T.D.

Jacques Tutight Tommy Tutone King Tut

PM sent on $15 Fawlty Towers Complete Remastered Collection, 3 DVDs, VG+

Jessica Gomes (hubba hubba) John Astin Raúl Juliá

IMO, too much $ in football to see "the end" coming, despite possible moral justification. I was once a boxing fan, but stopped after becoming aware of the brain trauma and parasitic managers. But hasn't MMA taken off? As a hockey fan, I can tell you that sport has its own concussion-related woes...

Somewhat overshadowed by the Seau news: Player bounty-gate suspensions out. Vilma to sit out whole 2012 season. NFL doesn't look all that healthy to me these days.

I've been buying Soul Note / Black Saint "complete remastered" boxes of late. Ordered this one today:

I've been really getting into this: Can't say enough good things about it!

Hard to see in this pic, but the cover page at left reads "SCHUMANN"

I had to Google, but found here (emphasis added): Any hopes Canadian hockey fans had of ending the country's lengthy Stanley Cup drought were dashed a lot sooner than normal this season. The Ottawa Senators were defeated 2-1 by the New York Rangers in Game 7 of their first-round series on Thursday, ensuring that the Stanley Cup will remain south of the border for an 18th straight season. It marks the first time since 1996 that a Canadian team hasn't even managed to crack the second round of the post-season. I'm too lazy to research pre-1996...

This might be a reach, but Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür started out as a rock musician (until 1984). He did study composition with significant names, and "switched" to composed music, so I dunno if he qualifies. I've heard some of his Architectonics pieces (live and recorded), which are pretty good IMO. Terje Rypdal's a more obvious name who started out in rock, but he seems too far removed from the field...

I learn a lot of funny British words by doing British-style cryptic crosswords (Guardian, Times, Private Eye). One can pick up the idiom pretty quickly. Some good ones are the aforementioned yob (and variants like yobbo), bumf, bonkbuster , ladette and saddo. Just recalled frottage, a recent discovery and apparent favorite of Private Eye magazine, which is near the top of my charts...

Not in my formative neck of the woods (Upper Midwest) - the old farmers' term in that area is "colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra" or "colder than the nipple on a witch's tit"* *Memorable (to my warped mind) quotation from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: Colder than the nipple on a witch's tit! Colder than a bucket of penguin shit! Colder than the hair on a polar bear's ass! Colder than the frost on a Champagne glass!

I find feckless hilarious for some reason...having an Irish scatological sense of humor, I often associate that word with feculent. Though American, I enjoy certain British words like shambolic, gormless...(Also really dig the Brit term gone pear-shaped, despite the meaning being rather unclear!)

Excellent Kramnik-Aronian game today. Started out as a Four Knights, of all things. Aronian sac'd his Queen for a bunch of very active pieces, but Kramnik survived the complications and won (1-0, 42). Some commentary at http://www.chessvibes.com/live-commentary/kramnik-levels-score-against-aronian

Thanks! I had meekly assumed the price change wasn't negotiable. I phoned the 800 # in my e-mail message (different from above) and was able to renew the order at the original price. FWIW, the dude on the phone was very helpful and competent.

I may live to regret this (the first 200 pp. have been good enough, but have scarcely made a dent in the total): recently started a one-volume (not just a brick, more like a cinder-block) edition of Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet.

Thanks. FWIW, J&R currently has free shipping on $25+ and a bunch of RVGs @ $5.99. I broke down and ordered the Waldron set fron J&R. The order got cancelled without any explanation. Too good to be true, I suppose. I ordered three "free shipping" boxes from J & R over an 8-day period ending Sunday 4/15. [Edited] Received the Waldron, first one ordered. The second one has shipped. The third one wound up getting cancelled - initial e-mail was a little weird, but after further investigation it appears to be a simple case of "out of stock". I do notice, however, that the "new price" for "forward delivery" (4/30 or later) is some $6 higher than the price of my cancelled order...

I was so thinking about it, but I already bought the ELO set this week, and I couldn't justify to myself buying so soon afterwards. Besides, I have TPF DVDs! Come on, everybody get happy! The Partridge Family set is one I didn't consider, though I'm known to have bad taste. Today, PopMarket is hyping a Firesign Theater box that looks very interesting, but I've splurged on too many CDs of late...

Tough one! I only found via Google, so won't give spoiler. Not a familiar name to me. The facemask thing is debatable - I've seen others mentioned, and technically some punters/kickers may have held out longest.

The two sessions with Ricky Ford & Sonny Fortune are intense. Or, to be drama with it, INTENSE!!! Either way, but with confidence. Thanks. Got the Waldron box and am very happy! This Soul Note/Black Saint reissue program is going to cost me some serious money, but I won't complain if they're all this good. I just splurged and ordered the Threadgill Complete Remastered box (yeah, I searched the archives and found some well-argued preference for the Mosaic, but price was a factor...).

Just ordered the Threadgill Soul Note box Funny thing: I listen to a lot of "modern/contemporary classical", including some quite weird stuff, but my jazz tastes have somehow been really conservative and I never connected with a lot of "out"-type music. But I've been dipping my toes into avant-garde recently with pretty good results, and was highly impressed by the Threadgill clips I heard.

Thanks. FWIW, J&R currently has free shipping on $25+ and a bunch of RVGs @ $5.99.

Good point, I noticed those when listening to clips. But I'm one of those dinosaurs who doesn't yet do the mp3 thing, for various reasons. Another interesting box, though it's not my cup of tea (I'd like some of the constituent discs, but the whole package is too much): Same proviso re. mp3...