A King on His Throne

The hall bathroom toilet, and all territory immediately surrounding it, has been claimed by the Italian.

Every now and then it might be possible for the German and Our Daughter to sneak in for a few minutes to shower or brush their teeth, but ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time if the door is closed and light is peeking out from under it, it means the Italian is holding court.

The strangest thing about this new behavior is that I never expected it from the Italian. This is the same kid who, only a few years back, took great delight in running around the house naked and smacking his bare ass to some improvised musical number, often themed around the words "hiney" or "bahookie." I never expected an exhibitionist of his caliber to withdraw to the windowless environs of the bathroom.

If you're leaving for church and the Italian cannot be found, knock on the bathroom door. If you're running late for inline hockey practice and the Italian isn't in the van, knock on the bathroom door. If it's homework time and the Italian's books are sitting abandoned on the kitchen table, knock on the bathroom door. If he's been in the bathroom for twenty-seven minutes and you've yet to hear the shower running, knock on the bathroom door.

Had the German been the one to sit on the toilet for hours at a time, playing Minecraft until the restricted bloodflow to his extremeties had turned his toes a deep shade of blue, I would not have been surprised. The German has always been something of an island unto himself. He hugs less, is less needy throughout the course of the day, and tends to exist in a state of remote awareness of his surroundings. A moderately introverted boy seeking seclusion is not much of a stretch, yet he is the one who does not find it necessary to retreat to the quiet solace of the loo.

Fortunately for our plumbing, the purpose of the Italian's newfound respect for privacy has nothing to do with dysentary, diarrhea, dropping the kids at the pool, or any other bodily functions beginning with the letter "d." It's all about Minecraft, or whatever other game he's playing on his iPod when he disappears, because he knows at some point My Lovely Wife or I will tell him to log off and interact with an actual human being rather than a virtual one. Out of sight, out of mind is the policy he has instituted.

But, as this blog post serves to show, he has been found out. Gone are the days of attempting to FaceTime with relatives and friends with his pants around his ankles. Few are the remaining days of talking to a white door that sounds like the Italian instead of talking directly to him. Preparations are being made for a coup d'etat to oust the king from his throne.

Besides, if we don't put an end to his Occupy the Bathroom movement, where am I supposed to go to check Facebook and play Angry Birds?


© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Thread Count Audio

Some people spend big money on car audio systems.

When I was a kid, every other vehicle that cruised down our Long Island street had speakers the size of steamer trunks clogging up the rear dash and reverberating pounding bass at levels loud enough to rattle the rafters. It didn't matter if your car leaked a line of oil down the parkway, or the air conditioner made your car hotter, or the tires were bald, so long as you could treat the neighborhood to some righteous rhthyms.

As we aged, many of us came to understand it isn't the size of our speakers that matters, but rather the quality of their performance. Clarity and range became more meaningful than bombast and wattage. It's now just as important to perceive the tinkling acoustics of guitars and pianos as it is to thrill to the bravado profundo of primitive bass lines and techno-synth drum sequences. Few things have aided the appreciation of a full range of sound than the digital age. Beginning with compact discs in the 1980s all the way up to the latest iTunes downloads, every last sonic detail that goes into the making of a song is discernible for our enjoyment.

Our Toyota Echo didn't have a CD player when we bought it in 2002. It didn't have anti-lock braking, or power steering, or intermittent wipers. Hell, it didn't even have a clock. Thanks to a birthday gift several years ago from my family it has a high-tech radio with USB input for my iPod. The car might not be cool, but it gets forty miles to the gallon and the audio system is awesome.

Our Honda Odyssey, however, relies on a traditional 20th Century audio jack for input to an auxiliary channel. Not as efficient for sound transference, but we made it work until some time last year when the left speaker started cutting out at whim. We replaced the cable connecting the iPod to the stereo and that seemed to do the trick for a while.

Then it started in again, most noticeably during sharp turns to the right, and only with the auxiliary input. I repeatedly checked the cable, searching for kinks in the cord or frayed wires that might be the cause of our trouble. Nothing. I even slapped the dashboard while cursing -- the tried and true method of fixing any car-related trouble -- to no avail.

Normal people would have called the dealership by now. After all, the vehicle is still under warranty. But who has the time for that? Far too efficient, far too effective, and far too sensible.

All technical problems, regardless of venue or importance, require a six-month period of ridiculous home remedies before one should feel justified contacting the condescending geeks at tech support or, in this case, the condescending grease monkeys at the dealership. Our ludicrous solution took advantage of the fact that pressure applied downward on the plug at the console seemed to do the trick. Heavy jackets, sweaters, windbreakers, umbrellas, shopping bags, bits of string. Anything handy that could weigh down the plug and reconnect the signal did the trick.

Gradually, however, heavier and heavier objects were needed. Just a few weeks ago, only the highest thread count materials were sufficient to guarantee a quality audio performance, but I daresay even that no longer is working. Looks like it's time to suck up my pride, stick my tail between my legs, and lie like a rug to the condescending grease monkeys at the dealership.

"The auxiliary jack suddenly stopped working," I'll say.

"Can you describe what it's doing?" they'll ask.

"If you have a heavy sweater I can show you."



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

"Want I Was Askew For"

By the time I was a kid, jokes about the lack of flying cars and other futuristic technologies dreamed of in the earlier parts of the 20th century were already pretty well worn out.

For all the advancements of science and engineering, I try to keep in mind that decades of hard work by hundreds of thousands of people to develop modern computers seem to have culminated in my children's ability to play Monopoly on our iPad instead of on foldable cardboard.

Sure, I can swipe a shard of plastic through a machine that automatically deducts the correct amount from my checking account, but it doesn't change the fact I still have to wait for an under-paid, under-trained, under-enthusiastic part-time employee at the RDU Airport Breugger's Bagels to charge me way too much for a poorly made turkey sandwich. And, yes, for the fifth time, I do NOT want mayonnaise!

In a day and age when we can send people to the moon -- which I should already be able to book for my next vacation, according to the prognosticators of the 1960s -- shouldn't I be able to list thousands of ways in which trillions of dollars of NASA research has improved my health and minimized my ecological footprint on the Earth? So far, all I have to show for it is powdered drinks, cordless power tools, and the hope that I'll never need anti-shock trousers.

Communication seems to be the aspect of life most significantly impacted by the wonders of technology. I can listen to any song, or watch any movie, on my iPod while I'm traveling across the country at roughly two-thirds the speed of sound. Just so long as I don't try to do it while we're taxiing to or from the gate, or right after we take off, or during the last few minutes of our flight. In fact, if my flight is a short one, it's best if I limit my iPod use to the terminal. I can scrape the mayonnaise off my bagel while P!nk encourages me to be expletively perfect.

Phones have come a long way, as well. I remember when my father hung our first non-rotary phone in the kitchen. It was amazing. I'm fairly certain the buttons lit up. It had a stretchy cord long enough for me sit around the corner in the living room. And when we got our first cordless phone? We might as well have been the Jetsons!

Now we have the joys of modern cell phones. Through audio, text, internet browsing, photo sharing, video feeds, live feeds, and triangulated satelite navigation, I can keep in constant contact with the world.

I can even begin typing a blog about the woman at Breugger's Bagels (who ignored me while I tried to get her to understand I wanted the Asiago bagel instead of the Asiago softwich) while I'm standing right there in front of her. Unfortunately, the intuitive auto correct keeps trying to change every other word. Here is a sentence auto correct helped me type: "If we spec. Half the time listener to what im staying I MIG just get want I was askew for."

I wonder if Gutenberg -- German printing press inventor Johannes Gutenberg, not semi-beloved American actor Steve Guttenberg -- could ever have imagined such automated efficiency?



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Sissy Hissy Fit

Most of the applications that transferred to the boys' new iPod Touches when we synched them on Friday were purchased by Our Daughter. Along with fun games like TapTap Revenge and Angry Birds, they gained unlimited access to Makeover Madness, Pet Shop Girl, and Emily's Dress Up & Shop.

The end result is that half of their storage space is taken up by "girlie" apps that have no business residing on a ten-year-old boy's iPod Touch. It simply isn't manly.

Ever since that initial synch, the Italian has informed me at odd times about which apps he wants deleted, despite the fact I've told him we would sit down and take off all the offending apps at one time. Honestly, he's lucky I remember his name. Does he really think I'm going to remember the names of the different applications he throws at me in passing?

Also, I don't understand nearly so much about technology as people think I do. I must look just nerdy enough for folks to think I'm a closet techie. I can PhotoShop your face into a group picture, or throw together a quick flyer, but I'm pretty useless beyond that.

Unfortunatley, the German seems to labor under the mistaken impression that I know why the 3G connection isn't automatically set to "on" and therefore causing one or two apps to not function. I don't have a clue. I'm more than 30 years older than the technology in question, so I do what any good parent does in this situation -- ask my 13-year-old daughter to fix it for him.

Last night, before the teenager came to the rescue, the German couldn't get a particular app to work, so he asked his brother if he could borrow his iPod to play a game. The Italian, who was in the shower at the time, said "No." When pressed for a reason why the German couldn't, he again said "No."

Both My Lovely Wife and I found this to be an unreasonable response, so we told the German to go ahead and use his brother's iPod. We would face the music when he got out of the shower. And such sweet music it was...

The Italian doesn't whine, he cries. Zero to full-on cry in 1.2 seconds, in fact. That's been the story his entire life, although in recent years we've gone from seven things to cry about every day, to only one or two things worth crying over each week. Apparently, this was one of those things.

"I told him to wait until I was out of the shower-er-er!" he cried.

"We told him he could use it."

A comical mixture of disbelief, betrayal and shock consumed his wet face. He retreated to his bedroom, in which one can safely assume he was lying face down on his bed and crying into his pillow. He eventually emerged, still tearful, still a throbbing in his voice, to chastise the German.

"Come here!" I ordered. He slowly made his way to me, one hand keeping his towel around his skinny frame and the other clutching his recovered iPod. "What is your problem?"

"I was playing a game and I didn't save it and now I have to repeat the last level all over again-ain-ain..."

"What game?" I asked. "What game is so important that you have to cry about it?"

He quickly pointed to the screen. "This one," he cried. But the move was so fast, I couldn't tell which app he pointed to.

"Which one?"

He pointed again, only this time he spoke a little more quietly. "This one."

I took hold of his hand and turned the iPod to get a better look at the all-important application. Sally's Spa... Yes, that's right. My 10-year-old son threw a massive hissy fit because he might have to replay the mani-pedi round in a game in which you design and run your own virtual spa.

It could be worse, I suppose. At least it wasn't the app for tracking menstrual cycles.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Radio Tease

Every now and then a local radio station changes its format. If I'm lucky, it changes from some annoying techno-pop-disco-crap to classic rock. A few weeks ago, I thought I struck radio gold when I found a station that had converted to a format focusing on rock hits from the 80s and 90s.

I hate to date myself, but if The Big Chill were remade today, it would star people my age chugging Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers and dancing around an Ikea-furnished living room to Flock of Seagulls while wearing worn-out "Frankie Says Relax" concert t-shirts and figuring out how to stream Wham and Paula Abdul videos off YouTube.

MTV might have revolutionized the music industry -- and I was one of those kids who excitedly watched it launch with the appropriately titled "Video Killed The Radio Star" -- but it destroyed excellent bands that weren't pretty enough to fit the new mold. Mainstream music in the 80s was all about big hair, spandex, fog machines and orchestrated laser shows, so to find a radio station that pays homage to the acts that actually managed to keep rock alive during the decades of synth drums and choreographed lip-synch concerts is a rare treat.

Besides, I've grown tired of the so-called classic rock stations of North Carolina. They play the same twenty songs over and over again. This one plays Aerosmith every third song. That one plays ACDC every twenty minutes. That other one must think "Freebird" is the only song Lynyrd Skynyrd ever recorded.

It's like most of these stations laid out their schedules ten years ago and haven't deviated from them since. The only time you might hear more than one song from any band's catalog is on the horribly hackneyed two-fer-Tuesdays. Talk about innovative programming. I'm pretty sure Dick Clark came up with that idea eight years before radio was invented.

So, after years of relying on my iPod for music I like, I was driving to the grocery store and searching for a little agreeable music when I paused on a station long enough to hear the guy say "rock hits of the eighties and nineties." Sure enough, they played several songs in a row that took me back to my younger days. I hastily programmed the station into preset number four on the van radio.

Over the next few days, I would dial up the station to take fleeting sentimental journeys through my teens and early twenties while toodling around town. It all seemed so perfect. Then the cracks appeared in the ice.

By the third or fourth day, I realized I was hearing "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits for the third or fourth time. And wasn't that the second time they played Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" since this morning? That song doesn't even match their format! Just because The BusBoys covered it for the 48 Hours soundtrack in 1982 doesn't change the fact the song is from the 1970s! Don't these people know what they're doing?!

Turns out, they don't. Thank goodness I always keep the iPod charged up and ready to go.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler