Friday, December 28, 2012

The Girl In The Other Room

The Audiophile celebrates his birthday this weekend, and that means a gift is in order even though he says he wants for nothing. Since I have no business buying him anything for The Listening Room, I ordered him a pair of concert tickets to see one of his girlfriends.

At this point, the savviest among you have realized I have publicly announced his gift ahead of time making this yet another test to see if The Audiophile is still reading my blog. Not that he has to read my blog, because I would never use that as a means of measuring his love and admiration of my typing skills.

These concert tickets, by the way, are good but not so good that Ms. Krall will see him slack-jawed and drooling from her piano bench. Which will assuredly be the case if she is wearing the same outfit that she's sporting on the cover of her most recent release.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Winter Wonderland

It's that time of the year when The Audiophile enjoys extended periods of time in The Listening Room. Listening, as you know, is an art form that requires special powers of concentration and immobility. Here is a helpful Q&A to assist audio wives in navigating the holiday season:

Should an audiophile frost cookies while listening to a system?  No.
Should he wrap packages?  Definitely not.
Clean toilets?  Bad acoustics, no.
Prepare a lasagna?  No.
What should an audiophile do while listening to a system?  Nothing. 

The more important question is, "What should an audiophile's wife do while an audiophile is listening to a system?" In my personal experience, she should cheerfully frost the cookies, wrap the packages, clean the toilets, and make the lasagna. And then, in order to remain cheerful and altogether fabulous under circumstances such as these, she should blog about her heroism.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Electric Avenue

The Audiophile, as you know, has been building his own amp with his bare hands. In anticipation of turning on the amp for the first time, he took a long-handled wooden spoon from the kitchen. He told me he was going to use it as a way to distance himself from the unit and thereby reduce the chances of killing himself when he flipped the switch.

Now, because we are practicing to be old and feeble, we typically go to bed sometime between 8:00 and 9:00, even on the weekends. This allows us to watch some news about the economic end times before we call it a day. So you can imagine my concern when I awoke at 2:00 in the morning, realized I had dozed off, and further realized The Audiophile had never come to bed. Naturally I assumed he was dead.

I padded down the stairs very quietly, sniffing the air for evidence of his demise. I slowly opened the workroom door, fully expecting to find his charred remains still clinging to the handle of the smoking wooden spoon. Instead, there he was, alive and well, doing what he loves while happily inhaling the recommended daily allowance of soldering fumes.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Hickory Dickory

Three things were noteworthy about the packages delivered for The Audiophile this week. First, there was only one package delivered, which was concerning in itself. Second, the lone package was unusually small. Third, the package was alarmingly light weight. So light, in fact, that the only thing that could possibly have been in the very small box was a mouse, most likely a dead one.

I called The Audiophile at work to report my concern, to which he responded, "It's cable." To which I responded, "No, it's not." This, of course, led to a classic round of marital YES-it-is. NO-it's-not. YES-it-is. NO-it's-NOT, because even though we're no longer terribly delinquent, we are obviously still juvenile.

When The Audiophile came home that night and opened the dead-mouse box, I'll be darned if there wasn't cable in the coffin. Silver cable, that is, which was daintily coiled up in some tissue paper. I have no idea what silver cable must cost, but if it replaces some of the dead-snake cable currently molting in The Listening Room, then I'm on board.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.