Dave James

With regard to the dogs, have they been to the vet recently? Any on-going treatments, application of medicine, that sort of thing? Have you discussed their behavior with your vet? As has been pointed out, history can be of some significance. It's fairly easy to research your home's location. Was there even a cemetery on the grounds, any Native American connections, underground mines, that sort of thing. Any way to find out if anyone has died there or been murdered? This kind of thing is known as a residual haunting. Intelligent hauntings are more interactive. Frankly, the experiences you've had outside your home sound more like the latter, but like TK I find the idea of something paranormal following you from one location to another as more than little odd. How active is your wife in witchcraft? I don't know much about things on that side of the fence, but it doesn't involve anything like black arts or devil worship does it? Also, her history with the Ouija board is something to be considered. The theory goes that once you open up that door, if it's not closed properly, whatever it was that she and her sister allowed in can continue to have an affinity for her. I'm not a believer but I'm not agnostic when it come to this kind of thing either. I've never had a personal experience, but I've known others who have. I watch all the paranormal shows on TV so anything I know is just an offshoot of being exposed to this on a pretty regular basis. I think there are religious solutions you might pursue, but it may not be easy to find someone who will sympathize with your circumstances and agree to help you. The other thing to consider is that as quickly as this started it could also stop. Perhaps not something you want to wait on, but it's something to consider. Keep us posted on this. It's a very interesting story.

Gotta go with Larry on this one. It's always sounded to me like they were slogging around in the mud.

Thanks Dan and TK. I think if this cost less I might go ahead and pull the trigger, but $60.00 is a lot to spend for a marginal improvement in sound. I have a pretty good TT, but I'm guessing you'd have to have one of those decks that run from $1,500 to infinity and a cartridge to match to make an appreciable difference. That won't be happening.

I was just looking at some new vinyl offerings from Elusive Disc. They now have one of my all-time favorite albums, John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, available on 45 RPM, 180 gram vinyl. At $60.00, I wouldn't exactly call this cheap. Can someone explain the advantages of remastering at 45 RPM versus the normal 33 1/3? Is this a gimmick or is there a demonstrable difference in the quality of the sound between a "normal" recording and one done like this? If this has been discussed before, I apologize for re-threading. I couldn't find anything in the archives, but I confess to not looking that hard.

On one of my guys only hockey trips to Vancouver several years ago, we went curling. I guarantee you it's way more fun to play than to watch, and the watching ain't bad. I've viewed more of this than any other sport in this Olympics. I like the women's game more than the men's. It's a little more about strategy and technique and a little less about power. Cheryl Bernard, the Canadian skip would make a fine cougar. She's 44 years old and an awfully nice package. Enough of this. Time to check out the Women of Curling calendar. http://oglympics.com/2010/02/16/women-of-curling-fire-on-ice/

This is the same guy who accompanied Sarah Vaughn, right? I believe he's also on the Ellington/Fitzgerald Cote D'Azur recordings. He is terrific. Wish he'd recorded more as a leader.

David, Thanks. I needed that.

Dan, You must've lost something off your fastball. I'm just trying to get under your skin early. After all, you were on hiatus when the Yankees won the series and you never even called to congratulate me. I think I need a hug.

I know. Where are the pitchers?

Kent Tukulve, the original UnderArmer. Dan, vis a vis your Pitchers and Catchers post from February 18th, I see the catcher, but I'm missing the pitchers. Help me out.

I don't know why folks are so surprised that the United States won last night. First of all, they were wearing the same style sweaters the Miracle on Ice crew wore in 1980, so I'm sure that was worth at least one goal. And, as others have said, Ryan Miller is a darn good goaltender, perhaps the best at what he does in the entire world. Further, while the U.S. may not have big name skaters like Sid the Kid, Dany Heatley, or Rick Nash, they are still loaded. All I wish is that Brian Rafalski would play like this for the Red Wings. He hasn't been much more than a pylon all year and now he morphs into some kind of goal scoring mofo with MVP written all over him. What up with that?

I might substitute the word want for need.

Happy birthday, Mike. The two gals have agreed to stay at my place through Monday night. Will Tuesday morning work for you? Say around 10:00 a.m.?

Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform perfectly tuned vocal tracks without the need of singing in tune. While its main purpose is to slightly bend sung pitches to the nearest true semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest tone in traditional equal temperament), Auto-Tune can be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised or lowered significantly.

That sound the three of them work up when they're all singing together is knee knocking. I've always thought of it as Beatles barbershop.

An old girlfriend of mine thought a chest of drawers was a chester drawers. She also though the game of chess was chest. Not my finest hour. Interestingly enough, she graduated from law school with honors and now writes and edits legal texts for law school instruction.

Absolutely. I can't tell you why I like what I like and I try not to over-analyze the whys and wherefores. I know what works for me and that all that matters. Just to give you an example, I think Thank You Girl is a fine tune. Sure, the lyrics are sophomoric, but it's got a good beat and I can dance to it. I'm giving it an 85.

It's starting to sound more like the Found Quintet than the Lost one.

Bertrand, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you wrote. It's a question of context. Why bring up the Austin debacle up in the middle of a thread devoted to Tiger Woods? No one disagrees that what this guy did was heinous in every sense of the word, but anyone who thinks that the coverage of this event will supersede the coverage of Woods' extramarital peccadilloes has probably missed the boat. I'm not saying that this is right or that it doesn't lack perspective, just that it is what it is.

I would be stunned if Woods missed a major championship. Let's put this in perspective. What's more important, saving your marriage and treating an addiction that you wouldn't even have addressed if you hadn't gotten caught in the cookie jar or whittling down the difference between the numbers 18 and 14. The Masters, with its snooty, access denied environment is the perfect setting for a return to the tour. Tiger is nothing if he's not a control freak and nowhere in the world of golf is there a more controlled environment than that of Augusta National.

And nothing to get hung about, At least it's not America (the band not the country).

It's the same concert (the first night). The Sony CD clocks in at 64m. The Jazz Door at 63m58s. Now don't ask me where that two-second difference comes from Two seconds of wiggle room to avoid a copyright lawsuit.

Old Eyes Washington? Huh? I much prefer my Jersey Shore nickname, D-Train.

I've done a little more sleuthing and based on the set list and the length of each of the tunes, what I have is a recording of the "lost" Davis quintet from its appearance at Festiva De Juan Pins in 1969. At this point, nothing more than a mildly interesting case of misidentification on the part of the producer.

The plot thickens. I decided to listen to It's About That Time tonight and my laptop was handy so I just plugged it in. When it deployed on iTunes, it was identified as Festival De Juan Pins. So, I guess I'm not sure what I've got. The packaging on the CD says the music was recorded in 1969 in Montreux. The liner notes are pretty cursory, so there's no help there. The outfit that released it is called Jazz Door. FWIW, the recording quality is first rate and Miles is on fire. I can't imagine him playing much better than this.