You were a little late with the glasses there, David ;)

...read this as "Anus slaps Linux in the face"?

Comparing "distortion" that is digital artifacts from lossy compression to a distortion pedal is like comparing a bad xerox of a photo to an original Picasso. You're equating "best approximation of something given a limited set of parameters" (i.e., represent this 1.4 mbps/sec song in 128 kbps/sec) with something that is used specifically for artistic expression.