I’ve explain my diet many times, and I usually fail.

My diet is actually pretty easy to explain (I don’t eat beef, pork, or dairy), but I’m horrible at analogies. I know, there is no need to make an analogy to describe my diet, but I love making them –it’s like eating cheese, because you know it tastes so good, but you're in love with an alligator.

My favorite analogy is one I didn’t even make up, but one I’ve heard and since butchered. My old boss became a vegetarian a few years back, but he still ate meat. He justified eating meat by claiming, “I know a lot of Christians who do ‘unchristian’ things but they don’t change their label because of it. So why can’t there be bad vegetarians just like there are bad Christians?”

This analogy has come in handy while explaining my position on dairy, but I get bored and modify it. I’ve come up with such bad analogies as “just because someone claims to be a ‘biker’ doesn’t mean they can’t drive a car’ or ‘playing video games doesn’t make someone a nerd.” All of these analogies sound good in my head, but usually solicit puzzled looks from the recipient -like cheese puffs in a blender.

Analogies aside, now when I ask for vegan cheese on my turkey sandwich I say, “because I’m a ‘tomatarian’.” I put my own restrictions on what I will eat and when, and a big part of being a “tomatarian” is not being an inconvenience on others -like screwing in a light bulb with your left hand.

I'll try this jacket on for size...

I recently spent a lot of time with the Providence Metal Ponies and the Ocean Hate Moped Rally. The Rally turned my three-day weekend into a fuzzy memory of excitement. But writing about that would seem too journalistic.

The issue that weighs heaviest on my mind right now is my jacket. I bought, lost, found, used it as a pillow, lost again, found again, and eventually broke the zipper of this beloved jacket. Because I bought it at REI, I thought I had a chance at getting it fixed (I know they fix tent zippers so it just made sense), but I was wrong.

REI offered to let me return the Jacket, so I took the store credit because it would be dumb of me not to. But I regret returning it. I’ve replaced zippers on jackets before, it costs too much and never looks/works the same again. But I still regret returning the jacket.

So, like a bitter break up, I went looking for a rebound. I found a nice new comfortable jacket at the mall and I bought it even thought it cost more than the one I returned. I wore it proud that night but I was extra careful not to get it dirty (just in case I overlooked a horrible flaw that would warrant another return –as you may suspect, I was skeptical). The jacket's debut was a success; no one gave it, or me, a suspectful look.

I put my jacket back to work the following night –if it was going to be a choice piece of autumn clothing it would have to earn it. How could I have known that this would be the test to end all tests. This was the last night of the moped rally and the party went off the hook, smashed it with a bat, drenched it in beer, and did a burn-out on top of it. I just looked through some pictures from that party and found that by the end of the night every photos was taken of people who had freshly fallen, dragged around on the floor, and had a beer poured on them.

The new jacket rests in the dirty laundry now, but I don’t blame it –I’m just impressed it found it’s way home.


-RIP


-Long Live the new Jacket. (I didn't get permission to use this photo, but I couldn't help stealing it).

I still support local, but...

Because I’m an adherent of the DIY lifestyle, I’m comfortable in miscellaneous supply stores. So, when I walked into the audio store on North Main Street yesterday and found speakers, amplifiers, and wires scattered around the store like pets in a pet store with no locks, I was not concerned –this is par for the course.

With the shop owners attention I tried to explain to him why I wanted a cheap four-channel amplifier (long story short, I want a cheap four-channel amplifier because Providence loves crack). I was clear in relating to him that I wanted to run my iPhone directly into the amplifier that would in turn power the speakers. He told me “that’s not possible” and “the technology just doesn’t exist to do that yet.” I sensed that he might have been confused so I adjusted my approach. I told him that I wanted to use the iPhone just like a regular mp3 player and not use the USB port. He then told me “I’ve been doing this for ten years and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

In a somewhat related story, I used a portable cd player and car amplifier on my scooter back in 2003, with great success.

I don’t claim to be an electronic genius, in fact I’m so naive I don’t even know what I don’t know about electronics. But that just makes this audio storeowner look even worse. I have a hard time supporting a local business when the owner knows less than the kid who has been working at best buy for two weeks.