Breath easy internet, I have returned to my blogging post. Over the last week and a half I’ve been journeying up the Pacific Coast with Bear Hunter . As it turns out, when I try and write on my laptop while in the van I start to puke all over my band mates — hence, my absence from Synthesis Blog. Over the next few days I will be recounting my harrowing journey (in between fascinating posts about pop stars getting busted for drugs, children with weird growths on their bodies and general paranoid-paranormal fodder). Get ready, dear readers. Get your asses ready.

In this installment of Synthesis Blog’s The Next, I’d like to introduce you to this: The Old. The next innovations will not actually be innovations at all, but rather, revisitations of old ideas. For instance, remember when everything used to be really big? Like computers would take up the whole room and your TV was actually considered furniture? The scientific retrograde minds over at Innovage are cashing into the retro-cool bigiturize trend early with the Jumbo Universal Remote.

Had enough of losing your iPods and cell phones because of their diminutive size? You can simply MAKE EVERYTHING BIGGER? Start with the Jumbo Remote, which is virtually impossible to lose.

Features:
* Manages up to eight separate devices
* Compatible with most major brands of AV components
* Code search button discovers device codes automatically
* Programmable power OFF timer
* Extra-large soft-touch buttons for easy navigation
* Jumbo-sized—never misplace your remote control again
* Requires two AA batteries (not included)

Ask Grandma, she’s stoked on the big buttons. No more straining eyesight or digging through the couch for her. Go big. Go Next.

I’m a terrible dancer. My brain and body operate on two different wavelengths, but as I get older, I’m growing less and less likely to give a fuck. If you get a few Jameson on the rocks in me, I’m ready to go. And you’d better be wearing a cup.

It must be a sight to behold, and not in a good way. So I have to apologize to my coworkers if they’ve seen me chair bopping like a demoniacally possessed weeble-wobble lately. Good Shoes latest album Think Before You Speak holds frightening power over my groove thang.

Hailing from the South East UK, Good Shoes is a four-piece that plays criminally addictive pop/new wave. The album is due out in the States on March 18th from Brille records. Here’s a little snippet from the press release:

Formed in 2005, the last two years have been an absolute whirlwind for the four twenty-something lads of Good Shoes – singer/guitarist Rhys Jones, guitarist Steve Leach, drummer Tom Jones and bassist Joel Cox. After releasing two limited edition singles which sold out in a matter of days, Good Shoes took to the road in the UK, amassing a rabid fanbase in the wake of their frenzied live shows. Soon after, they ran off to Sweden to record Think Before You Speak with Tore Johansson & Per Sunding (Franz Ferdinand, The Cardigans, New Order). The record was released in the UK to widespread critical acclaim, resulting in a No. 1 single on the UK Indie Chart and subsequent tours with the likes of Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs and more, in addition to festival appearances at Glastonbury and Reading and Leeds. Reveling in the work of their contemporaries instead of the punk legends of yore (aspects of the Good Shoes sound remind us of mid-’90s Pacific Northwest standouts) has given the band a distinctive magic and freshness that has clearly struck a chord with a legion of music lovers and Myspace addicts who turn up religiously at the band’s shows.

Words are at a loss to describe how fresh and fun this album sounds, so instead, he’s a picture taken from the group’s MySpace page from a Good Shoes live show.

Everyone seems to be having themselves a merry time. Too merry in the case of the dude in the middle of the second row. Check out a stream of Think Before You Speak here to hear what me, that dude and the rest of us are all so jacked up about.