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Yumi was out of town for 8 days last week. I guess the cats were so lonely they started bonding (they are from the same litter - 2018). This never happens!

Even this guy gets the role.

Calling him a cunt is too kind. RIP Bob Mueller

Rode 20 miles with a fair amount of climbing in the heat today and felt like I had done something. But then I watched the 150th Milano - Torino race that was a bit longer with more climbing. Oh well. HBO Max and Peacock have way more cycling during the classics season than was available here before and I watch lots of it.

Katsu tofu with Japanese curry

Mexican night in NH. Enchiladas Verdes Cilantro-Lime Rice

Funny you should mention that. We finally did the surrender of the vehicle and got our check -- even though the "transfer agent" didn't have the check at first. Apparently it was sent before our prior appointment date and the agent went and found it after completely pissing me off telling us there was no check in her paperwork. Anyway, thanks for all the good wishes everyone!

Martin L. Kennedy, the main man behind the Australian space rock project All India Radio has a very nice kitty.

I had a leftover crust, so tonight I decided to make spinach-bacon quiche so I'd have something good for breakfast.

Happy Birthday Al!, Last year's prompts, this years images, plus a bonus image incorporating your recent car troubles!

Rain starts again tonight, so burning through some of my newly split logs. So another gift smoke - 5 Vegas Classic. - nice. ...and as much as I may miss some of my trees, I am really enjoying additional sky access.

Louis Rossman has several cats. Mr Clinton is 17 years old and has heath issues, but is as adorable as ever.

Last of the party hand rolled from my friend. lit with my Laphroaig matches I picked up in Scotland in 2000. Processed some logs into smaller bits and burning them. Taking advantage of a rare non-snow non-rain day.

Love Yellowbird but prefer the habanero.

Outstanding Baja Fish Tacos 🐠 🌮 🌮 At http://www.mayanbeachclub.com/

Lunch meatloaf

Watching 21-year-olds get their brains rearranged by amazing old songs is extremely rewarding. Actual quote: "Fucking hell that might be the best intro ever?" 🤷‍♂️

@blessingx , you should get some "I survived dining on Luxury Mountain" T-Shirts made up. mientras tanto en México

So I know these eateries started opening about 11 years ago, but I finally had dinner with a couple friends at The Rooftop Restaurant at RH (Palo Alto). Apologies for the lousy steak frites photo, but I'm not sure people really come here for the food. First time also having the 2022 Migration Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, which was nice waiting for our table, though any traditional restaurant glass to outside bottle price ratio went out the window. Anyway, out of all the I'm-old-enough-to-have-seen experiences, Restoration Hardware's path of quirky & interesting, original store and concept in Eureka, CA (see photography thread for related news), where I saved a confused bird and Melissa offered to "get them on the internet", to rebranding to RH, to multiple celebrity CEOs, to these weird restaurants, to chartering jets and yachts is a very, very strange one. Kind of progress. 🤷‍♀️

The Remains of a Handmade Utopia In the wooded enclaves of Northern California, Michael Schmelling documents what’s left of the 1960s back-to-the-land movement. https://aperture.org/editorial/the-remains-of-a-handmade-utopia/

Dang! I would at least do the gallon jug thing and then cross my fingers and hope for the best. I had considered the DIY route as well but Tobasco and Franks Red Hot are good enough for me from the store. Plus my kids always buy me hot sauce samplers so I'm always trying something new. Here's something to try 10-15 arbol, 5 guajillo, and 1 ancho peppers - all dried (you can re hydrate or simmer for longer) 2 garlic cloves 1/2 tsps of cumin, pepper, oregano 1 Tbsp of salt - (Salt and vinegar are key to a Tapatio clone) 3/4 - 1 cup vinegar Water to balance the solution so it barely covers the ingredients. However, you should have much more vinegar than water. Simmer for a LONG time. 15-30 mins. Blend and run through a mesh to pick up any dried bits of pepper.

Which president would you respect more? What a fucking cunt. The second one, to be clear. Note: Brent's image won't load for me, so this may be partly repetitive.

^Got a nice thermos bottle with NASA gravity fed flow technology engraved with the logo of my local bike shop / brew pub. 👍🏻

I’m starting to get sucked in to watching the professional races. Yes, they are on in the middle of the night, but the replays work just fine. The strategy is interesting and the knucklehead-ism (as Chris Horner would say) is amusing. The racing is quite a bit more exciting than the early F1 season. Milan-Sanremo should be fun this weekend.

There's a persistent internet rumor that Benjamin Netanyahu died on March 9th (Biggie Smalls is not happy to share the date.) The theory is that Bibi was killed or injured in an Iranian air strike. Supposedly he's missed some key cabinet meetings. Also, there's a (in my jaded opinion, extremely flimsy) theory that one of Bibi's kids was observing Shiva ...by not posting on social media for seven days. The Israeli government has released three videos of Bibi since then, and all have been "debunked" on the internet as AI generated, enhanced, manipulated, etc. In the first video, Bibi appears to have six fingers on one hand for a moment. In the second, he's in a coffee shop. In that one he actually counts to five in Hebrew on each of his hands and takes a sip of some mocha latte whatever. There are a lot of theories about the coffee video: The cafe in question is not currently open because of the attacks on Tel Aviv. The original footage was shot in 2024 (some say 2020) for a different propaganda effort. The third video is him and the huckster himself Ambassador Mike Huckabee. It's clearly a scripted bit, where ol' Huck meets Bibi in a hallway, they have a stilted and awkward conversation about Israel's assassination list, shake hands and talk about the number of fingers they have. There are a number of weird digital artifacts in the video, but it all seems pretty real to me. An AI generated video wouldn't seem stiff and forced in the same way (it'd be unreal in a completely different one.) I did go on a bit of a deep drive, which even lead me to Xitter for a bit. Wading through the legion of Nazi posts, I found some pretty funny remixes. (There may not embed correctly.) https://fxtwitter.com/abdulhyefahad/status/2034006657722982435 https://fxtwitter.com/drvijaysrinivas/status/2033988906576974124 https://fxtwitter.com/JaiNDoC_RL/status/2034032032813040007

It's an interesting unit Not the sharpest thing in the world, but it focuses quickly. The out of focus areas are warm and fuzzy, so it has good bork-eh. Probably best used outdoors.

Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker - I've Got the Music in Me (Sheffield Labs recording on CD) - Picked up at a local Goodwill on a whim based on the label. I was not familiar with the Sheffield Lab era but was intrigued by the cover, so I grabbed it. Have I found my newest obsession?

I got a little obsessed when I heard this song for the first time yesterday:

After another week of testing I like the outcome of the latest CFA3smd something with the dual opamp bias servos. Thanks a lot Kevin. My version is a Zero Feedback version of CFA3. I’ve heard, read, that some people favor the Super Symmetrical version. So, here is a drawing drafting of a ZF/SS version of CFA3smd something with… … six small Omron latching relays. Five for ZF/SS switching and the sixth for LED identification of mode in progress. Two JST XH3 connectors for a momentary toggle switch and LEDs to control the ZF/SS modes.

LOL, hell no, I don't gamble. Insider info is worthless in this situation. Hegseth is Trump's bitch, and Trump is a loose cannon -- he's Daenerys from season 8. And don't get me even started on the Iran side...or the Israel side...or the NATO side...it's like...the opposite of a love triangle. A war irregular polygon. Hollywood couldn't write this shit.

The Hatch Yellowbird is also really solid. I think it’s limited edition though.

Yeah that looks good. IMHO, too much vinegar is the key. I suggest modeling in LTSpice

original pressing!

Unexpected sunset serenade on the ferry ride back.

Sweet Italian sausage and leek Detroit pizza

In other news from China, here we have the fake SR-X1: I've known about these for a while and I finally bought a set as they are so cheap... and very, very rough. They didn't arrive with any earpads but the knockoff leather X1 pads you can find in Asia do work nicely. They are clearly not a 1:1 clone and that headband is something really special in terms of being pure and utter garboleum but it was stupid cheap to add it to them. Housing is 3D printed and quite badly done but look at that cable... to make the 3D print soft and pliable it looks like an absolute mess. Same on this end but the actual plug is nice quality. Nothing wrong with those pins and the spacing seems just fine. Better look at the actual cable used, it is pretty stiff and unwieldy but at least it is 6 parallel cores so the capacitance shouldn't be too bad. It's too short though at 1.5M or so and who knows what the voltage rating is on that thing. I did order a couple of extra ones (and some extra housings too) so I'll zap it with some high voltage and see how it holds up. Anything that can't withstand 1kV AC over an extended time isn't really suitable for this role. Better shot if the actual plug, nothing wrong with those pins and it even has the cutout relief for the bias pin which I always skip on my own plugs. The driver face and the electrodes are etched aluminum or stainless steel. Not sure which as I haven't taken them apart yet. This headband was clearly an afterthought and that metal bends if you look at the wrong way but it does function... kinda. Here we can see the assembly "quality"... or very much lack there of. The housing does not fit correctly together and you might ask... why was this printed in white and the painted? Well I paid extra for the paint... but whey when there are excellent black filaments. Dunno and why not resin print this? Done right and that is superior to injection molding. More of this ace paintjob and the headphones falling apart but nice gold pins there as well. As for how they sound... well sound is produced but something is very wrong inside those drivers. They are far more inefficient than a stock unit and there is audible distortion... quite a bit of it actually. It gets worse and worse as you push the volume to normal levels for me so I'll have to take them apart and see if the drivers are misaligned. They are balanced between the channels though and at low level listening... these are not the worst ever. Now all of this is pretty terrible but clearly a work in progress and not done by some estat fanatics as one would suspect. The drivers don't really work (well they do produce some sound) and the quality is downright atrocious but funny enough, that crap cable does have strain reliefs on both ends which the aftermarket Stax cables do not have. Needless to say, best to stay away from crap too...

Have the greatest of Birthdays buddy!

Happy Birthday, Al!!! Have a great day.

Hope it's a very merry McBirthday.

Happy Birthday Al!

Hey - have a truly great one!

Happy Birthday, DOTU(R)! (party favour noise)

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, youngster.

Happy Birthday Al!

Happy Birthday!

This amp is already costing us money ...but it's not what you think. People are buying entry level STAX headphones, thinking they've got a hot new affordable amp to use them with. Then it turns out to be a piece of garbage and we get a returned headphone to deal with. My recommendation would be to look for a used STAX amp in a similar price range. They work great for many decades.