Friday, December 19, 2008
JACK OFF formerly titled UP GRADO
I have two sets of headphones.
One has fallen apart and can't be put back together again save string and rubber bands. The other is 15 years old and has a disconcerting buzz in the background.
Neither have a micro-jack which is required for my iMac.
I want to use the earphones (known as "cans" to the geek set) for movies when only I am watching and my husband does not want to hear the soundtrack. Or to circumvent his interrupting to ask "who is that"? just at the wrong moment.
Blanked out.
I also really really want to hear Daryl Hall's Live from Daryl's House and other music sites without running others out of the kitchen where I also have my office.
So, I decided to get a new set of "cans" (I guess if you have to put quotes around it you are not really as hip as you might think you are) and, for sure, get a set that has the micro-plug.
So I consulted and searched and decided on the extremely economical Grado SR 60s. Decidedly with a micro-plug.
The earphones arrived yesterday and fuck-all they had a big two inch jack. Keerist!
I called my consultant who was as dismayed as I. While I was in the middle of my upset, I thought that I could go out and get an adaptor. So I called my local Radio Shack and, sure as shittin', they had just the thing.
I asked if I should bring the earphones and they said "sure" in that way that means you don't really need to but, just the same, we will say you do to keep you happy.
So I took off straight to the store which was only moderately crowded at 515 PM.
Let me say a word about Radio Shack.
I hate to go there. And yet, they always have just what I need and want.
They have been having all I need or want since I was in college 50 years ago.
Radio Shack was new then and so were we. We Techies would go to RS of a Saturday and just hang out. Fondle the merchandise. They were not the cut-rate place then, really. They were pioneers. Leaders. They had all the stuff you needed for Hi-Fi. What was a big breakthrough then. Stereo was yet to come but it was on its way. No one had a stereo but you could listen to auto race records and shit like that at Radio Shack and no one would bother you. As I recall, there were two floors on Tremont Street in downtown Boston.
Radio Shack was also the source of our business' first computer. The TRS 80. It still lives in the basement of my partner's house. A certified antique.
Today, Radio Shack is a pale shadow of that time.
As I entered our local store I noticed that it was filled with low lives and thugs. And that was just the staff.
The sales people waited on you while keeping a suspicious eye on all the other shoppers. So did I, actually. Gang bangers for sure.
But listen to this!
The guy who waited on me, fat, a wispy mustache, one eye floating, took me aside to the adaptor department and asked to see the earphones.
I opened the box.
He looked inside.
He raised an eyebrow and took the big jack in his fat little hand and with the other hand he pulled the big jack off (!!) the end of the cord to reveal—voila!—a micro-jack! Hiding right there in the earphone cord as installed. Jesus H. Christ.
I laughed. He laughed. I said that I should by an adaptor anyway to make up for his time.
No. It was obvious that the pleasure of one-upping one of the outside world with inside knowledge was satisfying enough. Geek pride.
I came home and tested my earphones and they are really great. And, despite rumors to the contrary, they do not leak sound. I can blast away at Daryl and the guys and not bother a (blue-eyed) soul.
