Lies my radio tells me

"In thirty seconds you ROCK," says my radio. I forget which station. Does it really matter? On just about any music station now, the commercial breaks are so interminable that the producers record and insert special bumpers just to assure you that yes, we still do play music on occasion, and in fact we will actually play some... after this next commercial or two. I think that they hope the "finite time promise bumper" (FTPB) is enough of a palliative to prevent the nearly-fed-up from switching stations.

In my case I suppose that it worked, though my wristwatch did zoom up to nose-level so that I could check the thirty-second claim. Was there music in thirty seconds? No! Was I "rocking" as a result of the deejay flapping his gums? Most emphatically not. The music actually started at P[romise]-plus-57 seconds, a timing error of (57 - 30) / 30, or 90%. Now if the bumper had said, "In thirty seconds the COMMERCIALS PROBABLY STOP," they would have been spot-on. But I guess that's not as catchy.