Dave Garrett

Mockingbirds and blue jays can be VERY aggressive toward anything that gets too near their nests, regardless of size. I've seen them dive-bomb neighborhood cats as well as my German Shepherd, and I've had a close encounter with them on a couple of occasions myself.

I'd have bailed out of every CD club long ago if I still had to mail in reply cards. You can handle that via the web now (although in Jazz Heritage's case, if you wait until the new catalog's out before replying, you have to know to select "Previous Catalog" before the correct featured selection is visible). I believe BMG offers an option now where you don't have to deal with any sort of reply cards, and they don't automatically send a selection every month.

I've been a member for several years, but I can't say I've bought very many CDs from them - of the ones I got when I joined, a lot of them did have the crappy-looking B&W inserts. They do have frequent sales with halfway-decent prices ($4.98 single CDs, $9.98 doubles) on selected titles. I just picked up the 2-disc complete Blue Note/Capitol Fats Navarro & Tadd Dameron set from them for $13 including shipping, and the packaging was identical to the retail version except for the "manufactured for..." note and barcode on the back, just like some BMG titles. On the whole, though, there aren't very many titles they offer that you can't get a better deal on elsewhere.

I got my shipping confirmation today too (for those keeping track, my order number was 5604, placed on the evening of 7/12), and it included a tracking link. Re: the earlier comment about a tracking link not working, it's not unusual for tracking info to not be visible in a shipper's system for a day or two after the link's been generated by the vendor - I've actually received Priority Mail packages before any tracking info was available online in the past, although I'd expect FedEx's systems to be slicker in that regard than USPS' systems. Looks like I got everything I ordered, too. Now that I've jumped all over the K2s, I'm pondering a second order of the more obscure stuff. Maybe I oughta figure out where I'm going to put the CDs from the order that just shipped first.

If you use Firefox, there's the VideoDownloader extension.

I just finished watching the Sgt. Bilko set a couple of days ago. It's really great - I can't imagine too many better DVDs being released this year. I agree that season sets would've been better, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to be released, either. The same thing happened with GUNSMOKE - a multi-disc best-of compilation instead of full-season sets - but at least with that one they had the excuse of the show having had such a phenomenally long run that it was uncertain there were enough die-hard fans to justify 20 full-season sets. The extras are fairly brief on the Bilko set, but they're well-chosen - I found myself wishing they'd seen fit to include all of Phil Silvers' final TV interview before his death, instead of just a short clip from it, as what's there is fascinating. But the shows by themselves should be all the enticement anyone needs to grab this set.

I knew there had to be a reason I got it so cheap!

Anyone know a source for the plastic trays that hold the jewel cases in Mosaic boxes? I got a used copy of the Four Freshmen set, which contains three double-thick jewel cases, but for some reason the plastic tray was missing. I already called Mosaic, but they said they didn't have any extras - it sounded like whoever they get their boxes and trays from provides them already assembled.

JJJ, disc 6 - have been making my way through it since it appeared on my doorstep in the middle of last week. Soon to follow: the Four Freshmen set, which I scored a used copy of for $50 earlier today. Now, if I could only duplicate that kind of luck with other Mosaic sets...

Yeah, this has been a no-no for quite some time. There are exceptions (I believe UK-based sellers are allowed to impose Paypal surcharges), but in general it's a similar situation to surcharges on purchases made with a credit card, which are illegal in some states and at any rate are prohibited by some major card companies like Visa and MasterCard. Some merchants skirt the letter of this prohibition by offering "cash discounts", but I don't think that will fly on eBay. Basically, as an eBay seller you have two options: accept the Paypal fees as part of the cost of doing business, or refuse to accept Paypal and alienate a whole lot of buyers who have no interest in dealing with checks or money orders.

Interesting. I picked up a couple of hatOLOGY Cecil Taylor CDs that CDHut had listed on ebay a couple of months ago. I was going to get the Ayler Lorrach hatOLOGY disc from him as well, but by the time I got around to doing so, the auction had ended without any takers and he'd relisted it at a price $10 higher than before - guess the price was adjusted upward after it was officially out of print. Anyway, when the Taylor CDs showed up, one was the correct disc, but instead of the other one he'd shipped a Sun Ra title instead. No problems sending it back for the right disc, although it did take a while and I had to email a follow-up inquiry before the replacement package arrived. First time I'd ever bought anything from him, despite being tempted by the big RCA Ellington set several years ago when Jazzloft was offering it at a very attractive discount (I ultimately wound up getting a nice used copy on ebay for just over $200 somewhat later ). As for Caiman, I've never had any problems with them over the course of several DVD and CD orders. I recently got several of the Free America series titles from them via Amazon Marketplace, and they arrived quickly.

I gave them the spamtrap email address I use a while back, and I have been receiving coupons directly at that address since then. But when I went to use one of those coupons last week, the cashier asked me if I had a Borders Rewards card. I didn't, but I assumed I'd been signed up when I'd previously given them an email address. The cashier indicated that the cards would eventually replace the online coupons, so it appears that you'll have to be a Rewards member in the future to get the discounts. FWIW, I went ahead and got a card since it was free and they already had my email address (although I did have to give it to them again).

Both the Tatum Solo and Group Masterpieces CD sets were originally released in LP-sized boxes, and later repackaged in the CD-sized boxes. I have both of them in the LP-sized boxes - the large booklet is nice, but you practically need a crowbar to pry the jewel cases free from the plastic box inserts.

PM sent on Taylor and Ayler.

And I thought we had a problem with fitting two people and a 60-pound female German Shepherd Dog into a queen-size bed. My hat is off to you. My wife likes to remind me that she'd suggested we get a king-size bed when we bought the queen, but that was several years before we got the dog. Hindsight's always 20/20.

Agreed. Curious to see where this goes from here. South Park could tell everybody to go fuck themselves and just release DVDs. They have enough clout to do this. The episode in question is up at YouTube here. Be sure to check out the closing credits.

Yeah, there was a post about this at the Hoffman forums: MLP SACD printing problem I just got all five of the Mercury SACDs currently available at BMG/Yourmusic last week, and my copy of this disc was also mislabeled. I wonder how many were pressed with the wrong titles?

Yourmusic.com has this set for just under $24, in case anyone wants to pick it up before it goes OOP. If it matters, my guess is that the Yourmusic.com version is not packaged in the format with the CD sleeves and booklet bound into a small hardcover like a book (as the Pacific Jazz Gerry Mulligan Quartet recordings were as well). When I got this set from BMG several years ago, the CDs were in a "fat boy" 4-cd jewel case with the jewel case and a separate booklet inserted into a cardboard slipcase.

It's present on my copy too, for about 10 seconds or so. I never noticed it before you mentioned it - it almost looks like edge enhancement pumped up way too much, but I suppose it could also be some sort of weird lens anomaly that's present in the original film as well (I've never seen the film except on video, so I can't say for sure). If it is a transfer screwup, it's kind of surprising someone at Criterion didn't catch it on a check disc during the mastering process.

I emailed customer service at the 'service@zweitausendeins.de' address a couple of days ago to inquire about my order, and haven't received a response. Is there another address I should be using, or is that the correct one?

Actually, they did, but the remasters haven't been released individually, only as a box set: Black Box

I'm assuming the PAL/NTSC ones you're referring to are the ones in the Complete Jazz Casual Series 8-DVD box set. I don't have this set (yet), but it was pretty highly recommended to me by a friend who'd taken the plunge.

Looks like all of the box set deals are gone from the website again - either they're sold out, or they've flagged the sets to not show up in search results, as I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread. I'd intended to pick up both of the Stax/Volt singles box sets (vols. 2 & 3), but got distracted by work this week and figured I'd have time to place an order this weekend. Anyone know if entering the stock number directly still works?

That's funny, the "Mexican" neighbors across the street from my house usually keep an eye on things to make sure no one bothers the packages that are left on my doorstep. Guess your Brown guy needs to get up to speed on how things really work. Back to the Cellar Door set, my scheduled delivery (via UPS) is 12/27, but I was kinda hoping it might get here early since it showed up as "arrival scan" here in Houston yesterday morning, but so far no such luck. I figure they're probably pretty busy with last-minute pre-Christmas deliveries today. Dave

For the true completist, someone put Vigotone's "Jewels and Binoculars" up on dime within the past year or so - a mind-boggling 26 CDs represented to be all extant live Dylan recordings from 1966! This one's gotta rank up there with Benedetti's Bird recordings for sheer obsessiveness.