tenth or eleventh day of Christmas

The new clock radio I wanted for Christmas passed its first test this morning. It turned on at 4:30 a.m. and began playing WTOP. Or more accurately, wtop.com. The great gift from my wife receives both local FM stations and Internet streams.

The Sanyo R227 has eight presets for FM and eight presets for WiFi. I had a hard time finding eight local stations I liked enough to fill all the presets. I'm having the opposite problem narrowing down the thousands of Internet stations to pick my top eight.

For starters, I have programmed four news stations and four music stations. The news stations will stay on my buttons as long as their programming during the 4:00 a.m. ET hour interests me. I picked a station in each of the three cities where I've lived and one in St. Louis since I visit there often. They are WTOP, KNX, WINS and KMOX.

The music stations were a little easier to choose. I went with KROQ, KCRW and WLNG. The owner's manual says I can register my new toy at Reciva.com. By doing so, I can add stations to my device. I joined the site tonight and requested WINC, where my friend Paula works, as well as 101.5 The Music Place, where my friend Sarah works.

Since neither WINC nor The Music Place were on the list of stations already in the radio, I have temporarily assigned the last button to an Internet-only stream called "Christmas Vinyl." After all, the Christmas season runs through Sunday at my church.