Life

Tech-No-Mo

  • by Drew

I have this beautiful Tascam DAT deck from about 10 years ago. It was a bonus given me by a former employer when a particular project went off very well. It was a show of appreciation, and I…appreciated it greatly. I used the deck to mix a couple of records in my home studio back in the day, but since then, I have obtained different equipment that allows me to mix straight to CD. For all intents and purposes, at least my purposes, digital is digital, and the CDs are really a lot easier to deal with.

Problem is, now I have this nice DAT machine I haven’t used in quite a while and I’m thinking about its future. Actually, I’m thinking online auction, but I am concerned about performance. It doesn’t have a lot of hours on it, but it also hasn’t been used in ages, so…who knows. As a result, I am hesitant to demand top dollar since I’m no tech or anything. Then again, I don’t want to just give it away.

Anybody need a DAT?

BTW – if you don’t know what a DAT is, you don’t need it. And don’t feel bad. On one occasion, doing some impromptu mixes of a project when my drummer made a surprise visit, I tried buying DAT tapes at half a dozen stores. My favorite encounter was Radio Shack of all places. The guy working there had no idea what I was talking about and kept trying to get me to buy micro-cassettes, like for a Get Smart spy recorder. Just one of many times the Shack let me down.

Life

Puff

  • by Drew

Something else I saw at the bowling party, while I was spending all that time sitting in the parking lot reading comics, a guy smoking a pipe. Not, like, some old dude with a Rex Harrison hat and suede elbow patches. This was a guy in his thirties and seemingly out of the whole pipe-smoking realm (though he did have a sort of pseudo-academic sweater and facial hair combo). It’s just one of those things you don’t usually see, and it kind of threw me.

As the electronic smokeless cigarette makes its way to mall kiosks across America and the quest for the best ecig review is ongoing, I can’t help but wonder about the epipe. Is this an untapped possibility? Could I make millions on this? Think about the marketing – whether you’re a full time librarian or just want to look like one, the epipe is here for you!

Life

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’

  • by Drew

I’ve got to get off the Chuck E. theme. It’s just Chuck E.-ing my good nature right out the window. So, what about the bowling party? Glad you asked. Certainly, bowling was so much kinder than…that other place. The kids were generally more subdued and in line. They also had pizza and cake, and they also had the opportunity to play some arcade games if they so chose.

I actually spent most of the party in the car. See, the baby hadn’t napped all day and she fell asleep on the way over. It was actually planned that way. I brought some comics and I had my phone so I was good for awhile. When I finished two old Phantom double issues and the New York Four trade, though, it was time to wake her up and head inside. I had to shake the car a little bit to rouse her. It’s much better if she thinks she’s waking up naturally as opposed to being yoinked out of a sound nap.

And maybe if I wasn’t dying of thirst and needing to pee and noticing that cars noticeably lack kitchen sinks and urinals…maybe then she would have napped even longer.

The frustrating part is that she is such a poor napper. She only takes a good one in the unlikeliest of places, the unlikeliest of situations. Sigh. At least now I know, though, that if I really need her to take a nap I just need to head over to the bowling alley parking lot with some reading material.

And maybe a bottle of water and a pee jug.

Booze

Chuck E. Avoidance

  • by Drew

I should state that I am not totally advocating a Chuck E. ban or boycott or something so silly, in spite of my recent post about Chuck E. parents and kindergarten birthdays in general. We have actually gone to Chuck E. Cheese on a couple of past occasions. We weren’t going to parties, just taking the boys for some ridiculous over-stimulation as a sort of summer treat. We’ve only ever gone on weekdays, in the summer, a little before dinner time. On those days the place was crowded, but nowhere near as bad as it was this past Sunday. For the most part, the parents are still dips. On those non-party weekday nights you see a lot of parents who hang out in the booths eating wings and pizza and ignoring their children as they climb on things that shouldn’t be climbed on and cause a general ruckus that goes way beyond public spectacle. I’m not one for ignoring my children when they tear a place apart, act completely inappropriate in public, or run around cursing at strange adults, but…to each his own, I guess.

There are also the people who bring their kids in, but don’t buy them any tokens or food. The adults just hang out in a corner, also ignoring the behavior of their offspring, while the kids scam tokens from other kids, swipe tickets from little kids, and pick food off the salad bar when the employees aren’t looking.

But then, there are anomalies. For one, I’d like to think we are an anomaly. We supervise our kids and play the games with them. We all sit down and eat cardboard pizza together. It’s a family outing. The kids love it. The parents long for margaritas and escape. It is…again…a family outing.

There are other anomalies as well. Occasionally there is a parent or even a couple with neither tattoos nor 300 excess pounds. Occasionally there are other parents actually playing the games with the kids. Occasionally you even get a whiff of globalization, french accents, trying to get wi-fi for their portables. Chuck E. Cheese – soon to have their own seat at the United Nations.

Life

The Chuck E. Crowd

  • by Drew

One of the more noticeable aspects of a kindergarten birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. As I mentioned, there is a definite WalMart vibe to the place. Lots of missing teeth, lots of supersized Moms in men’s v-neck tees and sweat pants. to be fair, not every one of them is a slob, I saw some pajama jeans and algeria shoes out there.

But the rudeness. I mean, you kind of expect it from little kids running around. They’re so overstimulated and they just want to hear the bells ring and see the tickets roll out. But the parents…I don’t know , am I wrong to expect civility? I mean, I saw adults pushing little kids around to make room at games for their own children or even themselves. I saw adults pull tickets from machines when little kids ran away too quickly – and they didn’t even think about giving them to the kid, just added them to their own sweaty pile. And worst of all, I saw more than one adult take tokens when a little kid accidentally left them behind. And let me be very clear, these are incidents when the adult saw the kid walk away, and they pounced. It’s not like they innocently came upon a cup of tokens with no owner in sight.

Actually, I only saw the cup thing once. The other thing I saw was an adult who watched a kid drop a few tokens on the ground and stepped on a couple of them so the kid didn’t see them. He waited until the kid retrieved his other tokens and walked away, and then this wonderful man moved his foot and collected his booty. Seriously. Stealing from a 5 year old. How’s that for class?

I should also mention that these were not the parents of my son’s classmates. There were four birthday parties going on at once, and a whole hell of a lot of freelancers to boot. Even when all four parties were eating pizza and cake at their tables, the games were still jamming with non-party attending players. It was mad, simply mad.

Life

The weekend that was…

  • by Drew

Ouch. This past weekend was the weekend of Kindergarten birthday parties. Yup, my kindergartner is becoming a little social butterfly. I mean, dude, two parties in one weekend. This kid is so ready for college. He’s even got the come hither hooded eyes and effortless rock star hair. Is it wrong to envy your 5 year old progeny his rock star good looks.

But I digress. I’m not talking about my delightful kids. I’m talking about the weekend from hell. Specifically, the weekend featuring two little kids birthday parties.

The Saturday party was actually pretty good. It was a bowling party at a local place. I have been to a few bowling parties in the past, all with my older son, and this was, by far, the best one. The birthday parents were attentive and prepared and the kids actually followed something like the rules of bowling. It was a significant departure from my last bowling party a couple years back when each kid was just grabbing a ball and rolling it down that little kid helper rack roller thing. They didn’t even watch to see if they knocked down any pins. Sometimes you’d have three or four balls rolling down the lane at the same time. One kid even managed to get a ball stuck when the pin clearing thing came down and it temporarily disabled the entire place.

No such disasters on Saturday.

Sunday was the real nightmare. Chuck E. Cheese. As one of our friends, also a kindergarten parent, said: You must really hate the parents of your child’s classmates to subject them to a party on Chuck E. Cheese on a Sunday. Two words describe the so-called “where a kid can be a kid” spot: Absolute bedlam. If WalMart had a crappy arcade, it would be Chuck E. Cheese.

The noise is unbearable, the machines break down constantly, the kids are irritating, but the worst part of all is the parents. Seriously. I didn’t know there could be so many flavors of douche in one location. More variety than Black and mild cigars. And by the time you escape that hellhole, you’re ready for a hot shower, mouthwash and a session with that Men in Black memory eraser thingie.

Life

It’s not too late

  • by Drew

I’m still accepting Christmas donations to the annual Gifts for Drew fund. High-end electronics, Sferra sheets, restaurant gift certificates…any big ticket items will do.

Just kidding. I have everything I could want. Seriously. Sometimes with that third kid you start thinking you have even more than you deserve…or want…or can handle. But baskets in front of orphanages is so 20th century, I guess we’ll just stick with what we’ve got.

Christmas was lovely, full of surprises for all of us. So, delighted kids, delighted spouse, delighted me. It has been an all around lovely holiday season.

Still…I am so glad the kids are back in school today!

Booze

Happy New Year

  • by Drew

Happy Happy Joy Joy. Ren and Stimpy has made a recent reappearance on TV and my kids are now watching the show I was watching in college. I remember when Billy West spoke at UMass in the early 90s and he had a standing room audience. I had a ball making a PSA cart for good old WAMH announcing the event. All my life’s a circle indeed.

I can even whip out my Christmas with Ren and Stimpy CD from back in the day. Or maybe I’ll wait until I have grand kids – you know it will come around again. Twice by then. Of course, by then CDs will be long dead, I’m sure. All the standard media will be gone – discs of all sorts, usb drives, even mass printed paper I bet. By the time my grand kids are wandering about I’m sure they’ll just get the personal bar code on their wrist scanned, payment will be deducted from their bank balance, and the media will be uploaded directly into their cranial storage drive.

Then again, bar codes? We’ll be way beyond black and white parallel lines by then I’m certain.

But I’m not here to talk about Ren and Stimpy or the holidays or being the Production guy for WAMH in the early to mid 90s. I’m here to talk about food shopping on New Year’s Eve. Yup. That’s my topic. Didn’t see that coming, did you?

I was at Shop-Rite picking up a couple of last minute treats on Friday morning (New Year’s Eve). As I left the store with my frozen cheese bites and avocados (the wife makes a mean guacamole) there was a family entering. It was a large family. Both in terms of size and density. There were many of them and they were all large. As they entered, one woman read the announcement by the door that said the store would close at 10pm. At the time it was about 9:30am…just for context.

So I listened to the ensuing discussion and pieced together the complaint of this family. They were here to purchase treats for their New Year’s festivities, which was fine. Their consternation came from the fact they did not feel they had adequate storage to purchase enough food and drink, and were planning to come back closer to midnight to lay in supplies for the duration of their partying – surely to last well into the morning. The thing was, they were concerned that they would have to come as earlyas 10pm for their last call of snack and bev.

This is not a big-people-eat-a-lot point. It’s the holidays – we all eat a lot. The only reason I mention the size of the family members is that they must have a homestead of reasonable size to accommodate 8 large people. But…not enough food and or beer? I mean, it was cold out. Let Mother Nature chill your Bud Lite for a couple hours. How much do you plan to consume between 10pm and 1 am that you are upset the store will be closed? I mean…damn.

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.