Dave Garrett

Teen vigil at Hobsbawm house

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I had the same experience with J&R when I ordered this set from them last month, after Amazon cancelled my earlier order and the set had disappeared everywhere else. At the time J&R had it listed for about $45. I wouldn't bank on them fulfilling any orders and am likewise wondering why they're still showing it as available.

Or just use Chrome for browsing non-English sites. It automatically detects the language a webpage is rendered in, and prompts you to choose whether you want to translate the page or display it in its native language. Much easier than copying and pasting into Google Translate, especially if you're viewing a page with multiple frames.

My dad got this on one of his computers. He is quite tech-savvy and is still grappling with getting rid of it - has tried several of the usual remedies (different antivirus programs, MalwareBytes, etc.) with no luck and when I talked to him yesterday had pretty much resigned himself to having to manually edit the registry to permanently fix it. Fortunately, he has several computers so even if he has to scrape the drive and reinstall Windows, it's not the end of the world. I hate this kind of crap. It's getting more and more common for software installers to try to sneak adware-laden toolbars past those who aren't paying attention and just click through the default options on said installers. Babylon is just an extreme example of that evil trend.

Along similar lines: Going, Going, Gone: Vanishing Americana This was originally published in 1994, so in the intervening 18 years many of the things covered have receded even further into the past, but there's still much of interest between its covers.

The Outland volume is available for preorder on Amazon, and looks to be coming out next month: Outland I also noticed that the 2nd and 3rd Bloom County volumes appear to already be out of print with ridiculous asking prices, despite only having been published a couple of years ago. Too bad I didn't get them when I had the chance, but for anyone that's interested, Edward R. Hamilton has remaindered copies of the first volume for $11.95 - quite a good deal: Hamilton link Looking forward to the final Krazy & Ignatz volume, I have the first two and they are magnificent. Wow -- that is wild. I tried to get one of the signed editions but they kept cancelling it on me. I do have vol. 1-5 and have pre-ordered Outland, so I guess I'm set. Bloom County was one of my favorite cartoons and much of it still holds up. If nothing else it reminds me of some of the general craziness (and crassness) of the 1980s that I sometimes overlook when thinking about the past (through rose colored glasses). If anyone is interested in the earlier volumes of Bloom County, it appears they have reprinted them and the prices are back down to normal levels. The Collected Outland is shipping now. Ideally this would have included the full set of Opus strips, but it will probably be one last trip to well. Curiously, I have been scanning (and finally discarding) all kinds of things from my yooth, and I came across 36 Opus strips I clipped from the papers. I actually did get the Sunday Chicago Tribune simply for the cartoons for 9 months. I can't remember now if the Trib dropped the strip, or if this was when I moved to England. Edit: Well, I didn't realize Opus ran nearly as long as it did (2003-2008), which is about the same length of time as Outland, so it clearly will need a separate volume. It also means that there are somewhere north of 200 Breathed strips I've never read, so something to look forward to. There isn't a firm date on the Opus book, but I'm guessing some time in 2013. Good to know about the Bloom County volumes. I wound up getting vols. 2 & 3 from a local Barnes & Noble, where they were languishing unappreciated on the shelves. 10% B&N member discount + a couple of 20% off coupons they'd sent me in the mail, so I actually get a slightly better deal than what Amazon's currently offering them for.

If I were you, I'd just say "phuk itt".

Al Jaffee's mad Fold-in. If he's still alive it's still on the back cover. I just became aware of this. Had no idea such a collection existed.

From the excellent Letters of Note blog, which is well worth visiting regularly (or following on Twitter for those that are so inclined), a 1967 letter from Louis Armstrong to a Marine stationed in Vietnam: Link

I had a bunch of those paperback anthologies as a kid as well. More recently, there was this, which has occasionally been available at ridiculously low prices for such a massive, beautiful set.

iTunes retrieves cover art only from the iTunes store. Since Mosaic doesn't sell downloads, you're out of luck with that one. You can add your own cover art in iTunes, either from your own scans or from image files obtained from elsewhere on the net. I generally check Amazon first, but saving the full-sized image files there isn't as straightforward as it is on other sites and typically involves viewing the page source of the pop-up window containing the image and searching for all files ending in .jpg until you find the right one. This was just the first link I ran across when googling "adding cover art to iTunes". There are lots of others. Adding album cover art or images in iTunes

The drive in your JVC could be on its last legs. What you describe is the usual pattern I've experienced with several CD/DVD drives in computers - eventually due to age and use they can start to have problems recognizing/burning blank discs, but will still play discs OK. I've had a couple that progressed to the next step of finally refusing to play discs as well. I think this is typically due to the laser pickup in the drive wearing out. They have a finite lifespan.

From the alt.usage.english FAQ:

The Outland volume is available for preorder on Amazon, and looks to be coming out next month: Outland I also noticed that the 2nd and 3rd Bloom County volumes appear to already be out of print with ridiculous asking prices, despite only having been published a couple of years ago. Too bad I didn't get them when I had the chance, but for anyone that's interested, Edward R. Hamilton has remaindered copies of the first volume for $11.95 - quite a good deal: Hamilton link Looking forward to the final Krazy & Ignatz volume, I have the first two and they are magnificent.

That's a flathead in those pics, not a knucklehead. Different engines. Here's a '41 knuck:

The Brussels release and the newer L.A. Friday '75 are both essential to anyone with even a passing interest in the Stones. This is the kind of stuff they should have been releasing long ago. Mystifying why they're not being made available as FLACs in the US, only as mp3s, but the lossless files are out there for the determined seeker. Stones Archive

It's actually Friday (Tuesdays and Fridays), and it's up to $500 million now. I think last night's drawing was the biggest one in history, God only knows what it'll get up to with everyone coming out of the woodwork now that it's hit $500MM.

Yep. If you have a Twitter account, follow NYTimes. They tweet prolifically, and include links to many of the articles on the website. If you access the site via a Twitter link (and I believe Facebook and a couple of other major social media sites as well), it doesn't count toward the monthly limit. I've had the NYTimes app since the day I got my iPhone, and their Twitter feed is good enough that even before they put up the paywall I don't think I ever opened the app after I started following them on Twitter.

I had Childcraft when I was younger and remember spending untold hours reading every volume, then later on we got World Book when I got old enough for a "real" encyclopedia. My parents still have the World Book set in the bookcase it came in, but the Childcraft set was on the bottom shelf and was lost when their house flooded during TS Allison.

Google "Bild letzte seite 1 girl". I guarantee your disappointment will be short-lived.

Printer companies are really in the business of selling ink, not printers. That is why printers can be had so cheap, their cost is subsidized by ink sales. I have an Epson NX625 that I picked up at Fry's last year for around $60, which is a ridiculously low price considering its capabilities. The "starter" cartridges it came with didn't last long, and I wound up buying a set of high-capacity Epson cartridges from Amazon for about $70 or so. I'm still using those, so I'm not sure yet how much use I can expect to get out of a set of new cartridges, but most of our printing needs are fairly low-volume. The cost of consumables for consumer-grade inkjet printers can get expensive pretty quickly if you do a lot of high-volume printing.

PM sent on Duke Ellington: 1936-40 Small Group Sessions (Mosaic) $95

Looks like the trailing "l" got omitted from the URL - try this one: Link Texas gets 3 cities in the 25 listed. Time for a drink.

From what I can see from a bit of Googling, it looks like RR "turbo speed" is somewhere between 10-15Mb/s, which is plenty for streaming even full HD content (by way of comparison, most of the "internet TV" appliances for streaming video like the Roku, Boxee, Apple TV, and Google TV recommend a minimum connection speed of anywhere between 2 and 5Mb/s for optimal performance). And Leeway is right, most budget-priced computers these days have video and sound integrated onto the mainboard, so it's not really necessary to upgrade to separate, higher-performance video and sound cards unless you have a specific need to do so. I can stream full HD content on my computer and haven't noticed any lack of performance from the integrated video, and as for sound, your money is better spent on a good set of speakers before a new sound card. I like the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 system (which I think has been discontinued, but can still be had for considerably cheaper than the 3rd-party seller in the Amazon link).