the bbe green screamer is a clone of the classic ibanez tube screamer. after trying out both at the store, i could not tell the difference in the sound between the two so i went with the much more affordable bbe stompbox. it can produce quite a range of sounds, from a crunchy compact wak wak to a creamy nerrghh nerrghh. it also has true by-pass, a nifty tone knob, and is built to last longer than forever – transaction complete!

there’s a series of videos floating around on the interweb called auto-tune the news where several rather talented musicians turn news clips into entertaining pop songs. using a computer program, the speech from various newscasters is pitched to musical notes, creating a song. what is truly surprising, besides the gormlessness of daytime news anchors, is how good these songs sound. if i were to hear these songs on my car radio, i would assume it was just the latest and trendiest pop or r&b song.

that’s because in essence, they are. if you’ve been to a live concert, you’ll know that while the music is more exciting, the sound just doesn’t seem as polished as the illegal mp3s you’ve downloaded. that’s because the recording has been bent, mixed, processed, and mastered to sound pristine perfect. computer software can adjust the pitch and timing of  notes sung off-key or off beat and as a result today’s radio stations mostly broadcast talentless teenagers, chosen more for the range of their hip gyrations than the range of their voices. if you managed to catch the live, un-processed black eyed peas performance before the start of the NFL season opener last thursday, you’ll know what i’m banging on about.

you might expect this to bother an irascible grump such as myself but actually, i’m really quite fine. i have already been desensitized by countless dispelled illusions of photoshopped pictures, augmented and tucked celebrities, and computer generated trickery in movies. it was only a matter of time before music was affected by our propensity towards artificial enhancement.

if you ever leave margarine on your counter top on a hot summer day, you’ll notice that it does not spoil. because margarine is manufactured in a chemical factory from plastic, sin, and yellow coloring, not even bacterial and fungal decomposers find it fit to eat. so why do we, as higher primates, continue to accept these shameless substitutes for art, film, and music? and if brainless microorganisms have enough sense to avoid dining on margarine, shouldn’t we be clever enough to distinguish between cultural margarine and cultural butter?

at work today, i received a package:

immediately, i began checking for any stray wires and ticking sounds coming from inside. this is by far the most suspicious looking package i have ever received. first off, there is no return address so i have no way of knowing who really sent it. second, my address is printed out, shoddily i may add, so that the hand writing does not give away the identity of my assassin. lastly, i am addressed as ‘mr.’ and we all know that villains address their arch-enemies with a sardonic “mister” in all respectable action films.

flip the package around (very carefully, to avoid disturbing the plastic explosives). just look at the tape used to seal this envelope. im fairly certain this is the same brand of tape which suicide bombers use to tape dynamite to their bodies. you have to sign waivers to buy this tape.

the contents of the package were fairly non-extraordinary, so i was a little let down and embarrassed to have gotten out my bomb defusing protective gear.

hey, you gotta make your own fun.

i get all hot and bothered when i hear of people who are in cushy jobs because of “connections.” when it comes to jobs and careers, i strongly believe in making it on your own steam.  i think this is the reason why i enjoy biking. there is something strangely satisfying about arriving somewhere using only your bike and the biscuit you had for breakfast. dang, there was a a lot of unintentional alliteration in that last sentence.

i had a mountain bike during my first few years in college but it was eventually stolen by some lowlife scalawag. i replaced it with a $10 road bike that i won at a police auction, but since i graduated the bike has been gathering dust and rust in my parents’ garage. i recently retrieved the bike and paid a hipster with many tattoos $100 to make the bike safe again and here it is in all its glory:

yeah i know i could have spent $100 on a shiny new bike from walmart but i sort of enjoy riding around on a 23 year old bike with a broken front deraileur, brakes with the stopping power of cheese, and a frame half made of rust. it is exciting when you are uncertain if you will make the journey without the bike disintegrating into a thousand pieces and leaving you a bloody mess on the side of the road. no worries though because i wear a helmet fashioned in the color “safety yellow.” here is my new gear cluster and chain:

here are the original MKS feather pedals in excellent shape:

and those are pretty much all the pictures i have because i’d rather ride around on my bike instead of taking pictures of it. i’ve been exploring hidden areas of northern liberties and will post some cool graffiti art i found, as well as other interesting things seen from my bike travels. in the meantime, watch out for any bikers you may see with bright yellow helmets.

met a cool dude named mark who was driving around (actually stuck in traffic) in a 2011 ford fiesta. it is one sharp looking car!

if they make it with the turbocharged-5 cyl. it might very well be my next car!

i must have had a bout of insanity the other afternoon because i bought a pair of sunglasses.

it is a well known fact that sunglasses are useless. first of all, all sunglasses eventually get sat on, crushed, or lost. the more expensive the sunglasses, the quicker they are to meet their demise. also, wearing sunglasses while it is sunny out will leave your face looking like panda bear’s. i really don’t see the point of wearing them. after all, our tribal mastodon-hunting, fire-inventing ancestors didn’t wear coverings over their eyes and they got along just fine, even while spending much more time than we do outdoors. but most importantly, wearing sunglasses makes you look like you belong the set of “the fast and the furious,” which is to say that you will look like an absolute cock.

this bothers me because it signifies a recent trend of people becoming more and more defined by increasingly insignificant things. for example, it used to be that the car you drove said a lot about who you were. for example, if you drove a porsche, then you were having a mid-life crisis. if you drove a lexus, then you played golf. if you drove a hummer, then you dined on bald eagle egg omelets and burned rain forests on free weekends.

nowadays, the program on your television says more about you than peoples’ cars ever did. think im wrong? consider this: when someone admits they absolutely are obsessed with “deal or no deal,” everyone within earshot automatically judges this person to either be clinically brain-dead or from the deep south. similarly, people who watch “american idol” have horrible taste in music, viewers of professional wrestling are illiterate, and fans of “the real housewives of nyc” have no friends.

this really is a shame because we end up judging people before we can even get to know them. despite my rather cynical entries on this blog, i do believe that the majority of people are not window licking mentals and a good number are worth getting to know. if you really think about, all of our closest friends were strangers to us at one point. so next time smile and say hello to the person behind you in line at the grocery store, even if they have bought only bean sprouts and recyclable tofu.

my trusty seagull, now more than 6 years old…

…will soon receive an upgrade in the form of:

get ready for musical pornography. here is a sneak peak!

pure filth!

my commute to work has changed gradually and slowly (a la darwin) over the last three years. my start point has remained the same – philadephia, and my destination is also unchanged – dante’s 4th circle. but all the bits in between have changed.

ive found quicker roads that have replaced congested roads. ive learned which roads are the ones used by school buses which stop at every house for miles at a time.

there are portions of my commute that i cannot find alternatives for which have transformed into stretches of potholes. driving on these roads is about as comfortable as falling down the stairs wearing leg calipers. or contracting anthrax.

and in many ways, my commute to work has been a metaphor for my life. i am certain that i am where i am now because, simply, i have gotten here. certain parts of the journey have gone quicker than expected, such as living alone with a cat as beige pensioners do, and owning a home, as a responsible adults do. other portions of my life have been frought with more peril and discomfort than i had originally anticipated.

and to complete my analogy, i will liken my commuting vehicle – a nimble and enthusiastic but slightly dodgy volkswagen hatchback – to myself;  i have the foresight to detect and avoid upcoming obstacles in the road and to overtake (on the left, mind you) slow moving traffic, but in the end it will be my inherent shortcomings, the nature of who i am, that will envelope me in a cloud of burning oil and steam and make me late to wherever it is i want need to go.

but as they say, better late than never.

i have just returned from a brilliant weekend skiing in the poconos. the skies were clear, i was in good company, and the lodge had a terrific hot chocolate drink. i am a skier but several of my friends decided to try out the scallowag sport of snowboarding and contrary to my expectations, not a single person died, not even slightly.

however, on our way home, it was a totally different experience and i blame our dreadful trip on modern technology. someone riding in my car had brought along their satnav unit and we decided that it would be a good idea to use it on our way home; it had gotten dark and most of the mountain roads were not well lit which made it difficult to see the road signs.

what a complete disaster it was. first of all, the satnav was programmed during its last journey to avoid toll roads which meant that unknown to us, we were being directed away from civilization and into a town that looked like the spawn of the blair witch project and a russian gulag. naturally, turning this feature off required several hundred pushes of buttons and an advanced degree in electrical engineering.

next, the satnav was delayed in giving turn instructions, which meant that i was constantly being caught off guard and slamming on my brakes to make left and right turns. on a normal road this is just a minor nuisance, but when you are traveling downhill on a gravel mountain road that is poorly lit, it can be lethal.

lastly, despite all these shortcomings in the device’s most basic of functions, it greatly bothered me that it did other things so well. for example, it knew the speed limit of every road i traveled on and was constantly upset at me for driving 60 mph on a 55 mph road. this also meant it knew the speed of my car, which is a redundant feature since every car i have ever driven in my entire life has come with something called a speedometer. in addition, it somehow knew my elevation above sea level, which is useful in an airplane, but very unncessary in a car. so then, as an agent of convenience and safety, i would much rather have a massive shark bite than a GPS device.

this brings me to my next point, which is that nothing made these days works as it is intended. my cell phone for example works as a great mp3 player, camera, planner, memo pad, and alarm clock. but it is constantly dropping calls, spraying static into my ear, and running out of electricity. for communicating with people, i would honestly be better off shouting loudly and hoping the person i need to speak with is within earshot.

the same goes for my computer which is constantly freezing and my coffee machine that likes to spray boiling hot grounds at my face. my car spends half its time at the shop having its airbags and electric windows replaced,  my microwave only wants to warm up the bowl and not the food in it, and the remote control to my television is impossibly complicated and has a thousand buttons all with hieroglyphics written on them.

i think i understand what is going on here. because several years ago, banks lent money they did not have to deadbeats in california who would could not pay back the loans, the economy is now in shambles. in these current times of bank failures, auto company bailouts, and the dropping value of the US dollar, i believe the goods we buy  are cleverly designed to create extra jobs and help us out of the economic slump. not only do the products have to be manufactured in a factory, but someone has to be hired to answer the phone when you call customer support when it breaks. the company also has to employee a technician to fix your broken appliance or device and then in order to ship your mended product back to you, they must ring up a delivery man. if all the things i owned never went wrong, think of all the people that would be jobless and living in squalor.

so remember this next time you are on hold listening to bad music and waiting for an indian man to help you fix your broken laptop. he may be a thousand miles away, have no proficiency at the english language, all the while genuinely not caring about your computer, but just like you buying your rubbish laptop, he is doing his part to help the world economy.

Dad: You know, I was thinking today about all my accomplishments. I have two kids, two cars, two houses… but only one wife! (hearty laughter)
Mom: (no laughter, raises an eyebrow.)