Toasters: They Just Don't Make Them Like They Used To

When my wife and I got engaged we decided to register for gifts and a new toaster oven was added to the registry despite the fact that we had a toaster that worked perfectly fine. Our old toaster oven was a hand me down from my dad. I don't know how many years he had it for but when he got remarried they had two of a lot of items and I took some of these extras off to college with me. 

The toaster, originally from NY, survived it's time in college with me and several subsequent years in Boston before being shipped off to Los Angeles to toast my bread while I worked in the music industry. It survived those three years and the trip back to Boston where it survived a few more years as our toast maker and pizza warmer.  

It was a simple toaster oven with two knobs and a lever. One knob to select the temperature while using the oven and a knob to select how dark you wanted your toast and a lever to start the toast process. No other extra features.  It was stained and dirty and bit banged up but it made toast quickly that browned evenly. 

We looked at three different stores trying to find a toaster oven that was easy to use without a ton of features we would never use. We were simply looking for a unit that would make toast and heat up left overs. We couldn't find a model that looked like it fit the bill but in a fit of wedding preperation stress and registering frustration and delerium we chose a toaster. 

It was made by black and decker. I think we were dizzy with hunger and had just changed our plate pattern for the eighteenth time so the logic of "hey, black and decker makes drills, this should be a good toaster" actually seemed to make sense. To me any way. My wife surrendered so we could leave and eat something.

The new toaster is now almost two years old and is broken. My dad's toaster which is most likely over 20 years old is now at our friend's house and is dutifully making toast and heating chicken nuggets. Their toaster died around the time we got our new one. It was probably around a year old. 

I guess they just dont make them the way they used to. Quality wise and ease of use wise. 

Maybe we can buy our friends a new toaster and get our old one back.

music quality VS audio quality

I just read an article on www.nytimes.com about the audio quality of music we listen to today. They pointed out how we are listening on devices that sacrifice audio quality and how music is recorded and compressed (the softest parts of the song are made louder and the peaks are brought down and then the overall level is brought up) to make the song sound louder.  

Should I be surprised that they didn't mention the fact that most of the music that is purchased and listened to on portable music players in a compressed digital format is crap. No mention of the quality of the music at all. That is the problem that is hurting the industry the most. 

I was an audio engineer and have a trained ear but if you are churning out crappy music I don't care what it sounds like. Maybe they should focus on making good music and not on making sure the song will be louder than the song before it on my iPod playlist.