I ruin earphones for my iPod regularly. And its always the same: a wire starts to break inside the cable shielding, usually near the plug, causing one of the buds to intermittently cut out. It started happening again last week, with the Panasonic RP-HV152 earphones I’ve been using for the last several months. These are some of the cheapest earphones (about AU$10) you can buy, and they were ok for a temporary stop gap, especially as I already had them just laying around. But they are dead to me now, and I need to quickly find some new earphones before I have to actually talk to any of the microtards I work with.
Previous to the Panasonic’s, I had gone through three different pairs of Sennheiser MX 350 earphones. These were pretty good earphones, not harsh and reasonably detailed, with light but nice round bass, costing around AU$40 a pair. I probably would’ve bought another pair of these if I had been able to find them for sale, but alas it seems Sennheiser has moved on (to some real weird-ass designs: witness the fucked up preying mantis MX 90 VC.)
There’s the MX 51, can’t remember how much they cost, and at least they are black, but they are ruined by a goddamn awful chrome finish on the exposed part of the earbud. I hate that fake chrome look slapped onto every fucking product in an effort to add “design” to the feature list. I could’ve bought the MX 50 earphones, for about AU$50. They are made out of spandex or rubber or something, and they are a weird pearly white colour. And guess what? I don’t want white buds either, for obvious “wherever you are, I’m not” reasons. So its goodbye to the German earphones, and its probably for the best given that they keep fucking breaking on me.
I already have a (cold spare) pair of Sony MDRE818LP earphones, and I had to switch to using these when the Panasonic’s began to lose the fight. These earphones could be 5 or more years old, and they still work! But OMFGKMN, there’s chrome on them…I guess I bought them before the chrometards killed chrome dead for me. Thanks to the chrome, these phones look like crap. At least they are mostly black, and they work reliably. But they sound boring, no bass, not much detail *yawns*. Fine for a backup pair, but thank Christ my brand new earphones were delivered this morning as I was reversing out of the driveway.
I’m jumping ahead, but before I continue I should outline my criteria, in order of importance, for new iPod headphones:
- Must be earphones/buds. I don’t like in-ear (I know in-ear’s sound better to some, but fear of deep penetrating ear canal rape is only tangentially homophobic) or clip-on phones (target market: Star Trek nerds), and bulky cans are totally missing the point of portable music.
- Must be black, and only black. No other colours. No silver. No white. Definitely no chrome. My heart is black, and so shall be my earphones.
- Must be affordable because I know they are going to fucking break. AU$50 is ok. AU$200 is not.
- No decoration. Maybe a stenciled logo and L/R, if its subtle. Keep the ornamentation for silver-smithing.
So then. My lunch hour spent wandering the city looking for a suitable pair of replacement earphones was a dead loss day after day. Nothing, nada, zilch, not a zune. Oh yea, I did find a multitude of sinners, chrome everywhere I turned, white, silver, fake wood veneer, black fucked/decorated with extreme prejudice, in-ear, clip-ons, prices approaching AU$100.
Am I too fussy? Does not my platonic ideal exist within this manboob-riddled reality? Rebate Star Trek nerds, for I will not succumb to your star-sick gaze and off-key siren song. I will continue my search anew! But not in the physical realm. Instead, I turn to Google, its empty form input field and single blinking eye, a world that only exists in the mind, with no physical manifestation barring the electro-magnetic disturbances.
Searching here and there, I catch only whispers off the twisted-pair.
Responses to some tard asking for suggestions for better than stock iPod earphones. The usual suspects. Ugh. My stamina wanes, but then through the Dell heat haze I glimpse it: Yuin. I feel the chill, like a thousand BTU air-conditioner; I have a bright new hope, and a bright new lead to track.
Another nosebleed, and the Yuin buds are information poor, mostly recommendations. Unsatisfaction. Luckily there’s just enough information out there to determine that the Yuin PK3’s meet my criteria: earphones, black, subtle white stenciling, and AU$39.
I may have lost religion at an early age, but I still want to believe. I order a pair of Yuin PK3’s from Headphonic in Perth for AU$39 including postage. No credit cards, no paypal, bank deposit only, suckness, but not enough to disfavour this bright hope.
On the morn of the sixth day, that being today: deliverance. A wooden box wrapped in white cardboard with a pseudo-gothic font reminiscent of a tramp stamp, calligraphic clouds and chinese yew. A web tantalus printed on the box does not answer my HTTP GET.
The PK3’s are housed in a black plastic cylinder. There are optional foam covers for the buds, and I opt out. The 3.5 mm plug is gold-tipped and straight (rather than right-angled). There is a gold-plated 3.5 mm to 1/4 inch adapter included. The cord is thicker than the other earphones I’ve tried, and is J-shaped (asymmetric) rather than Y-shaped (like the stock pack-ins with the iPod). I prefer J-shaped cords, so this is a nice surprise. If anything, at 1.2 m the cord is slightly too short for my liking, and this could impact the PK3’s longevity. We shall see. The styling is very appealing, suitably minimal, all black, the buds are small with the speaker face a gloss black, while the rest is a matt black. The arm of the bud is pinched in slightly. There are two horizontal slits on the back of the bud, and a bass port running up the arm. They seem solidly constructed, and are approaching my platonic ideal event horizon.
First listen is slightly disappointing; plenty of detail, but some harshness and not much bass. An hour of breaking them in and they lose all the harshness, the bass becomes nimble and warm. The PK3’s are simply great value for money. A marked improvement over stock buds or your Sony’s and Sennheiser’s in the same price bracket. Maybe there is a God after all…more importantly though is the question of the PK3’s endurance: just how long can they stand to be in a sado-masochistic relationship with me? If they do suicide I already know I’ll be stretching for the AU$99 PK2’s next.
A selection of reactions upon listening:
- “Moonshiner” by Uncle Tupelo
- Gave me the sadness upon hearing the harmonica. My black heart just broke.
- “Nude” by Radiohead
- I used to think the production on “In Rainbows” was extraordinarily flat, but now this sounds like silk draped over my head. Prettiness.
- “It’s Kinda Funny” by Josef K
- Scottish early 80’s jangly guitars are even janglier.
- “Pig” by Sparklehorse
- A very loud song, and when the bass kicks in, woah boy.
- “The Funeral” by Band of Horses
- The reverb tail on the vocal just hangs in the air like a slowly dying butterfly.
And they said games have no educational value whatsoever…
I watched from a sidewalk as these pair of cops managed to accidentally hit the young african-american gentleman’s car with their police vehicle. They then exited the police vehicle, pulled the black guy out of his car and shot his face to a bloody pulp in the street. Where exactly is this not teaching people about the real world?
This was a pleasure to do, seriously fun doing this whilst hiding it from office ozzie bevans who might take offence and kill me.
Sausage found a big picture of Iron Chef French Hiroyuki Sakai, a rare find. In fact I’d looked before, ohh..months ago now, but had to satisfy myself (literally) with a picture of Celine Dion. With the goods from Sausage, I went about forming my Iron Chef Australian. There was so much I could do, and so many things I could cram into the photo (I somehow wanted him to be cooking in a kitchen setup whilst the Cronulla riots waged around him, but this was just too stupid and difficult). I opted for simple, but hard hitting.
A search for “Bogan” in google images produced the face you see as our national Iron Chef. I then colorised the uniform to make it blue, then replaced the pear with a plate of fat saturated Fish n’ Chips. I could see just him raising onto the stage every Saturday night with a plate of chips and beer battered carp meat. As for a name, that was easy, I just picked a random first and last name from the work address book and “Kevin Duke” was born.
Iron Chef Australian, Kevin Duke, once dubbed the most prolific deep fryer cook in the whole of Oceania. He mixes traditional ingredients such as tomato sauce and potatoes with new styles of Australian cuisine - meat pies with peas and bread, to create never before seen dishes.
This weekend, a battle like none before will rage, Iron Chef Australian will tackle Iron Chef Mexican, Chep Hernandez, in a never been done before duel. The theme ingredient: Chiko Rolls. Don’t miss it.
Borat does Paris
KAZAKHSTAN, it seems, is not quite a big enough target for all the explicit schtick of Borat, the pseudo journalist - played by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - whose movie is about to be unleashed on the world next month.
In a Paris press conference, Borat flung his mucky mirth far and wide over a range of other victims, including US President George W. Bush, Mel Gibson, Brigitte Bardot, French cuisine and Uzbekistan.
But it was still Kazakhstan that bore the brunt of Baron Cohen’s satire - much to that country’s well-publicised chagrin, and much for the box-office benefit it will bring his film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan which starts screening from November 3.
Standing in front of a set made to look like an apartment in his fictional Kazakhstan, Baron Cohen - staying in character - launched into his spiel about the movie, which plays as a comic fake documentary on the United States.
Borat, a figure halfway between Mr Bean and Inspector Clouseau who was born out of a successful series Baron Cohen has performed on British television, is supposedly one of Kazakhstan’s top television journalists, down to his (real and quite long) moustache and his mangled, sexually-laced English.
“My name Borat … I am in fact the fourth most famous person in Kazakhstan,” he said, framed by a stuffed black bear and women’s underwear hanging from a clothes-line.
The preceding top three, he claimed, were a former gymnast now famed for her circus act which involved placing one of her feet in an unlikely place; “Johnny the Monkey”, a children’s entertainer and porn star; and (real) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
He offered no accompanying details on Nazarbayev, preferring to leave a long, knowing silence that spoke volumes about the Kazakh leader’s genuine irritation at Baron Cohen’s routine and film.
Stung Kazakh officials have recently gone as far as to close down a website Baron Cohen was using to promote his character and hired a PR firm to take out press ads in a bid to counter the negative image they believe Borat has built on their country.
But Baron Cohen/Borat was not letting Nazarbayev entirely off the hook.
He said his “glorious leader”’s visit last month to see Bush was all in the name of promotion for his movie, and lauded the US president for being a “strong man” in the mould of John Wayne.
He also claimed the new ads vaunting Kazakhstan’s progress were “lying propogandas (sic) from a**holes Uzbekistan”, and warned that if they continued, “then Kazakhstan will be left with no alternative than to commence bombardment of Uzbeki cities with our catapults”.
Borat’s trademark antisemitism - in fact a technique whereby Baron Cohen, who is Jewish, elicits surprising reactions from some of his unsuspecting interview subjects - came to the fore when he agreed with a certain “Melvyn Gibson” that “the Jews started all the wars”.
“We also have proofs that the Jews were responsible for Hurricane Katrina and were also behind killing all the dinosaurs,” he said.
France also got a taste of the comedian’s lampooning.
“It’s a great honour to be here in minor nation of France,” he said, adding that all he had heard about the country’s refined cuisine was true.
“Your McDonald’s are wonderful … I eat there 15 of these delicious hamburgers,” though he reflected that “today there was a problem and my anus was hanging loose like the mouth of a tired dog”.
Nevertheless, he explained he was still on form should he have the occasion to meet a beautiful young actress he saw in And God Created Woman, a (1956) movie “just out” in Kazakhstan starring the now-weathered Brigitte Bardot.
“Wawawaylaa! I would very much like to make a romance inside of her!” he said.
Lest France or other countries worried they might next be in line to be “Borated,” however, Baron Cohen - who turns 35 next week - was reassuring, saying that a technical barrier was stopping him from doing any follow-up movies.
“Our country’s camera is being used to make another television programme,” his Borat said.
Brewen:
Is it just me, or does bobby flynn, “superfreak”, closely resemble eric stolz’s “lionface” character in “the mask”, cult film starring songstress cher?
Saucemaster:
Actually are you sure that’s Lionface? Cher looks very similar to that also, it’s an easy mistake. I think Cher is possibly the ugliest transvestite I have ever seen.
On a side note, if you are like me and find the virginal karate kid pretty boy on Australian Idol too much to stomach - vote for Bobby - our own creepy looking idol! If you don’t believe in voting, at least support Bobby by denouncing the virgin back flipping freak at work to all the middle aged women who will hopefully rub it off on their ten year old daughters who gyrate and scream “impregnate me!” to the tommy hilfigered middle class try hard.
Considering this title, Delicatessen 2: mr miyagi’s sushi train, one is first digusted and then one comes to a realisation: it all explains the disappearance of Daniel in Karate Kid 4. Was Hilary Swank fed long shanks of Daniel’s calf on a bed of rice and vinegar in Karate Kid 4? It’s possible, after all, Miyagi-san only hints at the fate of Daniel in the film. If nothing else, it would definitely explain why Hilary Swank’s face looks that way.
Amended KK Timeline
- The Karate Kid 1984
- The Karate Kid, Part II 1986
- The Karate Kid, Part III 1989
- Delicatessen 2: mr miyagi’s sushi train circa 1990
- The Karate Kid, Part IV, The Next Karate Kid 1994
Few of you would remember ralph macchio’s days of struggle as a little known amateur on pinoy radio. Before his rise to fame as the karate kid, ralph was known affectionately as ‘little happy ralph boy’, on the underground fillipino american live radio circuit.
This official saucemaster version patch of the macchio radio station based in Manila, is an ideal patch for any jacket, be it an eastern german green or a leather bike chapter - carry sauce with you.
This stamp didn’t really require much photoshopping, as it already contained an over-sized dutch speculaas, a little black kid that looks a lot like sausage sizzle did when he was 12, and a bearded priest. This is a rare find indeed. Is the bearded priest offering sausage the cookie in an attempt to convert the little bastard or is the priest wracked with penis-envy even after growing out of his chester kid habits? Sauce doesn’t know, but thanks Brewen for this fabulous find!
The official Saucemaster Postage Stamp®©:
My inspiration came from the troubling decision a woman must face after being raped. The model in my picture looks vaguely out her bedroom window, knowing the tough burden of decision she carries on her shoulders.
