Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

[Jason Stoddard]

If squirted onto the ground and left for the ages, I'm pretty sure it'd last longer than the Taj Mahal.

Have I told you the Dog and the Twinkie story (it's clean, I promise)?

 

[sixergixer]

Today's advent calendar sample of Chicken Cock Bourbon in the glass and queueing up Herbert Blomstedt & the San Francisco Symphony's brilliant 1994 recording of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem on Qobuz after an enjoyable morning listening to Fiona Apple and PJ Harvey.

If you've ever googled "best recording of classical work x" you've probably happened across the lively bloke in the background and his YouTube channel, The Ultimate Classical Musical Guide by Dave Hurwitz.

Mr. Hurwitz has a fun and energetic personality along with often humorous opinions of many of the more popular conductors, artists, and composers of the classical world. Mostly, he has an encyclopedic knowledge that really informs his entertaining ramblings. Fun stuff!

 

[sixergixer]

Have I told you the Dog and the Twinkie story (it's clean, I promise)?

Nope! Now I'm eager to hear it.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

If squirted onto the ground and left for the ages, I'm pretty sure it'd last longer than the Taj Mahal.

Say what now?

Oh. You said the Taj Mahal.
My bad.

 

[Lavcat]

Add a peg or hook to the headphone stand to coil or loop the cord on when not in use.

Good thought. I actually have some little hooks that match the look of the stand. Not sure where to put the hook though, unless on the top of the Midgard.

 

[sixergixer]

Say what now?

Oh. You said the Taj Mahal.
My bad.

 

[Lavcat]

I use the Woo HPS-R stand. It allows for the cable to be looped behind the headphones. Unless you have 12 feet of cable, it should work well for you.

"From $130"

 

[xTrIpX]

There may or may not be more than that in the future, we’ll have to wait and see.

My guess is that this has something to do with Jord

 

[xTrIpX]

Looking forward to the year end wrap up. Curious about the "Get Forked!" timeline. Specifically as it relates to Urd.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

The Dog and the Twinkie

Some background for non-USA readers: a Twinkie is an industrial-grade, ultra-processed pastry snack that US children of the 1970s and 1980s will be familiar with. Filled with a vaguely chemical-tasting white filling, and with a spring and consistency that suggested they were made from Styrofoam refuse, they were a staple of bagged school lunches for decades. I think they are dead now. I hope so. I'm certainly not going to look it up online.

A few decades back, as I was finishing my stint at Sumo and starting a new marketing company called Centric, I stopped by my friend Eddie's house one evening. This is the same Eddie that helped start Schiit in the Garage Days. Eddie lived in a small house on a big hill at the edge of the San Fernando Valley.

On this evening, he was sitting out on his patio, teetered back on a cheap plastic lawnchair, looking out over the panorama of the valley, like junk jewelry spread on black velvet. This wasn't unusual for Eddie.

What was unusual was the Twinkie sitting in the middle of the concrete patio.

"What's with the Twinkie?" I asked.

Eddie craned his head back to look, first at me, then at the Twinkie on the ground. It looked perfect, as if he had just set it there a minute ago, some weird postmodern artpiece you'd expect to see at a pretentious museum.

"Pick it up," he said.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Go ahead. Pick it up."

I didn't know where he was going with this, and Eddie was known to do some really bizarre practical jokes. So instead of picking it up, I nudged it with my foot.

It didn't move.

I mean, it didn't move a micron.

It was solidly glued to the patio concrete. Glued as in Liquid Nails glued. Glued as in melded-with-the-concrete, never-gonna-leave-this-earth glued.

And it was hard. Hard like rock. Hard like you'd lovingly painted that damn Twinkie with lacquer for, like, weeks.

"What?" I asked.

Eddie laughed, but said nothing.

I prodded the Twinkie a bit harder with my foot. It didn't move. It didn't even think about moving. Eddie watched this and laughed.

"I was outside feeding my foxes," Eddie said--he had a couple of foxes that came down off the hills at night and ate out of his hand--"And they didn't come by that night, so I put this Twinkie out on the patio for them. In the morning, though, it was still there."

"So it's been there a day?" I asked.

Eddie laughed. "No no no," he said. "It's been there a two months."

"Two months?"

"Yeah. And you know, the weird thing is, nothing ate it. I mean, like, no ants. Nothing. They just left it there."

I was going to say something about how yeah, that makes sense, that chemical concoction wasn't really even food, why the heck did he even have them, blah blah, woof woof...

...but that was the moment Eddie's sister decided to visit. I heard the front door open and slam, and then the fingernails-on-tile of her big doofy dog (part Doberman, part whatever, it was big and dumb), sliding through the kitchen and living room hell-bent on the open patio door. I looked back in time to see it shoot out onto the patio like a bullet.

At a full run, this doofy-ass, dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks dog saw that shiny perfect Twinkie, and seizing its perfect moment, lowered its head to snatch it up as it ran past us.

Or it tried to.

Because as soon as it latched on to that thing, it's head stopped and its body kept going. As in, the dog's legs came out from under it and it went sprawling akimbo on the patio, spinning around like a doriftuu master.

Eddie and I watched this dumbfounded, then started laughing uproariously. I mean 100% roflcopter laughing.

The dog?

Totally unfazed, the dog picked itself up, took another bite on the Twinkie, and started trying to tug it off the patio concrete. It pulled so hard its eyes rolled back in its head and its back legs came off the ground. Tug, tug, TUG...

Then finally, SNAP! The Twinkie came off the patio (leaving a 1/4" deep divot in the concrete) and the dog fell on its ass. Again unfazed, it picked itself up and went to a corner to chew on its prize like a rawhide toy. Eddie and I kept pissing ourselves laughing as the dog choked it down and his sister came out of the house to yell at us for feeding her dog.

The dog has since passed from this earth, but the Twinkie Divot is still there.

And that's the story of the Dog and the Twinkie.

Moral, if there is one: if the ants don't want it, probably best not to eat it yourself.

 

[Timster]

I completely agree with you regarding commercial breads. They're over-processed and about as healthy for you as a 99% bacon, bonbon, and bourbon diet.

Drop the Bonbons and you'd likely be OK

*NOT Health Advice
** Ninja'd by bcowen and jstoddard

 

[AstronomerXI]

The Dog and the Twinkie

Some background for non-USA readers: a Twinkie is an industrial-grade, ultra-processed pastry snack that US children of the 1970s and 1980s will be familiar with. Filled with a vaguely chemical-tasting white filling, and with a spring and consistency that suggested they were made from Styrofoam refuse, they were a staple of bagged school lunches for decades. I think they are dead now. I hope so. I'm certainly not going to look it up online.

A few decades back, as I was finishing my stint at Sumo and starting a new marketing company called Centric, I stopped by my friend Eddie's house one evening. This is the same Eddie that helped start Schiit in the Garage Days. Eddie lived in a small house on a big hill at the edge of the San Fernando Valley.

On this evening, he was sitting out on his patio, teetered back on a cheap plastic lawnchair, looking out over the panorama of the valley, like junk jewelry spread on black velvet. This wasn't unusual for Eddie.

What was unusual was the Twinkie sitting in the middle of the concrete patio.

"What's with the Twinkie?" I asked.

Eddie craned his head back to look, first at me, then at the Twinkie on the ground. It looked perfect, as if he had just set it there a minute ago, some weird postmodern artpiece you'd expect to see at a pretentious museum.

"Pick it up," he said.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Go ahead. Pick it up."

I didn't know where he was going with this, and Eddie was known to do some really bizarre practical jokes. So instead of picking it up, I nudged it with my foot.

It didn't move.

I mean, it didn't move a micron.

It was solidly glued to the patio concrete. Glued as in Liquid Nails glued. Glued as in melded-with-the-concrete, never-gonna-leave-this-earth glued.

And it was hard. Hard like rock. Hard like you'd lovingly painted that damn Twinkie with lacquer for, like, weeks.

"What?" I asked.

Eddie laughed, but said nothing.

I prodded the Twinkie a bit harder with my foot. It didn't move. It didn't even think about moving. Eddie watched this and laughed.

"I was outside feeding my foxes," Eddie said--he had a couple of foxes that came down off the hills at night and ate out of his hand--"And they didn't come by that night, so I put this Twinkie out on the patio for them. In the morning, though, it was still there."

"So it's been there a day?" I asked.

Eddie laughed. "No no no," he said. "It's been there a two months."

"Two months?"

"Yeah. And you know, the weird thing is, nothing ate it. I mean, like, no ants. Nothing. They just left it there."

I was going to say something about how yeah, that makes sense, that chemical concoction wasn't really even food, why the heck did he even have them, blah blah, woof woof...

...but that was the moment Eddie's sister decided to visit. I heard the front door open and slam, and then the fingernails-on-tile of her big doofy dog (part Doberman, part whatever, it was big and dumb), sliding through the kitchen and living room hell-bent on the open patio door. I looked back in time to see it shoot out onto the patio like a bullet.

At a full run, this doofy-ass, dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks dog saw that shiny perfect Twinkie, and seizing its perfect moment, lowered its head to snatch it up as it ran past us.

Or it tried to.

Because as soon as it latched on to that thing, it's head stopped and its body kept going. As in, the dog's legs came out from under it and it went sprawling akimbo on the patio, spinning around like a doriftuu master.

Eddie and I watched this dumbfounded, then started laughing uproariously. I mean 100% roflcopter laughing.

The dog?

Totally unfazed, the dog picked itself up, took another bite on the Twinkie, and started trying to tug it off the patio concrete. It pulled so hard its eyes rolled back in its head and its back legs came off the ground. Tug, tug, TUG...

Then finally, SNAP! The Twinkie came off the patio (leaving a 1/4" deep divot in the concrete) and the dog fell on its ass. Again unfazed, it picked itself up and went to a corner to chew on its prize like a rawhide toy. Eddie and I kept pissing ourselves laughing as the dog choked it down and his sister came out of the house to yell at us for feeding her dog.

The dog has since passed from this earth, but the Twinkie Divot is still there.

And that's the story of the Dog and the Twinkie.

Moral, if there is one: if the ants don't want it, probably best not to eat it yourself.

I laughed hard at that. Thanks!

 

[artur9]

"From $130"

These aren't too bad https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BK9V53WX
unless you have lots of cable.

 

[sixergixer]

oops, deleted

 

[sixergixer]

The Dog and the Twinkie

Some background for non-USA readers: a Twinkie is an industrial-grade, ultra-processed pastry snack that US children of the 1970s and 1980s will be familiar with. Filled with a vaguely chemical-tasting white filling, and with a spring and consistency that suggested they were made from Styrofoam refuse, they were a staple of bagged school lunches for decades. I think they are dead now. I hope so. I'm certainly not going to look it up online.

A few decades back, as I was finishing my stint at Sumo and starting a new marketing company called Centric, I stopped by my friend Eddie's house one evening. This is the same Eddie that helped start Schiit in the Garage Days. Eddie lived in a small house on a big hill at the edge of the San Fernando Valley.

On this evening, he was sitting out on his patio, teetered back on a cheap plastic lawnchair, looking out over the panorama of the valley, like junk jewelry spread on black velvet. This wasn't unusual for Eddie.

What was unusual was the Twinkie sitting in the middle of the concrete patio.

"What's with the Twinkie?" I asked.

Eddie craned his head back to look, first at me, then at the Twinkie on the ground. It looked perfect, as if he had just set it there a minute ago, some weird postmodern artpiece you'd expect to see at a pretentious museum.

"Pick it up," he said.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Go ahead. Pick it up."

I didn't know where he was going with this, and Eddie was known to do some really bizarre practical jokes. So instead of picking it up, I nudged it with my foot.

It didn't move.

I mean, it didn't move a micron.

It was solidly glued to the patio concrete. Glued as in Liquid Nails glued. Glued as in melded-with-the-concrete, never-gonna-leave-this-earth glued.

And it was hard. Hard like rock. Hard like you'd lovingly painted that damn Twinkie with lacquer for, like, weeks.

"What?" I asked.

Eddie laughed, but said nothing.

I prodded the Twinkie a bit harder with my foot. It didn't move. It didn't even think about moving. Eddie watched this and laughed.

"I was outside feeding my foxes," Eddie said--he had a couple of foxes that came down off the hills at night and ate out of his hand--"And they didn't come by that night, so I put this Twinkie out on the patio for them. In the morning, though, it was still there."

"So it's been there a day?" I asked.

Eddie laughed. "No no no," he said. "It's been there a two months."

"Two months?"

"Yeah. And you know, the weird thing is, nothing ate it. I mean, like, no ants. Nothing. They just left it there."

I was going to say something about how yeah, that makes sense, that chemical concoction wasn't really even food, why the heck did he even have them, blah blah, woof woof...

...but that was the moment Eddie's sister decided to visit. I heard the front door open and slam, and then the fingernails-on-tile of her big doofy dog (part Doberman, part whatever, it was big and dumb), sliding through the kitchen and living room hell-bent on the open patio door. I looked back in time to see it shoot out onto the patio like a bullet.

At a full run, this doofy-ass, dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks dog saw that shiny perfect Twinkie, and seizing its perfect moment, lowered its head to snatch it up as it ran past us.

Or it tried to.

Because as soon as it latched on to that thing, it's head stopped and its body kept going. As in, the dog's legs came out from under it and it went sprawling akimbo on the patio, spinning around like a doriftuu master.

Eddie and I watched this dumbfounded, then started laughing uproariously. I mean 100% roflcopter laughing.

The dog?

Totally unfazed, the dog picked itself up, took another bite on the Twinkie, and started trying to tug it off the patio concrete. It pulled so hard its eyes rolled back in its head and its back legs came off the ground. Tug, tug, TUG...

Then finally, SNAP! The Twinkie came off the patio (leaving a 1/4" deep divot in the concrete) and the dog fell on its ass. Again unfazed, it picked itself up and went to a corner to chew on its prize like a rawhide toy. Eddie and I kept pissing ourselves laughing as the dog choked it down and his sister came out of the house to yell at us for feeding her dog.

The dog has since passed from this earth, but the Twinkie Divot is still there.

And that's the story of the Dog and the Twinkie.

Moral, if there is one: if the ants don't want it, probably best not to eat it yourself.

Definitely worthy of some roflcopter lol'ing. How funny!

Twinkies are still made -- in China now so extra caution to would-be consumers -- and will likely be there until the end of society as we know it.