Sale: Deep Fried Grease Bits

Your love is like  flesh-eating bacteria

Flying AIDS Emmy?

Los Angeles has gotten really bored or really stoned and bestowed an Emmy upon New York Governor Coumo for his Flying AIDS updates.

New York is a Flying AIDS mess, with all sorts of unconstitutional restrictions and Hollywood sends an Emmy for updates. Watch out - the next update will feature a beat box in the background and Cuomo will win a Grammy. 

I don't know what organ informs Hollywood's decisions, but it's not anywhere in the cranial neighborhood. Perhaps decriminalization of magic mushrooms is taking its toll... Hey man.... let's give an Emmy for something that doesn't get Emmys. Perhaps they expended too much hot air whining about the president and are acting all sorts of funny.  DOCTOR - we need air in here! Get the masks.

An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, is an American award that recognizes excellence in the television industry.

ThermionicEmissions has information on upcoming Emmys:

• the chair one of the judges in one of the talent judging shows sat on
• Anything Biden says on tv
• Joe Namath's Medicare commercial
• the most unrecognized people on tv: bailiffs on all the judge shows 
• the people who make the power cords for the 80" tv's
• whoever took off those Little House with an Angel shows
• Oprah's farts

Today I identify as  Jeffrey Dahmer's fork

• Penny is a shredder, from a long line of shredders at the address. Because of this, she has to be watched carefully, lest she steal something and start shredding it. There is a box with a few stuffed animals in it on the floor. Apparently she doesn't feel this is hers, so she's ignoring it. Instead, she managed to locate a fuzzy, expensive shoe-sock thingie and is chewing that. We showed her the stuffed animal xmas box and she ignored it.
• Spaniel Math: the desirability of something = how much People need it divided by availability  D = P/A

In the Utah desert, a helicopter pilot discovered a metal monolith.

At this point, there are no primates banging on it with bones, but no one knows what it is. In hysterics at this point are the aliens who gave Arthur C. Clarke the script for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The aliens are a interesting bunch, and have wicked senses of humor, abducting people and putting things up their butts for fun. They also move things around on the Moon to throw off scientific measurements. They get a pretty bad rap, but people who understand their sense of humor get a kick out of them. Something will happen to people who stand near the monolith for too long, I predict. Perhaps flowers growing out of their heads, or turning into Elvis. The aliens are huge Elvis fans, even though they had nothing to do with him. They gave him his own ship after he faked his own death, and he does concerts for them in the Pleiades. The female aliens throw their gargafransens at him. They also love to make Jesus appear on different things, especially toast.

Just don't mistake their sense of humor for benevolence. If you get on their bad side, you could find something very large up your butt. Insurance specifically excludes removal of anything from the butt installed by aliens...

Now you're probably asking yourself how and why a helicopter pilot discovered the monolith. They were counting sheep. You're probably asking yourself why federal dollars are spent counting sheep, in a helicopter, in the Utah desert, on federal land. And I'm here to tell you I have no flipping idea. I can't tell you anything more than we're probably getting charged an astronomical amount per hour for the helicopter, unless we bought it, in which case we paid an astronomical amount for it. Then there's the federal employees required for the job. John is the pilot. John  is that most rare of federal employees: the one who can do his job really well. Let's be honest, you want a John flying your helicopter, unless you want an incredibly high turnover rate, both in personnel and in helicopters. However, in the passenger seat is Bob. Bob is your most typical federal employee.. the kind who has to be awakened to clock out for the day. Now Bob's job is to count the sheep. Unfortunately, Bob can't count past 9-5, so there are a lot of trips. They take off, Bob counts to 9, they land, then they do it all over the next day. Unfortunately, this never results in an accurate count of sheep on federal land. Fortunately, though, no one needs an accurate count of sheep on federal land... they were given patronage jobs by some Congressman, in trade for flying over a Utah resort and counting the number of bikinis.

But before you get angry and start writing letters sending emails thinking very negatively about this, just be glad they didn't use Jimmy to do the counting. Jimmy is a drummer and count count past 4 (1-2-3-4).

Dear lefty  

• I don't feel really close with my mother. Why is this?
• When you were growing up, did you have a lot of 'uncles'? 

Finnish Prime Minister says trans people have a right to self-identify.

Ideally, yes, but let's stop and think for a moment... what does any of this have to do with their ability to do the job? I didn't vote for you because you were born in the wrong body: I voted for you because I believe you're the best man woman person for the job. The last guy in the position said absolutely nothing about his bitches and ho's. I don't care if you identify as an F-15, both other voters might say it's difficult to do your job at that altitude.

• TIPS for safe online buying this season 
• Don't.

Chess culture is allegedly being changed by attractive women becoming stars.

No it isn't. You'll still have groups of chess nerds, off to the side, talking abut how hot the chicks are, and lacking the courage to talk to them, even about chess.

• a Space-X rocket to the Moon failed after it got behind a Chinese rocket to the moon. The Chinese rocket was reportedly driving with its turn signal on, too slow for Moon entry, and looked like it didn't know where it was going. The unmanned Space-X rocket gave up and auto-destructed.

Experts, and people who are paid to say Important-Sounding Things, are going on about the ills of isolation during the Flying AIDS. It's a good thing they never asked the lefty household... lefty kinda liked his partial isolation. Mrs lefty was more social. During the Flying AIDS, lefty felt very little ill from isolation and Mrs lefty was heard to say, "You really have something there. I'm not all that fond of people either, lefty." I predict most of us will remain mostly isolated, except THOSE people... the former cheerleaders and used car salesmen. The people you just want to stab when you get within 50' of them. And Aunt Bertha, who still treats you as if you were 4, asking if you want a cookie. The sad part of it all is that you do want a cookie, but you're not braving Aunt Bertha to get one.. You wind up telling the family you have the Flying AIDS so they won't expect you at the now weekly family gatherings. If you really value your isolation, you tell them you're a carrier.

• Walmart-exclusive routers and other sold on Amazon and Ebay contain hidden backdoors
• Security researchers sound alarm on smart doorbells
• Told You So. Avoid IoT when you can. Research anything you plan to buy. Avoid Chinese. Keep firmware updated. Ask questions. Even ask me - comment and I'll respond.

Black Fridays are here. And when I say Black Fridays, I mean any day near Thanksgiving. I'm checking out the deals, and because they're all crap, or because I'm horribly depressed, nothing looks good to me. They seem to consist of largely wireless ear buds, the requisite large tv's (next year they'll be wider than your house), and Smart devices. I can't get my head around people buying devices that spy on them. You're paying $49.95 for a 'Smart' speaker that you talk to, allowing Amazon to build a better profile on you. But it's ok, they're only on when you say, "HEY AMAZON."  Oh? They're on all the time? Oh.

Lest you think I'm some sort of tech Luddite, I have a pair of wireless ear buds (and run a multi-million dollar network). I paired them with my phone, and only the right one actually paired. Since I have the attention span of a pregnant gnat, that was as far as I got. Plus, if you think about it, what use do I have for wireless ear buds if I don't get out much? Sure, maybe food shopping, when forced to. I use the wired ones now. They have a habit of tying themselves in knots right before I turn on some music, even though they were perfectly fine a second ago. My phone has a volume limiter, so I don't go deaf, which means I can't hear the music anyway, and am subjected to "Cleanup on aisle 4" and "Where's the tampons?"

Of course I'm expecting no end of fun when I fire up the ear buds. Whoops - they aren't charged. Whoops, where did I put the left one? Whoops, they fell out and are on the floor of the store, and probably full of the Flying AIDS. So yeah, wired phones ain't that bad. Then there are the noise-canceling phones. Although the FDA hasn't examined these yet, they're a bit of a misnomer. They will not quiet your wife or significant other. Or any noise that's bothering you. They work based upon the principle of Sound Forgettance, where they hope you'll get so into what's coming out of them, you somehow ignore the kids playing Miley at deafness level in the same room. 

But rest assured you'll pay quite a premium for them, especially if they're Bose. Bose, founded by Mr Bose, has created a business second in intelligence to only Amazon. Bose started in speakers, on the principle that you'll hear better audio if the speakers were pointed in the other direction. As audiophiles (or audiophools) started to swallow this, Bose went to Plan B: put a lot of individual speakers into their speakers, pointed in the other direction. This drove the audiophools into orgiastic glee, except for the ones who could hear. You had 1speaker box, with about 8 six inch speakers in it, plus one pointing AT the listener, for some strange reason. At this point, people with any amount of hearing wet themselves with laughter, while the audiophools talked about accurate soundstage, the music realistically disappearing into the curtains, and the king's new clothes being simply boffo. So Bose went into headphones, with a completely proprietary design. 8 tiny little speakers point outside your ear, while 1 tiny little speaker points inside your ear. The noise canceling models cost another $300 and are exactly alike, except Bose hopes the 8 tiny little speakers point outside really annoy the noisemakers, so they go away, hence noise canceling. I just can't take them seriously. ymmv.

• I dunno about you, but I feel warm and holiday-like. I got an email from all of my local and federal representatives for Thanksgiving.

Something weird happened to audio quality over the years: it disappeared.

People used to be strangely proud of their stereo systems. They'd save up and buy the most expensive, great-sounding components they could buy. There were physical arguments over whose receiver had less harmonic distortion and whose tone arm on their record player was more dead than the others. People were attaching their players to concrete blocks to stop the jiggling. The race was on for wattage: this little thing only had 4 watts, and people laughed at it. Serious stereos started at 50 watts and went past 200. Have you ever been near 50 watts? It's roughly the level of the front row of a concert or a jackhammer (sometimes the same thing). The receivers became larger and heavier.

Then came the real loonies. These guys had the equipment that if you were blindfolded, you'd swear the band was in the room with you. They were loonies only in the amount of money they'd spend on their stereos. These guys went backwards to vacuum tubes. The really far out ones had separate Right and Left amplifiers. These amplifiers cost about as much as a car today. Each. The speaker technology they used was the start of the technology NASA used to send astronauts to Venus.

When the real loonies ran out of money, they got together with the regular loonies and perpetrated a joke so rotten and nasty, it continues to this day: Monster Cable.  These are the cables that are twice the size of your regular hookup cables. They have special oxygen-free insides, gold-plated connectors, and they roll themselves up of there's too much spare cable. They also cost 9 times as much as regular cable. Many a tear was shed in laughter as they watched people argue over the benefits in fidelity using these cables. After a while the joke started getting old, so they came up with Monster Power Cables. You know, the cord you plug into the wall, that goes to your computer. Yeah, that power cable would provide good, clean, oomph for your stereo. Again, laughter ensued, and all was well. Then CDs appeared, and new arguments broke out. Watching audio formats change was a never-ending source of amusement. Until compression, aka MP3s.

The mp3 was a concept where parts of the music deemed unhearable (or unnecessary) were removed from the song, making the file smaller.  Since hard drive space was expensive, this was quickly adopted. Apple, of course, had their own compression. All you had to do was listen to the song from a cd and an mp3 to hear the difference. Plus it would sound a lot better from your home stereo than the computer, which had tiny little plastic speakers on it (and does to this day). 

Now hard drive space is incredibly cheap, CDs are all but obsolete, music files are likely 'in the cloud', and we're seeing a resurgence of RECORDS. Older folks have to keep changing their underwear from laughing at all this. In order to play the records, you have to buy a turntable. There are plenty out there, and most are plastic crap. The people who used the original turntables to play the original records are amused by all this, with deja-vu popping up all over the place. They remember the specific records now for sale because they had them in their collections. The older people who consumed a lot of ... recreational pharmaceuticals... still think it's the 70s and that the albums never stopped being sold. "Wow, man... didja see the new Zep record? Trippy. We can sort our pot on it- get rid of the seeds." The hoarders among them still have their entire record collection, much of which still smells like pot.

I did a thing a while back.

Someone gave me a tube stereo. I looked it over and plugged it in, in place of my regular old receiver. I was flabbergasted - they were right. The difference was night and day. I heard people talk about soundstage and laughed at the word. Damn if I didn't perceive soundstage. And much greater fidelity. This is the way to go, people.

All my guitar amps use tubes too, but for different reasons.

The US can't make tubes anymore, for environmental reasons, but the guitar amp industry keeps the foreign tube industry alive (China + Russia).

If you pick up a map and ask me where China and Russia are, I'll stare blankly at you. But I can sure tell you the 2 countries still making vacuum tubes and why. I am public school education at its best.

if this guy were my neighbor, he'd be by for dinner a lot

Tech 21 - Guitar Content Only

GUITAR STUFF - read at your own peril


Tech21 is the manufacturer of the famous SansAmp no-amp rigs that plug right into an amp or console. The current series is the Fly Rig, available in basic or different artist flavors. Without even touching the tones, the concept is tremendous. An amplifier/effects rig in a small (12" ?) pedal. A lot of my fellow guitar players keep one of these in their bag in case their amp lets out the Magic Smoke and stops working [Magic Smoke makes all electronics run. If you let the Magic Smoke out, the device won't run anymore]. Some people use these as fly rigs (stop it), where they go to small or hastily put together shows without their amp - they just fly out with one of these boxes. Amp moving costs a lot of money too, especially overseas.

Richie Kotzen has a signature model, which he uses in his everyday rig, into an onstage clean amp. You can't get more authentic than that. He spent a lot of time developing it with Tech21, to their credit.

Tech21 has a page of videos on YouTube, as is mandatory these days. It's great because anyone can hear what they sound like before auditioning one for themselves or ordering one. They're reasonably priced too. And here is where I have a few issues (other issues, thank you). I want to reiterate that these are great pedals and incredibly useful. You're getting my opinion only here.

In the Pete Thorn video, he does a good job demoing the pedal. I'm with him right up until he starts saying it's a great sounding pedal. Pete is a phenomenal guitar player, with a ton of unbelievably good sounding vintage and custom amps. I don't see this kind of comparison as valid. It's not that I don't think the pedal sounds good or works well in a track... it's just the comparison.

In some of the videos, additional pedals are used. I didn't watch the videos to hear how the device sounds with other pedals; I want to hear it by itself. Show me what it can do. Putting a DS-1 in line to sound like Joe Satriani is like putting a Fuzz Face in line to sound like Jimi. Want to impress potential customers? Create the sound with the Fly Rig itself. No, you won't nail Van Halen's Unchained without the external flanger, but that's completely forgivable.

Now that I've given my personal opinion, let me give my personal opinion (on the viability of a Fly Rig in my rig) (sorry). I'm not what you'd call a working musician, as most musicians aren't. However I'm a pretty well-equipped non-working musician. Instead of buying Nice Stuff all my life, everything went into gear. My amps run from a real tweed Champ to a 74 Marshall half stack. I have some concept of tone, and it tends to line up nicely with general consensus.

Quite frankly, the boxes don't sound like or as good as amps. Nothing's wrong here, as one cannot reasonably expect a pedal to sound like a Fender tweed Deluxe or tan Bassman. I'm not all that crazy about the sound. However, I agree with many who carry it in their spares case. I also think it's very valuable for recording, in that the tones will sit nicely in the track, as well as not needing to crank up the Plexi at 2am. Further, I would rather hear the amp behind me, blowing sound at me onstage, not through monitors.

Suggestion: you did a great job on packaging the pedals. They're ideal because they're very small, and that's my issue.. I was not born with balance, grace, or the ability to see well on a dark stage. I'd make the pedal wider, so Stage Ballet isn't necessary. As for width, 12" isn't enough (STOP IT!). I'd give it another 6" or so, to comfortably get my huge, flat feet to hit the correct switch. My feet are so flat (HOW FLAT ARE THEY?) they're so flat that NIST uses them as a standard.

***********************************

The Character Series pedals are designed to sound like a specific amp, available in Blonde (60s Fender blonde amps), British (Marshall), and Liverpool (Vox AC30/15), among others. I'll save us a lot of extra reading and say my opinion of these is the same as the Fly Rig: they don't really sound like their name, but they get you in the ballpark and are great as a utility, spare, or recording pedal.

**********************************

The future will bring us pedals that sound really close to the original tone. This is happening in software these days, at least in terms of improvements. Software is somewhat (incredibly) difficult to use in a live setting, so it lives in the studio for now. Well.... not entirely... these Tech 21 products are analog (discrete parts, like they used from the first ever pedal). Digital pedals use software to manipulate the bits and bobs to achieve the desired effect (sorry again).

A big problem in any emulator is emulating vacuum tubes (valves in the UK). It's not easy, but if ads are any indication, tubes are important, Most emulators, pedals, and amps use the phrase "Sounds just like tubes". Another bump is emulating 'sag', which is the positive effect of tubes squashing their power supply. One of the best tones ever comes from tubes operating close to their maximum specs.  So TURN IT UP! has a sound basis in electronics, as well as tone.

If you can't get, can't afford, can't tell the difference, or don't want to schlep large, heavy tube amps, buy pedals. This is probably one of the weirdest non-reviews Tech 21 has ever come across.



As one would expect, cheaper clones, made (way) offshore, are available in many flavors, and have their own YouTube videos.





** go ahead - accuse me of being a dinosaur. If using close to the original amplifiers the pedals attempt to emulate is being a dinosaur... if being very picky about tone is being a dinosaur... if Jeff Beck, Jimi Page, and Frank Zappa are still using/used the originals.... I'm a dinosaur. When El Becko and Page hit the stage without their Marshall tube backline and sound seriously good, it will be time for me to give a serious listen to what they're using. When Frank Zappa hits the stage without his impossibly complex tube rig, I will seriously start to question reality. After the show, of course.

Joe Walsh - Analog Man

I'm a big Joe Walsh fan from way back.

It's rare to find a rock star who shares so many of my passions: tone, tubes, lunacy, ham radio, guitars, and writing.  It's also rare to locate a writer whose melodies stick inside my head in a forever kind of way.

We haven't heard any solo Joe since 1992's Songs for a Dying Planet, which would be our loss.  Joe's back with Analog Man, which was, of course, recorded digitally.  The title refers to being an analog man in a digital world.  There's a great line about having to ask a ten year old how to operate something.

Joe has loosely joined the extended Beatles family by marrying Ringo's sister-in-law (or something like that).  Ringo appears on two tracks.  But nothing says Beatles like being produced by the Invisible Beatle, Jeff Lynne.  Usually Jeff's sterling production is stamped all over the songs in a very sonically apparent way.  Fortunately this is not the case here.  Don't get me wrong - I like Jeff Lynne as a musician, writer, singer, and player.  And occasionally a producer - he has done some great work.  One Day at a Time is pretty heavy Jeff.  The combination of the acoustic guitars and too heavily compressed clean guitars leaves no room for guessing.

So what's new?  Joe has stopped drinking.  You can tell from the song titles and a bit of listening that he is a happy ex-drunk: Family illustrates this well but not in an over-the-top way.

I got on the mailing list so they notified me that today was the official release.  Joe himself will be appearing in New York, but unfortunately at an Apple store.  If I go anywhere near an Apple store, I may melt and don't want to take that chance.  My browser broke last time I had to go to apple.com and I'm still trying to clean out the smoke.

What I'm looking for from the new release is the same thing I'm looking for from any Joe Walsh music: some tunes that will not leave my head.  Melodies that get stuck and will be replayed forever, like Indian Summer and At the Station.

Want some familiar, radio-friendly Joe?  Funk #50 would be your tune, complete with hooks you might already know.


Joe: thanks for being part of the soundtrack to my life.  Stop by when you're in Philthydelphia (no dates scheduled) or drop me a line.  We'll talk tubes and you can try to convince me to learn code  :)

Hamfests and Other Porcine Efforts

Today was a hallmark day of the year: the first hamfest of the season.  For those unfamiliar, hamfests do not actually involve pigs or other pork products at all.  It is an electronic flea market, focusing largely on amateur radio gear.  Since I like amateur radio, scanners, and old shortwave tube radios that weigh more than my car (boatanchors), it's always a fun time.  The internet has largely killed in-person shopping fun so we have to seek it out where we can find it.

Today's shopping extravaganza happened in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, at a place called the Grange.  This was far start enough from the house as to start entering the hinterlands, hence the Grange.  We have no granges in my town.  In fact, if I didn't know of this one, I'd say we had no granges in the state.  The date of this particular `fest is always in contention, largely as it always rains on this `fest.  They tried moving it a week in either direction and it rained then too.

What they failed to grok is that this is Pennsylvania, where the state bird is the cloud and the state color is gray.  My house not only has a cloud based largely over it but so does the state.

But enough observationhal humor about Pennsylvania - anyone who has visited it has enough ammunition for days of this stuff.

The only serious problem the radio amateurs (hams) present is that the hamfests tend to start at seven or eight in the morning.  As a musician and dyed-in-the-wool computer geek, I try never to even think about seven in the morning, no less see it.  So after the initial shock of an alarm going off at six in the morning, I somehow managed to find myself out of bed and pointed in the vicinity of the car.  Fortunately the wife was driving, so being asleep was an acceptable option for me.  Not for my wife, though, which is a matter I will not be addressing in an upcoming blog entry.

The weather, albeit cold, was pretty good, as was the turnout.  Both vendors and shoppers were out in full force, even as we were parking.  Hamfests are not only fun, but very interesting places to watch people.  You see all kinds, by which I mean 95% male, 90% over 50, and 99% less than attractive.  In fact, the only way attractive people can get into a hamfest is on a minority scholarship.

Computer goodies can also be found.  And there was good news for computer people: Windows 98 is no longer considered state of the art.

I did see a few boatanchor shortwave radios, including one I really want to get my hands on: a radio called an R390.  Unfortunately it's something like seventy-five pounds and the vendor wanted $600 for it.  I had to leave it there because I left my $600 bill at home.

Just so you think the ladies are underrepresented, there are many items my wife looked at.  She spent a lot of her time pointing out things I missed, like tubes.  It's a great place to find weird tubes.  In fact, guitar players are starting to get hip to hamfests.  I saw a guy who makes guitar amplifiers locally checking things out.

But the people, the people....  today's absolute winner had to be the person I saw across the way.  It was probably the large pink shorts that caught my eye.  I naturally assumed this woman was to be observed (even after I realized this was a guy).  The wide shorts transitioned to a sweat jacket, with a tightly-tied hood and another jacket outside it.  The cherry on the top was definitely the latex gloves.

After meeting a friend and chatting about our various and sundry ailments, I realized that this would be like Disneyland for the right psychologist.  And after throwing in the wife's diagnoses, it could become a lifetime project.

Before we knew it we were hungry for lunch.  And why not - it was almost nine.  Fortunately for us, the Grange kitchen staff had been hard at work for a while, preparing stuff for our enjoyment.  As we moved toward the counter, my wife heard the Magic Words<tm>: hot dogs.  Hot dogs are timeless, so we had to have them.

The nice old lady at the counter had other ideas.  Before I could get a word out, she asked if I wanted the last of the egg casserole.  Or something like that - I couldn't understand her and my wife just stood there looking helpless.  I smiled and my wife indicated her desire for a hot dog.  I seconded.  Unfortunately it became immediately apparent that my request was not processed and that this was to be a memorable order.

We watched as the lady picked up a hot dog.  She asked about sauerkraut, which my wife approved.   `Sally' picked up what I can only describe as a little paper hot dog cozy, put the dog on it, then piled on the kraut.  At this point I can guarantee there were many internal conversations happening and I'm only talking about the wife and myself.  Finally a less flummoxed coworker asked Sally if she had forgotten something... perhaps a roll.  Sally's last remaining brain cell leapt into gear and she offered that something did indeed seem amiss.

Some laughed.  My wife laughed.  I couldn't bring myself to laugh at Sally, as her faculties were obviously on strike.  I simply asked the less flummoxed coworker for a hot dog with sauerkraut and a bun, which elicited joy from all concerned.  Sally went back on Egg Casserole Duty, presumably where she wouldn't hurt anything (except sales).  I discovered the secret to their donuts when I watched them crumbling up Dunkin Donuts boxes.  No matter, we were there before seven in the morning anyway.  My wife will not leave the house without first stopping at the local Dunkin Donuts (HER Dunkin Donuts) for an intravenous refill of coffee.

With all of that hilarity behind us, as well as the hot dogs and both buns, it was time to bid the hamfest a fond farewell.  There will be another at the Grange later this year, round about the time it's getting too cold to continue.  We will return, cash in hand, and ready to get hot dogs.

But seriously, folks, one can procure much more than hot dogs.  There were also sodas.  But I digress (still): we saw radio-controlled airplanes, toys, test gear, power tools, and all sorts of other manly day-out treats for our weary eyes.  It's a nasty hobby but somebody has to do it.

It was a great, strangely sunny day.  We even got to sit on the front steps and grumble about having trouble parking due to the damn church down the block.

But certainly you're asking yourself what other porcine events I attend.  Funny you should ask.  We're but a month or so away from a huge block party/pig roast at which my band is performing.   Yes, you know you've `made it' when you are headlining a pig roast for the third year in a row.  It will be hot.  It will be humid.  There will be pig.  And it will be loud.