Very high fidelity

Why hello there, good people of the internets. Happy New Year to you all, and I hope 2008 is treating you well so far. I didn't shave between Christmas and January 2nd, so when I finally got rid of my mini beard, I said goodbye to my last remaining piece of 07. Unless you count the hair on my head that was grown in 07 or skin cells that are yet to be desquamated. I should stop talking now.

Ok, so in the interest of starting the new year out clean and open with everything, I want to disclose a problem I have. No, it doesn't involve my manhood, although someone clearly thinks I have that problem based on the hundreds of emails I get on a weekly basis promising to solve that issue. I have a problem with being faithful. I'm too faithful. With music. Now I shall explain.

When I get a new cd, I feel like I owe it a certain amount of my attention. I'm trying to forge a relationship with it, give the artists their due, and really learn what it's all about. I'll keep it - and it alone - in my car's cd player for a week or two, and then make sure it's back in there again shortly thereafter. I've run into a few problems with this, namely when I receive more than one cd at a time. I actually worried about this once when two bands that I liked were coming out with new music at the same time for much of the preceding month. I ended up choosing one and leaving the other unopened in my car for two weeks until I felt I had given the first a fair shake. Another time, I tried learning two at a time, but then I liked one more and felt bad that I didn't spend enough time with the other. Yes, I know I'm odd.

Here's my current situation/dilemma: I spend a lot of time in my car due to the joy that is L.A. traffic. I've found that I really like a particular sports talk show for the drive home, and that cuts directly into my learn-new-music time. I also like one particular segment of the KROQ morning show that happens usually near the beginning of my drive. So, instead of having potentially 8.75 hours of music learning each week, I end up having closer to 2.5 unless I pass on some of the radio stuff. (I have a bit of a man-crush on one of the sports talk guys, so I don't want to miss much of the brilliant and witty things he says.) I can listen to music on my computer at work, but it's a very different experience. It's in the background, so I'm not really hearing the intricacies of the songs, let alone the lyrics. Also, I'm frequently up and moving around, so I miss entire songs at a time.

In late November, I got two cds at the same time. One was "Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds, and the other was a mix from my friend Jon. I left the Ben Folds one in my car and played the mix a bunch at work until I knew them better. I still hadn't gotten nearly as familiar as I'd like (knowing what song is next, waking up with one of them in my head, etc.) when I made a foolish decision. I purchased three new cds online. Then, before they even arrived, I saw Jon and got an Alkaline Trio cd and a new mix cd from him. Crap.

Here's the only good news in this situation (not counting the fact that I obtained new and good music): one cd didn't arrive. I bought a book by Nick Hornby (of "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy" fame) about pop music that he likes. According to the description on Amazon's website, it came with a cd of some of the songs about which he wrote. I've read "How to be Good" and "A Long Way Down" by him, and I was really looking forward to this one (entitled "Songbook," by the way). When it arrived, it was just a book without an accompanying cd. I called Amazon's customer service, and they apologized and sent another one out to me. Days later, I received a book and no cd again. I called, and they apologized and said that the review (by Amazon, I should add) is referring to an older version of it and no cd comes with it anymore. That's actually fine by me, seeing as how I have this musical faithfulness problem and all. So I sent one of the books back, and I actually received an email from Amazon saying that they'll credit me for the purchase even though I received (and am currently reading) the book. Look at that, customer service doing more than the bare minimum! Maybe things really will be different in 08.

So here's where things currently stand and my plan of action. I listened to my new Interpol cd all the way through three times, as well as three times for the Spoon cd. Those two will be on constantly at work so that I will recognize them as distinct songs when they finally get their time to shine in my car. I'm going to keep Jon's new mix in my car for the time being, even though I haven't fully gotten his Thanksgiving Mix into the fold. I'm going to limit my KROQ listening drastically in the mornings to further my music's progression. The Alkaline Trio cd is just going to have to wait for now. It's about 20 songs long, and although I already know and really like 5 of them, my docket's full. I feel like a baseball GM deciding to keep a prospect in the minors for an extra month to get more seasoning. Its day will come, but that day may very well be in February. I know, life is so hard sometimes.

Onto another story! My lovely wife and I went to Home Depot recently, and I saw something that reminded me of something which reminded me of something else. I'll start with one of the somethings. For the first year that we lived in our house and went to that particular Home Depot, there would always be a group of men at one corner of the lot looking for people who needed help with work. Any time a car would slowly pull up in that area, they would run over to see if they could be of assistance. I don't know how it is in other parts of the country, but it's a fairly common occurrence here in L.A. In any case, a few times ago on a trip to that Home Depot, we noticed a new structure right there in that corner of the lot. It was for Labor Ready, whose slogan is "Dependable Temporary Labor" according to www.laborready.com. I couldn't decide how to view that chain of events. On one hand, it's sad if that was profitable for some of the people who had been taking on odd jobs there. Many are most likely not U.S. citizens, so they can't just get a job at Labor Ready and continue doing what they were. I don't know if they would make more or less working there, since the rates are probably higher but they'd only get a percentage of them or an hourly wage. So their jobs were basically taken from them by The Man. On the other hand, it also shows that the business responded to the needs of their clientèle. They saw that people needed help with projects when they went to Home Depot, so they privatized it in order to guarantee a certain level of skill and dependability. I'm still conflicted as to what I actually think about the whole thing. It's rare for me to see clear positives and negatives on both sides of something and not make up my mind. Usually it's much easier. (Ketchup is yummy; mustard is the work of the devil, for example.)

It reminded me of a situation from back in college. There was one spot on campus in which the concrete path winded a little (wound?) instead of going straight. The grass around the path was green and healthy...except for that straight line. It was consistently dead, due to countless feet and bike tires traversing it on a daily basis. One day, there were cones blocking the straight path. Where the dead grass had been was wet cement, and it was opened up the following day for public use. I was walking with my friend Suzanne when I saw the cones and wet cement, and I said, "Look at that, the will of the people has prevailed! How cool is that?" "I was thinking the exact opposite," Suzanne said. "I thought it was a sad commentary on how nature always loses to convenience. I mean, it only took two extra seconds to take the already paved road." I saw her point, and to some degree, she saw mine too. I guess a combined view on it would be, "The will of the people has prevailed, and they care about two seconds more than nature." I think we could both agree on that.

Lastly before our weekly Car Watch, I wrote a week ago about the lack of apple yogurt in this fine country and my consternation over that fact. My consternation in this monster nation, if you will. I did a search for apple yogurt, and I found a bunch of recipes to make your own, but no company just selling it along with their normal flavors. I found my way onto the Stonyfield website and looked at all of their flavors. Sure enough, no apple in sight. So I wrote them and asked what the deal was. I got this form letter reply:

Hello Peter,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We always welcome comments and questions from our yogurt lovers and are grateful when someone takes the time to let us know what they think of our products. We have passed on your suggestion to our Product Development Team.
We are passionately committed to producing the best tasting, healthiest yogurts available, and trying to do some good in the world while we’re at it. Visit our web site at http://www.stonyfield.com/ to learn more.
Sincerely,
The folks at Stonyfield Farm

I'll let you know if I hear anything back from them, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. Ok, I actually held my breath while typing "not exactly holding my breath" just to see if it made them write me any faster, and they didn't. I just wanted to make sure that wouldn't be of any help. Now I will officially continue to breathe.

I just checked, and Dannon has an Apple Cinnamon variety! Yes, I realize I just used an exclamation for a yogurt flavor. Yoplait didn't (unless you count pine-apple), but they have the breast cancer awareness lids, so I'll give them a pass...this time.

With that inanity under our belts, let's head on over to the Car Watch.

Righter Lady, my favorite reader from the Garden State, sent me this email: "Here's a great one for your blog I saw on the way to work today - very expensive 4x4 driven by teenage boy (not yet college age) -- said 'FRTSRLE.' Gotta love it - I had to drop everything and call my husband, he's still chuckling about it." This is one of those rare occasions in which a plate can speak to many different age groups. To young boys, forts do indeed rule. Once they get a little older, forts lose their magic, but farts become the funniest thing in the world. Some years pass, and then fraternities are the new cool. They graduate college, become functional members of society, and then farts become really funny again.

My homey Rockabye sent in a plate that read, "JRK 3." Is he the third in a long line of jerks, or is this the third car that one jerk has owned? We'll never know, and such is the way of this mysterious world.

Rockabye also saw a plate that boldly stated, "NOBUICK." It wasn't lying, seeing as how it was a Toyota Camry. To me, there's one very clear reason why someone would get that plate: S/he owned a Buick and had nothing but problems. It was so refreshing to have a reliable car that every time it started, all the owner could think was, "Thank God this isn't a Buick!" Or... it belongs to someone who tried the sushi restaurant Nobu and hated it so much that they got a plate to commemorate the disastrous event. Yeah, that's probably it.

My dad called me after seeing this plate: "I AM HA." I said that it might be a philosopher commenting on what s/he sees as the fallacy of existence and is using the plate as a way to say, "Up your ass, Descartes!" Or someone's initials. Definitely one of the two though.

Lastly, I saw a plate proudly proclaimed, "YARN (Heart)R." Wow, that wasn't already taken by another yarn enthusiast? That's crazy talk! I guess everyone has things that they love...and this person loves yarn. Do you think "YARN LVR" was taken and they had to settle with the heart icon? What about the simpler statement of "I (Heart) YARN" instead? There's no way I'll be able to accurately predict what goes on in that person's mind, so I'll stop trying now.

And with that, my friends, I'm off to enjoy 08 some more. Tomorrow is my favorite nephew's half birthday, so everyone picture the cutest kid you've ever seen and send happy half-birthday thoughts his way. Also, yesterday was Sacky Kevin's birthday, so send happy belated birthday thoughts over to the cutest little 39 year-old you can imagine. Have a wonderful week, everyone, and please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all that you feel like sharing.

p.s. Wasn't Descartes simply dashing? That's the best picture I could find of him. I almost made "Descartes" a tag on the bottom and had a picture for "frats," but apparently there's a lot of gay porn about frats that comes up when you search for that. Word to the wise, folks.