J Larsen

The Babe also did it playing in a diluted (whites only) talent field. Don't you think he may have hit a couple less if some of his abs had been against the likes of Satchel Paige, et al? I think all sports records are pretty much meaningless. There are no two comparable eras. If it's not racist restrictions on who can play, the ready availability of steriods, the composition of the ball, the DH era, or the changing mound height, it's the changing technology. Two ball players from different generations have never played on equal footing, and attmepts to compare their relative abilities and accomplishments are futile, in my opinion. Do I think steriods should be out of sports? Yes, because it's not really a personal decision. If one person is using them, it puts a lot of pressure on everyone else to use them to keep up. And if practically everybody is using them, you'd better, too. I can't really blame individual players, even the most high-profile users (Bonds, Giambi [he sure was forgiven quickly], Mcguire, Sosa, etc) for the problem. I think they probably all really believed that they were just doing what they had to do. It's really MLB's fault for turning a blind eye for so long. And why not? That HR surge is what got people back into the ballparks after the strike, after all. Edited to add that Bonds is a prick and his own worst enemy. Don't want to be mistaken for an apologist.

After about a year of talking about it, I finally made an upgrade in my system. I replaced my H/K 3380 receiver with a Rotel RA-1062. For the price, I'm very happy with it. My system is now the Rotel, an NAD C542, a Technics SL1200, and a pair of Infinity Sterling series tower speakers from the mid-90s. The speakers are obviously the weak link at this point, but I really don't think they sound all that bad. Eventually I'll upgrade them to B&W (or something of that ilk), and I'll upgrade the interconnect for the CD player and the speaker cables.

Sounds like a quick way to lose a little weight... Seriously, good luck. I had my first surgery a few months back. It sucked, but not quite as bad as I expected it to.

I haven't had an MRI, but only because my insurance refuses to pay for one. I have had a CAT scan of my brain, though (there was concern that my migraines may be a symptom of a tumor, but that proved to not be the case). It was very uncomfortable, very noisy, and given the purpose of the test, very terrifying.

The last time I ate at McDonaldds, it tasted so bad to me I threw it up before I had completely swallowed the first bite. I'm not kidding. That was in 1991.

A couple execs at my company swear by this book. I haven't had time to read it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014200028...5Fencoding=UTF8

From what I've heard (including directly from certain artists), the same is true of just about everyone on SST. I don't want to delve to far into rumor-mongering, but from what I've been told, the people running SST aren't necessarily malicious, but they, umm.... don't really "have it together". If emusic pays royalties directly to the bands in addition to cutting a second check to the label, this could work out much better for SST's artists.

Interesting that Husker Du is not mentioned in their list of notable SST artists. IMO, Husker Du, Sonic Youth and The Minutemen were the best bands SST ever had. (You can make an argument for the Bad Brains too, but their best stuff came before SST).

I think this is a good thing. Developing film requires the use of very nasty chemicals, which do harm both when they are produced and when they are disposed of. For 99.9% of all pictures taken, digital suits the picture taker's needs just fine, and is easier on the environment (with the caveat that people seem much more likely to keep upgrading their digital cameras and disposing of their old ones than with film cameras). For the remaining .1%, there will always be high-end film cameras and darkrooms to be found.

I left my place at 3:00AM and had the dubious distinction of being the first person through security at LGA. At least I didn't miss my flight!

Right after that last post, the car service called to offer me a 3:00 am pickup - they say it was about an hour into LGA at that time last night, so I should be okay.

Take this advice if you can. I was at JFK yesterday morning and again this morning. At 5:00 AM the place was slammed with traffic (way more than normal). LGA is not going to be much better. Under the current circumstances, 3:00 AM is not early enough for a 5:30 AM flight. The TWU can go screw themselves. Man, that's just insane. Under normal circumstances, I can get to LGA in about 30 min from my place. I'm sending the TWU the bill for any excess expenses.

After several failed attempts, I finally got a picture to come out of the bundled thing.

File this one under "request for totally random transit-strike related advice". I have a flight leaving from Laguardia absurdly early Thursday morning - 5:30AM. I'm downtown, three blocks from the corner of BWay/Houston. I booked a car 1.5 weeks ago, but now they say they don't have enough drivers to make all their appointments. My backup plan was to leave my apt at 4:00AM, walk up to Houston, and wait for a cab. A couple people tonight insisted that I would have to leave at 3:00AM. That made me a little paranoid, but not paranoid enough to actually want to leave my house at 3. What do you guys think?

I just bought a new photo printer. The first line in the start-up guide is "Please confirm bundled thing by the illustration printed on the flapped lid of the packing box." I may be in for a long night.

FWIW, even to my damaged ears the MP3s off emusic sound notably better than the AACs off iTunes. And they're cheaper.

If you use the same emusic account (e-mail) that you did back in the "unlimited" days, you should be able to re-download everything from before (for free), with the better mp3 quality. I've done that, but my days as an unlimited emusic member were not as productive as I would have liked them to be. I was distracted with my dissertation and only managed to find time to download 200-300 discs off emusic. I agree that the sound isn't too bad, but the consensus around here seems to be that it is lo-fi, hence my disclaimer. I ruined my ears a long time ago and usually can't hear much (often any) difference between various media or remasterings.

Absolutely not. Damn... I opened a second emusic account tonight to at least get some lo-fi tracks to check out... I have most of the Fantasy box sets (Trane Prestige, Miles Prestige, Monk Riverside, etc), but "only" about 100 individual discs, exclusive of the 200 or 300 I downloaded from emusic in the unlimited days. It was always easy putting off the OJC and OBC discs because they were so readily available...

I received the same catalogue. It should be noted that it is a sale catalogue listing CDs for one to four dollars off, with another 10% off if you order via the internet. It's not a complete list of their current ctalogue. Exactly. Everything still seems available at the Concord website so it doesn't look as if anything's been deleted... yet. That's good to hear. Doesn't Concord tend to keep most of their own discs in print? Regardless, I'll probably pick up the rest of those Yusef Lateef and Booker Ervin discs this weekend - I only have three of each from the Fantasy catalog. I can't tell you all how angry I am at myself for not just downloading the whole catalog back in the unlimited days of emusic...

I think it's just an East Coast/West Coast thing. Growing up out west it was always DUI. Out here it's universally DWI.

I'm thinking of ordering Have Gun, Will Travel season 1 off Amazon. I only know the show by reputation; I've never seen an episode. Any votes up or down? If it helps at all, my favorite DVD sets are the two Danger Man "Megasets".

I doubt any outreach program would name themselves after William Carlos Williams. Too obscure. My guess is that this is somewhere between 95% and 100% bs.

The entirity of Morton Feldman's "Patterns in a Chromatic Field" will cost you just one download. 80 minutes of music for about a quarter - not a bad deal. Also, Ipecac, and hence Isis were added today, if you're into that kind of thing (basically metal for people who like to think they've grown out of metal...)

I really like Animal Magnetism by Arnold Dreyblatt. It's worth a listen.

23 Standards by A Brazxton on Leo has been re-added. Also, the Tzadik catalog was added today.