We apologize for our hasty reporting of stolen albums from our radio station. It turns out that the missing vinyl was not pilfered from our collection, but intentionally winnowed down in new station updates.

Some staff are having a difficult time with the “spring cleaning” of the record collection. But, check it out, their loss is your gain. The missing albums were intentionally set aside to be given away at the upcoming Programming Airwaves Xcitement Convention in Boston. So, any KQVR fans who attend PAX will have the chance to win a record from the station. (Along with other promotional giveaways.) 

The albums are all packed up and ready to fly, as is our staff who are a picture of excitement…or should we say Xcitement!

An area man, who asked to remain anonymous, admitted this morning that he thinks he may have gotten a little too caught up in the romance of the holiday weekend.

“I’ve always loved romance. I love the idea of love. And… I don’t know, I was just thinking about Valentine’s Day and I guess I got a little ahead of myself.” 

 The unidentified hopeless romantic said he’d been dating a girl off an on for several months before V-Day.

“We’d kept things pretty casual, and I think it was working out alright for us. But I’m afraid my big romantic gesture has changed our dynamic.”

The area man’s girlfriend was thrilled with the surprise that the area man gave her. He refused to go into any detail about the surprise itself, for fear that it might identify him. But he assures us that the couple had a wonderful weekend together. 

“It’s not that the romantic gesture backfired. If anything it went too well. I’m afraid that I set the bar too high. Now that I’ve done this, what will she expect for her birthday or our anniversary? What will be expected of me if I ever choose to propose? I can’t keep up this kind of thoughtfulness for years. So, I guess I will either have to break up with her or live in the shadow of her disappointment for the rest of our relationship.”

The KQVR crew is excited to announce that we’ll be traveling to Boston at the end of this month for the Programming Airwaves Xcitement convention. We’ve heard really amazing testimonials from other radio stations about how attending this radio broadcasting convention really infused their station with new energy.

Traveling to attend this convention is one more way for us to show you just how committed we are to giving you the best listening experience possible.

And while there are a few days just for other radio broadcasters, we’ve heard PAX is open to the public Feburary 27th through March 1st. So, we’ll have our live on location booth set up, and we’d love to meet any of our fans who happen to be attending PAX. As always, if you show up to our Live On Location broadcast wearing a station t-shirt, we’ll give you a special gift.

The Utopitech algorithm recently reported a sharp increase in visitors to the KQVR news blog. Welcome to all our new readers!

While we can’t divulge precisely how many people are reading this blog on a daily basis, we can assure you that it is enough for Utopitech executives to insist that we add advertising to the site.

If you’re interested in placing an advertisement with kqvrradio.com or having your community event featured as a “premium” event in our calendar, please reach out to the station’s marketing intern.

Area man and recent retiree, Mel Unkolie, admits he has spent several months of his life looking for secret messages in ASCII images. 

“I used to look at ASCII images from time to time, and my wife always asked me, ‘Do you have any idea how much of your life you’ve wasted staring at those random letters and numbers? I’m shocked your magnifying glass handle hasn’t fallen off from overuse!’ And when she died a few years back, I decided to track the time I spend looking at the images, so one day, when I see her again in heaven, I can tell her exactly how much time I’ve wasted. She probably wouldn’t like it, but without her here to spend time with, I don’t have anything better to do.”

Unkolie says his obsession with ASCII images began in middle school when he spotted a dirty word in a corporate logo. He couldn’t believe the forbidden language was hidden in plain sight. He felt like he was in on a secret. And as a kid who wasn’t included in many things, this privileged information made him feel special.

“It was just so provocative to see that word spelled out before my eyes as part of a communication that was so public. Now I’m always hoping to find something more meaningful. I spotted a marriage proposal once. I cried for 15 minutes after I discovered it. It felt like I was sharing a private moment that would impact multiple generations of people who hadn’t even been born yet.”

Unkolie says the beautiful moments in ASCII images are few and far between.

“Mostly it’s just curse words or links to scandalous websites. Still, I keep searching. I guess I feel like if someone took the time to hide a message in an ASCII image, I want to honor them and their time by investing my energy to search it out. It’s just my way of seeing people. I think deep down we all just want to be seen.”

Since he began tracking his time ten years ago, Unkolie has logged 1,971 hours searching for hidden messages in ASCII images, and the clock keeps running.