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There's a reason he's a 4x World Champion! | iRacing BMW M2 at VIR

Black Doves A heartwarming Christmas tale of friendship, deceit, bloodshed and revenge. I may never think of Paddington the same way, again. Quite a ride, and we should have a series 2 to look forward to.

A Man on the Inside What starts out as a comedy caper mystery, sends a love letter to San Francisco with its location shoots, finally in blends in a poignant reflection on aging and loss. Well worth binging.

Selections From Irving Berlin's White Christmas by Bing Crosby (1954) https://album.link/i/1440877877 Example: Instead of watching - I thought I would listen.. Other than a few mic overloads, well done.

https://gradolabs.com/products/grado-headphone-replacement-cushion-f Look familiar? Grado is now selling "F-Cushions", aka "Flat Pads... and these headphones come with both G (salad bowels) and F (flats) cushions. They also have a nice little chart on their pad page that shows all the things that they work with: https://gradolabs.com/collections/headphone-cushions One thing I'm happy about, as someone who has had HF-2s that have been down for a couple years due to a bad cable and I just haven't gotten together with @cetoole (who has a Tyll-esque appreciate for Grados) to recable them, is that they have an effective-standard of mini-XLR jacks for cables. That opens up SO many opportunities to make something ridiculous. Who is the first person to make the plunge and then have @n_maher woody them?

They lost me on the pads, obviously, but Todd still sells flats. The price isn't particularly competitive with used HP1/2/3, even. That said, I'd love to hear them.

Different drivers, different housing, and different pads? Never affected the sound of a Grado before. 🙃

They look cool! Would be curious as well. I do not have high hopes that they actually sound like a Joe Grado lol

Steak day two.. Yesterday's was a little heavy on the smoke for me. So I set the Chimp again to 225 until internal probe temp of 115f, but at a lower smoke setting. Then used cast iron pan on induction stove top to sear for 2 min {30 sec per side}. Steak flavors much more in balance with just a touch of smoke. Very close to what I wanted. Science!

I do enjoy a good science project!

But Here We Are by Foo Fighters (2023) https://album.link/i/1682993466 Example: Good but sad album. Post Taylor's passing. Not as diverse as other recent offerings. I will probably listen to some songs more than the album.

I'd like to try them, too. I don't expect them to beat the Joseph Grado HP-1/2/3, but I'm curious about how Grado engineers a target sound profile for a flagship headphone... and what kind of electronics they use to drive them.

In the summer of 2007 I heard that there was a car show in the parking lot of a Walmart (ya rly) two towns over. Being as ADD as I am, I arrived entirely too late and got there just in time to see a bunch of cars leaving. I did hastily snap a bunch of photos with my 30D (not a particularly good camera) and its "better" kit lens, the 17-85mm (which sucked at the wide end.) I had the camera set for jpg+RAW and at the time I processed them as pseudo-HDR in Photomatix. I also invariably cropped the shots entirely too close (a bad habit that would take years to break.) I've revisited these shots a number of times in the last 17 years, most recently a few months ago. I now use Luminar 4, which makes use of its own pseduo-HDR math. Unlike Photomatix and every goddamn smart phone camera app ever, Luminar's faux HDR processing can be adjusted to remove most of the cartoonish qualities. Luminar also makes use of lookup tables, which are a lot of fun when used correctly. None of these shots are spectacular. I didn't know a thing about framing in 2007 (I still don't but I didn't then, either.) In almost every case I wish I'd back up a couple feet and gotten more of the background and people milling about. At this point the photos are a fascinating time capsule. 17 years is a long time. 2007 was after 9/11, but before the 2008 financial crash (two watershed moments that have steered us directly to where we are.) The 1990s were still a relatively recent memory. Most of the attendees are aging boomers and exactly none of them know what "social media" means. A global pandemic was the stuff of bad thriller films. The cars are timeless of course and made all the mores so by how, ahem, absolutely fucking hideous current vehicles look. The 30D's sensor (a permanent "unsharp mask" and the processing in Luminar gives everything a slightly dreamy quality. I quite like this photo set as both a moment in time captured but also a tone piece.

The number of The Beast!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/7xKJlttCb2

Ribeye - reverse seer on pellet grill.. Set Chimp to 225 until internal temperature got to 115. Then took grill up to 500 and seared for 2 minutes each side. The temp is pretty spot on. And lovely smoke.

That is really nuts! I got a tornado warning for SF on my phone early this morning, although it was actually a notice that there had been a tornado warning and it had passed. Not quite as helpful if it had been a real emergency.

This morning, after reading the year's best jazz albums chosen by a newspaper "expert" I listened to The Attic & Eve Risser - La Grande Crue Too free and avantgarde for my taste. Then to clean the sadness for not being able to listen to a single whole tune: Keith Jarrett and two very talented guys - The Old Country This is something that I not only can listen, but also enjoying deeply.

Kickin' back with Maki on my lap, listening to good tunes. Maki's favorite? Nazareth of course. Hair of the Dog!

The Waiting Sky by Anna Lapwood (2024) https://album.link/i/1769985170 Example: I have been following Anna for a little while now as the principal organist for the Royal Albert Hall. But she also works with Pembroke choir. A very nice EP.