The Viking Diaries

So BOTH of this past week's internet radio shows landed on THREE of Mixcloud's global charts: Lifestyle, Multi-Genre and Open Format.

And this despite the brief technical glitch at the start of Wednesday's livestream (it's not call Hump Day Highjinks for nothing!) and the considerable downtime the platform endured on Tuesday and Thursday this week! You check out what all the fuss is about here:

And here:

If you'd rather listen (and watch!) live ... that happens on Sundays and Wednesdays on Mixcloud, Blast Radio & sometimes even Twitch TV!

Evidently TVD Live is ticking some boxes for *somebody* because the chart action just keeps growing!

Last week's shows ... May 17 Sweden Sunday Brunch and May 20 Hump Day Highjinks ... currently sit in the 4th and 5th position on Mixcloud's Global Lifestyle Chart, respectively. I’m dumbfounded and delighted all at the same time!

What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? I have NO idea!

But am I thrilled that this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants internet hobby radio show is connecting with people? YOU BETCHA!

Shout-out to my fellow Mixcloud-ers who continue to embrace my craziness and questionable tech skills … and even take the time to share the show with others! You all are the best!

Love the song, love the parody of it, love Randy Rainbow.

1,500 followers? What's wrong with you people?! Just wanna give a shout-out to the wonderful community that ... for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me ... continues to support, encourage and cheerlead my livestreaming activities on Mixcloud. Especially for doing so despite the questionable technical quality of any given show! (The tech gremlins continue to stalk me!)

Mixcloud has been doing some interesting things lately to help hosts get more exposure on the platform and increase engagement with their shows ... and I am super appreciative of that. Features like "Spotlights" and the new "Community" tab are really making a difference in how I interact with the site and the many music-loving friends I am making there. (You can see my profile page here.)

But there continue to be a few bugs in the system ... specifically regarding notifications, which still seem to happen haphazard at best. And then there's the algorithm that kicks up recommendations and occasionally pushes them out to your inbox. I do not know what the parameters are for how it picks and chooses shows for me, but evidently it does recognize that I have been known to listen back to my own streams. LOL!

Holy chart action, Batman!

Occasionally very late to the party So I have this thing that I do (and have done for years) where I purposely ignore the latest trend or refuse to get on board with something or someone being AMAZING just "because everybody else says so." And for the most part, this habit has served me fairly well ... especially when it comes to pop culture.

So this means I have basically been ignoring Chappell Roan for years because the entire rest of the world was raving about her. But I recently I heard a livestream host on Mixcloud play "The Subway" and enjoyed it enough to play it on my own show a few days later ... at which point I really *listened* to it, with no distractions and headphones.

OMFG. The song is pretty much too good to be real ... especially live. And I could have been listening to it for months now! The video above is my favorite performance of "The Subway" I have found so far ... and yes, I will probably lose a big chunk of my weekend looking for more of them.