February 14, 2012

  • XLO Reference Type 4, Part 3

    My friend and classmate, Roger, worked at the college radio station, KZSC.  Even during heavy metal's heyday, KZSC didn't play any metal.  So in early 1992, when KZSC received a copy of Lita Ford's Dangerous Curves, it had absolutely NO use for this album.  Roger simply gave it to me.

    Well, I was and am a metalhead.  So I eagerly took Dangerous Curves back to my apartment.  When I played it, I thought the songs were workmanlike.  But in those days of grunge and alternative, "workmanlike" mainstream rock/metal didn't cut it.  Sales of Dangerous Curves were non-existent.

    When I entered college, I discovered that the mattresses were all Twin XLs.  So everyone scrambles to find fitted sheets in Twin XL.  I don't recall which girl in my dorm said it.  But she remarked that, when we used white sheets on those Twin XL mattresses, they looked like maxi pads.

    Okay, let's return exactly 20 years ago, to Valentine's Day 1992.  Back then, UC operated a jitney between UCSC and UC Berkeley.  It left UCSC around 8:30a.  It then left Cal, I believe, around 4:00p.  It typically did not get back to UCSC until after 6:00p.  This jitney service was supposed to be for UCSC students, staff, and faculty.  But on Friday nights, Cal students would often use it to visit their friends at UCSC.  And on 2/14/92, that's exactly what ACS did. 

    After class, but well before ACS was to arrive, I listened to Lita Ford's "Shot Of Poison."  No, I did not see the video on that day.  In fact, I'm not sure when I saw the video, but I know I only saw it once, and that was it.  Yep, that Valentine night was full of parties, drunks, hooking up, passers-by flashing, shots of poison, ACS talking about vampires...

    20 years later, and 20 pounds heavier, I don't know how we college students slept together on those Twin XL mattresses.

    It's not exactly a white sheet over a Twin XL mattress, but the XLO Reference Type 4 digital coax comes with white heatshrink wrap over the RCA plug(s).

    Go back to my 3/3/08 post about the XLO Reference Type 4.  There, you will see it with a really generic, throwaway RCA plug.  XLO may have used that RCA plug for just a little while.  They then switched to Mogami 7550 GB RCAs, above.  The Mogami's barrel is slightly bigger.  Plus, the metal collar closer to the tip is unwrapped.  ACS referred to it as "circumcised." 

    By not wearing any clothes after showering at night, ACS was unwrapped.  Back at Cal, when ACS lived in off-campus apartments, she and her housemates left a bowl of colorful condoms next to the futon couch.  ACS would remark that, despite the glamorous festive-colored condoms, a guy's you-know-what certainly looked and felt better unwrapped.  Whose curves were more dangerous, ACS's or the Ref Type 4's?  All right, all right.  The only difference between the Type 4 digital cable and Type 1 line-level interconnect is the color of the heatshrink.  Otherwise, they are identical products.

    How do two college students fit on one Twin XL mattress?  By sleeping on their sides, in the spoons position.