Scott Dolan

Just because it's a specific subject you specialize in doesn't mean the test was "ridiculously easy", or that it somehow underscores some sad state of history education. Reel it in and show a little humility instead of continuing on with your "if people can't ace this then they are stupid" victory lap. I'm not a specialist but do read a lot of history for pleasure. However, these are basic questions for which you don't need any special knowledge. By process of elimination you could have figured out the answers. As a matter of fact, 8th graders, at least in my district, have to know a lot more, a lot more than I did in 8th grade. Give it a rest. Kids in eighth grade are currently studying history, so most, if not all, of the answers are fresh in their minds. For most folks in their mid forties, not so much as most haven't studied hsitory since they were in school. I learned algebra in middle school, and aced it back then. Doesn't mean I should be able to do so now as there has been no practical application of it in my life for nearly three decades. You know, out of practice and all... That's how life works. And in no way reflects either the collective intelligence of a society, or the current state of education in our country. Period.

Just because it's a specific subject you specialize in doesn't mean the test was "ridiculously easy", or that it somehow underscores some sad state of history education. Reel it in and show a little humility instead of continuing on with your "if people can't ace this then they are stupid" victory lap.

A sad, but passing, 25/30...

Well, since the minor initial annoyances, I can report that this kit is really the shit! After getting each piece properly calibrated (a process that was actually quite quick and easy), it now sounds absolutely wonderful. I think as time goes on I will eventually switch all my toms to 10" pads. The current 8" pads can make rolls a bit awkward at times, although the more I play, the easier it gets. But, I'd still rather have the larger heads. Aside from the setup issues, all of which are completely resolved, I have nothing negative to say about this kit at all. Very, very happy with it so far.

Nice! Thanks, brother!

Would it be Spiritual Unity any other way?! It has led a wonderfully chaotic existence from the time it was recorded up until this very day. Though, I would still like to find out from any of you if the reference/test tone was removed from Ghosts: Second Variation. My pressing has it from 3:22-3:27.

Love 'em, less clutter same sound as CD. Has the reference tone ever been removed from Ghosts: Second Variation, do you know?

Does that go for the digital version as well? Does the 50th have special packaging of any kind? If not I was just going to grab a digital copy of it, as the only time I buy physical copies anymore is for special packaging. i.e. The Endless River box set with Blu-ray I purchased a couple of months ago. And that was the first physical copy I had purchased since I got the Bill Evans Vanguard box set three years ago!

Sloppily written sums it up. And I agree with your assessment. I guess they didn't explicitly say it came from that session because they thought it was a given. Either way, I actually appreciate that you started this thread because I wasn't even aware they'd released a 50th anniversary package.

Well, it's complicated. Perhaps you can decode the explanation here better than I can. http://www.ayler.co.uk/html/spiritualunity.html

I agree, Paul. Then again, I swore off of sports pundits many years ago. But, being a sports fan it's impossible to avoid their toxic dribbling completely. The only thing more contemptable and worthy of immediate dismissal than sports pundits are political pundits.

Hey, Jim. What was the deal with the end of the Landry/Schramm era?

Unbelievable. $70,000 is nothing to him. Like maybe $70 to the rest of us. He's not a repeat offender because he's gone two years without being fined or suspended, even though he's been fined 8 times and suspended once for two games prior to that. The NFL is a joke. Unfortunately, we've known the NFL is a joke for far too long. I thought Tagliabue was a disaster, until Goodell took over. I remember in hindsight Rozelle ended up looking pretty good when compared to Tagliabue. And Goodell is doing the same thing for Tagliabue, something I would have found impossible years ago. And yeah, isn't that whole 32 month thing they wrote into the rules a load of shit?! Again, Josh Gordon got 12 games for weed.

Um, yeah. The NFL is all about player safety... http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000451968/article/ndamukong-suh-has-suspension-rescinded-fined-70k

I'd say Bayless is the lying alcoholic.

Ah, but do you eat? Exercise? Go to the doctor when you're sick? That sounds like intentionally keeping yourself alive.

Well, if you off yourself you intentionally kill yourself. So I guess the opposite would be intentionally keeping yourself alive. Which means we on ourselves everyday. insensitive, ignorant and offensive. Is it? If he had said "killed themselves" would that have been acceptable?

Good lord, people! Does anyone understand what "off themselves" means?! Brittany Murphy died from complications from pneumonia, and a toxic mix of the prescription meds she was using to fight it. It wasn't a suicide!

Hoffman's death was accidental, not suicide.

While it seems a bit harsh, I do not disagree with your proposed punishment. He is a repeat offender, and it could be argued that he's the dirtiest player in the NFL. Sitting him for a game is silly. They need to suspend him for an entire season and impose mandatory anger management counseling. How this punishment can be explained when considering Josh Gordon's twelve game suspension is beyond comprehension. I wouldn't start counting those chickens just yet. Green Bay and Dallas are playing at a pretty high level right now.

My initial impressions are a bit mixed. The setup instructions for the kit are sheer insanity. There were curved parts that they gave no hint as to which way the curve went. They had two mounts listed as going on the exact opposite sides of where they were supposed to go. After the mount was together, it all became pretty intuitive at that point and I tossed the laughable instructions. I probably spent an hour simply adjusting it to my liking once I got it together, which was actually kind of fun. The one thing I neglected to do was check the heads before I started playing. They needed to be tightened down, so I dented my snare and one of my toms. Nothing huge, and being electronic it shouldn't affect the tuning. But, I'm pretty sure the thin little mylar heads aren't going to hold up well with a tree swinging ogre like me pounding on them. So I'll probably switch to a two-ply head sooner rather than later anyway. Back to the instructions I'm not sure why they even bothered with, the wiring was fairly intuitive, and all wires were nicely marked on each end. They have them harnessed and taped together, so it's really just one big bundle of wires with 1/4" terminations. Problem 1: the module had three tom inputs marked, and my kit has four toms and four cables for them. There were empty generic plugins, so I simply plugged it into one. It ended up being a crash cymbal trigger. And yes, you can customize all the triggers, but I really wasn't prepared to sit around figuring out how to do that last night. Through process of elimination, I finally found the correct plugin. Unfortunately, my floor toms now sounded like a hi-hat tom, and vice versa. So my son rearranged the wires until we got the proper left to right progression. Very odd, but whatever. Problem 2: I had an extra wire labelled "ride 2". But only have one ride cymbal. Couldn't figure it out, so just said fuck it and left it unplugged. Everything sounded pretty good, though I still need to sit down and carefully calibrate it to my liking. But the ride cymbal was very weak. Even with its slider cranked all the way up and every other piece all the way down. Went back through and checked everything. Yep, it was good. The bell would play, but the rest of it was nearly inaudible. Well, I guess because it"s a three zone pad, it takes two cables. Duh... Plugged the mystery "ride 2" cable in and everything is fine now. Played for a couple of hours with my son and I taking turns. Rusty as all hell, but had fun. He did one hell of a job for it being the first time he ever played. I'm thinking he'll end up being better than me. Though, I suppose that's not setting the bar very high. But, I will say that it's a beautiful set, that feels great, plays very nicely, and sounds superb. No issues with how it functions, just felt like a trial by fire to get to that point. More later.

Wow, That sounds absolutely delicious!

What codec are you using for the mp4 files? It encodes in both AAC and ALAC. If you want full lossless audio, you need to make sure you're encoding with ALAC. I personally cannot hear the difference, but for archival purposes I'd be lying if I said that I don't use lossless.

Whatever you celebrate, and however you choose to celebrate it, I hope each and every one of you have an excellent holiday season. We do Christmas in the Dolan household, even though we aren't Christian by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from the fascist Steve Hoffman board, this one is one of the most impressive on the intertubes. Still has a huge following with a lot of daily posters/postings. I'm still impressed each and every morning when I log in to find two pages of new content. The online bulletin board may be dead in theory, but all you cats prove that it isn't dead in practice. My hat is off for each and every one of you. It's a pub that will never shutter. I've been working my ass off to make myself a better online person. Seriously. I hope I've made some positive strides, but won't rest on whatever laurels I've potentially earned. And to those I previously offended, I offer only actions, not words. At the end of the day, I wish all of you peace, and hope you are able to enjoy the comfort of family and friends. Seasons greetings, Scott

That's still pretty damned good. I suppose it at least proves you graduated high school at least more than a decade ago... Kids coming out of high school these days make me feel like a friggin' genius. Perhaps grammar is no longer part of the curriculum?