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Congrats on the move. Yeah, it looks like I'll be doing the same general thing, moving in Oct. with the wife and kids to join in mid-Jan. (longish story). However, there's no question I will be getting the better end of the deal, so I will have to be really nice to her after they move back in. One good thing about the Pacific Northwest is that people are generally more active there, and I might end up biking to work most days (I did in England, but it is only about once a week here in Chicago). Don't think I would commit to walking to work every day, however.

I actually went to the trouble of tracking down the two Mole Jazz LPs. I might lean more towards going the download route ($22), though it isn't clear what the bitrate is (I would suspect 320 but I'll try to find out). It's classy that they (CD Baby) let you read through the very interesting liner notes by Laurie before committing either way. The Widow's Taste website has had other AP releases in flac - but not these as far as I can see. http://www.lauriepepper.com/Blues_For_The_Fisherman/The_Album/The_Album.html So this is what CD Baby has to say about it -- What bitrate are the MP3s for album X? All of the MP3s available through CDBaby.com are encoded by us using the standard preset of the lame encoder. This means that you get Variable Bitrate MP3s with a target bitrate of around 200kbps. That's awfully low. I could see going for 320 and maybe even 256. But 200? I guess I'll end up ordering the physical product, but slightly fewer. Maybe just Widow's Taste #1 (Abashiri) and #6 (Blues for the Fisherman).

I'm sure it's good news for many, but I could never see myself ordering or enjoying this set.

Do or die time. The obvious factor is that every game has been won by the home team, so I suppose that gives Vancouver the edge. Guess we'll all find out soon...

I actually went to the trouble of tracking down the two Mole Jazz LPs. I might lean more towards going the download route ($22), though it isn't clear what the bitrate is (I would suspect 320 but I'll try to find out). It's classy that they (CD Baby) let you read through the very interesting liner notes by Laurie before committing either way.

Like playing a DVD on a laptop or desktop? Interesting thing about computers is that they are region locked, and if you pop one in from the wrong region, it will ask if you want to change regions. However, there is an internal firmware thingie* that only allows a maximum of 6 or 7 regional changes, so you don't want to get into the habit of doing it. I don't believe anyone has found a way around that, but I could be wrong. Of course, given how cheap laptops are (I picked up a reconditioned one for under $200 the other day), you could have a laptop for nothing but playing region 2 DVDs. So yes, that is a bit of a drawback. Now my impression is that it is possible to unlock Blue-Rays, but it is somewhat harder. This is one of the main reasons I have been a Blue-Ray hold-out (that and I don't want to buy more stuff). * Note the technical jargon here.

One of the solo Monk CDs on Black Lion has a fair bit of clicking from his fingernails (apparently much longer than usual). I'll see if I can track down more on this.

I think I've caught up with all shipments and stuff in hold piles. Thanks so much. It was a crazy weekend, so I didn't prepare a long list -- more tonight hopefully: consolidated

Also gratifying to watch a Miami team just kinda sit there and wait for their greatness to explode, not realizing that the opposition had them totally figured out and that if they wanted an explosion, they were going to have to dig deep and find a way. Instead they got a coach who was telling them to "stay the course" when they were down by nine in the third quarter of an elimination game. Yeah, stay the course, keep losing, don't make any adjustments or bump your your intenisty with your season on the line, just stay the freakin' course, the course that's got you on the verge of failure. The players actually seemed to believe that bullshit! ... And Cuban insisting that the trophy first be presented to Don Carter was a truly class act by a man who doesn't always seem to have a class act in his repertoire. Big kudos for that one! Whether it was too calculated or not, I agree presenting the trophy to Carter was a class act. I think a lot of people liked that and may be willing to cut Cuban a bit more slack going forward. He does seem to finally realized he needs to tone it down a bit as well. He actually showed some restraint from time to time in press conferences. I wonder a bit about the stay the course thing, though in reference to the Bulls. I thought Thibs did a lot right, but he was a bit too stubborn in the Heat series, only playing Kurt Thomas when it was absolutely necessary. I honestly think that cost the Bulls 2 games (probably still would have lost in 7). Now to be fair, the Bulls are built a little bit like Cleveland was -- a superstar and some decent role players (though they played harder on defense than Cleveland typically did). In the playoffs, teams had figured out that really they just had to triple Rose and if the others were having an off night, that was it. The cubbord was pretty much bare for Thibs. The good news is that the management does realize this and is trying to bring in some reinforcements (and I presume Thibs would play them ), but who knows if there will even be a next season.

Au contraire, mon frere. It is extremely simple to find region free DVD players (or do the simple hacking that makes most players region free) and also most players and TVs can handle PAL vs. NTSC conversion. I suppose maybe it would look funny on a hi-def TV, but on my set-up it looks fine. I would guess about 15% of my DVD collection is Region 2 with a tiny number of region 5s thrown in as well.

I'm sort of half-tempted to read the full, expanded version (from 1991), which is 60,000 words longer. However, I suspect the editors did Heinlein a huge favor. That's usually the case, but in this case, I think the expanded version is much better. I read it when it came out in '91, and thought the additions made the novel flow a lot better, and cleared up some dangling questions. Hmmm. That is interesting. Well, I have probably at least 200 books to tackle before this, but maybe someday... Three Junes is actually pretty interesting, for a book that sure looked like an Oprah book club pick. Not to totally dis' Oprah -- she had some challenging novels on her list -- but a few too many of them were one step above The Bridges of Madison County, esp. Wally Lamb. Couldn't make it past the first 20 pages of She's Come Undone.

Can't tell from the Amazon blurb whether this does or does not include Gryce's Reminiscin' LP. I would tend to think not and it focuses on the unreleased material, though this LP seems pretty rare at the moment. I will welcome it either way.

Not quite 100 but close. New listings 6/10/2011 HOLD 5 Dollar Brand Reflections (1201 music, 24-bit remaster of Black Lion material) HOLD 5 Abdullah Ibrahim Knysna Blue (Enja) HOLD 6 Abdullah Ibrahim Echoes from Africa (Enja) HOLD 8 Shirley Scott Queen of the Organ (Impulse) rest consolidated * free with 1 CD purchase (as above)

I always enjoyed the interactions of "Remington" and "Laura" but I agree I much preferred the original series with the 4 characters. I actually strongly disliked the older, bumbling woman who joined the firm (Mildred?) and if she had a really prominent role, I often would stop watching. Interestingly, in the commentary on these CDs, one of the writers claimed that a trio of characters makes for more compelling storylines than a quartet. Not sure I would agree (I almost always prefer complex storylines to simple ones), but certainly the ratings improved.

What's really crazy is they are selling the MP3s for the exact same price. That's certainly not very appealing to me.

My contact tells me that the out-of-tune portion of Sentimental Mood is not included. That's good to know. Yeah, they're saving it for the 10th anniversary "complete" edition when it is remastered with a bonus DVD of the performances.

Even if you order a box of stuffed animals? Or a crate of them?

I'm sort of half-tempted to read the full, expanded version (from 1991), which is 60,000 words longer. However, I suspect the editors did Heinlein a huge favor.

Decided to go ahead and sell the Andrew Hill - Solo Select for $30. The CDs are near mint, and the booklet is in very good shape. Some dings to the cardboard box. Hopefully I can list another long list of CDs tonight and then over the weekend. The kids were "helping" me alphabetize them, so that has added some time to the process.

I'm thinking how hard it is to sell books back. Probably 10 times harder than selling off CDs and this is surely harder than it was a couple of years ago. I took two boxes to Powells and they took one, and that was a pretty good day. I only took books that should have been of interest (no airport books) but they still only took 50%. I'll try two more places and then a few will go up on Amazon and the rest will get donated somewhere.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for but there are 4 Mozart sonatas here on 1 CDMozart and 10 Beethoven sonatas on 3 CDs here Beethoven The Beethoven sonatas are also available on Brilliant for even less: Brilliant Beethoven Oddly, the Brilliant are reissuing a mono version and the Decca is in stereo. At least according to some of the more informed reviewers. Of course, some of the same reviewers claim the balance on these sets is way off, so who knows.

New listing (6/8/11) consolidated * Free with any other CD purchase (free CD does not count towards 3 CDs for free US shipping)

Well, hard to go wrong with both if you have the stamina and the resources. As far as Shostakovich string quartet cycles, there are 4 or 5 complete ones, and the Pacifica Quartet is now recording one, though this will add in other Soviet composers for a bit of variety. Given that I saw them do the cycle live here in Chicago, they may become a sentimental favorite, though I suspect it will be 2-3 years before the entire cycle is available. Here's the projected schedule of this upcoming Shostakovich cycle: Pacifica News (yeah, probably not technically a bargain, though they do say each two-CD set will be sold at single CD prices. ) Do I need more CDs -- absolutely not. Will I get these anyway -- probably so.

Miyuki Miyabe "all she was worth" I picked this up since it was pretty cheap and I thought the cover was cool. It is sort of a police procedural set in Tokyo with several side trips to Osaka, and indeed the ending may too literally follow these conventions since it ends rather too abruptly for my taste. It dfeinitely picks up around page 50, then there are some other interesting twists and turns. However, the last 50 pages adds in one twist too many where the story becomes too unbelievable for me and thus boring. Another major problem is that it reads like a hybrid mystery/lecture on the evils of easy credit, sort of like someone had been given the task of popularizing a civics text book! Hard to believe it won so many awards in Japan. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend it. Just started Julia Glass's Three Junes. Not bad.

Some of these are only a bargain if you go to the Amazon zStores and resellers, but the music is pretty grand. Apologies if already posted: Szell-Haydn Munch-Romantic Masterworks Levine-Mahler Van Cliburn - Piano Concertos Argerich - Piano Concertos Leinsdorf-Prokofiev Haitink - Shostakovich complete symphonies Not as jaw-droppingly low as some of the others, but still very much value for money. I would rate Haitink a bit higher than this cycle by Barshai (Barshai - Shostakovich) but really at these prices you might get both. I did -- over the years.