Steven Robert Allen, Editor/Arts & Lit Editor

Slide Whistle, $3.25 "Clearly Colorful" Hohner Harmonica $2.50 Kazoo, $.95 Egg Shaker, $2.50

\ Nov 17, 2005

5 min read

For whatever reason, I enjoy making a racket. I haven't always been this way. When I was a kid I had a fairly reserved personality—a wallflower type, so to speak. In my teens, though, I discovered the sinful pleasure of distorted electric guitars, and as an adult I've moved on to other ways to pollute the sonic space around me.

Baum's Music calls itself “New Mexico's Music Education Specialist,” and it is an ideal place to pick up band instruments for your little one. Baum's, however, also offers a range of inexpensive instruments that straddle the line between serious musical tools and party favors. If you really want to do right by me you'll pick me up a slide whistle, a surprisingly playable “Clearly Colorful” Hohner harmonica, a couple plastic Hohner kazoos and an egg shaker so I can keep the rhythm to my little behind-closed-doors plastic symphony.

I like spending as much time as possible outdoors. This is New Mexico, after all. If you aren't tromping around the mountains and deserts soaking up our region's boundless natural beauty, then you might as well move back to Baltimore, or Kansas City, or wherever the hell you came from.

Even so, with all this freakin' sunshine, I've got to protect myself with some serious broad-brimmed headwear. Unfortunately, I have an unusually large head so I've always had a hard time finding a hat that fits my grotesquely swollen skull. Fortunately, the Man's Hat Shop sells the Henschel “Boony,” a hat that's as attractive as it is practical. And it comes in XL, 2XL and 3XL with plain ol' ordinary XL doing the job just fine for me. You don't want the Alibi's editor to contract cancer of the scalp, do you? Of course not. $30 is a small price to pay to keep me healthy and active.

Nikon All-Weather S2 Digital Camera, $349

The Nikon All-Weather S2 digital camera is like a digital camera version of me—slim, sleek and sophisticated. If you can't be it, you at least want to be its friend.

Yeah, I'm joking. But I'm not joking about how much I'd like to own this camera. With an LCD monitor so large you could watch a summer blockbuster on it and feel like you're in a movie theater, this thing should give even a crappy photographer like me the ability to churn out great images. Its all-weather construction makes it the ideal camera to drag along on my frequent treks through the wilderness.

Red Wing 963 Men'S Work Boots, $194.99 Merino Wool Socks, $14.99 Per Pair

The Red Wing 963 men's work boot is the Cadillac of boots. Slip your tired dogs into these babies, and you'll feel like walking coast to coast. Yeah, you'll pay a high price when you buy me these union-made sweet leather boots, but lord knows I'm worth it. Throw in some ultra high-quality Merino wool hiker socks if you really want to show me how much you care. They're $14.99, but Red Wing is currently offering a buy two, get one free deal on all accessories.

White Cloud Mountain Fish, $3.49 Each

Molly, the Alibi's controller, has a fish named Stalin about which I'm somewhat jealous. The presence of fish is said to calm the nerves, and it definitely seems to be working with Molly. She always seems happy and satisfied. I really hate that about her, but I have to admit that I wouldn't mind feeling a little more happy and satisfied. Maybe a fish, or five, would help.

The White Cloud Mountain Fish was once native to high elevation streams in China. Unfortunately, the fish's native region has become heavily polluted and it can no longer live there. So I'm basically offering to do it a favor by allowing it to become my pet. I'm told it's a hardy species that should be able to survive in a regular bowl (although it does prefer cool temperatures). You'll have to get me a pretty big bowl, though, because they're a schooling fish, and prefer to swim around in groups of at least five.