I'm still angry that my collection of 400 or so vinyl albums and compact cassettes were made redundant by those newfangled CD's. For those who might not remember, the big initial push to sell audio CD's and their players, rode on several tenuous promises. First, they were indestructible... why, you can use them as drink coasters! Second, they flawlesssly reproduce the aural spectrum... almost better than live! (true only if recorded directly to digital, very few early CD's were).

Third, and most galling, was the "supply and demand" carrot. Sure, that same Animotion album costs twice as much on shiny disc than on flaccid vinyl, but the price will come down when you buy more of these, and we can afford to build more factories to press them, so they don't all have to be made overseas by Sony and Philips.

And we fell for that. Millions of us did. We spent a few hundred bucks on a player, more on replacing albums we already owned and liked (after all, why waste that much money on something sucky?).

A few years later, out comes CD-RW technology (you need a "factory" to do this?), and CD prices edged up. LP's were phased out, and CD prices edged up. Personal computers bulked up, the Internet lands in the lap of the common man, and Napster is born. And CD prices edged up.

Now that Uni's reversed the trend (and was this a Vivendi or GE decision?), I'm speculating MP3 players will soon render audio CD's obsolete, and we'll be paying for albums by-the-track. 10:46:58 PM    comment []trackback []  

Betcha this guy didn't signal lane changes either. He'd be right at home up here... in fact, there'd probably be a plumbing supply truck with poorly secured ladders banging against the side racks and a "How's My Driving" bumper sticker, trailing six feet off the ass end of the Lamborghini in the left lane.

I drive a myundayne Hyundai (translated from Korean as "oh, shit"), so when the Connecticut State Police flashed their brilliant blues and reds in my rear-view this morning, I knew I couldn't outrun the guy. I also had some insight as to the pending subject of the impromptu roadside conference for which the trooper was seeking a quorum.

Moments earlier, against my better judgment and typically moderate driving habits, that plumbing supply truck with all the aforementioned accoutrements had driven me past a rational state of pissoff. The faster I went, the faster he went, maintaining a wafer-thin interval as assholes of that stripe tend to do. Realizing I'd gotten caught up in something for which the size and weight of my Hump-Day Sinatra left me disadvantaged, I decided to try to get out of his way.

Finally, a space opened to the right of me. I moved in there like it was the white flag lap at Talladega. Right in front of the Crown Victoria with plain wheel covers, parked on the painted verge of an exit ramp. The man inside was just waiting to see something brilliant from a member of the motoring public, and my two-lane kamikaze move qualified.

Trooper and I did not bullshit one another. He said it was a stupid lane change I did there, and I agreed. I didn't get into the Ford F-350 leaving a bumper imprint on my trunk lid, or reasonable defensive driving maneuvers. I darted into that adjoining lane without signaling. Plumber-man doesn't have the signal stalk for my car on his steering column, how can that be his fault?

The correct, legal thing to do apparently would have been to slow down to 65 miles per hour, the posted limit, and change lanes when safe to do so. That makes sense. Let the commercial driver do all the swerving and careening and endangering and STEP rate risking. Sure, I would have become a greasy smear on the blacktop between Windsor Locks and Enfield, but the smear would be properly confined to one lane.

I was verbally warned, and I'd like to think it's because I didn't try to lamely justify my driving behavior, even though I need a front-end alignment too. 9:16:32 PM    comment []trackback []