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284 points nomilk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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waltbosz ◴[] No.45766658[source]
In the early days of the Internet, there was this website with a list of payphone numbers from all over the United States. In my state, there were only three entries, and my home phone number was one of them. It was listed as being outside a publicly traded chain restaurant.

On occasion, radio stations would do bits where they would call a random payphone from the website. My house was called 3 times for the same bit by different radio stations. Within a month apart, I spoke to two different stations from New Zealand. MoreFM was one of them, but I don't remember the other. I do remember that that were very disappointed when I told them I had just spoken to MoreFM a month prior. Also MoreFM was the only station that didn't end the bit when I explained it was not a pay phone

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3eb7988a1663 ◴[] No.45766876[source]
Did you get any swag?
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1. waltbosz ◴[] No.45770894[source]
I did win a Lord of the Rings prize pack from MoreFM, but it never arrived at my house. Either it got lost in transit or they just never shipped it.

The call with them was right around the time of the theatrical release of the first film, and the people on t radio show were excited because the movie was filmed in New Zealand. To win the prize I had to name two people from New Zealand. I couldn't think of anyone, and earlier in the call I had already looked up the stations website, so they told me to go to the staff page and name two people.

This was back in the days of dial up Internet, but we were one of the first houses to get DSL. I remember one of the people at the radio station was amazed that I could be online and on the phone at the same time.