Kevin Bresnahan

You left out a very important point: all these Venus titles are now 1500 Yen! That's a huge drop in price. I may be ordering a bunch.

I was searching the web for something about Bruce Lundvall a few months back and I tripped over his son Tor's website. It turns out that Tor is not only an artist, doing artwork for several CDs, including Miles Davis's "The Blue Note and Capitol Recordings", but he's also a musician. His music would best be described as dark ambient music. Truth be told, I like it. I find it extremely relaxing. When I looked around his website, I found that he was putting out some vinyl in limited quantities. Yesterday, I got in "Sleeping and Hiding" and two 7" singles, "Evening / Leaves" and "Winter Song / The Watchers". All 3 are excellent. If you like this style of music, they're well worth picking up. With only 500 copies, it might sell out pretty fast so if you like it, order it now. There's a sample from "Sleeping and Hiding" at http://www.myspace.com/daisrecords. Later, Kevin

My latest bargain has been an unusual blend from Argentina called Crios de Susana Balbo. I bought up quite a few of the 2005 vintage. For this vintage, the blend is 50% Bonarda and 50% Syrah. You should be able to get this for around $15 a bottle. An incredible wine at this price. Drinks like a much more expensive bottle. Lots of fruit. A great "blindfold test" wine - fool your wine friends in a big way. Like some of you, I'd look and see "Argentina" and think, "Eh". Luckily, my local wine shop had this out for a tasting. It blew away every wine in the tasting, many costing 2 to 3 times the price. Later, Kevin Looking around the web, I found these reviews: from www.argonautliquor.com Crios de Susana Balbo Dark reddish/purple color. Intense aroma of black raspberries. This medium-bodied, very lively wine has loads of ripe red plum and black raspberry flavors with a slightly spicy character and a long, juicy finish. This 2005 vintage has a depth of flavor and intensity on the palate that is almost unheard of for wines at this price. It's a winner both before and during a meal. Certainly enjoyable in its youth, but it will age beautifully. A fun wine to try with a wide range of red wine-friendly foods, and one that will delight even the most pretentious connoisseur. from The Wine Advocate The 2005 Syrah-Bonarda (50% of each) is purple-colored with an expressive nose of pepper, spice box, and blueberry. On the palate the wine is supple-textured and easy-drinking with plenty of vibrant, spicy, ripe dark fruits, soft tannins, and a fruit-filled finish. Drink this tasty wine over the next 3-4 years. Although Susana Balbos’s Crios offerings are the declassified lots from her more expensive “signature” wines, they need make no apologies. They rank among the best values from my Argentina wine tastings. All of the Crios wines are outstanding values. Score: 89. —Jay Miller, December 2007. from The Wine Spectator Bright and juicy, with lots of red currant, cherry and licorice flavors backed by spice and floral notes on the racy finish. Delicious. Drink now. 9,750 cases made. Score: 89. —James Molesworth, May 31, 2007.

Bobby, Welcome! It's great to have the people playing the music we love come here to share that love. I went and read the thread you referenced. I found it very positive. A couple of people said they didn't like the drummer but even that was qualified. Overall, I'd say the "reviews" were Thumbs Up. I certainly didn't see anyone "criticize unnecessarily or with harsh vehemence"! Believe me, hang around here a bit and you'll see some unnecessary criticism. Later, Kevin

That's called "Driving While Inflated". The made DWI against the law years ago.

People on the Hoffman forums have had Ikea Expedit stands break apart when overloaded so I wouldn't recommend it for a mobile solution. If these things break apart standing still, they will certainly break apart when you start moving them around. My Expedit is reinforced with plywood and I'm still leery of overloading it.

Part of the reason why CD sales have dropped so much was right in front of my eyes last night. I was shopping in the mall with the wife and stuck my head into the FYE. Big signs all over saying. "All single CDs $9.99". I checked the racks, yup, every CD had a $9.99 sticker on it. The old price sticker? Try $19.99!!! And then they wonder why music fans go download a single from iTunes for $.99? Kevin

A few years back, I caught Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin in a quartet setting at Scullers. After his solo, Lew came over and sat at my table to watch Toshiko's solo. I've seen more bands where players move off stage (but not out of sight) than I've seen players stand around doing nothing. At a few gigs I've been at, the player standing around doing nothing was a distraction. I remember one gig where one player constantly walked over beside the piano keyboard and blocked the audience's view. It was weird and a bit annoying. Later, Kevin

This morning, I'm bopping down Route 93 South at my usual 75 mph (go with the flow), when this young guy in Nissan Maxima pulls into the left lane in front of me. Ok. He's going plenty fast enough. Then he starts slowing waaaay down and the traffic is pulling far ahead of us. People behind us start moving into the middle lane to pass and I'm ready to do the same. Then I see why he's slowed down. The cell phone is on top of the steering wheel and his right thumb is moving all over the place. Texting. Errrr. He speeds up again after sending his message so I stay in the lane. A few seconds later, the phone comes up again and off he starts with the thumb. I passed him in the middle lane, tooted my horn to get his attention and showed him a different finger than my thumb. Later, Kevin

They have priced out nearly everyone, not just you. Only the rich can afford most of these wines now. But you know, I don't think the wineries really care. They have very limited production and they still sell out to these rich clientele. They make the most profit that they can. I don't even know if I can blame them. They want to make the most money they can - they are a business. "Subsidizing" us less fortunate wine drinkers is not good business. BTW, most of these wineries didn't just whomp the prices sky high. They slowly raised the price starting around 1991 or so. If a vintage didn't sell out, they kept the price the same. An example is Caymus. I used to buy as much of this as I could afford. I saw it go up by about $10-20 every year for about 5 years until it hit around $75. There it sits. Back when it was $20 a bottle in the late 80's, you had to pre-order it. Now, at $75 a bottle, you can find it at most high end wine shops. They hit their top asking price. Will it come back down? Not to $20. But I have seen many places selling older vintages for $65 (still way too expensive for me). Later, Kevin

Being a motorcycle driver, I am more than a little worried about distracted drivers. The number of people I see texting while driving is staggering. Texting while driving should be treated like drunk driving. Get caught once and lose your license for 30 days. Twice - 90 days, etc. I passed a guy the other day who was smoking a cig with his left hand, texting with his right (using his left wrist to "hold" the steering wheel) while listening to his iPod with headphones (illegal in MA). If that guy had to react quickly, it wasn't going to happen. I got as far ahead of that car as I could. Later, Kevin

Eh... WTF??? Puccini died in 1924, so technically "Turandot" should be in the public domain. However, Puccini died before he could finish it. Franco Alfano was brought on to finish it. There is some debate as to how much Alfano added, with some claiming he merely formalized Puccini's final sketches. However, the copyright date for "Turandot" is now 75 years after Franco Alfano's death in 1954 because of his little edit.

Having conversed with Bob via E-mail lately and had him send me some of his other works, I feel he meant for "Black Dahlia" to be heard in a surround system. Bob is big into multi-channel music and if you spin the multichannel SACD of this, you feel more involved than when you play the two channel mix. However, having said this, I agree with another poster that "Turandot" is Bob's masterpiece. It's crazy that Puccini's estate was able to get it pulled for copyright violation because someone added two bars of music to the opera in 1925. Later, Kevin

Sounds like it could be some kind of "audiophile" thing. There have been several odd things sold that get stuck onto CDs to "stabilize" them. The most popular was a ring around the outside of the disc. I've never heard of one around the center but with these things, anything's possible. Thank god most of these idiotic things went the way of dodo. BTW, I agree that the SH forum member's love for these target CDs has me buying a lot of music that I would not normally buy. I buy them because I figure someone at the SH forums is looking for it. The "hits" (musically) with these old CDs have been few, but they've been worth it. A lot more misses. For instance, I was never a Rickie Lee Jones until I picked up a target of her debut recording. Great stuff. I've since picked up her whole catalog. "Pop Pop" is really good. Rickie backed by Jazz musicians playing standards. Even Joe Henderson gets onto a couple of tracks. Then there's Joni Mitchell. I just can't get into her funeral dirge style. Her voice just doesn't hit me right. I just picked up a super-rare West German red-faced Polydor CD of Roxy Music's "Avalon" because I figure forum members would want it. Thank god because it does nothing for me. Later, Kevin

In general, registry edits are not implemented until you re-boot. The registries are not read except during boot. Later, Kevin

Try this to see if it's what you're looking for. Later, Kevin

Unfortunately, as a juror, you can't ask anything - one of the more frustrating aspects of our judicial system. If the lawyers don't bring it up, you don't find out. In my particular case, I assume that the witness came forward at a later date and the guy who beat up the scawny kid was quite the bully (it come through loud and clear in his testimony) so he was probably able to convince the kid that calling the cops would be a bad idea. But that's supposition on my part. The lawyers didn't ask, so I'll never know. BTW, during the 8 weeks of NH jury duty, I got called onto many juries, but I was kicked off for various reasons. It's easier to get kicked off a jury than it is to get on, so anyone who gets the call and doesn't want to serve, just go and give a plausible reason and you'll get booted. One trial was a woman suing Dunkin' Donuts for serving her a hot coffee in her car that she spilled into her lap while driving down the road. When I got called up, I told the judge flat out that I have no sympathy for the plaintiff and that we often joked about the woman who sued McDonalds for the same thing - I could not be impartial. The judge thanked me for my honesty and took me off. Kevin

Dan, it seems like you want the particulars of cases so.... The first jury I sat on was a civil case for unlawful termination. In reality, it was about an assault by a supervisor on a lousy employee. The scene: Guy habitually late to work at a local newspaper and when working, sucks at it (testimony of supervisor/defendant). The guy comes in late, gets spoken to (yelled at?) rather harshly by the supervisor, so the guy pushes over a stack of papers and goes outside to have a smoke (testimony of plaintiff). The supervisor goes out to tell him he's fired (testimony of supervisor) but instead, proceeds to beat the hell out of the kid (testimony of plaintiff and witness). This witness was clearly a surprise for the defendants (the supervisor and the newspaper company). After the witness testified to a rather startled jury, there was an immediate call for a sidebar. The lawyers convened and the jury was sent to a back room to wait. After about 3 hours, we get the word that there was a settlement and our decision would not be needed. The judge was cool though - he asked us how we were leaning. We all agreed that the weight-lifter supervisor was at fault once he beat up the scrawny employee (although he did deserve it) so we would have ruled for the plaintiff. The judge said that they settled because that's the way they thought we would go. We also asked the judge if we would have been able to get the supervisor into a court-mandated anger management class. The judge said sorry, can't happen. But he would forward our comments to the defendant's attorneys.

My idea.

I was thinking about a combination of the two with the logo smaller and on the upper left breast of the front. Unfortunately, I can't seem to upload my concept idea but it is in my "Uploads" area. Kevin

I've been called to jury duty 4 times. The first two were in Massachusetts and I didn't get on a jury. The last two times were in NH and in both cases, I got to sit on 2 juries. In NH, jury duty is for 4 weeks. You go in on Monday and see if you get on a jury for that week. If you don't, you go home until the next Monday. In 8 weeks, I only got into two juries. One thing I will say about my time in these juries - I used to wonder how OJ's jury acquitted him. Now that I've sat on a few, I no longer wonder. OJ probably could've sued the Goldmans for lost revenue and won with the last group I was with. Several of my fellow jurists were complete morons. You can tell that they don't make you take an intelligence test to sit on a jury. It might be time to start.

The main reason target CDs are collectible is because they are the first CD pressing. However, to my ears, a large majority of these targets sound vastly inferior to later CD pressings. In most cases, it's not even close. Why are they so popular then? It's because many CDs remastered in the past 5-10 years sound even worse. Comparing these crappy-sounding target CDs to the currently available crappier-sounding CD usually favors the crappy-sounding target. The only thing that sounds worse than a target CD is a modern, compressed/limited-to-all-hell CD. And people wonder why the CD is a dying medium? You can't buy the currently available CD if you want decent audio.

Just finished: Stanley Turrentine - Jubilee Shout (LP1) (Blue Note) Now playing: Curtis Fuller - Four On The Outside (Timeless) - I buy anything with Pepper Adams on it. Up next: Richie Kamuca - Richie Kamuca's Charlie (Concord)

Cue up The Beatles... Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four... Happy Birthday Jack!! Kevin

Best free movie player out there is the VideoLAN Player.