point is that the New Deal, contrary to what everyone learned in high school, was not a neatly wrapped gift. It was much more spontaneous, pragmatic and sloppy, constantly re-engineered and formidably resisted.

It's been a long time since my political history days, but if you're interested in this topic, I recommend two books: The Politics Presidents Make by Stephen Skowronek (especially the chapter on FDR), and The End of Reform by Alan Brinkley. These well-written and comprehensive analyses uproot what has been a largely romanticized history of the New Deal. Pushing through reform today certainly isn't any easier, but it's not like it was a piece of cake back then either.

The change in FreshDirect's advertising campaign has been interesting. When the company first started delivering groceries, the advertisements featured large pieces of produce and uncooked meat, targeting people who like to cook.

Then the people at FreshDirect must have realized that in Manhattan, many people do not cook. So now, the advertisements feature prepared foods, such as pizza and chili. Who has the space to keep an inventory of unused salmon, anyway?

You have to love this game, in which the Dodgers beat the Giants 9-8. Jeff Weaver gave up 8 runs and 11 hits in 3 innings, and Armando Benitez blew the save.

"This isn't the first time I've had a blown save," said Benitez. Oh, really? It's nice when justice is done. I'll never forgive him for throwing at Tino Martinez.

Sometimes you just start noticing something a little more, even though it's not an officially reported trend. Well, here are two:

• Honking is up. It seems that more vehicles are honking more often than ever before. In the last month, I've been on three buses that abusively honk as they drive down 9th Avenue. Is traffic that much worse or are people just more impatient?

• Puma is the comeback brand of the year. More and more people have Puma bags, Puma gym gear, Puma t-shirts and other Puma goods. I don't think "Puma" has been in mainstream lexicon in years and years. Credit goes to management for resurrecting an old brand and making it trendy. Hopefully it won't be too trendy. If the brand suffers from overexposure, you can probably blame the new concept store in the meatpacking district.

Itching to check your work e-mail or instant messages while sifting through carrots and potatoes? Now a trip to the supermarket doesn't mean downtime: the Morton Williams market, on 9th Avenue and 59th Street, has a big sign in the window announcing that free wi-fi is available.

In a supermarket? I can understand why free wi-fi is perfect for coffee shops, cafes, hotels and airports. But while food shopping, only the compulsive will need to stay connected, I would think. But bringing wi-fi to odd places isn't new. Last fall, XL advertised free wi-fi at the trendy bar and lounge. Just in case a look at Outlook can't wait for the end of that martini.

Last August, when Time Warner Cable and MSG Network reached a deal, I posted a cable dispute scoreboard. With MSG Network once again off the air, it's time to revisit the cable dispute scoreboard and see whether the standings have changed.

There is no question that Time Warner wins again. The Knicks have been off the air for weeks and it's as much of a non-story as you can get. Nobody seems to be complaining, and nobody appears to be sympathetic to Cablevision. In addition, Time Warner has run great ads showing how most of MSG Network's sports programming has vanished. This one goes to Time Warner, easily.

So the updated standings:

Time Warner- 2 wins, 0 losses, 1 tie for 5 points
YES Network- 1 win, 0 losses, 0 ties for 2 points
Disney- 0 wins, 0 losses, 1 tie for 1 point
Cablevision- 0 wins, 3 losses, 0 ties for 0 points

Great weather weekend. The city came out of hibernation. Yesterday was the kind of day you think about in January when it's 8 degrees outside with winds of 20 mph. The high temperature was 74 with light winds. However, a backdoor cold front moved through last night and the polar vortex is returning for what may be its last visit of the season (hopefully). You can see this beautifully on the 12-hour water vapor loop, which shows a trough digging its feet into an area near Maine and Georges Bank, spinning back southward through New England and down into Maryland.

Brunch at Rachel's on 9th Avenue featured good food but quirky to impolite service; coffee was served out of a milk saucer for some reason, and the waiter abruptly cut me off to ask if everything was okay.

I noticed that the UPS store on 8th Avenue in Chelsea is participating in a clever promotional partnership: you can eBay your stuff there. Nice. Definitely a logical fit. Does this mean that UPS should merge with eBay? No.

There just isn't anything better than a clever variation. Yesterday, at Don't Tell Mama, singer/songwriter Anne Smith delivered a terrific twist on Hoobastank's "The Reason," which soared on the alternative and modern rock charts about a year and a half ago (and has secured its place in my Fall 2003-Spring 2004 iPod playlist).

Anne's version slowed down the original and couched it in seductive, complex piano chords reminiscent of 1930s and '40s jazz standards. Her voice is full and bold but also precise, so the lyrics were just as convincing even though she had taken the song to a completely different place.

More specifically, it was interesting to see what she kept and what she changed. Hoobastank's version is anchored by a persistent four-note guitar riff that descends by a third when the overall chord does the same--she kept that in her piano transcription. On the other hand, when the song (in the key of E) climaxes, Hoobastank introduces a powerful chord in D for impact (this is at time marker 2:06, just in case you are keeping score at home). Anne's pianist replaced this D chord with richer and more nuanced tones, marking the difference that is important to the song, but in a more subtle way.

So clever. I think the ability to generate and perform such a compelling variation like that is what separates the artists that really understand the music they are performing.

I realized that the four-month mark has passed in my Verizon Wireless contract and I still have not called or e-mailed customer service once. There is no reason to contact them. The service just works all the time and my bills have been completely accurate.

I love when ad slogans are factually accurate. The latest Verizon Wireless one is "Reliable: You'll know it when you have it." Yup.

Speaking of perfect, is this weather ideal or what? Cool northeasterly winds are keeping the air from getting too dry (northeasterly winds include a maritime component) and the temperature is a just-right 60ish. Last night it actually felt a bit sticky before the rain started.

I've gotten back into peanut butter recently. On toasted fresh bread for breakfast with a bowl of cereal, it's great, and I stay full until a later lunch.

First I tried Whole Foods organic peanut butter. While the first jar was pretty good, I found the second jar, even after mixing the oil into the peanut mixture, to have the wrong consistency. It was too chunky and didn't spread well, even for chunky peanut butter.

Then I noticed that Fairway stocked peanut butter from Peanut Butter & Co., the place down in Greenwich Village. This peanut butter is terrific and gets my vote. It took less effort to preserve optimal peanut butter consistency over the course finishing the entire jar. It tastes great. I'm also happy to cast my vote with an authentic native New York City business. (I believe Whole Foods stocks Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter as well.)

Of course, the perfect peanut butter experience requires outstanding bread, and for that I go to the Fairway bread counter. Sesame, eight grain and whole wheat are all really good. Prompt freezing after slicing will preserve the bread well--and bread defrosts quickly so there is no delay later. I don't understand how anyone buys mass market bread like Arnold or Wonder. After spending so much time in Montreal last year, I now have no patience for bread that is less than exquisite.

Is it 6:15 already? The sky is still bright blue and the sun is out. What a great April day, in which the temperature caught up with the amount of daylight, finally. And the Yankees beat the Red Sox on a Derek Jeter home run in the bottom of the 9th inning.

The timing could not have been better for NBA TV to have replaced MSG Network on Time Warner Cable. Last weekend, NBA TV featured a 30-minute feature on legendary Knicks forward Bernard King. Hosted by Bruce Beck (who was a sportscaster with MSG Network before he eventually landed his current post at WNBC), it was a terrific history of the most electric (and consistently excellent) player the Knicks have seen in the last 25 years.

Then NBA TV showed the December 25, 1984 Knicks vs. Nets game, in which King scored 60 points and the Knicks lost. I was at that game, so it's been fun to watch this broadcast. All elements of the original MSG Network coverage have been preserved--the pre-game show with Sam Rosen, the graphics including the old MSG logo, the music, and all the commentary of Jim Karvellas and Butch Beard. (Nine years later, I would leave the Garden stunned again when Charles Smith missed three consecutive layups and the Knicks lost a critical Game Five to the Chicago Bulls in the NBA playoffs.)

• With bitter cold, occasional rain and gusty winds, it was great to see the bright blue fences at Yankee Stadium on TV, the best sign that spring is about to arrive. The Yankees won 9-2. It took just minutes for Hideki Matsui to reach his trademark clutch form, stealing a home run and hitting one himself. It's great to have Tino Martinez, one of the classiest players out there, back home; his diving stop late in the game was typical Tino, giving everything he has no matter what the circumstances.

• Dinner at Kittichai was very good. The pond in the middle of the room made for interesting decor; a room not that large was well designed for the illusion of spaciousness. The food ranged from good to excellent. Pro-active water refills were a key component in reliable service because much of the food was bold or spicy. I knew beforehand this was a celebrity hangout, so it was cool when CBS reporter Andrew Kirtzman sat down at the next table. He's been one of my favorite news personalities for years, ever since his acerbic and clever "Winners and Losers" segments on NY1 six or seven years ago.

• Altar Boyz was cute. The "plot" was a stretch--but fine, we knew that. The music consisted of smart lyrics and a good band consisting of two synthesizers, drums and electric guitar. I was glad the band was on stage level and was trying to figure out what each of the two synthesizer players were doing. One would appear to be used for sound effects from time to time while the other delivered more traditional synthesizer sounds (digital piano, strings and so on). While the acting was generally good, the obvious standout was Andy Karl (Luke), who persuasively captured an Eminem-esque vibe in both looks and sound. It's definitely worth seeing, even if it does not exactly raise any compelling questions.

• 1.25" or so inches of rain on Saturday. The NAM model got a bit carried away, as usual, but it didn't matter: the heaviest downpours were perfectly timed with when I had to be outside.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and just finished a part including the excellent discussion of atmospheric science. In it, Bryson mentions George Hadley, for whom the "Hadley cell" -- a large-scale circulation in which air rises along the equator and descends in the subtropics -- is named. It turns out that Hadley was a lawyer and amateur meteorologist as well.

I may be biased, but to me, law and meteorology fit well together. Both involve sizing up complex systems with a high number of variables and (especially in today's era of computer models) distinguishing among precedential indicators to extrapolate into the future. Hadley probably would have had a field day with National Weather Service forecast discussions (here's the latest one from the NYC office), which to me have a resemblance to judicial opinions in the way factors are weighed, authorities are measured, and an argument is set forth, in the form of a weather prediction.

Birthday season ends today, with 33 not feeling much different than 32, except for maybe general nonsense appearing a bit further away in the rear view mirror. There was a fun convening at Barrage, which worked out perfectly because so many people would be there anyway. As I explained to a friend from college who now lives out west, it would be like having your birthday party at Naples in New Haven on a Thursday night (at least in 1993). Tonight is high-end Thai food and then we'll have to start planning for 34. It's certainly been a great week foodwise, between Pacific Echo, Thalia, Agave and now Kittichai.

The best thing about early April is that the first several games of baseball season get to compete with the atmosphere's propensity for producing stubborn cutoff lows. At least there won't be snow at Yankee Stadium this year (at least in the next week). I don't know how they do it in cities like Cleveland and Denver, with outdoor stadiums and tricky April weather patterns. I would prefer to see the Yankees-Red Sox games start later in the season, and not opening day, when at least a bit of a pennant chase has developed.

It looks like heavy rain tomorrow with at least one computer model, the NAM, screaming for over almost 3 inches of rain. On top of the 3 inches that fell earlier in the week, expect flooding and a good chance of some subway problems (judging from the problems last fall). The good news is that it's the last day of standard time before those great weekend days with late sunsets and everyone out from hibernation.