Friday, April 26, 2013

Let It Rain

The Audiophile and I will be immersed in the vocal glory of one of his girlfriends this weekend as she graces the Midwest on her Glad Rag Doll tour. I keep looking at the album cover with a sense of depressed admiration. Sister, seriously, it's hard enough for us common wives to compete with you vocally, now this.

I'm not sure what to wear to the concert besides a rain poncho, which is a non-negotiable item if you want to protect yourself from the spittle of middle-aged men shouting, "LOOK OF LOVE." Perhaps some form of dreadfully uncomfortable lingerie would be a nice touch under my turtleneck sweater as a goodwill gesture of my attempt to stay in the game.

In the end, there is no reason to compete with the mighty fine Ms. Krall. She has her talents, and we audio wives have ours. All that really matters is being completely devoted to our respective audiophiles, a heart-felt desire to lift our end of the sub-woofer, and the ability to feign interest in the modification du jour.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Points of View

The Audiophile has a thing about his feedback points or score or whatever it is Audiothong uses to rank its members' athletic abilities and good looks. If I had a nickel for every time he has referred to his apparently impressive score, I could make myself a suit of armor to be used as a decorative accent in our home. Sometimes I would be in the suit; sometimes not – The Audiophile would never know for sure.

It occurs to me that I should develop my own scoring system to promote desirable domestic behaviors. For example, if he matched his socks to his pants that would be worth 27 points. Or if he failed to flush the toilet that would be a negative 4,785.

If I could figure out a way to load my domestic tally into the Audiothong system, I'm pretty sure his concern for selecting the appropriate socks would rival his concern for carefully packing vacuum tubes and shipping CD players within six minutes of receiving payment confirmation.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Can't Touch That

Earlier this week, The Audiophile said, "I need to use your system to burn in some ICs." I slowly and methodically responded, "I seeeeee." He further explained that his system was presently indisposed and incapable of performing the task to which I again responded, "I seeeeee."

I was hoping for more dialog from him so I could repeatedly respond with, "I seeeee," until he embraced the beauty of my subtle, yet hysterical, sense of humor, but he instead missed the essence of the moment and proceeded to re-engineer my system to burn in his I SEEs.

The disc he chose for the burning in process has probably played through about seventeen hundred times and has likely re-engineered my brain for the worse. Sure, I could probably put in a different disc, but that would involve TOUCHING his CD player, and I'd rather be in need of a neuropsychologist than risk the consequences of crippling one of his rectangles with a distortion-producing fingerprint.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Song Dog

The Audiophile is continuing his conversion to digital, or computer audio, or whatever it is called that requires me to miss my daily class at the YMCA in order to sign for audio packages. These packages, mind you, rarely arrive during the time in which I could have been making a valiant attempt to maintain my less-than-girlish figure.

The new setup in The Listening Room is radically different. Many of the large rectangles have been replaced by smaller rectangles. This makes me happy and afraid. Happy, because smaller rectangles have a higher wife acceptance factor; afraid, because of what will surely need to happen if the smaller rectangles don't make him howl like a love-struck coyote on performance enhancing medication.

These days I'm listening carefully to his audiophile phone conversations in hopes of hearing him use some enthusiastic terms from his coyote-howling vocabulary. Because then, maybe then, I'll be able to spend less time carving my name into the grimy electronic clipboards proffered by FedEx and more time jumping up and down to the beat of fabulously distorted hits from the '80s.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.