I hadn’t gotten around to listening to Discovery Radio before today — for that matter, I haven’t watched much on Discovery TV even though I’ve had it on cable and satellite for many years. Both the radio and TV stations are loaded with interesting shows about various topics (I’m listening to one on synthetic memories now). But they require one to pay attention to get any value out of the time, and it’s hard to pay attention to the radio while doing the kind of work IBM wants me to do.

I could definitely enjoy listening to this channel on a plane, or at the gym, or even while driving — but it’s not something I can deal with at my desk. I’m giving it a “B” despite being unable to listen to it here, because what I did hear was very good.

Today is a special, and sad, day at XM Bootcamp. XM announced changes to their channel lineup at CES; those changes take effect on February 1. Four channels got the axe — three which were sourced from Univision and played Latin music, and one XM original: Special X.

Special X plays anything and everything, starting with the weird and getting stranger from there. Of course they play traditional odd stuff, like Weird Al Yankovic, Tiny Tim, and Mrs. Miller, and they play the Dr. Demento show frequently — but you can hear that on the regular radio dial if you look carefully. Special X goes farther: they have a six-hour surf music extravaganza (“Wax My Woody”); there’s the weekly Polka Party; I just listened to “Sci Fi Hi Fi”, which is just what you’re afraid it is; they feature cartoon music on “Wabbit Tracks”, and they can get even stranger — I survived an episode of “The Fabulous World of Parrot Training Records” earlier this morning.

No, it’s not a channel which appeals to everyone; it’s not even a channel which appeals to me all of the time — and I don’t think it would make good background music at work. But it’s a channel which makes XM special, and I will be very sorry to see it go dark next weekend.