Kevin Bresnahan

I'd love to join in with you guys but very early on in my adult life, I saw several good friends get in deep with the bookies. One guy had to flee town or lose his ability to talk & walk properly. To this day, I refuse to gamble on anything but lottery tickets. ... not that this is gambling here. Besides, I would have done terrible. Kevin

It looks to me like you should have do that this week. You would have cleaned house. In fact, it looks like you went 0-fer.

The person who was advocating burning LPs to DVD was talking about burning to 24/96 DVD-Audio. There is no way you could fit 7 LPs of music onto a single DVD-Audio disc using 24 bit, 96 kHz sampling. That would be too much data. I suppose you might be able to fit 7 LPs of wav files, but I know of no player that could play back the resulting disc. There are also some DVD players that can read DVD data discs with mp3 files on them. Mine cannot. I suppose if your mchine can read these discs and the display is limited to 99, this would be a problem. Kevin

He might be in a boat with Sean Penn...

Oh, I don't know if the deep safeties were the reason. I think it was the switch to the 4-3 defense. Once they did that, they were able to line up Seymour and Wilfork in the gaps. Collins was not the same after the switch. I was so happy when I saw that switch to the 4-3. I have been telling everyone that the Patriots would be doing this. In fact, I thought that they would start out in a 4-3. Clearly they have the "4" to do a 4-3 whereas in the past, their "4" in the 3-4 was their strength. With the 4-3, they get Green on the field and it frees up the outside rushing lanes for Vrabel and McGinnest, two guys that can & do bring on the heat. The "loser" in this (so far) is Colvin but I think his time will come. He is getting close to where he was. I knew Moss was going to give us fits. Once I saw Tyrone Poole was on him man-to-man... well, I could have made that pass. Just throw it high. Poole can't jump and he's shorter than I am. What a mis-match that was. Of course, from then on, Poole was nowhere near Moss (and may even end up on the Patriots injury report, if rumors are true). Patriots are looking pretty beatable right now. Hopefully, Belichick can use the films from this and whip them into shape. A blocked punt? That was terrible. BTW, it sure looked to me like Watson caught that ball. Also, I think if Wilfork didn't come down with that INT, I bet a video replay would have ruled Collins' arm motion as a "tuck". Wouldn't that have been funny? Kevin

Get well soon Monsieur Griffin!! Come back to Boston when you're recovered and bring the JAMFs with you. Kevin

You probably will eventually. It's definitely not a good idea to purposefully unbalance your player. There are errors being generated. Some players are more susceptible to playback problems than others. Eventually, you may find a player that skips with these stickered CDs. Also, I would be very leery of playing these CDs in a car player. Car players are typically slot-loaded. Stickers can get chewed up by the slot-loading mechanism and get the CD jammed in the player. Kevin

On the disc or as artwork? As I mentioned above, I would not recommend putting any stickers on any CD, especially a single sticker like an address label. That would almost guarantee that the disc would become unbalanced in the player. Kevin

Maybe it's starting... From today's Boston Herald It's a pain in the ga$: Owners of SUVs feel pinch at pump By Donna Goodison Sunday, September 4, 2005 - Updated: 09:57 AM EST A 2000 Ford Expedition, with 60,000 miles on the odometer, went on the auction block Friday at the Adesa wholesale car auction in Framingham. It fetched $6,300. "That would have sold for $50,000 (new) five years ago,'' said Roger Groux, owner of the Honda Barns in North Reading and Stratham, N.H. "It depreciated to the point where it's worth about $1 a pound.'' Surging gas prices are sucking the value from sport utility vehicles. Once considered a status symbol for many drivers, today the SUV has become an albatross. More and more are showing up on used car lots and as trade-ins, and their going prices are dropping - fast. "People are just jumping out of their sports utilities,'' Groux said. "People are getting tired of throwing $100 bills at fill-ups.'' These days, the standard rule of thumb among wholesalers - who purchase the cars up for auction by new car dealers and then resell them - is to take the book value from the Galves Auto Price List and cut that by half. "In last year's normalized market, they'd be worth the book price,'' Groux said. "You can go buy a used, full-sized SUV now for really short money. If you're only driving 5000 miles a year, it's a bargain.'' Meanwhile, consumers are seeing less and less of a return for trade-ins compared to initial big-buck investments. Lisa Geary of Weston is considering trading down. "I can't wait to get rid of this car,'' she said as she stepped down from her 2001 Yukon XL in the Star Market parking lot in Auburndale. "I had buyer's remorse before the gas issues, because I'm past the stroller stage (with her children).'' While paying nearly a C-note hurts, said Geary, she's also worried about one day filling up her gas-guzzler while a line of people behind her do without. "It just seems wasteful to have such a large car if there's going to be a (gas) shortage,'' she said. "We were actually on the computer yesterday looking for hybrids.'' Based on current gas prices, 55 percent of consumers surveyed by R.L. Polk & Co. said they will change the type of vehicle they drive when they buy a new car, the Michigan automotive information company reported last month. "We see that loyalty among owners of large cars and full-size SUVs has dropped more than that of any other vehicle segment over the past year,'' said Lonnie Miller, director of industry analysis. Karen Hickman of Waltham was filling up her Mercedes ML320 at a Waltham Mobile station Friday for the first time since gas prices topped $3 a gallon. She bought the used 1998 model a little more than a year ago. "I really liked the car at the time, not thinking gas prices would go over $3,'' Hickman said. "It's just really bad.'' The 25-cents-a-mile reimbursement she receives from her employer helps, said Hickman, who spent $50 at the pump. "Not too bad, but still, more than I would like to pay,'' she said. "I wish I had a regular, midsize car - a sedan or something.''

Centered prints... I found this page that answers some of the questions I have. From what it says, I'm basically screwed. BTW, I have the same HP 895cxi printer that I've had since I had Windows 98. The printer driver used to have an option to center the print. I used it often. I cannot find any way to get this feature back. I'd even be willing to buy a driver that could do it.

My layouts are all centered on the page. the problem is that when I print, the printer always moves everything toward the top of the sheet. This would be fine too since flipping it over and printing the "inside" should also come out on the top. Unfortunately, once you print one side on the "top", on the flipside, that's the bottom. I can't find any way to get the print in a different place. Kevin

An interesting article in today's Boston Herald about how gas prices seem to be showing up in automobile sales. SUV sales seem to be finally slowing down. The weird thing is, this article is opposite of what I heard on FOX 25's news the other night, which said that last month had record SUV sales. Maybe Fox was quoting the "Small SUV" numbers? FWIW, the second page of the article summarizes sales as follows: Large SUVs (Ford Explorer, Chevy Suburban etc.): 2005 sales through July: Down 5.4 percent 2004 sales: Down 2.9 percent Small cars (Dodge Neon, Honda Civic, Ford Focus): 2005 sales through July: Up 2.2 percent 2004 sales: Down 2.2 percent Cross-over SUVs (Ford Escape, Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander): 2005 sales through July: Up 18.8 percent 2004 sales: Up 16.6 percent Large sedans (Crown Victoria, Ford 500, Chrysler 300): 2005 sales through July: Up 34.8 percent 2004 sales: Up 13.9 percent

Unfortunately, I use PowerPoint for my CD artwork. PowerPoint has no feature to center the printing that I know of.

Older printer drivers had a setting to center the printing on the page. This option seems to have disappeared from every driver in existence. I know of no way to center the printing any more. Oh yeah, if your driver has this, printing front/back is easy. You simply flip the paper over and print on both sides. Use thicker paper than usual though. The real cheap, thin paper allows the printing from one side to bleed through. Kevin

Paul, read what I wrote. Yes, my wife drives a Sienna van. Do I commute to work with one? No. Does she commute in Boston traffic with it? No. It's a "kid's bus". One or two mile jaunts. Maybe a 10 mile one thrown in there to bring one of daughters to a clarinet or violin lesson. BTW, the reason I want my wife in a bigger vehicle is because seemingly all of the mom-mobiles are huge SUVs. There are more than a few Hummers. 5 or 6 easy. If she's only driving down the road to drop the kids off at school and everyone else has a monster truck, she's gonna have a bigger car too. I might wish the vehicles were smaller but I ain't gonna jeopardize my family on a wish. I still don't like what we have to pay for this "priviledge" of driving a mini-van but for these short drives, it's worth it to me. Funny thing is, we only have two daughters. We really don't need the thing. Kevin

Last night, the Boston news stations were reporting on a station in Wrentham, MA that was selling 87 octane for $3.39. They were talking to people at the pumps and they were all complaining how expensive it was to drive... a couple of them were saying this as they pumped the gas into their SUV. BTW, one of the newscasts said that SUV sales hit a record level last month. People are still buying their SUVs. My wife tells me that it's probably going to cost us over $600 per month this winter to heat the house at the current oil prices. We'll be feeling the pinch up here pretty badly soon. At least with my Prius, my gas budget won't break our bank. My wife's getting tired of filling up her Sienna mini-van to the tune of almost $50 every other week. She has me looking into the Toyota Highlander hybrid. It gets 33 mpg on the highway. Not great, but better than her 99 Sienna (which gets around 18). The thing is, we can't afford one of these Highlanders. They start at $33K! Oh well, one can dream. Kevin

Thank god I'm not the only who has this! And I agree, his first Christmas disc is pleasant enough and it does find its way onto the player during the holidays. Other than that, eh. Why are we even wasting space on the Organissimo server for this? Kevin

I'd love to pick up some XTC but the word on the street is that the CD versions out there are all terrible-sounding, including the oop Mobile Fidelity gold discs. I once came close to buying a Japanese import (for chump change... maybe $10?) but then I checked and found out the treble is painfully boosted on all of these remasters. Kevin

Alright, Jim's messing with my brain! I swear it said "Kill Him" when I first looked at it. Is it one of those animated gifs? Kevin

Organissimo member stereojack has a store in Cambridge, MA and he has had this in his bins recently. Send him a PM or call his shop at (617) 497-9447. They do ship. Kevin

Some people have had luck using metallic ink on the label side to get a damaged CD to play enough to rip a new one. If you are looking to experiment, try a silver Sharpie, although that might not be reflective enough. I think some people have had luck with metallic fingernail poilsh. Be warned to allow it to dry fully... you wouldn't want that spraying all over the inside of your machine. NOTE: Only apply the ink to the label side. That's where the metal is, not on the playback side. Kevin

Be aware that the first pressings of several of the titles of the Connoisseur CDs from this set of six had a lot of quality problems. I bought two copies of "Basra" before I got one that wouldn't skip. Many people had similar problems with Morgan's "Lee Way". I can't remember all the titles, but my memory is that all of them had problems to some extent. Remember, this batch was also the first one to sell out and it was mostly because of people returning their first pressings. I talked to Michael Cuscuna about it at the time and he was bummed that Blue Note "counted" that first pressing because (I am pretty sure) the beancounters only allow two pressings for Conns (hence the "Limited Edition" tag). You probably have an early-issue "Basra". Those holes were probably always there. Try putting it into your PC and see if Exact Audio Copy can extract the audio files. Burn a CD-R if it can and consider yourself lucky. I had a copy that skipped in two CD players and played in two others. I gave it away when I got the JRVG. The person I gave it to said it played fine. Kevin

Not only was it part of the Collector's Choice release, but it was one of those titles that seemed to "hang around" forever. Heck, Tower Records still had a few copies as late as last year. I see it in used bins pretty frequently too. Why Blue Note (or Michael Cuscuna) chose this title is beyond me. Maybe they need one title to flop in every batch? The next thing you know, they'll be putting out James Newton's "African Flower", another Collector's Choice release that's sitting in bins all over. Kevin

I am curious - why not load iTunes on her PC? ← iTunes takes over the PC's playback and ripping activities. As I understand it, if you use iTunes to rip CDs, the resulting files will only play on the PC they were created or the iPod that they were copied to. No "sharing" allowed, even if it's in your own house. mp3 files have no such limitation. Therefore, I was hoping to use the iPod as a fancy mp3 player and I tried attaching it as such. I even formatted the hard drive for the PC to "see it". I was also able to copy a bunch of mp3 onto it. However, the player wouldn't play the files. It kept saying it was unformatted. I just think the iPod is too smart for its own good. It's a simple mp3 player with an attitude. Kevin

If you're gonna quote me, get your facts straight. I would like to see gas go to $5 a gallon to get commuters to stop buying SUVs. If you've got a better way to get the car companies to stop making more & more SUVs, tell us. If you looked around on the roads, it doesn't take a scientist to see that SUVs are much more prevalent on the roads today. Almost every car company is making or planning to make one. Hell, even Porsche started making one. Volvo has one. "Liitle car company" VW came out with the Tourag. Jaguar must have one in the pipeline. Next up will be Rolls. The car companies make what we will buy, not what we should buy. We will continue to buy bigger & bigger SUVs in the effort to "stay ahead" on the road. It's human nature to want to protect yourself. So, how to get Joe Commuter to stop looking at a Ford Explorer first? Easy, have the goevernment make laws mandating it. Oh wait, that won't happen with the oil barons in office. How about giving incentives for people to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars? Well, the government decided to phase out that tax incentive. Maybe they should penalize buyers of large gas-guzzlers with a tax surcharge? Well, that not only ain't that gonna happen, but the morons in Washington "accidently" put a "Hummer tax exemption" law on the books that allowed businesses to write off 100% of the purchase price of any vehicle with a gross weight of over 3,500 lbs (which includes Hummers & B&Ws). Due to an outcry of protest, they've actually modified it, but the damage was done. 1,000s of Hummers were bought and paid for by the American people. So, what'll do it, Paul?? How can we get Americans to start buying "cars" again? You got a better idea? Tell us. Better yet, tell your congressman. My thinking is simple. Money. Money is the way to effect change. That's the "American Way". If gas prices go up, Joe Sixpack will reconsider his next automobile purchase. He may look at that mpg window sticker that says "12 city 15 highway" and think "No way". It's the only way I see to get this terrible trend to start reversing. And Paul, businesses have always bought big trucks and transports. That isn't the problem and you know it. Hell, jazz drummers driving Jeeps ain't the problem either and you know it. Just look around on the highway and you'll see it, plain as day. And please re-read this whole thread. I mention why I think Ford F-350's are dumb... I just had a fellow engineer buy one as a commuter vehicle. He ain't hauling manure. I can always tell when gas prices go up a lot, not by my gas slips, but by the number of people who ask me how I like my Prius as I gas my car up. When prices soar, I get asked at almost every fill-up. HIGH GAS PRICES GET AMERICANS TO STOP AND THINK ABOUT THEIR DRIVING HABITS. Kevin