Big Al

Thank you! THANK YOU!!!! I couldn't agree more!!!!!

You're kidding, right? Don't count on my boys for anything right now. Except blowing ninth-inning leads. They're REEEEEEAL good at that right now!

If you live in the DFW area (or if you can get up/down here for a night), then I heartily invite y'all to come see me play in a recital/concert/gig/four-guys-playing-a-bunch-a-songs-we like! WHEN: Friday, August 5 WHAT TIME: 7:00 pm WHERE'S IT AT: Advent Lutheran Church, 3232 S. Cooper, in Arlington DOES IT COST ANYTHING? No, but there will be a free-will offering, with all of the money going to Mission Arlington (hey, I wanted to have some purpose to this, rather than the four of us playing music and insulting each other) The lineup of songs includes some of the old spirituals, some trips thru the great American songbook (with a lovely detour thru the Benny Golson songbook, which should be part of the Great American Songbook to begin with), a tune by Evanessence (not as bad as it sounds, but our clarient player wants to play it, he wrote the arrangement, so we let him have his fun) and whatever else we can come up with between now and the fifth! The lineup is clarinet-piano-bass (me!!! Electric fretless, I'll warn ya right now)-drums. Please note write here that THIS IS NOT A JAZZ CONCERT. Not that we won't try, but if you come in looking for stretched-out jams and wild trips into the stratosphear, you'll likely leave disappointed. (However, if you happen to hear anything even REMOTELY jazzy in anything we do, tell me about it, won't you?) BUT, if you're looking for a pleasant evening of fun and (hopefully) halfway-decent playing, come on out and say "HI," won't you?

Joe Henderson plays like a man possessed on this session. As does DeJohnette! And Hubbard! And.....

Man, I can't take it anymore: Rangers almost blow a seven-run lead yesterday, the third time in the last five games that they almost blew a big ninth-inning lead. Would you believe the hotels around here are booked solid for the Yankees series here this week? Unbelieveable! Who'd wanna travel that far to watch two mediocre teams with mammoth payrolls duke it out? FWIW, I hope my guys jump all over Brown for ten runs in the first inning!

You KNOW it!!!

Link for those curious?

I have really been digging WISH YOU WERE HERE lately. I was in a Half-Price Books the other day and found a book on Pink Floyd, skimming through the pictures and stuff, and read about WYWH. All the members commented on what a “sad” album this is, and though I’d never really thought of it as such, it is definitely their most melancholy album. So I was at Fry’s last night (in the continuing quest for the right power-supply/motherboard combination; these folks know me on a first-name basis now) and right by the computer stuff, they had a computer playing highlights from Live 8. It just happened that the Floyd portion of the show was playing, so I watched it a while. When they played “Wish You Were Here,” it struck me as sadly/bitterly ironic that here are Gilmour and Waters harmonizing on a song originally intended for a former band member (Syd), but could just as easily be about the two of them. Especially when they came to these lines: We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year Running over the same old ground; what have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here. I don’t know about y’all, but it sure seemed like Waters voice was cracking through a lot of that. Melancholy, indeed.

Virgin's having a sale? SWEET!!!

Happy Birthday, Big John! Always Got a Good Thing Goin’, baby!!!

Hear Hear!! Same Hear!!!

Ahhhh.... didn't know that. That's cool!

I thought the discussion threads had already been started.

That happens. Look forward to more of that shit. ← What happens? The memory loss? I don’t remember having any recent memory losses!

Yeah, the Rogers Respect-o-meter took a nosedive this weekend, AFAIC! And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Francisco Cordero needs the ol’ HEAVE-HO!!! He escaped by the skin of his teeth yesterday, coming in with a two-run lead and leaving the tying run on third. I know it’s his job to keep ‘em from scoring, and I s’pose that, technically, he did just that. But hell, can he not get through an outing without giving up any runs? Good thing it was a two-run lead and nothing more, otherwise who knows how many innings it would’ve gone? Plus, if I was on the Rangers, I’d be calling for Cordero’s head on a platter for all the times the Rangers have gone into the ninth with a lead, only to see that lead evaporate because our so-called “closer” doesn’t know how to CLOSE IT!!! Hell, Saturday night was ulcer-inducing as it was (who’s bright idea was it to bring on Cordero with the bases loaded, anyway? That was a disaster waiting to happen, and it damn-near did!) It’s getting to the point now that the only lead that is safe with the Rangers is a ten-run lead; and as Saturday night proved, even THAT might not be enough!!! I swear, we have THE worst closer in baseball. Dan, y’wanna get rid of Foulke? Send him on down! I’d gladly give you Cordero for Foulke any day of the week!

At the Johnny Carino's in Mansfield, a couple of years back, they played Kenny Burrell's "Phinupi" (the Blue Lights version), and I was tapping along to Blakey's beat the whole time. This summer, my wife and I went there again, and I'm having trouble remembering what they played, but I remember thinking "Cool! They're playing something good again!"

Man, I've had nothing but good experiences with Dell. The one I have at work is five years old, running Windows 2000, and has been a dream to work with. Unlike this here eMachines, which has been a royal pain in the kiester! Good luck!

Popping sounds are usually electrical surges. Your guess that the power supply failed is a good one. However, if your machine has any built-in surge circuitry, and it's likely, there has probably been a fuse or trip that has to be reset. There could also be more damage to you machine than just the power supply. Don't drop too much money on this machine. It could turn out that the whole thing is fried. I wouldn't even buy a new motherboard. If all else fails, pull the hardrive out of this puppy and toss it in a dumpster. You can get refurbished Celeron Dells for less than $300 that will likely beat it out for speed. Just go to http://outlet.us.dell.com/Dispatcher?targe...414104&tgtSeg=I and check out the prices. Beats the heck out of de-bugging power problems. Later, Kevin ← You can't imagine how much time you just saved me. I was contemplating doing that, but not knowing as much as I'd like to about computers, I hadn't thought about doing that. Now that you've mentioned it (and I take your computer advice seriously, I'm not being my usual smartass here), I think I'm gonna go that route. Thanks, Kev!

IIRC, they're basically refurbished machines that look brand new. I know..... shoulda got a Dell.....

Interesting you say that; I used the old power cable. But like I said, the new power supply started right up, even with the old cable. So...... I may, in fact, need a new motherboard. To be continued....

Don't I know it.....

Ouch!

I have an eMachines T1840 (don't laugh; well, okay, laugh a little if you must). Recently, it was making popping noises like it was shorting out. The first couple of times this happened, I unplugged it, waited a while, plugged it back in and everything was fine. Then this morning, after having this happen again Thursday and leaving it unplugged since then, I tried to switch it on and nothing happened. So, I removed the old power supply, put in a new one, and still nothing happened when I tried to turn it on. Now, there are some differences in the two power supplies: 1) The first is 250W, this one is 600W. 2) The first did not have a switch on the back; the new one has a switch, which, when turned on, powers up the power supply. With the new power supply installed, it seems as if it's not communicating with the power switch on the front, which is supposed to communicate with the power supply to, well, power everything up. Does any of this sound familiar? If it's not the power supply, could it just simply be a faulty switch? Or has the motherboard been short-circuited? Thanks, as always.

Ha! See that? I'm NOT a lazy procrastinator, just a patient speculator! See?