vibes

I wonder how much those things weigh...Mid-range Sony headphones, like the MDRV600 and MDRV700DJ ($100 and $150, respectively) feel like lead bricks on your head, when compared with similarly priced Sennheisers or Philips headphones. Sony gave me and the girl that works for me the V600 and V700DJ, and we both quit using them at work because they gave us headaches. The most comfortable headphones we've found in the $100-200 range are actually Philips headphones (the models we've tried in this price range sound excellent, too), but I don't know that anyone sells them. Philips told me they hired somebody away from Sennheiser to design their headphones, so it's not surprising that they would feel and sound great.

I'm particularly fond of Joe's playing on "Life Wish." Listened to the entire album several times last week, and this track really stands out to me. Great album all around.

I hate people who ask the same question over and over again, but never bother to listen to the response. This quality is frequently found with colleagues and business associates - they feel the need to ask you 9827348756235 times where you're from, if you're married, if you have kids, etc., but never bother to remember the response. It would be more polite to just not even bother asking. I hate self-righteous people, too. Since I was very religious growing up and went to a religious university, I've met my fair share of them. Of course, self-righteousness isn't limited to the religious, but it seems that's where that quality is most prevalent.

I've never listened to them, but DrJ owns them and seems to like them. I tried to get Sony to give me a sample, but no dice. They're not too liberal with free product. Fortunately, the guys at Sennheiser have been much kinder to me. B) Anyway, we had these at list price for a while and never sold even one pair, so that's the reason for the price drop. People just don't associate Best Buy with really high-end audio.

This CD came in the mail at work today. I put it my computer and put on my headphones, and started to feel ill about 10 minutes into the disc. I took it out and put in the new Stanley Turrentine RVG instead, and felt much better. Cecil Taylor and work apparently do not mix.

Slightly off topic, but how is "Beirach" pronounced?

Good advice about selecting the disc that matches your mood - that's what I do. One thing that often ends up happening to me with new discs is that after opening up and playing the new disc, I want to hear something more by the artist or one of the sidemen...So I come back to the other new discs later. For example, I recently picked up "Sweet Honey Bee," and after listening to it once, I felt like hearing more Joe Henderson, so I listened to "Inner Urge" and "Basra" for a while afterwards. Have fun and enjoy the new music!

I'll be at the Purdue show, a couple nights after the Columbia show. Very much looking forward to it!

I've really enjoyed this series, as it has introduced me to a lot of new music from a lot of different artists. I've purchased a few of the discs from each wave of releases, and have been very pleased, for the most part. Here are the ones that get played the most: Kenny Burrell - Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas Dorothy Ashby - Afro-Harping Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond - 1975: The Duets Al Grey - Snap Your Fingers Archie Shepp - Attica Blues Cal Tjader - Soul Bird: Whiffenpoof Gerry Mulligan Meets Johnny Hodges While I have a number of the CD's released in the series, I'm far from having them all, and would like to hear what other people like. What do you recommend? What has surprised you?

This morning: go to an advance private screening of the new Disney movie, "Home on the Range." This afternoon: Go to the office for a while, if I can muster up the will power. This evening: Some of my wife's friends are coming over for dinner and to watch a video or something. I've promised to try and stay awake while they're here (I hate it when people come over ) Sunday morning: I volunteer as a conversation partner for ESL students at the University of Minnesota, and will be meeting with my partner and going grocery shopping with her. I always enjoy my trips to the Asian market. Sunday afternoon: Sit around the house, probably watch more of season 4 of "The Sopranos." We've been renting it from Netflix.

How about combining the two? My dentist/orthodontist uncle ALWAYS had Kenny G playing when I went in for appointments. I remember complaining about it to my aunt (the office manager), to which she replied "No, it's great. We just got a 5-disc changer and all five discs are Kenny G. We listen to him all day long." The wounds will never heal...

The MDRCD3000's are now $499, as we're trying to sell out the inventory we have. This is a $200 price reduction from where we had them. Here's a link, in case anyone's interested: MDRCD3000 Shipping is free.

Bestbuy.com will have more Sennheisers soon, including the HD555 and HD595 ($169 and $289, respectively). Not quite as expensive as what you're looking for, but close. They won't be in store, however - too expensive for us to carry chain-wide.

Thanks.

So what is the correct pronunciation of "Cuscuna" then?

I see emails worse than this at the company I work for - a Fortune 100 company where almost everyone is a college grad. Good writing just isn't that important to most people these days. You'd think they'd at least use the spellcheck before hitting the "send" button, though.

Anyone heard anything more concrete about the McCoy Tyner set? With "Tender Moments" coming out as an RVG in August, it seems unlikely that a Mosaic will come out this year.

The Blue Note t-shirts are now on sale. Very cool. Ropeadope Click on "Friends and Family" to see the shirts. They even have a "Tender Moments" shirt for women.

It's either Miles or Coltrane...and the strange thing is, I don't listen to either artist all that often.

Congratulations, Paul. I hope everything goes well with the new job.

Yes, it is that much more stable and it is definitely worth the upgrade. If you do decide to upgrade, make sure your computer has at least 256MB of RAM and that you do a clean install, rather than just overwriting ME. If you decide to do the clean install, all you'll need is your ME CD-ROM to prove that you own a previous Microsoft OS. Like wesbed said, XP is based on the Win NT kernel, and it is far more stable. I've been running XP on my computers since 2001 and have no complaints. My computers have rarely locked up, and even if they do lock up for a few minutes, I can usually close the problem program without shutting down the entire computer. Another nice thing is that I can leave my computers running for days without having to restart. I could never do that with 95/98/ME. Oh, and upgrading to XP doesn't mean necessarily that you have to upgrade all your software. I still use Office 2000 on XP and don't have any problems with it.

Hell no. Even my wife is forbidden from touching them. I'm not usually a very emotional person, but the last time she touched one of my Mosaics, it definitely provoked an emotional response from me.

I do chain-wide inventory management for Best Buy. I handle audio accessories, headphones, personal speakers, VHS/camcorder tape and phone accessories. I work pretty insane hours a lot of the time, but the job does have some nice perks - employee discount at Best Buy stores, lots of free samples (don't ask how many pairs of headphones I have ), etc. I plan on going to graduate school in a few years and then staying as far away from retail as possible.

Atlantic and Village Vanguard, and hope to buy the Prestige box sometime in the next year.

Wes Montgomery