We are aware that the streams have been experiencing downtime on and off lately. This is caused by a hacker. We know who it is and have already contacted the FBI to take action, so sit tight. We’ll be keeping the streams up as much as we possibly can. KJSR.net has no intention, as usual, of shutting down for any reason whatsoever. Catch you on the airwaves!

-DJ Kyo

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Friends, we here at KJSR.net are a family. And as with all families, there are good times and bad times. Unfortunately, this is a bad time. Last night, at approximately 6pm, Yulanda, the girlfriend of our very own DJ WRider passed away from lymphoma.

Here, in WRider’s own words, is Yulanda:

It all started in Gr 4. We just turned 28 last year so I think Gr 4 would be around 1990 or 1991. We were among a small group of students that had excelled in standardized testing. They put us together in a class called the PACE program (Program for Academic Creativity Extension).

In my part of the province, we have two years of kindergarten, then 8 grades of elementary school, 4 or 5 years of high school (it’s only 4 now, we used to have 5), and then post secondary varies a bit depending on what you go in to.

So they told our little class that we were smarter than all the other kids in the town.

Basically a PACEr excels at doing the least amount of work possible but making you think they worked hard. We also talked back more than the average kid.

Yulanda and I met in this class. There are very few of us and we are not very close any more. I think there were maybe 20 or so of us.

So yeah we met a long time ago. That was when she got sick the first time.

I had an idea that it was serious but I did not realize it was cancer until much later. In any case, we grew up together even though we weren’t friends. I didn’t even think she talked until we were in our later years in high school.

Since we were in the same class every year, we essentially grew up together with the same experiences. In high school, we still managed to not be friends even though we had mutual friends and hung out regularly.

Finally, at the end of my first year of university, one of our mutual friends asked me for a favour. Her car broke down and she needed to head out to the west end of the city and also give Yulanda a ride back to her residence at college. She asked if I could chauffeur for the day. I said sure.

So we finally got talking and we realized that we had lots in common.

So we talked alot on ICQ and MSN and we found out that we had some sort of chemistry but we were not quite sure what it was (and of course we did not tell the other person that this is what we thought).

We listened to the same music, liked the same movies, etc. We ended up spending alot of time together (among some other friends as well).

But at the time, I was chasing another girl…

And the whole time, Yulanda was always with me, showing me new places to eat, finding new things to look at, going on random trips into the city. Even encouraged me in my conquest of this other girl.

The other girl is still a very nice girl and we are friends but I don’t think she ever liked me that way.

Yulanda told me she was busy chasing other boys too but I don’t know if she just said that to make me feel better.

She wasn’t sick yet. She recovered from her first bout with cancer after Gr 5 or 6.

So university went by for a bit (she went to a college) and I was pretty lonely going to school downtown because I’m a bit antisocial and not many of our friends went to school downtown. She finished her program in 3 years and transferred to the other university in the city to do a bachelor program so then I had someone to hang out with again.

The two schools are only a few city blocks apart.

I have to mention that Yulanda took me to my first rock concert as well. I don’t know why I think this is significant but I want to mention it anyways.

Eventually, she ended up going on an exchange program to Hong Kong in 2004 or 2005 for half a year. She told me if we were dating she probably never would have gone because she wouldn’t be able to bear with leaving me behind. It was a good experience for her though and I’m glad she went.

Of course she only told me that a few months ago.

At the end of 2005, I think I finally gave up trying to go out with the first girl (mostly due to cowardice and not being able to tell her how I felt) and I asked another girl (now my ex) to my company christmas party.

I don’t know why but I didn’t ask Yulanda.

So my ex…I didn’t really want to go out with her. One of my other close friends (coincidentally, someone I met through the first girl) said I should give my ex a chance because it would be a good learning experience for me. She said she would be a good starter girlfriend. Figure out how to be in a relationship.

Well things were terribly complicated with this girl and while I tried hard to make it work, we were just too incompatible and she dumped me at the end of 2007. During the time I was with her, I lost contact with pretty much all my other friends.

So after battling depression again, in 2008 I finally resurfaced and started hanging out with people again.

Among those people was Yulanda. And things were good! We always had a good time together and I started…checking her out if you know what I mean.

She would later tell me that she always caught me whenever I was looking. >.>

And at this point in time I realized how beautiful she had become and how great it was to be with her. I was finishing up my accounting designation at the time so the first half of the year was a struggle but it felt good when I was done.

But…I was dumb!

I talked about my convocation with her and I knew I should have asked her. I was never sure she was interested in me though. And she was supposed to be my kid sister and a friend. I was afraid to screw it up and lose her too.

I wanted to ask her to come but I was too chicken to.

I also have to stress that 90% of the time that we went out involved food in some way or another. Eating was one of our favourite past times. There was always another place to try, a new type of food to eat, old places to experience again…

Food, music and silliness were the primary ingredients in the recipe for our relationship.

She’s also a very talented photographer. Many of the outings we took involved her trying to take a specific shot or just to take pictures of life and the city around us. She also had a strange fascination with urban decay and vintage things as well.

In 2008, I think she also interned at Fashion magazine.

The best thing about her was that we could do absolutely nothing and have a great time. We could spend hours driving to the middle of nowhere and have fun trying to get back to where we started.

She also taught me how to snowboard some time in 2002 or 2003.

We also went skating with the friend that introduced us every Friday for awhile because rink time was cheap near my house and the place was empty.

Anyways, things went downhill at the end of 2008.

She started having feelings for me, but she said dating me was against her personal rules. I’m not sure what those rules are but she said that she broke several rules by going out with me. Probably the same can’t date a friend thing, and probably can’t date an accountant among others.

She felt stupid for liking me when she didn’t feel like I was reciprocating.

So to avoid all that, she cut off all contact with me. Out of sight, out of mind.

And she felt that it seemed like I didn’t want to be her friend any more either.

On the other hand, I thought she had gotten angry with me so I didn’t want to contact her in case I made it worse. She always made the plans anyways so I figured that we would be able to smoothe it out when she called me out next…which never happened.

So last year when my birthday rolled around, I decided to choose to go eat something accessible and something we both loved.

She had missed several of my previous birthdays because she didn’t have enough money to go to the fancy places that I kept choosing.

I picked burritos and dessert at an ice cream place. Total cost of the dinner would have been under $20 for sure. But she was in Seoul, Korea.

She had gone travelling in the spring so she couldn’t come.

I didn’t know that she was gone and I didn’t know when she was coming back so I just waited and lived life as usual.

Then in August, one of our friends sent me a text message. It said that she was in the hospital and didn’t know what was wrong…although I think we all suspected it was cancer.

She had just gotten checked out a month earlier. They told her that she never had to come back to the hospital again and that she could put away her hospital card.

When we went to visit her on the first day, several of us went. She didn’t even expect me to come. We all filed into the room one at a time and I was the last one in.

I think she was very shocked to see me and the first thing I said to her was “I’ve never seen you in glasses before”. She smiled a bit sheepishly. She always wore contacts.

She looked tired and weak but it didn’t seem hopeless.

We stayed at the hospital for a bit and took turns running for food. I was the last to go for food and our other friend had to leave to go to work so I was alone with her for a few minutes.

She told me she was glad I came.

I poked her a few times and finally held her hand for a bit. I said “Of course I came! How could I not?”

Things got a bit better after that. Once they diagnosed it as cancer, I resolved that I would not let her be alone. I would be with her whether she wanted to or not. And even when I got tired, I made the effort to be with her through sheer force of will.

Every time I went to see her I asked her “Do you want me to come back?” and she would always say “Only if you want to.” Then I would say, “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And I kept my promise, even if I could only be there for an hour, I went down to see her. Finally she got well enough to go home. I kept my vigil but relaxing ever so slightly so as to not worry her and to actually see my own family on occasion as well.

One Sunday in September, she had a bad day. She got into a fight with her mom over something stupid. I asked if she’d like me to visit and she said she didn’t want to take anything out on me and I said that if anything, you can take it out on me or at least focus on someone else for a bit.

So I showed up and she asked if I would like to go for a walk. We walked around her neighbourhood and where she would walk her dog and I took her hand. I told her “It’s nice to have a hand to hold again.”

We walked for a bit and then took a break at a park bench. We just looked around for a bit making idle conversation. At this point, I thought…is she setting me up? Am I supposed to kiss her? Two nights before I had a dream where it was a setting much like that and I leaned over and kissed her in mid sentence. I wasn’t sure if I could do it again or if I should.

So you’re probably thinking…FINALLY! HE KISSED THE GIRL!

Nope.

As usual, I chickened out. We kept walking around and she said she wanted to show me another bench that seemed to have no purpose.

It was further down the street and we stopped to tie our shoelaces and take another break. And then I did it. I told her that I had a dream where I kissed her mid sentence…and then leaned over. I almost missed!

I walked her home in silence and then we went to her basement to watch TV. She was smiling though.

That night she emailed me and apologized for freezing up a bit. She didn’t know how to react but that night confirmed it. We were so totally in love with each other.

I can even tell you the exact day. Sept 6, 2009.

We don’t count it as an anniversary though. We knew we were in love before that.

So she started getting better. And we made plans, joked, laughed, spent time together and tried to be normal.

And she always felt bad that we never had a normal relationship. We always had to make room for the treatments and recovery. I always told her that we do have a normal relationship. We’ve had one for years. We just never sucked face at the end of the night.

But…then she started getting worse. Her heart got weak. Then they had to stop the treatments. Then she couldn’t walk without help. They tried radiation and she got a little better but then got worse again. They tried a different chemo and it didn’t work. Then they told us…there’s nothing else they can do.

That was on January 25, 2010.

The week before that, we had gone to the ER three separate times.

They did one short round of radiation in the hopes of getting her some feeling in her legs so we could at least go home but it didn’t work. But I was with her the whole time.

And her family too. Her mom always stayed with her whenever she had to be in the hospital.

We did our best. We really tried hard.

She fought right to the end. I know she did.

We always promised that we’d grow old together…it was all we ever wanted in life.

The last few times that she was able to talk she said she was sorry that I had to go through this. And I always told her to never be sorry. That I’d be ok as long as I had her.

Last week she told me that if anything were to happen to her, after an appropriate amount of time, to go find someone else because I deserved to be happy. And I told her that she made me happy. There was nothing left unsaid between us though. We both kind of knew what could happen. I said thank you for loving me, and thank you for letting me love you. Thank you for showing me that life is beautiful and that the world is a great place. And she said the same thing.

She thanked me for keeping her safe and for keeping her warm. She always felt safe in my arms and I was her personal pillow and hand warmer.

She stopped being able to respond starting this week. She was still able to eat and drink until she got moved to the hospice on Wednesday.

But I never gave up hope. Even right to the end I hoped and prayed that something would help her get better…even if I was a bit delusional.

I was there at the end with her mom and brother. I almost missed it as usual but I was with her right until the end. Her dad was on his way after work and arrived shortly afterward.

And I hope she heard us. When she had her last breath, I told her that I loved her. And I knew that she loved me too.

I have to tell you one more thing. She always cared about other people and she always had a sense of humour.

And she was adorable. Let me tell you about 3 separate incidences.

These are short so don’t worry.

I got lightheaded a few days ago because I did not eat anything for an entire evening/afternoon. I ended up having to lie down because my blood sugar levels were too low. The next day when I went to see her, she kept pushing her juice to me saying “Drink too! Don’t want you to get sick again.” And she always asked me why I didn’t go to work because she didn’t want me to get behind. She always cared about other people even when she couldn’t help herself.

Another time, after getting a bath from the nurses. They asked her if she wanted anything and she said “Pancake!”. They said why pancakes? She said because they had been flipping and flopping her around so much she felt like a pancake.

And just on Monday. We were looking a pictures of her sitting in a stack of tires being silly. Then she asked for a kleenex. At this point she was wearing an eyepatch because of her double vision. After we gave it to her she started wiping her teddy bear’s head with it and she started folding it. We asked her what she was doing and she held it over the bear’s left eye. She was trying to make an eye patch for her bear so it would match her. Our friend finished folding it and taped it on for her and she was quite pleased.

She was so cute. I even caught her playing with her bear one evening before kissing her goodnight. She thought I had left already but smiled when I came back one last time. I’m going to miss her so much.

– DJ WRider

Please keep DJ WRider and Yulanda in your thoughts. You can email WRider at dj-wrider@kjsr.net.

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Because we all know DJ Kyo loves Bubble Wrap!

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Hello everyone, your friendly neighborhood codemonkey here. I wanted to inform you all of some changes we’re trying to implement in the site here in the upcoming future. No, we’re not changing servers again, or expecting any form of downtime at all, we’re just trying to implement a few upgrades that will make the overall site a better experience for you our listeners. While we like to keep things a surprise, I do want to inform you of two of our projects.

Rating System
First up, is a new rating system for our shows. As you may have heard in various pitches when we try to recruit new DJ’s, we have an open policy about what our DJ’s can say and play on the station, allowing them to basically say what they want to say and play what they want to play. Though that said, we do want give you, our listeners, an advanced warning to content that may not be deemed largely appropriate for younger listeners or for listeners with children. That said, we’ve installed a new system to allow our DJ’s to rate the content of their shows, and the KJSR staff will be doing our best to enforce our new rating policy. There will be three possible ratings, PG (Parental Guidance), TN (Teen), and MA (Mature).

PG – Parental Guidance
This will be the default rating for all shows, and for when DJ Johnny Fever is on the airwaves. While we deem this rating to be safe for all listeners, we do encourage younger listeners to be cautious still as a random song or comment may not necessarily be appropriate for all ages. Most of our shows will likely fall into this rating.

TN – Teen 14+
This rating means that the content of the show may be more appropriate for a slightly older crowd. Songs and languange will likely range from mild to moderate. Younger listeners aren’t discouraged from listening, but content will be slightly more mature.

MA – Mature 18+
A Mature rating means that the show is meant for older, mature listeners. Songs played and language used by DJ’s will likely tend towards more adult content, and swearing or foul language may be regularly involved. Younger listeners are discouraged from listening to these shows, unless monitored by an adult.

I do want to state that while we are implementing these ratings, it will have no effect as to the content on your favorite shows. It is not intended as a means to censor our DJ’s, but as a way to inform listeners, new and old, as to the general content of all shows. We look to have the new rating system fully implemented by the beginning of next week, and we hope it’s beneficial to everyone.

Graphic Upgrade
If you note the sidebar, you’ll see that we’re trying to unify the graphics for our buttons into a new theme. We’ve updated a few so far, and plan to update the rest throughout the next day or so. Yeah, its nothing that huge, but its been needed for a long while. Its also the start of several other projects, but those you’ll have to wait for.

Other than that, I’m only permitted to say that we have several big things planned for 2010. A rating system and new buttons are only the beginning of things to come. We here at KJSR are thriving to not only provide you great music, but several other things as well. So stay tune and keep your eyes peeled for new features to come.

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