some toast in a rack
and a giant clothes-peg

My WoW-buddy Matt graduated from livejournal this week to a self-hosted multimedia web extravaganza. It’s over at ironictoaster.com and it’s all toast-themed. I dunno, the guy must really like toast.

Actually, I could really go for some toast now. Cheese on toast, or a toasted chicken sandwich, or hot buttered toast with jam, or maybe even beans on toast? It would be pretty greedy though, I just finished off a bowl of coco-pops (in-between writing “….some toast now” and “Cheese on toast….” if you must know) so I am all breakfasted up. Also, it’d totally make more washing up, which I am not at all prepared to deal with right now. God I hate washing up. It’s a completely irrational hatred too, since it’s really fucking easy to do. I just put it off and off and build it up in my mind until I daren’t go in the kitchen for fear of the giant animated pile of crockery that wants to make a heat-proof deep serving dish from my skull, adding my uniqueness to its own. I knew I shouldn’t have bought my kitchenware from Ikea.

You know what else I hate? Well, lots of things. Or rather nothing, since hate is actually a very strong word and I’d like to think most people have never experienced actual hate in their lives, at least not by the tender age of twenty. Lots of words are being de-valued like this actually, like “awesome”. When was the last time you said that because you were actually in awe at anything? Exactly. Curse you hyperbole, curse you so you don’t get up!

So anyway, the thing that I really dislike, the thing which has been bugging me of late, I didn’t forget. It’s bass. Or rather, the love of it to the detriment of the rest of the acoustic range.

Now, I’m all for some gentle, throbbing bass (yes I said bass, not cock), it adds a wonderful richness to music and is generally a pretty OK thing. My problem lies in the amplification of a song’s low-frequencies to the point where it muffles and smothers the rest of the sound. It gets even worse in a club or bar, where the thumping is often distorted and fuzzed through speakers driven beyond their capacity. If I wanted that particular sonic experience I’d listen to my music underwater while banging my head against a rock in time to the beat.

So, the Orwellian maxim for the day: bass good, treble good, mid-range good too.

Got it? Good. Now, go select some nice headphones, turn off the x-bass and the equaliser, and soak in the delicious sounds of Goldfrapp. Go on, you’ll thank me.