Whatever, Reader

The Jake Fire in Santa Clarita wasn't as bad as it looked. Fire crews had everything contained within a day, but when it broke out, the Santa Clarita Valley shut down and closed I-5 near my job. For me, that meant working from home and getting all my writing done by 3 p.m.—plenty of time to beat the traffic heading north and meet my friend/drummer Harry. By sheer cunning and programming acumen, Harry found an error on a radio station's website after they announced a giveaway for RATT concert tickets. While other hopeful winners were stopped by 404 errors from a bad web address, Harry correctly guessed the URL and won the giveaway. After his wife said she couldn't go, the invitation passed on to me. You know RATT—they did the song "Round and Round" (which you may have confused for Van Halen's "Panama"), back when music videos regularly included Waspy dinner settings like this . The band was fortunate enough to score some of the primo 80s publici...

Yes, the Monoprice 5W Guitar Amp Slaps If you haven't checked out this 5W tube amp from Monoprice , hurry and do it before the price goes up again. 30 years ago in November of 2019, I bought this amp for around $120, an increase from its $105 price tag when I first saw it. Now it's almost $170, and it remains a steal at that. Seriously, this amp is so awesome. Is Monoprice Any Good? Let me start by clarifying that I own just three items made by Monoprice—this amp (actually branded Stage Right), a tuner pedal, and a mono-to-stereo 1/8" adapter. All of them work as well as or—in the case of this amp—better than expected. Because Monoprice's gear is so cheap, people are rightly suspicious. After all, name a guitarist who wasn't burned by Behringer gear time and time again. We know too well that you get what you pay for. ...except with this Monoprice 5W tube amp, because it's way better than its price suggests. What Can It Do? Feature-wise, it...

When I decided to hike the Chilkoot Trail—a 33-mile journey straddling the border of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory—no one could have prepared me for what lay ahead. I was an active 23-year old and had managed a tough hike only days before. I was in decent shape. No need to train for a touristy hike like this one. After a long day of drinking, a couple of my friends threw out an idea: let's hike the Chilkoot and get back for work by Tuesday. With the dull threat of a hangover dragging my sleep-deprived body, I would have been wise to reconsider making a journey like this in under 24 hours, but hey, it's Alaska. You go on adventures, you suffer the consequences, you have stories to tell, and that's exactly what I got in return. 2011 boasted some of the century's worst trail conditions. Hitherto flat, dry paths were now flooded with waist-high rivers we couldn't avoid—something we would've learned had we registered for the hike, but the park ranger...

The bruise on Dolores’ thigh grew by the minute. She scratched and scratched, tried to put pressure on the wound, but it just kept spreading its darkness over her leg. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She lowered her skirt to hide the wound. Her sister Helen entered the kitchen and gave her a gentle but cold embrace. "Are you okay?" smiled Helen, eyes wide. Dolores just looked at the floor. "Well?" Helen pressed. "Look, I’m sorry about what happened, but you know you don't have to suffer like this." Dolores lifted her gaze from the floor into Helen's eyes, narrowing beams of hot, vaporizing fury. Helen pretended not to notice the chill she suddenly felt. Their friends and neighbors said Dolores had kind eyes, but they wouldn't think so if they saw her now. "You know I love you," said Helen. Dolores sat silent for a while. "I know," she said, looking down at the floor. Her jaw squeezed as she winced at the ...

wikipedia.org “My name is Gio, and I’m confined by sadness.” “Hi Gio,” his group responded in unison. “Today marks 3 months since I began my journey back to happiness, so I’d like to tell my story to anyone who will… well, I just have to tell it.” “Gio, I just want you to know,” the group leader said, gesturing to the group, “how proud of you we all are. You are positively beaming.” Gio had no response. He didn’t feel radiant. The group leader went on. “Even in just these 3 months, I’ve seen so much sadness leave you. You’re working hard, and it shows. You’re turning that frown…” he looked back at the group. “Upside down,” they all chanted in unison. “Go ahead, Gio,” said the smiling group leader, “tell us your story.” “My dog meant everything to me. Wherever I went, he came too. I snuck him onto buses, into hotels, restaurants. It didn’t matter. He was my best friend. When his health started to fail, I made an appointment to have him put down so he wouldn’t suffer. ...