Toad the Wet Sprocket

I was in Orlando for a few days for the Super Show, and I had a few thoughts from the plane on the way back...

9PM – High over, what, Tennessee?

It’s funny – you can have an inside joke at 32,000 feet, which is where we have climbed to escape some turbulence. I’m on a flight from Orlando to Flint, Michigan, and hopefully I’ll be home around 11 tonight. Northwest didn’t have any direct flights from Detroit Metro when I needed to go for the Super Show, so I decided to fly from Flint, which has about five gates. It’s great; geographically it is about ten minutes farther from my house but you just park your car across from the terminal (or drive your Jeep up on top of a car in the spot you want like I did), drop off your bag and you’re on a plane. Way convenient, plus it’s a straight shot up I-75. It can be strange though; no one ever asked me for ID, the guy who checked my bag at the curb also took my boarding pass at the gate, and I started to worry that he had checked out on the 717 and was about to put on a hat and a blazer and fly me to Florida.

Anyway, I’m listening to complimentary XM radio on the plane, and something funny comes on – Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Good Intentions.” You don’t know this, so I will let you in on something: when Lauren feels like tormenting me, she tells people I’m a huge Toad the Wet Sprocket fan, that I had their poster up in college, a bumper sticker, framed tickets from a show at the Fillmore, whatever. There’s no truth to any of that. It’s dumb, but somehow the implication that I’m a Toad the Wet Sprocket irritates me.

When “Good Intentions” came on, at first I thought about changing the station, but thinking about the seemingly dozens of people who now think my world revolves around Toad the Wet Sprocket made me smile to myself so I left it on. The really interesting thing is how dated the song sounds – it’s really a product of it’s time, very much of the mid-90s “Reality Bites” alternative rock sound.

By the way, don’t worry about me too much. After Lauren tells someone about my lifetime rhodium membership in the TtWS Fan Club, I usually wait for the right moment, typically within earshot of about a dozen people in line at Borders, to ask Lauren something like, “Hey, did you still want me to get you that Olsen Twins calendar? I think they’re on sale now.” Never fails to make me feel better.

By the way, now I’m listening to Al Green, Blood Sweat & Tears and Dionne Warwick on the “Wolfman Jack” show on the 60s channel, and my new tuneGEAR premium earbuds sound fabulous. They block all of the plane noise with the volume set on 8 (out of 31 settings), and they look extremely cool in aluminum with the 13.5 mm speakers. They sound so good that I would let them be tested any day against headphones that cost 6 times as much. They’ll be for sale on our website in a couple of weeks for around $20, and I’m predicting that they’ll be a game-changer. Stay tuned™