iPods are great. iPod lets me start a sentence with a lower-case letter and, for once, it’s not a grammatical mistake. Take that, every English teacher I ever had! But such case insensitive freedom is nothing compared to the sublime prospect of putting one’s entire CD collection into a light, portable device; one that fits in your pocket in exactly the way that a walkman with 100+ jewel cases doesn’t.
    Naturally, it’s not quite enough just to squeeze 3,500 songs into your pocket. Without the ability to listen to your music, the allure of miraculous containment would soon fade, which is why every iPod comes equipped with a set of earbuds: tiny, unsanitary little speakers you can cram right into your ear canal. For additional money, of course, you can obtain replacement noisemakers that can live where they are far less likely to come into contact with earwax. Big, high quality earphones are one option, but for a bigger sound you’ll want to attach your iPod to that expensive home stereo of yours, and for that there are iPod docks that pipe out sounds via the appropriate audio cables.
    Want to play your iPod’s music in your car? You have several options available to you. If your car happens to be burdened with a geriatric cassette-tape player you can just hook the sucker up with one of those cassette deck adapters that have been around for decades anyway. Those on a more up-scale budget could always buy a brand new car stereo with a built-in iPod dock to feed that need. A third option, like say if your car doesn’t have a cassette player and has an odd dashboard layout that only fits funky-weird-shaped stereos, you may have to settle for an FM transmitter. An FM transmitter is basically a miniature radio station with silent, miniature DJ’s–and you can carry it around in your pocket. It sends out a small FM signal that you can use to play your music over an empty station on your car radio.
    Now, here’s where things start to get interesting. That empty station thing, I just said? Ignore it. The FM transmitter, or at least the one I have, may give off a weak signal, but it’s still enough to overpower existing radio signals, provided they aren’t particularly strong. Everybody with me on this, so far? What I’m saying here is that there are local radio stations that I can normally tune my radio into which, while not particularly strong, still play perfectly well under normal circumstances… And my iPod transmitter can completely overpower them. Okay, now, I don’t know exactly how far this transmitted signal might carry, but I do know that it goes all the way from my cigarette lighter to my car antenna. See, my cigarette lighter (within which the FM transmitter I possess is ensconced) is nearer the left side of my car. Buuutt … The antenna is on the right side of my car. Get it? So … If I’m in the right-hand lane and there’s another car traveling in the same direction in the lane immediately to my left … My iPod’s FM transmitter is closer to that car’s antenna than it is to my own!
    That’s right! It’s PRANKIN’ TIME!
    For examplatory purposes, we’re going to find, say, a nice gospel station or maybe some conservative talk radio. Then, we’re going to take our FM transmitters (if you’re as excited as I am about this, then you’ll get one!) and we’re going to set it to broadcast on this very station. Now, we’re going to go out for a drive. Cruise around a bit. Hang out around red lights and look for cars with Jesus fish or “Blame Me, I Voted For Bush” stickers on their bumpers. Finally, we’re going to blast* them with music from our very specially assembled playlists!
    What should this playlist contain? Well, that’s purely up to you, the prankster. Call it a matter of taste. Get creative. It doesn’t even have to be directed at Christians and Republicans. No, we’re equal opportunity pisser-offers here at SafeT and Arth. Want to look for pro-choice bumper stickers and play Bible verses at them? Feel free! Have the urge to spot anti-war slogans and pelt the drivers with jingoistic country songs? Go right ahead! Wanna follow me around and make me listen to adult contemporary lite** rock? Good luck finding me!
    But, in keeping with the stated example, here’s my list of prank-ready music:

• Highway to Hell by AC/DC – Sure, there are more offensive songs out there, and the band always held that it was really just a metaphor for life on the road anyway, but it’s a classic and it’s still got the word Hell in it a lot. Plus it’s got a catchy guitar riff so the unwitting recipients will be hearing “I’m on the hiiggghhwayyy to Hell!” over and over in their heads for weeks to come. Bon would have wanted it that way.
      The song also gets bonus points for the fact that you’ll likely be playing it on a highway, so it’s especially appropriate.
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band – Okay, again, not particularly offensive–we’re building up, here–but it is about the devil, after all.
      Bonus points if you play it in Georgia.
• The Fight Song by Marilyn Manson – Obvious, maybe–I’m sure most of you were thinking, “Oh, I bet Marilyn Manson’s coming up in a bit,” as soon as I started listing songs (unless you’re a bit older, in which case you were probably thinking Black Sabbath who, by the way, just might be making an appearance in a few carriage returns) but I have to say that if a demon was going to rise from Hell to sing through my radio … Well, he could probably sing however he wanted to, what with his magic demon powers and all, but I’d like to think he’d probably choose to sound like Marilyn Manson. In any case, this is what the prankees are likely to assume, anyway. And the chorus on this particular song has him singing “I’m not a slave to a God who doesn’t exist,” so it’s all good.
• N.I.B. by Black Sabbath – Okay. It’s not blatantly offensive from beginning to end, but with a little effort you should be able to time it so that, just as you approach the target, you get to the verse that goes, “Now I have you with me under my power/Our love grows stronger now with every hour/Look into my eyes you see who I am/My name is Lucifer, please take my hand.” (ed-that’s why God–or Lucifer, I suppose–gave me the pause button)
• Super-Charger Heaven by White Zombie – Really. The song begins with the lines, “Jesus lived His life in a cheap hotel on the end of Route 66/He lived a dark and a twisted life and He came right back just to do it again,” and the chorus is comprised of Rob screaming, “Devil-Man, Devil-Man, callin’!/Devil-Man runnin’ through my head!” over and over again. Provided you can decipher his overdubbed wailing, can you honestly think of a better song for this type thing?
      Okay, well … Maybe …
• Die, Motherfucker, Die by Dope – The title alone sounds pretty bad, right? Well, get a load of these lyrics:
  

  I don’t need your prayers
  I don’t need no religion
  I don’t need a thing from you

  I don’t do what I’ve been told
  You’re so lame why don’t you just go

  Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
  Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
  Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
  Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!

  … And so on and so forth. Lame people ain’t got no reason to live.

    So … Don’t be shy, people. Let’s hear from everybody in the comments. I want to know who you would piss off and what you would play at them.
                    -Arthbard

*Unfortunately, the FM doodad doesn’t actually transmit volume, so all blasting is purely metaphorical.
**The hip-in-1922 spelling of “lite” is intended to indicate that all traces of badassitude have been surgically removed from the music in question, thereby allowing anyone and everyone to peacefully listen in total boredom without ever running the risk of their blood pressure rising beyond the level of contentedly sleepy.

    I took this picture of graffiti and desolation from the 8th floor of the financial district parking structure across the way. This is one of the ABUS* in Detroit. There was a time when I was young and stupid and I seriously considered gearing up for an urban spelunking raid in one of the many such empty office buildings throughout the city.
    I wanted to see if there were trays of unclaimed, petrified bagels in the decrepit conference rooms, or perhaps one or two vintage “you don’t have to be crazy to work here**” posters pinned to the paleolithic proto-cubicles. The ghosts of meaningless labors past simply must walk the halls at night. They have to! I bet you can hear them whispering about where they’d like to eat lunch, about how they are not working hard nor are they hardly working***.
    If I sat in a filthy, half-broken chair behind the moldy old desk of a long-gone secretary named Catherine, would I hear someone whisper in my ear, “Cathy… you’ve changed,” or would it lament that Cathy grew a beard?

cathy… you’ve…. changed…

    You want to know more about the ABUS*. Here’s how: www.forgottendetroit.com

* Abandoned Buildings of Unusual Size. Found in the fire swamps of Detroit.
** Say it with me, boys and girls: “But it HELPS!”
*** A quantum state through which one may become exhausted by the effort to become unproductive.

Epinions says they have money for me!*
    Seven years ago (really? SEVEN?!?) I joined Epinions. It was the height of the internet bubble and I quickly earned some bread for a handful of reviews I wrote (all of which are still viewable if you want. Its SafeTinspector writing half a decade before the blog was a tilt in my kilt)
    But the bubble burst and the returns drained away. I stopped writing the reviews, and only very rarely checked in. Like two years ago, when I was starting up this blog and wrote a book review. So imagine my surprise when I saw that Epinions owes me over $50!
    I’m RICH, bitch! Should I cash out? Should I write another review and check back in two years?

* They also show me as living in Eastpointe and being 33 years old**.
** IN actuality I was the one that wrote I was 33. Bit I did it two years ago and the silly tits never updated it for me.

Alley next to the Buhl building
535 Griswold Street, Detroit

    ”Man, I’m sorry, I didn’t think I’d scare you, man. You ok?”
    ”No, its ok, you just startled me. I didn’t see you back there.”
    ”Yeah? I’m sorry anyway. Yeah… Haha.. Hey, you got any change?”*

    * Conversation with a middle-aged black fellow I met while walking through the alley shown above. He apparently lives in a cardboard-box-and-carpet-remnant lean-to on the far side of the dumpster you see on the left. He popped up as I was passing, just seconds after I took this picture, and I peed my pants just a little. I honestly didn’t have any change.

    The shrinkage has either stopped or slowed to the point where I can no longer discern additional loss of mass and height. Really, its difficult to measure anything with my stature anyway; my budget is more in line with elderly bathroom scales and cloth tape measures than it is with electron microscopes.

    I think I’ll stop now, this is definitely the right size. As it is, I hop around the keyboard playing Archie to an anonymous Mehitabel. Ah, but you observe my punctuation and use of upper case; clever you!

    I am so small that I operate the shift key by self-induced quantum states. I am both on shift and not on shift. Every time someone walks in my office and sees me, however, it screws me up for hours due to the headache I get when my state collapses. What can I say, I live in Michigan; collapse is institutionally inevitable.

    The collapse remains literal, and not figurative.

Happy me, I am now small enough.

     First things first, the SafeTinspector blog has trooped past the 450 post mark. On account of my dearthening (currently waning) and Arthbard’s animation sabbatical, this last fifty took quite a bit longer than the previous fifty. Look for more content, though; the dearthening is almost gone and I feel great. I just needed to be properly sized. Ask me about how I use quantum physics in order to operate the shift key!

     Secondly, Arthbard has updated his selector*! This is great news for you, the reader, as it gives you quicker access to the nougaty goodness that huddles pink and quivering in his shell.
    At the top of this page, where you see “Normal …for Arthbard,” you can now click on “Normal” and choose a category of Arthiness. For his excellent animations, for instance, you may click on “Arthimation”. Now, where you saw “..for Arthbard”, you will see “Cartoons!” Click on “Cartoons!” and you will see a handy list of Arthbard animation for your viewing pleasure. Once clicked, a thumbnail pimping your selection should replace the crab graphic on the left side of the header. Now all that remains is that you click “Arth!” and off you will go to be amused and amazed.

* This navigation system is the SafeSelector, and is a bit of Javascript I threw together last year sometime. I know, I know, abso-friggin’ incredible. Also a pain in the ass to maintain, which is why I’m entertaining the idea of moving to WordPad where such things can maintain themselves.

    There was bug on the floor outside my office door, a large beetle of some kind. Stunned, dead or dying, I’m not sure which, I stepped over it on the way in. And again on the way out. And again later, when I returned.
    Each time I secretly wished it would stir and crawl its way off to look for what might pass for sustenance under the shelving which lines the shop.

    But then, in passing, I stepped on it by accident. It is crushed, and the issue of its quick or dead status is resolved permanently.

    Now I’ll have to pick it up and bring it into my office*.

    In other news, Microsoft claims that Linux violates over 230 patents. If you are a geek like me, you probably think this is complete crap. Claiming that someone else’s work belongs to you because it looks a little like something you own is mind boggling usury.
    Here is a well-written Wired blog entry about this crap: Wired Blog Entry

* That’s where my trashbin is.

    Look! The tag board is gone. No one really used it, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it was summoning forth popup ads.
    Look! The BluntCogs navigator is gone! Its been partially busted for a long time, and no one else ever used it or cared about it. I euthanized it with a gentle liquid detergent. It went peacefully and lemony fresh; that’s all anyone could’ve asked for at this point.
    Want to hear something funny? Hell, so would I. I got nothing. Look at this picture of Samantha at a Red Wings game and smile a little for me.
    Oh! Oh! Oh! The 15th was Heather’s birthday. My wife turned 31, and she spent the day fielding a flurry* of phone calls from a certain troubador who sang her the birthday song over and over again. At one point the singer was accompanied by the tinkling strains of music from an old Miracle** keyboard he has stashed at his office for just such an occasion.

* Why is it that I constantly fight the urge to spell ‘flurry’ as ‘floury’? Why? WHY?!?
** Miracle is an early-nineties piano teaching system that included this keyboard, some DOS software, and optionally SNES or NES cartridges. It pretty much broke Software Toolworks, which never recouped the costs of development. Too bad, it was a very nice keyboard and learning system for the price. Its rare now; sadly, I broke one of the keys in half. Click HERE for more information.

    I’m still getting smaller, and now I can feast for days on a single fun-sized bag of Doritos. Practical uses of diminuition*. Did you watch Arthbard’s video yet? YOU SHOULD. It is funny, and it took him a long time to make it, and you love him. I think I’ll sit here, scrape a handful of Dorito dust off the nearest chip, and hop up and down on the mouse button until the video starts again.

I’m getting even smaller… I think I still see me, I know I still see the video.

* I think that’s a real word. If I made it up, then its a pretty good word for a small guy.