Herculodge

The $48 Alternative to the $219 Tivoli PAL: The Sangean MMR-77

I purchased my Tivoli PAL  about 4 years ago for $130. It's a great radio with an automatic recharger. But its price has skyrocketed. As I write, it goes for $219. If you don't need an iPod auxiliary port and need a reliable, strong-performance radio for the outdoors and want to save $171, you might take a look at the Sangean MMR-77 Emergency Radio. You can power it by winding its crank or plug it in. No, it does not substitute the PAL; however, it is a cheaper portable radio that is not dependent on AC power. If you're just chillin at the beach or going fishing, I doubt you want to take a $219 radio along. Also it seems wise to carry a high quality emergency radio in your car trunk. You never know when you might need it.

As far as the MMR-77's quality goes, here Herculodge reader Tom Welch writes the following:

The Sangean MMR-77 emergency radio has strong crank mechanism, well built, sized for portability, and gives decent AM/FM performance when you consider its intended function and design limitations (antenna less than 12"). My friends have purchased Eton and Kaito competitors; they have all been disappointed with mostly the build quality and durability of their emergency radios. A neighbor has owned the Sangean MMR-77 for 3 years and the radio is still in great shape despite heavy use including camping trips and cross country RV travel. About 30 seconds of cranking the dynamo gets you 3 hours of radio listening time. I like the tuning and charging LEDs, water resistance, buzzer, and illumination lamp is pretty handy in an emergency situation. IMHO, Sangean has done a nice job in picking the right features for most emergencies while delivering a product at an affordable price point for consumers.

Why I Sold My Tivoli Model One and Model Three

What a shame I had to sell my Tivoli Model One and Model Three radios. I truly wanted to love them. There was so much to love: great look, gorgeous sound from the speakers, ease of use. But for all their appeal, they are phony radios and failures. Why? Because their FM signal drifts and is substandard, especially when you consider the price. If you want the "Tivoli experience," there are a couple of Tivoli radios I CAN recommend because they get good FM reception: The Tivoli Songbook  and the Tivoli PAL. As I post this, the PAL is going for $220 on Amazon. For me, that's way overpriced. I bought mine 4 years ago for $130. Two excellent radios that get superior reception to the Tivolis and cost LESS THAN HALF and are highly recommended: The $70 Sangean PR-D5 and the $85 Boston Acoustics Horizon Solo. For all my radio reviews, CLICK HERE.

Save Your Manhood Tip #32: With the Right Attitude, Yoga Can be Manly

Dear Mr. Man Points,

Recently my wife persuaded me to take a yoga class with her at our local health club. The yoga class is in the back of the gym, so that my wife and I had to navigate through the weight-lifting section first and it was here that I had to pass the gauntlet of all my former workout buddies, hefty goliaths with bloated pecs and chalk on their calloused hands. I still have fresh and fond memories of us all bouncing four-hundred-pound barbells off our chests during male-bonding bench-pressing orgies. With this rich history, I had hoped these over-muscled fellows would give me a friendly nod, but I was greatly mistaken. They took one look at me in my yoga outfit, earth toned crop pants and zip hoody made of organic cotton, and they sneered at me with contempt and shook their heads. I could almost hear them muttering to themselves, “Another one of us gone to the other side.” I felt mortified like I had committed some heinous Man Points violation. Was my venturing into the yoga section a trespass of some sort?

Good God, man. It’s not the yoga that makes you lose Man Points. It’s you giving a crap what those troglodytes think of you. For the record, men who sneer at yoga are ignoramuses. For it is a well established fact among Men In The Know that over ten years ago the entire Philadelphia Eagles football team started doing yoga as a way of improving their athleticism and reducing injuries. The benefits proved to be so dramatic that today all NFL teams do yoga. Clearly, NFL players are at the top of the Man Points Hierarchy. So the next time you accompany your wife to a yoga lesson, grow some Man Balls and walk proudly by her side.

Save Your Manhood Tip #31: Don't Train at the Gym with Your Girlfriend

Dear Mr. Man Points,

Like me, my girlfriend is gym rat so I thought it would only be logical to not only start training at the same gym as her but to be her training partner. She is a very fit beautiful girl and I assumed being seen with her at the gym would increase my Man Points but my buddies have warned me that training with her will have the opposite effect. Who’s right?

Your buddies are quite right for several reasons.  First of all, there are few things more annoying and loathsome than Conspicuous Gym Couples. These attention-seekers inevitably make a big production about how deeply “in-love” they are while at the same time promoting themselves as serious workout buffs. To cater to their image as gym fanatics, they have to tote several bottles of water and “high-energy” drinks with them from each workout station to the other. They also carry “workout journals” and after every set they dutifully record their “performance statistics.” It’s not so much that they need all these fluids and scrupulously recorded workout data. Rather, it’s that these liquids and logbooks are used as part of their workout props to inflate their self-image.

Additionally, these pestilent gym couples spend so much time preening themselves between sets, doing abdominal poses in the mirror for example, or checking out the striations in their calves, that they end up spending over a half-hour on every exercise and as such they hog the equipment. To annoy the rest of the gym members more than they already have, they make coochie-coochie faces at each other while they’re training, which you must know is a huge Man Points violation. Especially nauseating is when one of their favorite love songs blasts from the gym speakers and while the guy is doing, say, standing cable cross-overs for his pecs and his girlfriend is “spotting” him, they mouth the song’s lyrics to each other and do a little booty shake to emphasize the song’s beat. Naturally, this must result in an even greater loss of Man Points.

Now I am not saying that your intentions are not good, but it has been my experience that even the best-intentioned men fall into the traps I’ve described. Additionally, there are practical impediments to training with a woman such as your strength disparity. Because the woman usually must use far less weight, the whole workout is slowed down. With the constant adding and subtracting of weights, the workout lasts longer than five hours so that these couples appear to live at the gym. Moreover, the added time it takes for the man to strip the barbell for his girlfriend and then put his 45-pound plates back on it causes the man to lose his pump. 

The worst part of being part of a Conspicuous Gym Couple is that over time you will develop several delusions. You will start to believe that spending time with your girlfriend at the gym counts as “social time” so that there is an unspoken agreement that you don’t have to go on an actual date with her. Simply going to the gym and then getting some chicken teriyaki afterwards at the mall’s food court constitutes a “date.” Causing even greater loss of Man Points, you and your girlfriend will traipse about the mall wearing matching, crotch-tight Spandex at the food court and, as regulars, you will be chummy with the food service people who will ask you how your training is going. You and your girlfriend will be eager to share your bodybuilding tips with others as your mini workout lectures afford you a feeling of self-importance and celebrity that is lacking in your real lives.

Because your gym theatrics give you a sense of attention and importance you cannot receive anywhere else, you will actually prefer to use the gym as a substitute for all forms of socializing. For will you be esteemed as highly at clubs, parties, and dinner socials? The answer is no. Since you will be living the fantasy of being beloved gym celebrities, you will stay close to the source of your fantasy so that the gym will eventually become your home away from home. Such an abysmal state of affairs will result in the loss of Man Points. Take your buddies advice, my friend. Keep your romantic life and your gym life separate.

Save Your Manhood Tip #30: Driving a Car with Automatic Transmission Will Compromise Your Man Points

Dear Mr. Man Points,

As traffic around town has steadily worsened and as sciatica pains shoot down my ass, I find I’ve lost my urge to pump a clutch pedal during my two-hour traffic-filled commute. I’ve therefore opted for an automatic transmission. Does this violate the Male Code?

Spare me your pathetic excuses for getting an automatic transmission. Few things in life feel more manly than zooming around town in a sporty car with a six-speed manual gear box, which in effect is a very empowering experience. It makes a man feel “one with the car,” it allows him to feel the engine’s power in ways that are not possible with the automatic, it affords him the pleasure of the low-end torque as he shifts from first to second gear and beyond, and most importantly it affirms to his male brethren that he refuses to compromise his car’s performance for nebbish convenience.

After all, it’s the ladies who can’t be bothered with the masculine experience of shifting gears. The convenience and ease of an automatic compromises speed and “car connectedness.” As a result, it wastes the potential thrill of the BMW M5 or the Infiniti G35 coupe or the super charged Mini Cooper. What kind of man makes this compromise? An emasculated one. A man could be driving around town in his six-speed manual BMW M5, and as such he could be swinging breathtakingly huge elephant testicles. But pathetically, he opts to drive the same car, in the diminished automatic version, which renders his testicles sun-dried Brussels sprouts.

Moreover, a man who surrenders to the automatic version casts doubts on other aspects of his character. Does he squat when he pees? Does he scream falsetto during a surprise encounter with a spider? Does he cringe while gutting a trout?

Therefore, a man’s purchases a sport car with the automatic transmission, featuring “Agitronic Paddles,” which allow him to “shift” without a clutch, does not appease the contempt of his male friends who have told him repeatedly that in middle-age he must get a “fun” car, an automobile that generates adrenaline and heightened states of masculinity. To show their displeasure, they will not even come over to see his brand new seventy-thousand-dollar automobile. Let’s face it, when a man buys a new car, one of the purchase’s greatest pleasures is the opportunity to show off the car to his male friends, to watch them gawk at it, to envy him, to ask him questions about its specs, to “inspire” them to buy the same car, and to feel the power that such influence wields.

But a man who has “ruined” his car by opting for the automatic is now a pariah, a Judas of Male Society. Therefore, you should be warned that no matter how many good reasons you come up with for getting the automatic—you can’t eat a breakfast burrito and talk on your cell phone while shifting gears, your herniated disc makes it too painful to press down on the clutch through city traffic, the stop-and-go traffic is so horrendous that in ninety percent of your driving you can’t even get out of second gear and as such you feel “like a caged animal,” that being trapped in second gear causes road rage and a seething dyspepsia that counteracts the alleged advantages of manual shifting—you will not receive any sympathy. For a man in middle age with the resources to buy his dream car is expected to get it in a manual and no excuses in the world will save him from losing Man Points.

Save Your Manhood Tip #29: How to Choose a Manly Color for Your Brand New Car

Dear Mr. Man Points,

I just got a big promotion and I want to celebrate by treating myself to a brand new car, the kind that will attract the ladies. The problem I’m having is that there are so many color choices. What colors will maximize my Man Points?

In the realm of Darwinian sexual selection, male birds boasting the brightest flashiest plumage get first dibs on the females.  Male birds champion glorious ruffs, crowns, and bloated neck sacs to add to their ostentation. This urge to be seen above everyone else is the key factor when a man chooses a car color. Therefore, if you want to increase your reproductive opportunities you must avoid plain car colors like black, red, or white. Instead, opt for the most scintillating colors imaginable, those with greater quantities of phosphorescent pigments, meaning the paint will glow in the dark and give off an iridescence in sunlight.

Having established that you must choose a color with a high concentration of phosphorescent pigments, let us now focus on the Three Masculine Themes of car colors.  The first theme is that of the Intrepid Traveler. If you choose this theme, the color will allude to tropical bodies of water, faraway galaxies, and paradisiacal vistas. Such colors include Sepang Green, Galactic Gray Mica, and Kalahari Beige Metallic. These colors will make a bold statement that you do not drive your car in some drab, generic suburb, however true that may be, but rather that you are transported, by the sheer virtue of owning your car, to some exotic locale. Thus you can instantly go to the green sea off of Sepang, Malaysia, or behold the glimmering deserts of Egypt or the Kalahari. Or you can be titillated by the unlimited possibilities of the Savannah range while contemplating the paleoanthropological contributions  of Richard Leakey.

The second theme is I Am Indestructible. In this case, you will choose colors such as Zircon, Diamond Graphite, and Olivine Green Metallic, which make references to jewels, gems and precious minerals, suggesting that at the core of man’s car is something adamantine, invincible, and irresistibly iridescent. Just as important, by linking man’s car to a precious gem he can flatter himself with the idea that his car, constructed of rare elements, will actually appreciate over time. Another benefit of marketing a car as a precious, invincible jewel is that it becomes a preferred substitute for the engagement or wedding ring. What man wants to deal with the morally dubious proposition of supporting the diamond trade in South Africa, with its labor abuses and alleged links to terrorism, when he can ingratiate himself with his fiancé by showing his love through the gift of a chimeric automobile?
The third theme is Lust for Life. These colors suggest sensuous states of ecstasy, Dionysian rapture, and reckless abandon.

Therefore, these colors will typically be named after some type of wine or other, such as Chardonnay, Champagne, or Chiaretto. The statement you make is that you don’t merely drive your car. You drink it. You get drunk from it. You are in effect seizing the day, living in the moment, and, as such, you are fulfilling your dream and your destiny.

Of course, you know and I know that this whole color business is complete bullshit but we’re talking about reproductive dominance and no one said it was going to be easy. So proudly spread your iridescent peacock feathers, my friend, and find the babe you’ve been looking for all your life. Your Man Points depend on it.

Save Your Manhood Tip #28: The Hamper Is Superfluous

Dear Mr. Man Points,

I need to replace my old hole-ridden hamper but when I went to the department store, they all looked so damn girlie. Can you recommend a manly looking hamper, one that won’t take away my Man Points?

Do you really need a hamper? Why keep your soiled gym clothes in a hamper when you can store them directly inside the drum of your wash machine? As soon as your drum is full of clothes—presto!—you just push the “Wash” button and you’re ready to go. No carrying dirty clothes from one room to another. No transferring ammonia- and sweat-soaked clothes from the hamper or laundry basket to the wash machine. As my father used to tell me, “Whenever you can, son, always get rid of the middle-man.” Indeed, the hamper is just one of those bureaucratic inventions that has no real purpose but exists because we assume, erroneously, that it serves a valuable purpose. It’s for those wimps who have been brainwashed into believing that the hamper is, like the electric can opener and the fondue maker, a house “necessity” when in fact it creates more problems than it solves. I say dump your hamper and get on board with the life of convenience and comfort that you deserve.

Save Your Manhood Tip #27: When It Comes to Your Indoor and Outdoor Garden, Synthetic Is Always Better

Dear Mr. Man Points,

After reading about the health benefits of house plants, especially as they pertain to their ability to cleanse toxins from indoor air, I purchased some gerbera daisies, chrysanthemums, and peace lilies, but after I placed them in the living room and the kitchen, my roommates told me to either get rid of the plants or plan on finding a new place. To add to the insult, they have questioned my manliness. Do house plants really constitute a Man Points violation?

Bringing house plants into the home compromises your manliness, to be sure.  This becomes apparent when you look at the unnecessary domestic hardships you’ve imposed upon your roommates. In case you’re unaware, you’ve just brought a gnat and mosquito magnet in your kitchen and living room. Happy? Additionally, you’re now beholden to trimming, watering, and caring for a bunch of unappreciative plants. Satisfied? If you must have flowers or color, perhaps as a concession to the woman visitors,  go for plastic plants and flowers. No upkeep. No worries about under or over exposure to the sun. No worries about giving too little or too much water. No aphids, gnats, or mosquitoes hovering over your plastic ferns and roses. They don’t wilt or fade. And most importantly they’ll never die.

Once you enjoy the convenience of artificial house plants, you won’t be able to stop there. Take fireplaces and aquariums, for example. The expense and the mess from maintaining a roaring fire or keeping a bunch of tropical fish are staggering. You have to keep firewood in the side yard, which draws worms, black widows, and other pests. You have to deal with the billowing black smoke scorching your freshly painted living room walls. Meanwhile your aquarium has fish turds floating throughout it as it wafts a bacteria and algae stench throughout your home resulting in God knows what kind of disease and pestilence. Why subject yourself to this kind of abuse when there are plenty of DVDs on the market that feature lovely fires flickering in a romantic hearth or luminescent angel fish and sea horses in a pristine aquarium?

And let’s not stop inside the home. Let’s apply the same common sense to the garden. Thanks to the miracle of polypropylene, we can now say hello to a synthetic front lawn that is neater, greener, and healthier than real grass. We can say goodbye to mowing, watering, weed-picking. We can say hello to perfectly sculptured mountain grass, tea leaf bush, Victorian Rosemary, and bamboo. We can say goodbye to fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide. And hello to lounging during those long, lazy summers in our hammock with no worries about being bitten by chiggers, wasps, and bumblebees.

But just so your neighbors don’t think you’re too perfect, you can buy a few nylon weeds. No need to make the neighbors too envious of your all-season bright green synthetic lawn.

Now I’m sure some men out there are questioning my position on synthetic lawns and gardens as they will point out that real men till their own soil, mow their own lawns, and trim their own hedges, as if these chores exemplify iconic images of manhood. I’m afraid, however, that these men are egregiously misguided for in fact the image of the sweaty gardener as he-man is obsolete. Yes, a generation ago it was manly for man to ride his Electrolux triple-blade garden tractor across his front yard with a look of grim determination. But in the new multi-task, multi-gadget economy, man must free himself from his outdoor chores and by doing so he has more time for making money. In the hectic pace we live in, therefore, it is time management, not upholding outdated outdoor manual labor, that earn Man Points.

Save Your Manhood Tip #26: Never Own Anything That Suggests You Pamper Yourself in the Bathroom

Dear Mr. Man Points,

Recently I had my buddies over for a game of poker and when they discovered my bathroom is stocked with aloe-enhanced toilet paper, they derided me and said I lost Man Points. But my research shows that aloe toilet paper prevents rash and chafing and can even over the long-term prevent hemorrhoids and rectal polyps. Am I not justified?

What the hell have you been reading, you naïve nincompoop? If you really believe trace amounts of aloe up your butt are going to produce some kind of rectal panacea then I must hereby strip you of all your Man Points. Based on your inquiry, I will infer that you are the type of man who pampers himself in the toilet with all kinds of perfumated ointments, creams, and balsams and this steers you away from your caveman ancestors whose highly-evolved survival instincts made them such venerable models of manly behavior. Imagine the fate of our troglodyte descendents  had they been overly occupied with wiping themselves with soothing aloe-enhanced toilet tissue during an ambush from a rival tribe or a snarling saber-toothed tiger. They needed to take care of their business in haste, which is why to this day when man is bogged down in a marathon wiping session, using rolls and rolls of the stuff, he feels on edge and a bit demoralized. Moreover, he increases the danger of clogging his plumbing and being forced to call his local plumber for a long and arduous “snake job.” That’s why when a man does his business and exits the bathroom in under one minute he is overcome by a sense of self-satisfaction and an optimism that he is ready to face the day with confidence. Additionally, man who avoids using excessive rolls of fancy toilet paper is contributing to the preservation of forests everywhere. And more forests mean more sparring grounds for paint-ball fights, combat drills, and just plain good old “living off the fruit of the land.” So quit bogarting all the forests for your pampered ass and leave the trees for real men. 

Save Your Manhood Tip #25: Be Your Own Dentist

Dear Mr. Man Points,

I came home from work the other night to find my roommate, a mixed martial arts fighter, sitting on the couch in the TV room. He was shoving something down his throat while making this awful gagging sound. I looked closely and saw that he was pressing a shish kebab skewer into a gold filling that got loosened during his last match. I told him to go the dentist before he gets an infection but he told me dentists are for wussies. If this is true, I must be losing a lot of Man Points because I get my teeth cleaned four times a year as a way of preventing tartar buildup. Could you please advise me on this matter?

Let’s face it, dentists are by nature crooks who make their living finding tooth decay that doesn’t exist. In spite of their wholesome image of gleaming white teeth and matching tunic, they live to siphon as much of your money as possible. For they’re just like every other schmuck who’s weighed down by his pricey office lease, alimony and child support, football season tickets, and compulsive gambling. Plus they’ve usually got their ridiculously priced mid-life crisis car, a Porsche convertible, and a high-maintenance trophy girlfriend who insists on quarterly trips to upscale Caribbean resorts. Additionally, whenever your friendly dentist does his book keeping and sees that he’s a little behind or that has to buy a new set of state-of-the-art hydraulic dental chairs with double-articulated headrests at $3,000 a pop, suddenly he decides you need a root canal, a new crown, and a skin graft for your receding gum line. You heard me. He has to buy new equipment; plus he’s got a Club Med vacation in the Virgin Islands coming up with his domineering honey pie so he decides he has to take a skin flap from your palate and sew it to your gums.

Let’s be clear: The whole idea that you must go to the dentist four times a year to prevent “tartar buildup” is a complete sham. It was invented by none other than the dental industry. It’s one of those lies that has been drilled into your head since childhood so that you grow up believing it to be true. Complete crap.

But don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. What you do is quit going to your dentist immediately and start brushing your teeth with a washcloth. That’s right. Wrap a washcloth around your index finger, slather some toothpaste on it, and scrub the inside of your mouth for a good five minutes three times a day.  The scouring action is superior to any “professional” tooth cleansing you’ll ever get at the dentist and you’ll be cavity-free to your dying days. Plus when you tell your fellow men about the thousands of dollars you now save by staying clear from your dentist, they will award you with copious Man Points.