Brown. Everything has to be brown. Definitely. Black speakers won't do. If you get black speakers, it's all you'll pay attention to. You'll be miserable. Dude, I'm right there with you, brown all the way. Brown laminate and if it's a little greasy and chipped, all the better. Hang on, what's this... (I click furiously on the listing title, too-eagerly watching the little rainbow-spinny thing next to my cursor, my credit card vibrating in my wallet.) Bose 201 Series 3's...dude check these out... Interesting...what's that thing on the top? Hold it I'm looking. Oh shit check it out - you turn that thing and it moves this little flap in front of the tweeter so you can like, aim the sound or something, No shit? That's crazy. They look good though. How big are they? You don't want something tiny. Small is fine. Tiny is not fine. Nah...

There are geniuses at work over at Amazon. Don't let the overpriced, first-gen-iPod looking Kindle 2 fool you.  Jeff Bezos may never talk me into believing the Kindle is worth the hefty $360 tag, but last week they almost snared me. Amazon's sticky web of relevancy and impulse-buying intelligence has gotten to me before (users who purchased Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Two also bought Angel, Seasons One through Five!), but never before has my consumer willpower been so tested. It began three weeks ago with an email from John, a coworker who knows I'm a Stephen King junkie. The truth is, anyone visiting my "library" at home would immediately recognize it as a Stephen King shrine. Proud first-editions gloat on the best shelves, lording over obviously less-favored books. The email's subject read Stephen King sells out again with Kindle.  Looking past the...

What you see pictured here is probably my zillionth Tall Pike's Place coffee, which I generally sneak out of the office to enjoy around 2 or 3 pm with my buddy Joe. The ritual goes something like this: Dial Joe's extension. Continue to be amused by Joe's trademark "Yeahp?" of an answer. "Got time?" I ask. "Can't do it. I got a 3:30 and I'm in the shit." "That's crap. Come on. Ronnie James Dio wouldn't put up with this, it isn't civilized. We're grown men. We can have a cuppa goddamn coffee. Fuck your 3:30." Or some such exchange. Inevitably we walk a short portion of Boston's Freedom Trail, which seems to begin at the Borders at Downtown Crossing and within 20 paces leads to a bustling closet of a Starbucks. It's staffed with twenty-somethings who to me resemble teenagers. They listen to singles,...

I had a fun time this past Friday playing with my friends in Axemunkee - I'm hoping to play a lot of bass this year, and the opportunity to sub for my buddy Chris was irresistible. Especially since the gig was downstairs at the Cantab Lounge, a legendary Cambridge dive with ambiance to spare. They've dubbed the room "Club Bohemia," and it's appropriate. The management is lucky there are no windows in the basement, because I'm sure in the harsh light of day the place looks every inch the grubby hole that it is. But this place works. It's got vibe, man! They have these little round tables where all too often I've found a lot of empty floor space. It's really kind of inviting, as if to say "Hey you, here's a stiff chair and a sticky table on which...

The year has become an increasingly difficult unit of measurement for me to rely on. Not only has my concept of time and the pace at which it consumes (think velociraptor) changed as I've aged, I've also embraced my recent, awkward tendency toward nostalgia that has me looking ever backward, searching for comfort and meaning in the music, images, and heroes of my past. I don't want to relive those times -  honestly, you couldn't pay me enough - it comes down to the lens through which I'm viewing these these early influences. My adult mind has locked onto the afterimage of my high school treasures. Everything glows with new depth and a sort of classic sheen that makes it all seem visceral and relevant again. While this ongoing retro-dive has a way of obscuring the here and now, I'm still...