tonym

Funnily enough Peter, that's one of only two supercharged models that attended; there weren't that many made. Good choice.

where i attended the second BBWF (Big Bad Wedge Fest). Lots of variants on a theme; 127 cars to be precise, there aren't many more than that on the road in this country. Some absolute pearlers. We had a competition: How Loud Is Your Wedge? taken from a decibel meter at 4500rpm and some other constants. I scored a respectable 107dB. Then I won some lovely stainless wheel nuts in a raffle. Well worth the £70 in fuel it cost to get there and back. Here are some pics. I also have some mpeg footage if anyone is interested, or is as 'anoraky' as myself?

Here I am, out of bed for the umpteenth time and sweating my way through the second bout of tonsilitus in a month Aprt from the double dose of anti-biotics my doc has prescribed for two weeks (which means two more weeks of no beer ), he's also given me these very potent painkillers to ease the golfball in my throat. I did sleep last night though; quite well in fact . Well enough to travel to Michigan and meet Joe and Jim (Sorry Randy, you must have got held up somewhere, or probably hanging out with the groupies ) Joe, you were running a bar, and when I entered and ordered a beer, I introduced myself. You knew of me through the board. Obviously, how else would you know me . I then told you how I had to be home the next day and that I wanted you to bring a copy of the new album to the bar next morning. The for some bizarre reason my grandfather walked in and told me our hotel was flooded To be honest I'm glad that the only online activity I had last night was a quick surf here; bit of a cautionary tale I suppose, maybe one that should be added to the packet of those painkillers. When taking this medication, please refrain from operating machinery, driving or visiting any internet forums that may appear intimidating. I'll be ordering that disc asap by the way. Cheers fellas.

Congratulations Lon from over here.

You'll find Ireland (all of it really, slight regional variations) has fairly good weather during Autumn and Winter. It can been quite nice in October; sunny intermittent rain jsut as it is in June for that matter. Dublin is one of the dryer parts of the country being on the other side of those Atlantic winds. As for social/entertainment concerns; nothing gets in the way of social life in any part of Ireland as far as I've witnessed. Providing you have a Rough Guide for example, and a drink in your hand, you can't go wrong. PS maybe best to avoid Dublin during the shopping frenzy that is November and December

You do right sticking with the local specialist Ed. That way, after a mont or so when the cables have stretched (which they do) you can ride in and have him adjust things back to how they should be. He also won't mind amending your saddle or tyre choice even though they might not be standard. For the few quid you'll save from a big outlet, you'll spend on repairs at the local place anyway. Just an aside; I bought a new 'winter' bike (essential in the UK) last October for £700 and, wheels aside, it is as good as anything I raced on a few years ago. Same for clothing etc. Such is the improvement in basic quality of these off-the-peg bikes. If you did want to spend a little less, you'll find that a couple of hundred less might only downgrade the components to say, Shimano 105; still decent quality stuff. Get the best combination of stuff you can afford; pointless putting the bulk of your cash into a frame and skimping on components or vice versa. Much like buying stereo equipment Go for it Ed. Let us all know when you're up and running.

That's a very humbling and candid account of what you all have been through Conrad. It must have been very upsetting to write that. My thoughts are with you now.

you are very welcome Ed. For what it's worth I'm exactly the same height and have always ridden a 56cm frame. That is a nice bike for the money and will roll along very nicely. Like I said tyre choice is important; if the roads are of a decent surface, go with 23mm. Any more and there'll be too much weight and rolling resistance, any less (21mm or 19mm) and you'll run the risk of lots of impact punctures. Cornering will also be compromised. Will you buy mail order or is that a price you've been quoted from a local specialist store?

Just to add, I've just looked at the pdf containing all the geometrical data and it looks like you will get a 'squarer' frame than you once did. No worries.

Go for it Ed. That looks a decent piece of kit for the money. It's certain that you'll get better stuff for your money now than you did ten years ago. After all this years Ultegra, for example, is as good as Dura Ace a year or so ago. I'v enever had a problem with STi shifts but do find the lever hoods a bit of a wierd shape. Then again, i was brought up on Campag. The Shimano stuff is well finished though. Those Bontrager wheels are decent. You won't spend much time trueing them They too, have a nice finish on them. Buy it, change the tyres for some Michelin Pro Race (the best mid range tyres you can get, totally slick but grippy in rain or damp. Every condition apart from fertiliser that the farmers around here leave. The go and do some miles. Just a word of warning though; Trek's always used to hae short top tubes. For example, if I was to buy the 56cm frame, I would need a 56cm top tube and a 13cm stem. now Trek had a habit of making the frames around this size with maybe a 55cm top tube. This would necessitate a longer stem which would affect handling. How tall are you? And are you in roughly average proportions? ie you ain't got disproportionately long legs or back.

All the best mate.

very good

Do you get the day on your bike as it's your birthday Bebop? All the best mate.

Google moon see what they saw on this anniversary of the first moon landings.

Just downloaded a trial version of their software which has not only fulfilled my label-making needs, but has also solved the earlier problem I was experienceing recording from MD. Job done!!!! (I now have a few fantastic Jazz On 3 gigs sitting on my shelves, designing the covers will be fun)

cheers John

As of last week, we now have a groovy CD/DVD writer on our new desktop system. So as you can imaging, I'm running off CDs of my (legit) mp3 collection; concerts, live recording etc. Plus a few compilations for friends who I owe. Might even take part in the Blindfold test now . But what i wanted to ask is, what software or programs do you fellas use in order to get a professional looking insert made? Bear in mind I only have an inkjet printer, but I don't really want flashy images, I'd rather creat cool geometric graphics and neat fonts. But the sizing and layout are very important obviously. Any suggestions? I do know there are some experts out there because I've seen some of your examples on this board.

It's definately a more considered effort than the other discs recorded during this period. I wonder if Tony Williams was intent on producing something more 'studious' than say, the rawness associated with the Plugged Nickel sets, the Berlin and Tokyo dates or the more straight-ahead approach he exhibits on Maiden Voyage. Bearing in mind it's essentially two of Miles' groups playing here; they sort of sound like it but you'd be very surprised if his trumpet sound popped up over the proceedings wouldn't you? I do think that the Peacock-Williams-Rivers combo could have had a future, satisfying the demanding connoisseur of the more thoughtful, less muscular excursions into freebop (for want of a better term). It's definately an intriguing album. Certainly hard to pigeonhole. Which is nice.

I don't. My bet is that Tony is trying to go from the headphone output of the MiniDisc player to the analog-in of the computer, which is an impedence mismatch. Does the player have a line-out as opposed to a headphone out? Even so, the best way is to go in digitally to the computer. The recordings on the MiniDisc are already digital. By going in analog to the computer you're adding two unnecessary steps, ie converting the digital bits on the minidisc to analog, then converting them back to digital in the computer. Once you're in digital you should stay there if at all possible until you actually listen to the music. ← The MD only has the line-out that the headphones use. It has optical and analogue lines-in.... i might find that this doesn't help; the switch between the two formats.

I really doubt that the soundcard is causing this problem, unless it's just plain broken. If anything, there's a problem with configuring the software, or the drivers aren't good for the soundcard, or the software isn't capable of handling what you want. If you want to browse for reviews of freeware audio recording applications, you might check out www.kvr-vst.com (huge site -- you'll have to navigate a bit). If anything, the software itself might not be properly configured or allow for certain adjustments you might wish to make -- you should try a small freeware app in order to rule out the soundcard itself as the problem first, perhaps, and if the errors are still there, after tweaking everything you can in the new software, you could *then* try changing the drivers out for your soundcard, for example (KXAudio is a well-regarded replacement driver for Soundblaster cards, available for free, although it doesn't work for everybody -- Wuchsel's ASIO4ALL is another driver which might give you something to play around with), and if that fails, then you might consider popping for a nice Echo card or something -- but you shouldn't have to, just to get usable sound. MDs are compressed, right? I take it the sound is OK when you play direct from MD? Just making sure. ← Thanks for that advice, I'll try some of what you've suggested. The sound BTW has always been fine on playback even through an Aux line-in on the home stereo.

Just through an analogue line-in. I thought having this SoundBlaster software installed it would be able to cope with a simple task like this. Those audio interfaces do look the business but I'm not going to fork out £70 for one. Any other suggestions?

I've been tinkering with SoundBlaster Live! software that we bought with our new PC, playing the MDs in real time and recording through this software. However, all the recordings, when played back, have a tinny, otherworldly sound to them. Has anyone here managed this process before? I have a stack of great concerts from digital radio waiting to be put onto CD and the iPod if it can be done. Help. Thanks in advance.

New iPod out now!!!!

For the instrumental stuff I'd have to say 'Hot Rats', 'Waka/Jawaka: Hot Rats' and 'The Grand Wazoo' are indispensible. Maybe the nearest to jazz composition that Zappa got . Others will obviously feel differently about this.

Enjoy your Birthday buddy. Be it Side By Side, Back To Back or even in Solitude.