Uncle Skid

Top Spot: Grand F**king Rapids, Michigan???? What the hell??? If anybody needs some Amway products, let me know! (top 4: Sheboygan, WI; Madison, WI; Danbury, CT; Oak Park, IL. I guess I like the snow and cold!)

Procrastinator.

That is extremely cool! Will it work with any size flash drive? Does it have to be a SanDisk drive?

Happy Birthday, Paul!

Just came back - took only 15 minutes. I was prepared to wait much longer, so it was a nice surprise to find the lines relatively short. We also have those ancient lever machines with the curtains here. I've never used any of the newer methods -- it just wouldn't be the same without pulling that big level and hearing the bell ring!

(edit: removed feeble attempt at humor)

Really? Just a wild guess -- the sun/rain lyric vaguely reminds me of something Sting might have written.

Something by Sting?

How is that one? I guess it's worth picking up the TOCJ over the domestic on this one, ya? I really like it, and I'd agree that it is underrated. I picked up the TOCJ a few years ago when I was on a big Cedar Walton kick, and I wasn't disappointed. I've never heard the domestic version, but the TOCJ sounds mighty fine to me!

Charisma (TOCJ) is on over here!

How is it? I had to go look that one up -- I had never heard of it! Is it OOP?

Paul, PM sent on the Cedar Walton disc. Mark

I don't remember what the ad was for (a bank?), but I was *seriously* upset when I heard Starship's "We Built This City" used for commercial purposes. Talk about sellouts!! I can't believe they compromised their artistic integrity, just for a few extra bucks!

I'm going through this with my notebook -- the hard drive occasionally makes very bad noises, and I've had a number of read/write errors, too. It hasn't actually crashed yet, but I'm assuming it won't be long. I was going to buy an exact replacement from Dell, but I found some better deals at Provantage. They had the exact replacement drive for my laptop, but I ended up buying a larger capacity, faster drive for less money. I'll have to do some messing around to get my data on to this new drive, but the extra capacity will be nice.

It's been a whole bunch of Andrew Hill lately! Just received Dance With Death, and also recently purchased Judgment! from a fellow board member. The Black Fire RVG hasn't left heavy rotation since it came out. I'm still regretting not jumping on that Hill Mosaic that was up for sale recently.

Did you pick up any Styx or Night Ranger, Big Al??? Just placed a CD Universe order for three of the new Conns coming out next Tuesday: Hill, Rivers, and Wilson. Also ordered Henderson's Inner Urge, as that has been on the want list for a long time now.

Happy Birthday from one of your Michigan pals!! Save a donut for me! "It just ain't the same.... without the bass!!" B-)

It's not even MP3s -- ITunes uses some DRM-enabled format that only allows for a limited number of burns. If you want MP3, you have to burn a normal audio CD, and then rip it to MP3! The only digital music download service that made sense to me was EMusic, before they changed their pricing structure. More or less "unlimited" downloads for around $20/month; jazz labels included Prestige, Riverside, Contemporary, Pablo, etc. For me, the EMusic MP3s were just a way to "preview" a whole bunch of music for a reasonable fee; certainly not a substitute for the actual CD.

Bebop -- I can't imagine travelling anywhere without my MP3 (hard drive) player, and a good pair of noise cancelling headphones! I've got well over 200 CD's (encoded at a higher rate than "normal") on a 20G hard drive. I also bring a cassette adapter with me, and hope that the rental car has a tape player. Some of the newer models have the ability to play on unused portions of the FM band as well. Have you checked out any of those hard drive players? I also do a fair amount of mixing and matching older CDs with newer purchases. I love pulling out CDs that I haven't listened to in a long time -- sometimes it's like having brand new music without the big visa bill!

It's probably not necessary at this point, but add me to the list of satisfied customers. CDs ordered from Al were received (in great condition) with no problems. As mentioned earlier, it did take a few weeks to get here -- probably held up in customs.

I'm not here for political or religious threads, either. But, I do look at them, sometimes even more than the music discussions. From my perspective, I find it interesting that there are quite a few liberal, non-Christian fans of jazz on this board. In this part of the country, there seems to be a very small minority of people fitting even one of these categories, let alone all three. It's comforting to know I'm not the only one! This isn't meant to be disrespectful to conservative or religious people on the board, as political and religious viewpoints should be irrelevant when discussing jazz. FWIW, the generally high level of civility on this board continues to amaze me. Considering some of the topics discussed here, I'd say things could be a lot worse. Speaking of meeting other posters, I really need to go visit that bag of hot air that lives only 20 minutes north of here. I need to buy that AEC box set, and maybe I'll give him a little pat on the head, too.

If I remember correctly, the last few pages had a few pictures that I certainly wouldn't be in any hurry to show to my grandmother.

AAJ Review

WHAT!?! I knew it wouldn't be long before Upright Bill weighed in on that comment!