Dave Garrett

Background and Pennebaker's comments here.

Sanchez was outstanding in his first start in an Astros uniform today - a no-hitter through six innings and only three baserunners allowed (two walks and a hit batter). Was kinda surprised they didn't send him back out for the seventh, but he was at 92 pitches and apparently hadn't gone more than 5 2/3 innings in any of his recent starts.

Oh, no doubt there's a *lot* of bullshit of various flavors on view over at Hoffman, but there's also enough of merit there that I continue to find it a worthwhile exercise to sift through the chaff in search of the wheat. Your question about the Decca sources is fair. I'm sure the details will surface given a little time - the set was just announced, after all.

I don't know Zev Feldman, but I read the comments in question the same way (modulo the usual disclaimer about intent often being hard to gauge on the internet in the absence of visual cues) - maybe not calling them liars directly, but certainly implying intent to deceive or obfuscate. I certainly understand a healthy skepticism about new releases, but the team involved with this one had immediate credibility with me, having read and respected their contributions for years at the Hoffman forum. Jordan's probably forgotten more about Cole than I'll ever know, and Matt's done some pretty exceptional work documenting the variances in sound quality within the Sinatra and (to a lesser extent) Cole catalogs: http://11fifty.com/Site_108/Welcome_Sinatra_Cole.html IMO, they've earned the right to be given the benefit of the doubt. Your mileage, as the old saying goes, may vary.

Well, on a huge deep-curve screen, I can see 5 front channels giving more of an illusion of directionality than may really exist, especially in a movie like GRAND PRIX with the cars zipping back and forth within the frame. As far as the subwoofer, 6-track mag can deliver pretty substantial low-frequency effects without one, given the right sound mix and B-chain. Around twenty years ago I saw a 70mm print of BEN-HUR with 6-track mag, and when it got to the scene with the thunderstorm and Christ on the cross, the rumble was definitely visceral and quite impressive.

AFAIK, Super Panavision used 6-track mag sound (five channels up front and a mono surround channel). There's a summary of the format specs here: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/superpanavisionspecs.htm in contrast with Ultra Panavision's specs: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/ultrapanavisionspecs.htm

I have both. The second one has the tracks from the three albums it covers in their original running order. The Legendary does not - they are inexplicably reordered. I've read that this change pissed Gilberto off, which is cited as one of the reasons World Pacific didn't reissue the CD once supplies of the original pressing dried up. Also, digital reverb which was not present on the original LPs was supposedly added as well, but I've never had the opportunity to hear the original LPs, so I can't say with any certainty whether that's the case.

I might wet my pants if I ever got the chance to see a Super Panavision print of GRAND PRIX projected in a Cinerama theater. There are really no other racing movies that compare, with the possible exception of Steve McQueen's LE MANS. I believe the optical compensation or rectification wasn't done for any of the Super Panavision films like GRAND PRIX, only for Ultra Panavision films. Instead of an anamorphic squeeze being applied uniformly across the frame, rectified prints had a gradient squeeze, with no anamorphosis at the center of the frame but applying it increasingly toward the edges of the frame. So when such a print was projected on a deep-curve Cinerama screen, the squeeze along the sides of the frame was offset by the curved sides of the screen and appeared to be unsqueezed.

There are at least a couple of different releases of the early recordings on a single CD:

I've seen both ophthalmologists (who are medical doctors) and optometrists (who are not) over the past fifty years that I've worn glasses. Over the past 15-20 years, I've seen an optometrist who is rapidly approaching his 50th year in the practice. Based on my experiences with him, I'd have to challenge the blanket statement that optometrists don't have the equipment or training to detect vision problems, with the big caveat that not all optometrists are equally skilled. The optometrist I see has equipment that goes well beyond the basic phoropter that all optometrists use, specifically, image capture equipment to aid in examining the inside of the eye and the retina after the pupil has been dilated, for patients that are deemed to require such examinations. In my case, he had detected a weak spot in my retina some years ago but determined that it only required observation unless it changed significantly. A couple of years ago, I developed a small hole in my retina, and as I had a pretty good idea of what was going on, immediately went in to his office. He confirmed my suspicions and sent me directly to the ophthalmologist/retinal specialist he refers patients to when needed, who performed an in-office procedure that addressed the problem. Returning to the big caveat I mentioned above, he has sold his practice recently in preparation for retirement, but is (for now) continuing to see patients. I am not too impressed with the new optometrists and staff that have joined the practice in preparation for the eventual transition, so I may very well return to seeing a general ophthalmologist once he finally retires. I'm having a similar problem finding a new dentist, as the one I'd been using retired last month after a similarly lengthy career practicing dentistry. Too many of the dentists I see now seem to be more interested in upselling expensive cosmetic procedures rather than focusing on the cultivation of long-term patient relationships via the provision of basic, old-school dental care.

This debate comes up every time LEDs are slated to replace sodium lighting. The LEDs definitely take some getting used to (when the streetlights on our street were updated, I initially thought it made everything in the area look like a prison yard at night), but it's hard to see the change as anything but inevitable - they put out more/brighter light, they last much longer, and they use far less energy. Oh, and Jim, I did the same swapout over our kitchen sink, and my wife was not happy at all. They definitely stand out compared to the remaining incandescent bulbs in the kitchen. In retrospect, I should've probably done a bit more research on the color temperature before buying.

Put off by the above description? Shit, that sounds like a must see, and the framegrabs only serve to reinforce that feeling! Added to my Prime watchlist posthaste.

That does suck. I had intended to get a copy eventually, but it wasn't a high priority since I have the earlier Reprise CD and it was unclear to me if the ZFT version was a significant improvement. Guess I'll continue to wonder, as I can't see paying what will almost certainly be inflated prices now that it's no longer available.

Someone's just a tad peeved with the Mets' closer (NSFW)

The Rockets beat the Warriors in the regular-season series as well, for all the good it did them in the playoffs. Much as I'd like to see someone else win it all, it seems that the Warriors are this decade's version of Jordan's Bulls in the 1990s.