Anyone who knows me nowadays knows that I am a pretty big Nine Inch Nails fan. What most probably don't know is that I actually only really became a fan around 2005, about the time With Teeth was released. I remember reading an article about how Trent Reznor was mad that a radio station leaked two new songs from his album (his first new album in 6 years), and how fans' first impressions of it were ruined by listening to a low-quality radio recording. To "get back", or maybe to prove a point about how first impressions are important, Trent ruined the ending of Million Dollar Baby which had just opened in theaters. A movie I hadn't seen yet, but wanted to. I was a little cheesed, but I thought it was funny, and I decided to download With Teeth and give it a shot.

Nine Inch Nails - Rexall Place, Edmonton, AB - 7.28.08 - photo by Warrren Hrycun

My first impression was that the album was "okay". I had been aware of NIN as a band (if you can call one guy a band) for years, seeing as they were fairly popular in the mid-late 90s, but I never actually gave them a chance. I gave With Teeth a few more listens, though, and it started to grow on me. It wasn't until several months later that I decided to buy The Downward Spiral on a whim when I saw it for $9.99 at HMV. I was out of town at the time (Billie's brother's wedding), so without a CD player, I had to wait until I got back home to listen to it. Unknown to me at the time, I had just planted a seed that was soon to grow into a full blown obsession.

In the next 3-4 years, I managed to track down not just all of their full length albums, but each of their singles and EPs as well, which usually contained many good remixes. It was easy to keep track of which albums I was missing, due to a convenient little numbering system for each release called Halos. Each release (with a couple rare exceptions) was given a Halo number. Their first single was Halo 1, and their very last release to date is Halo 27. In 2005 they were only at Halo 19, but I still had quite a bit of collecting to do. To this day, the only ones I am missing are 12 and 15. One being a rare out of print VHS tape, and the other being an also out of print, three-part single that usually sells for $80 per-part on eBay.

Nine Inch Nails - Rexall Place, Edmonton, AB - 7.28.08

My obsession took another turn for the worse when I bought a record player some time in 2007. Now I had the need to go back and buy all of my absolute favorite albums on wonderful vinyl (Billie was initially opposed to this idea, but she's now somewhat grown fond of collecting records). I held back a little bit, partly due to the rarity of many older NIN albums on vinyl, but I eventually managed to find copies of every full length album, including Broken and The Fragile which have never seen repressings beyond their original release. My absolute prized possesion that came from all of this has to be the ultra-deluxe limited edition of Ghosts I-IV that was released in 2008. It's pretty awesome, you guys.

By now you're probably wondering why I'm sharing all of this, and if you're still reading, here's why: It has been recently announced by Trent himself that the current NIN tour is going to be their last. Their last forever? Nobody knows, but at least their last for a long, long time. In the short time that I've been a fan, I have been lucky enough to see them live three times. Once in 2005, and twice in 2008, and they were by far the favorite concert experiences I've had. Though I am probably a little biased. Just a little.

Single tear.

So here is where my obsession ends, or at least slows down, for now. Trent prematurely announced he was in talks with HBO to pitch an original TV series revolving around the story of the album Year Zero, but that was a while ago and there hasn't been much news about it in some time. I guess I am lucky to have enjoyed new NIN music in the short time it was available, seeing as though the older fans commonly had to wait 4-6 years between each album prior to With Teeth's release. At least now other fans and I can follow Trent on Twitter to see what he's up to. I guess it's time to play the waiting game.

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This is a story about how I often take the more complicated route when trying to achieve an otherwise simple goal.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about an authentic retro 80s boombox that I got from my grandparents' basement. I thought it would be fun to record a bunch of albums onto cassette just for the novelty of it, so the first thing I did was look at what kind of audio input plugs it had. I found out that the only kind it supported was this weird thing called DIN which basically looked like a larger S-Video plug except it had 5 pins. I did a little research on this mysterious 5-pin DIN audio cable, and I found out that it's an old German standard that I guess has been long abandoned in North America, except used rarely for some brands of keyboards (the instrument, not the computer kind).

I figured my only option at this point was to find some kind of 5-pin DIN to RCA or 3.5mm adapter much like this one. I checked the obvious retailers, Best Buy, The Source, but nobody had the adapter I needed. My next stop was eBay. There were a small handful of people selling them, but all at ridiculous prices. After some searching, I actually found somebody from The Republic of Cyprus that was selling the exact adapter I needed, and for a reasonable price. I bought it, and it came to about $12 CAD after shipping. Then I waited.

Finally, yesterday, it arrived. I immediately ran upstairs to see if it worked. I set the tape deck to line-in mode, connected my Zune, and turned up the volume. I heard music. It was awesome. I grabbed one of the blank tapes that I had nearby, put it in, and pressed record. After about 30 seconds I pressed stop, rewound the tape and pressed play to see if it worked. Silence.

My only guess was that the line-in mode is meant to be used as kind of an auxiliary system, so you can use the speakers with another audio device... But it doesn't actually let you record using it. So then I was back at square one. Today at work, though, I was reminded about a relatively simple and common piece of technology that could help me. A tape adapter.

It was so simple, I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. I've used tape adapters since I got my own portable CD player back in '95 or '96, but instead of this simple solution, I decided to order some archaic cable adapter on eBay from The Republic of Cyprus. So on my way home from the dentist today, I stopped and picked up a cheap tape adapter from Zellers for ten dollars (I had to laugh when the packaging said "compatible with iPods"... Oh, marketing). When I got home, I set everything up again, this time my Zune hooked up to the tape adapter which was inserted in the first tape deck, along with a blank tape inserted in the second deck. I pressed record and waited. After a few seconds I rewound the tape to give it a test. This time I heard music.

All this trouble was for nothing, though, because I'm assuming since the unit itself is so old, parts have been worn out and things don't move quite as smoothly as they used to. As a result, anything I play back in the deck ends up sounding just ever-so-slightly too slow. There is also a significant amount of distortion that can be heard on the tape, which pretty much destroys any enjoyment you can possibly get out of listening to music. On the plus side, I do now have a cable that lets me hook up my Zune or any other audio device so I can listen to it through the unit's speakers. The radio works pretty good, too. Now I just don't know what to do with 10 blank cassette tapes and a tape adapter.

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I went to my grandparents' house with Billie today, and while exploring the basement we came across a genuine ghetto blaster from the 80s. I've wanted one for a long time, but random visits to Value Village always resulted in disappointment. I found a modern one that you can buy online, but there is no way I am paying over $100 for something that just plays tapes.

On my way home I stopped and picked up a 10-pack of blank tapes from Zellers along with a tape cleaning kit. I plan on creating a few mixtapes, as well as recording a bunch of classic 80s albums just to keep it legit.

To my dismay, the only line-in jack that it supports is some 5-pin format called DIN, and of course all modern electronics either use a plain 3.5mm jack or stereo RCA cables. So I have to find a place that will sell a 5-pin DIN to 3.5mm audio jack if I want to record directly from my PC or MP3 player. By the time I found this out, the only place open was London Drugs, but they didn't have it there. I'm going to try Radio Shack or The Source tomorrow.

I did get a chance to try out the radio, which sounds very clear and actually packs a lot of bass. I expected it to sound very flat and junky, but I was actually completely surprised at how good it sounds.

Oh, and IT HAS LIGHTS:

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I got a comment on an older post of mine from somebody named Piter Kokoniz. The comment was simply this:

Hello !!!! :) I am Piter Kokoniz. oOnly want to tell, that your posts are really interesting And want to ask you: what was the reasson for you to start this blog? Sorry for my bad english:) Thank you! Piter.

That's it. No links to follow, nothing. I googled his name, and it turned up several posts on other blogs with the exact same comment from Mr. Kokoniz. Either he's new to the internet and doesn't "get" the whole spamming business, or he is legitimately curious as to why I created this blog. If the latter is true, then Pitir, let me tell you:

I started this blog because I am a web developer and I love the internet and technology. I wanted a place to share interesting things I find, and sometimes talk about little things that happen in my life. That's it, really. A simple answer.

So there you have it, Piter. I hope that answer was satisfactory. And don't worry, your english is fine.

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The above paragraph is the same as the one below, except it has been "eaten".

Brent showed me this site that translates any website into hilarious gibberish. There are multiple options for how your website of choice gets "eaten", but "Eat word endings" is my favorite. As far as I can tell, it replaces every word with another word that shares the same first three letters as the original.

The result is entertaining.

Try it here.

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