The Trader Joe’s parking lot in Center City Philadelphia is shockingly pleasant to use. The best I’ve ever encountered. Of course, a surface parking lot in one of the densest areas of the country is its own sort of awful idea.

Uh

I worked in corporate tech support for entirely too long. The things I’ve seen excel cells used for still haunt me decades later.

That headline is an insult.

In ten or fifteen years you’ll look at this same picture and marvel at your youth and vitality.

Jabberjaw kept losing the beat because he had no ears which caused huge production delays. It was determined then that future anthropomorphic sharks would have huge ears to prevent similar disasters.

Absolutely no shade on the others, but if Trane doesn’t win this, the conclave is broken and rigged.

But I think the fear of possible social consequences was significantly more a factor than anything else. Looking back on it, I doubt anybody would have given a shit, but I certainly wasn’t brave enough to find out.

I never got bullied for being into computers and playing games, but I definitely hid it from almost everyone at school, most especially the girls. I’m thinking specifically about middle school in the mid 80’s. Lots of us had computers, but we all sort of hid it.

Years ago a friend of mine put something that sounded like pop country on my car stereo. I don’t know if punishment is the right word for what has happened since then, but any time she’s in my car I have played nothing other than avant-garde Jazz and underground hip hop. She knows what she did.

A lot of us, though not nearly enough, voted for Kenyatta rather than either Lamb or Fetterman in that primary. He was hardly perfect, but at the time he was the obvious choice if you were a left leaning PA Democratic primary voter.

Every word in every language eventually becomes slang for sex, genitalia, or drugs. This is just an intermediate stage of evolution.

Always

I find driving in Philadelphia oddly relaxing. I can’t imagine an explanation for that which doesn’t paint a bleak picture of my psyche, but it’s true. Driving in places like rural Vermont is way more stressful to me.

Sim copter was so good. The advertisements on the radio were sublime.

When my wife moved me to the suburbs it was on the condition that I would never, ever do yard work of any kind. The agreement has held for almost 15 years. Highly recommended.

Be a hero and clap a clave.

My phone crashed while I was trying to reply and answered as if you were asking for a good stacking pedal because I have the memory of a sea cucumber. Sorry. My answer remains the same. Excellent solo pedal with a huge range from basically clean boost all the way to howling monstrosity.

I like the Fulltone OCD, or a decent clone, for stacking. I’ve been using the EHX clone, which they call The Glove, and it’s excellent. Sounds nice on its own, but really drives other pedals really well. I use it with a Tube Screamer and/or a Dean Markley Overlord.