Today’s Soundtrack
I Feel Personally Attacked
The Biggest Failure Of The American Justice System in 250 Years
Impeach And Convict
Right?!
Triptych
Mirror Mirror On The Wall
365 Days Of UNF: April 3rd
More From The Alternate PITT Universe
My Stereo Equipment Obsession
I wouldn’t call myself an audiophile per se. I mean, I don’t go to CES and attend private listening sessions of $30K speaker systems in rented hotel suites, but I do appreciate—even with my age compromised hearing—good sound and well-made, reasonably priced hardware. And if you’ve spent any time at all on my blog, you know I have a passion for—some would say obsession with—vintage stereo gear. As I’ve documented previously, this began in high school with the encouragement of my friend Ken, and this passion has continued unabated to this very day.
It started innocently enough, with a Panasonic receiver/dual 8-track player combo in 1972. Yeah, I know this wasn’t “hi-fi” by any stretch of the imagination, but it was all I could afford after saving up my household allowance for God knows how long. Ken—despite his seemingly endless financial resources—never snickered at my purchase, but always told me what was most important was how it sounded. To that end, shortly after my high school graduation, I upgraded to some real hi-fi equipment: a Sony TA-5650 V-FET amp, Technics SL-1600 turntable, and Infinity 1001A loudspeakers.
But still, when I think of the thousands of dollars I’ve spent (and honestly, wasted) over the past fifty years in pursuit of good sound, it boggles my mind.
But surprisingly, it wasn’t always this way. My home has not always been a revolving door of equipment coming and going. In fact, from 1985 thru 1999, my system was unchanging. I thought it sounded great and I felt no need to change out or improve anything. It consisted of a Yamaha A-700 amp (in my current system), a Yamaha CDX-730 CD deck (was in my current system until recently when it started refusing to play certain disks), a Yamaha K-540 cassette deck, a Technics SL-1700Mk2 turntable that I’d owned since the late 70s, and a Phase Tech PC60 satellite/subwoofer speaker system.
Then I discovered eBay, and—for possibly the first time in my life I had more than a little disposable income—the trouble started.
My first purchase was a Technics SA-800 receiver. I remembered drooling over this whole line of receivers back in 1978. The styling was so different than anything else on the market at the time and the first time I saw them I got whiplash walking past. Gone were the typical blue or green on black backlit tuning dials, replaced by soft, indirect lighting shining down on brushed aluminum.
But sadly, at the time, they were out of the range of my limited budget and I was still stubbornly hanging onto my Sony V-FET amp that regularly blew up and had repaired because—at least when they were working—”V-FETs just sounded better.”
But there it was in 1999, the second-to-top-of-the-line 125 watt-per-channel monster I’d salivated over twenty years earlier for $165 plus shipping. If they show up for auction today they can’t be touched for less than $1000, not that I’d want one again after having owned one. (Another story for another time.)
Anyway, I had it delivered to my offivre and was amazed at how pristine it looked. Yeah, a couple bulbs providing that indirect lighting were burnt out, but it was otherwise flawless. I had to drive downtown after hours to retrieve it since there was no way I could haul the beast home on the metro, and once I got it into the house, I hooked everything up and was in heaven. Yeah, a few of the switches and pots were noisy (something I now know is an easy fix, but back then vexed me no end), but otherwise it sounded great.
A month later, my faithful Yamaha A-700 was my first eBay sale.
It took me a little over two years to tire of the Technics receiver. The burnt out lights got replaced, and I did my best to clean and lubricate the noisy switches, but it just didn’t sound as good as my old Yammie.
Another A-700 (along with its matching tuner, the T-700) showed up on eBay in September 2001. It was located in Los Angeles. I corresponded with the seller and he said everything was in perfect working order; it was his office system and he needed to downsize. $188 and a day-long drive down to Woodland Hills and back, and it was mine.
I got home around 10 pm that night, and while exhausted, disconnected the Technics and hooked up the Yamaha. I put on a CD and…nirvana. That deep, tight bass and the crystal clear high returned to the music. Absolute nirvana. The difference in sound quality was like night and day. I swore I’d never get rid of it.
Unfortunately the Universe had different ideas. Shortly after moving back to Phoenix, I got my first cancer diagnosis and suddenly found myself out of work and short of cash. Up on the auction block it went.
After I’d finished my treatment and found work again, I replaced the Yamaha with a Kenwood KR-7400 receiver from 1974. I’d always liked this model, and was very happy with it. Why didn’t I try to find another Yamaha? No fucking idea. I’m sure I had my reasons at the time, but I have no memory of what they were.
I kept the Kenwood until 2018, when another bit of nostalgia from my youth reared its ugly head on eBay: the Technics “Concise” series of mini components. By this time I knew myself well enough to hold onto the Kenwood in case I wanted to go back to it, so it was merely retired and put in a closet.
And then, in 2020 (foolishly thinking we’d come out of that year relatively unscathed) the fire happened.
The firemen—to their absolute credit—moved the entire entertainment center out onto the front porch and I was able to salvage everything. The Kenwood was also spared, stored as it was in a closet that didn’t get wet.
But y’know, when it came time for us to go through the house a few days later and pull out or mark for the restoration company those items we absolutely wanted to keep, I looked at the Kenwood that had previously been giving me tuning dial illumination issues, and I just left it. Or maybe I told our landlord to take it. Honestly at this point I don’t remember. It was one of those items that just went missing—just like my DVD collection and the banker box of CDs I’d kept for sentimental reasons.
Over the next couple years, I made a couple more questionable purchases until in 2023 I said fuck it, and sought out another Yamaha A-700. It’s been with me since and I’m not going to get rid of it unless it comes down to keeping it or not living on the streets.
And don’t even get me started on the tuners, CD Discmans, CD decks, MiniDisc Walmans and MiniDisc decks I’ve shuffled in and out of the house over the past three years…
I think I’m finally to the point where I’m satisfied with my system. I’m feeling the same way about it that I felt about my original Yamaha setup I kept from the mid 80s thru the late 90s. The difference betwen then and now is that I’ve now managed to own (and/or turn around and sell) pretty much every bit of stereo equipment nostalgia that’s gripped me since I got back into this “hobby.”
Affirmation
Continuing Adventures In The Alternate PITT Universe
Mirror Mirror On The Wall
Eat It Like A Man
365 Days Of UNF: April 1st
Right?!
Classic
I Am Incorrigible
Commentary From ¡van!
Mi Familia
(photos by Ben)
How To Preserve One’s Sanity
Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose
Vomiting It All Catching Up
“Fine Art Prints”
Tuesday Tiedrich
Preznit Fuckwit continues to wage Schrödinger’s Don’t-You-Dare-Call-It-A-War on Iran.
we’re winning! we’ve almost won! we’re wrapping this thing up! we’ve already won, and that’s why we’re sending five thousand more troops to the region! we’re talking to the new regime! we think we’re talking to the new regime! we don’t know who we’re talking to! the Strait of Hormuz is already open! we demand Iran open the Strait immediately! who gives a shit about the Strait, we don’t need it! our allies are helping us! why won’t our allies help us? fuck you, we don’t need any allies to win this thing! besides, we’ve already won, again!
it’s exhausting to try to track it all — but the one consistent aspect throughout all this incoherence remains Donny’s love of doing war crimes.
I mean, how else can you explain this?
The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
that was our fucked-in-the-head president, awake and colicky at 7:26 yesterday morning, shitting out yet another not-tweet full of contradictory nonsense.
first he brags about how super-awesome the negotiations are going with his new Iranian besties, and then he cranks the belligerence dial all the way to eleven, threatening to bomb the shit out of Iran if they don’t give him everything he wants, pronto.
look at what Donny threatens to ‘obliterate’ — the ‘Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants).’
fun true fact: there’s a term for the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. it’s called committing war crimes — because all that shit violates international law.
I hate that we’ve normalized this shit, so let me once again point out how completely crazypants it is for a world leader to threaten a sovereign nation and promise to commit war crimes via a post on social media. no other country on the planet does this. America is now a rogue state, and an international embarrassment.
awesome job, Donny. take a victory lap.
apparently Wall Street only read the first sentence of Donny’s not-tweet, because following its posting, the stock market reacted in the most Wall Street way possible.
“Dow rises 400 points after Trump says U.S. in ‘serious’ talks to end operation in Iran:”
seriously, Wall Street? how many times are you going to fall for this shit? once again, Donny farts out some deliberate lie about how well his Iranian debacle is going, and once again, Wall Street is all ‘this time I’m going to kick that football a fucking mile!’
of course there’s a simple explanation for Donny’s ever-shifting narrative about how well his don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war is going: he’s stark barking bugfuck, and he hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s doing.
Plastered Pete Kegstand convinced Donny that his warfighting warfigherswould warfight the shit out of Iran, and that the whole thing would be over in fifteen minutes. when that didn’t happen, there was no plan B to turn to — because these high-on-their-own-supply shitwits always act first and think never.
and now, all Dear Leader can do is panic, flail, issue threats, and try to lie his way out of it by farting out one barely-credible fairy tale after another.
it’s Schrödinger’s War. it’s going however Donny wants you to believe it’s going.
isn’t this bloodthirsty bobble-head supposed to be some sort of uber-Christian? what kind of example is she setting for her children?
Karoline thinks it’s super fucking hilarious that the Ayatollah done got blowed up real good right in the middle of negotiations, because Donny got impatient — which, if that’s not an outright war crime, is at least war-crime-adjacent.
let’s watch NBC’s Garrett Haake commit one of the finest journalisms we’ve seen in a long time, as he asks Karoliar to explain why Donny is threatening to blow civilian shit up real good.
Garrett Haake: “under international law, striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited. why is the president threatening what would amount to potentially a war crime with the US military? how you do square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US does not target civilians?”
excellent question — one that gets an evasive non-answer answer.
Karoline Leavitt: “look, the president has made it quite clear to the Iranian regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the statement that you just read, that their best move is to make a deal, or else the United States armed forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination, and the president is not afraid to use them.”
Haake: “war crimes?”
Leavitt: “that’s not what I said, Garrett. and you’re saying the word ‘potential’ for a reason, ’cause I’m sure some experts are telling you that in your ear, to try to ask me that question. of course this administration and the armed forces will always act within the confines of the law, but with respect to achieving the full objectives of the operation.”
but Haake won’t take bullshit for an answer and delivers the coup de grace.
Haake: “which of those objectives would destroying a desalination plant most help?”
check and fucking mate. Brave Sir Karoline has no answer to that, so she just runs away and calls on a different reporter.
Leavitt: “Haley, go ahead.”
meanwhile, there is one war that Donny’s definitely winning: the war on competence. look at the chyron on this screen grab from CNN — it’s a big bowl of what in the actual fuck.
US questions whether it’s dealing with the right Iranian officials.”
how do you not know that? how do you fuck that up?
are these clownsticks just dialing random Tehran phone numbers and hoping for the best?
who does Donny imagine he’s been talking to, when he tweets out “The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME”? is anyone from this ‘reasonable’ regime in the room with us right now?
U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is negotiating with Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, in an interview with the New York Post published Monday.
The former Revolutionary Guard commander was previously floated as Washington’s negotiating partner, but has denied Iran is talking to the U.S. and said Pakistan-facilitated discussions were merely a cover for American troop deployments.
you don’t even know who to believe anymore, because everyone involved in this catastrophe totally fucking sucks.
and then there’s this.
“President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.”
oh great. now that Donny’s clownfucked the world into simultaneous energy and economic crises, he’s going to knock the board over and walk away.
anyone with a half a brain could have seen this coming a mile away.
the failing failure who failed at running a real estate empire and failed at running casinos and failed at running an airline and failed at running a magazine and failed at running a football team and failed at selling steaks and failed at selling water and failed at fighting a pandemic and failed at not getting convicted on 34 counts of business fraud has now failed at waging his don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran.
and, as always, Donny is going to leave a huge fucking mess for someone else to clean up after.
not my problem!
hey, but at least Piss-Drunk Pete is having the time of his life.
I witnessed lethality. I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac, who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs. we will happily oblige her.”
‘I witnessed lethality’ — who talks like this, other than some insecure adolescent boy who never matured into an adult?
fuck all the way off, you blood-spattered maniac. eat skateboard.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
Success!
But OMG, what an ordeal it’s been.
I finally successfully relocated Voenix Rising from Bluehost to a new provider. I now remember why I don’t do this unless absolutely necessary.
After four days of unsuccessfully attempting to move it to Hostinger (supposedly the #1 recommended adult-content friendly host) and dealing with tech support that ranged from excellent to “did they just pull you in off the street?”, I gave up after being told the problem was with Bluehost and I needed to work with them. I canceled and looked elsewhere.
I finally settled on Dreamhost, a company I’d done business with many, many years ago. When I was chatting with sales and settling on a plan that allows me to transfer all my posts and allows me years to grow, I verified that they were indeed, adult-content friendly. They said yes—as long as it wasn’t anything illegal and was not material that would appeal to Felon45 or the Epstein class. They were extremely helpful, and while it took a couple attempts, everything was finally transferred early this morning.
Everything should now be working fine. If it isn’t let me know.
365 Days Of UNF: March 31st
let’s start off with a bang, and put the hero of the day right up top. ladies and gents, I give you the Poet Laureate of No Kings Day.
‘see you later, alligator. at your trial, pedophile’ — now that’s a message we can all get behind.
we did it again, folks. in fact, We the People outdid ourselves. yesterday’s No Kings 3 was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.
over eight million of us gathered peacefully coast to coast, to rise up as one and convey a singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck — you’re not our king.
wait, did I say coast to coast? no, it was the entire world telling Donny Convict to fuck straight off.
check out this ginormous crowd in London.
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd has gathered in London, England for a protest against the far right in coordination with the No Kings day protests in the US
— alexjungle.bsky.social (@alexjungle.bsky.social) March 28, 2026 at 8:07 AM
and at the Bastille in Paris.
In 1789, furious protesters stormed the Bastille in Paris. This marks the start of the French Revolution that put an end to the highly corrupt, rotten regime of aristocrats and the ultra rich.
Yesterday, thousands joined a #NoKings protest at the Bastille.
— Hendrik Klaassens #FBPE #FBR #BanX (@aurorablogspot.bsky.social) March 29, 2026 at 2:39 AM
Scotland fucking loathes Donny.
Solidarity from #Scotland. ????????????????????????????????????
#NoKings
— Dial M for Madeye ???????????????????????????? ???????? ???????????????????????????? (@carnaptiousmadeye.bsky.social) March 28, 2026 at 11:32 PM
so does Portugal.
Germany’s seen this movie before, and they want no part of its sequel.
two stalwarts showed up in the town of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
holy shit, there was even one homey who parked himself in front of the US embassy in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
this dude fucking rules. he held the exact same one-person protest during the previous No Kings Day last October.
meanwhile, back here in the US of A, the crowds were gi-fucking-normous.
over two hundred thousand people showed up in Boston.
of course, Boston is in the major leagues when it comes to protesting. they’ve been perfecting this shit since 1773.
another two hundred thousand showed up at the rally in the Twin Cities.
We are estimating more than 200,000 people at the flagship No Kings rally in the Twin Cities. #NoKings
— Indivisible ❌???? (@indivisible.org) March 28, 2026 at 12:37 PM
while we’re in the Twin Cities, you need to hear this chunk from comedian Lizz Winstead’s great speech.
“I’m so proud of you. you chased out of this state pure evil. you chased them out. you chased out the fun-size fascist Greg Bovino. you chased out that evil Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem is so evil, I’m starting to think that that dog took his own life. just couldn’t take it. ‘is this my future? I need to get out. I’m taking the goat with me.’”
Times Square in New York City was packed to the gills.
so was Chicago.
San Francisco does not screw around. at Ocean Beach, protesters formed a human banner telling Donny to get the fuck out.
check out deeply-red Boise, Idaho, folks. even Republicans are fed up with this shit.
Bill Kristol, who used to be the biggest neocon in the world and is now an actual goddamned social progressive, was in Waltham, MA.
No Kings rally in Waltham, MA.
Enjoyed talking with many of the assembled patriots. pic.twitter.com/TOcOAksVN2
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 28, 2026
huge crowds were everywhere — except for one place: the CPAC conference in Texas.
it’s as if Sad Trombone became a real political party.
now let’s check out some heroes — like this dude in Seattle.
we definitely need to gif this hilarious shit for posterity’s sake.
it was raining frogs in the District of Columbia.
we’re going to need to gif that shit, too.
handmaidens bearing the names of Jeffrey Epstein’s degenerate BFFs showed up in Nashville.
there’s no way we’re not giffing that shit.
hey, do you know who can go fuck themselves all the way to Mars? the Los Angeles Police Department, that’s who. these goons couldn’t make it through the day without arresting a protester who was dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.
A remarkable photo from #NoKings in DTLA from Connor Sheets of @latimes.com www.latimes.com/california/l…
— sam³⁰⁰⁰ (@samgavin.com) March 28, 2026 at 7:09 PM
great optics, you guys. bravo. ten out of ten — no notes.
fuck those fucking fucks. let’s got out with a bang. here are some of the best protest signs from around the country.
look at these heroes way up in Barrow, Alaska.
and finally, once again, our unknown poet laureate from Ellsworth, Maine.
as for Sundowning Grandpa Bugfuck, he was unusually silent — and nowhere to be seen. there were none of his usual protest-day batshit meltdowns on the feed of his crappy app. he couldn’t even be bothered to post AI slop of himself shitting on protesters, as he did last October.
he just spent the day holed up in Motel-a-Lago. according to his official schedule, the lazy fuck didn’t even bother to cheat at golf.
I’ve got a news flash for you, Donny: America is sick of you. aside from your brain-dead cultists who are too fucking stupid to understand what’s going on, nobody voted for this shit.
nobody voted for the historic and stately East Wing to be demolished so that you can replace it with some vulgar Epstein Dance Hall™ — and speaking of your dead pedo bestie, nobody voted for the continuing cover-up of a massive pedophile ring.
nobody voted for off-the-charts corruption and greed.
nobody voted for masked ICE thugs teargassing children, and murdering anyone who looks at them funny. nobody voted for innocent immigrants to be disappeared off the streets and shipped off to far-away slave-labor gulags.
nobody voted for the price of everything continuing to skyrocket — especially when you promised bring all that shit down on Day One.
nobody voted for our allies to be insulted and ignored, or for Ukraine to be thrown to the wolves, or for Greenland to be perpetually harassed, or for Venezuela to become a vassal state.
and nobody voted for an unwinnable clusterfuck of a don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war in Iran — certainly not one that shut down the Strait of Hormuz, destabilized the entire Middle East, and sent the price crude through the roof.
guess what, Donny: you’re such a loathsome piece of shit that over eight million people took to the streets yesterday to deliver this singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck — you’re not our king, and you never will be.
boo fucking hoo, bro. sucks to be you.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.