Big Wheel

So when does he permanently replace Schaap?

Handedness in my experience doesn't have much correlation with facility for an instrument. I think at least some of this is because the muscles required for playing are often very different from those used for grasping a fork or a pencil or throwing a baseball. I write, eat, and throw with my left hand but my right hand can play scales on the piano at a much, much higher level than my left.

Is there anything superior about the TCB release to this recent version, which appears to have the same material for a third the price? Besides the cover art, that is.

can't believe nobody has posted this one

Follow up to my question upthread: I got my order and can confirm that these look to be identical to the regular Sony/Columbia CDs that were previously going at higher prices. Thanks Jack!

The temperature must be really hot right now in NYC. The only time I ever see that many shirtless dudes is when I'm passing through the heart of the Castro. That montage was kind of the flip side of (Sorry for contributing to the spread of viral Levi's marketing.)

Does anybody know what the deal is with these "Sony Special Markets" CDs that are going for cheap? Here's an example: http://www.alibris.com/search/music/qwork/...0/used/Rosewood These are going for $5.99 a pop at Borders. But if it's some cheap piece o'crap or copy protected, I'd rather not pull the trigger.

Looks like you need to watch your "best before" dates. We let some Chinese Oolong go past its date and my wife said it was disgusting! We chucked the rest away. MG I'm aware that shelf life is an issue, especially for green or half-fermented teas. Oolong lasts about a year and this stuff was picked this past winter, so I have about 6 months to enjoy it. My guess is that the reason for the special deal was either that they couldn't move the tea sets fast enough (they are brown, which isn't the most attractive color) or that there was less American demand for this particular variety than the company expected.

Absurdly fancy Taiwanese winter oolong tea. My local premium tea store had a deal on it where they were giving you free tea sets if you bought a certain amount, so I sprung for it. The tea is pretty good, though not so much for everyday drinking!

Is Borders completely separated from Amazon now? I was planning on cashing in at Amazon with a Borders gift card + this coupon, only to find that the "new" Borders.com appears to have nothing to do with Amazon. Argghhh!

I as well. This board is bad for addicts and compulsive buyers.

This is $40 (half price) for the next hour at Amazon (it's a Gold Box deal). For that price, should someone who only has a handful of 50s/60s Ellington get this as a starting point for the 40s?

Of all the places I've lived, Boston is easily my favorite. It's expensive as HELL, though. If I could afford it, I'd move back in a heartbeat. Same here. I regret moving to this shithole. Are you serious? I mean, it's not like SF doesn't have its faults (annoying public transit, less than perfect jazz scene, no real summer, hippies) but I'd rather live here than 99% of America. Seriously tongue-in-cheek. I agree with you on the 99% thing, but it's no Boston. No summer? No FALL; no real SEASONS period! Lack of bookstores, shitty PBS affiliate, lack of trees, lousy library system...jazz scene, did you say? What jazz scene? I could go on, but I don't have all day. (And yet, the real estate here still costs MORE than Boston...go figure.) Lack of bookstores selling new books, maybe. The Mission is wall to wall with used books although I admit I haven't pored through them very thoroughly. City Lights stacks up pretty solidly against something like the Harvard Book Store. Public library systems in Boston and SF strike me as about the same...at least the branches I've visited, although maybe the main library in each makes the difference. I was spoiled from the university libraries anyway so any public library was a big step down. I hear you on the lack of trees, though. It definitely is a bit weird that all the trees are basically concentrated in parks and "undeveloped" parcels of land on hillsides. SF > Boston in terms of variety of good food. On a two-block stretch of 16th Street you get: 2 tapas restaurants, sushi, chinese, burgers, Breton-style crepes, 2 Indian-Pakistani joints, Vietnamese, Salvadoran, Thai, a taqueria, and a decent Italian restaurant. On the other hand, no pizza place with good and cheap slices exists anywhere in the city's 50 square miles...

Of all the places I've lived, Boston is easily my favorite. It's expensive as HELL, though. If I could afford it, I'd move back in a heartbeat. Same here. I regret moving to this shithole. Are you serious? I mean, it's not like SF doesn't have its faults (annoying public transit, less than perfect jazz scene, no real summer, hippies) but I'd rather live here than 99% of America.

GregM: We must torture the chicken and invade the coop, and those of you who don't understand why are clearly anti-Semites.

Yeah, this is kind of a weird attempt to compete with Free Cone Day yesterday at Ben and Jerry's. I guess the point is for branding purposes (to make sure people don't forget that Baskin-Robbins exists also)? Or maybe that if you want like 5 scoops you'll be happier with this than with Free Cone Day Anyway, I happened to pass by the Mountain View B-R's tonight and the line was around the block. Good thing the plan was to go to one of those newfangled frozen plain yogurt places instead. $5.00 for a medium with raspberries and mochi, but not half bad and way healthier.

John Patton - Got A Good Thing Goin' (Sale price $10.98) Patton and guitarist Grant Green are on fire from first note to last. Driven by Hug Walker's drums and Richard Landrum's congas, they perform some of the best work of their careers on the exciting funk session. Isn't this an RVG edition? If this is really going OOP and not just out of stock at True Blue, it would be the first case I'm aware of of an RVG remaster getting deleted.

Sometimes it kills in unexpected ways.

...It was Christmas when we stayed there, and we ate breakfast on Christmas Day at that Mel's Diner across the street. Couldn't believe it was actually open. Don't want to lead the original poster astray, so at the risk of sounding a little jerky I'll point out that being open at all hours is widely considered to be the only good thing about Mel's. Whatever it may have been years ago, it's now just a chain of greasy spoons where you go post-drinking at 4 AM. Given that SF has dozens if not hundreds of excellent restaurants, many of which are dirt cheap, I wouldn't waste a meal here (unless you're in the aforementioned post-drinking mode).

Sorry to hear about your wife. Do you know which UCSF campus her doctor is at? USCF is spread out among 3 or 4 campuses. The main campus at Parnassus Heights is close to Cole Valley and the Sunset; USCF Mt. Zion is nearer to Japantown and Pacific Heights, and the Mission Bay campus is near the ballpark in South of Market. One thing I forgot to mention is that the "best" things to do in SF are often CROWDED. Toronado is frequently packed at peak hours; there's always a line stretching outside Tartine (though it's usually worth it).

There are tons of good neighborhoods for walking (though some walks are strenuous because of hills). What do you and your wife like to do for fun? That may help narrow it down a little bit. Personally I like hanging out in the Mission (esp. the stretch around Valencia between 16th and 21st streets) but there are only a few nice B&Bs in the neighborhood. My dad stayed at one at 19th and South Van Ness, which did have a certain charm to it. Most of the hotels are in the Union Square area, which is sort of boring unless you're planning to see shows in the theater district. The advantage of Union Square is that it's a major hub for the BART and Muni, so it's easy to get to the Mission and the Castro from it. You can also get to Noe Valley via the J-Church Muni, where there is some nice walking on 24th or Church streets (though it's pretty tame). Or you could take the N-Judah out to Cole Valley, which is only a short walk from the Upper Haight, or further out to the Sunset (some nice stuff to see around Irving St and 9th Ave). I like the Inner Richmond also, with some nice walking around Clement Street and 1st-13th Avenues (great Asian food). Fun things to do in the city: parks, lots of them. My current favorite is Sutro Heights Park way out in the outer Richmond, in the northwest corner of the city. Golden Gate Park is enormous and always nice to walk through on a sunny day. Dolores Park in the Mission is a big hangout. A hidden gem is Grand View Park in the middle of the Sunset around 14th Ave and Noriega, which is a bit more of a challenge to get to without a car but has beautiful views of the whole area. Toronado in the Lower Haight is generally regarded as the best bar for beer. Tartine in the Mission is an amazing French-style bakery. I haven't included much on the Marina/Russian Hill/North Beach areas because I know them less well. In terms of going outside the city, any drive in Marin County is going to put you close to lots of things to do outside (wineries in Sonoma, hiking in Golden Gate National Recreation Area). Some people prefer to go south to Santa Cruz/Monterey (haven't spent as much time as I'd like in Santa Cruz and have never been beyond it).

Yeah, like countries ever needed a reason to grab extra territory. By this logic, WTF were white people thinking stealing a shithole like West Texas from the Comanche?

Yeah, that first session in particular is one of my very favorites. I hope "Don't Walk" is played on the loudspeakers in Heaven, or that at least I can bring the Mosaic box with me.

Here's an interesting study on the correlations between conservative Christian populations and payday lending. A couple of thoughts: -To some degree I wonder how much of this is really just that payday lenders and conservative Christianity both are most common in the poorest regions of the country. It's possible there's no causal relationship between being Jesusified and having payday lenders; the reason for the correlation just happens to be that you see payday lenders more (and legit banks less) where lots of poor people are. -While it may be true that outlawing payday lending makes the debtors worse off...I'd much rather live in New England than in Mississippi, and I think most of us would agree on this regardless of our income level. It seems rather counterintuitive that Mississippi will be much better off if only they take steps to make sure they look much less like Massachusetts.