CarlSeibert

Hi Todd. The Twitter integration seems to have conked out. I think it died about halfway through the playoffs and I was just too frazzled to let you know.

Wow Al, that was one awful experience. Kind thoughts sent your way. I'm waiting at my desk for the AAA battery guy. First night back at work after a week off. I started out for a salad for lunch and was delayed for an hour by a dingbat employee who welcomed me back with passive aggressive silliness. Finally got to my car, turned the key and ....... called triple A. The good part is that I can wait here in the relative comfort of my cubicle, so it's no biggie. Apart from that cinnamon bun from the vending machine, that is. Update: AAA guy tests battery and proclaims it in good health. He finds my negative cable in poor shape, snips off the end, cleans it up, installs a new terminal clamp and the car starts perfectly - at least in his presence. And he doesn't charge me anything. So there's some good karma floating around today. If it's transferable, I'm forwarding it to everybody with ailing parents.

Excellent. There are definitely a few items there worthy of consideration.

Great idea. I like it for cables, too. I mostly make my own at this point, but there's that whole nagging doubt thing. Any word on what lines of headphones they're going to lend/sell?

Took a walk around the neighborhood with Bonnie to look at what's going on at different places in the creek. Spent a fair part of the afternoon cleaning and playing records acquired at Record Store Day at Radio Active yesterday. (A huge success, despite the rain.) Have now been distracted to listen to WLRN on my Squeezebox because they have Bob Perry on, playing his favorite records, which are extra wicked cool. Some of us probably remember Perry as the guy who for years had Blue Note Records in NMB. (Perry explained, by the way, that he actually got permission from Blue Note to use their name for his record store -- just in case anybody else has spent the last twenty years wondering about that.) ... just discovered that the time display on the Squeezeboxes has changed to be an hour slow for some unknown reason. The time on my server is OK. The time zone on mysqueezebox.com in correct. Dunno what's happening. Might explain why I've stayed up too late watching Archer episodes a couple time in the last week in any case. Good luck Scott. That's a pretty major change.

Yeah, I've got to get around to upgrading my SB-3s. My friend Alan reports that this plugin works like a charm.

This. Thank heavens Jacob is OK. Bonnie landed in the ER once under very similar circumstances. It was real scary. When all the diagnostic dust had settled days later it turned out to be an unusual migraine, much like Jacob's. The good news is that it was her first and there hasn't been a recurrence in several years. The bad news is that the ER doc doc thought it was street drugs, was semi belligerent, and threatened to Baker Act her. Hopefully, that clown will never hold my life or that of anybody I care about in his hands. The hospital where this occurred closed. I have no idea what happened to him. Hopefully nothing good.

I wish I had a chance to see that, Chris. Never did. Very cool.

You can do wonders slitting a piece of PVC pipe and pulling the kerf closed with a hose clamp, too. I attached a few things to the dust collector in my shop that way. Ha! I laugh in the face of costly attachments! (I'm not sure what that smiley means, but it sure is cool)

Many moons ago I had an apartment with a central vacuum. It was cool. The touch and feel field trip will tell a lot. The bag thing will be a big issue because if we are firm in our objection to bags the choices become pretty limited. Something about our personalities and the idea of having to keep track of a stock of bags and the inevitability of not having one when we need it is going to make that a pretty big hurdle. I'm sad to hear the Dyson is loud. Then there is the matter of if Dyson does become the top contender do we do wheels or ball? Actually, in all the brands there lots of models with what appear to be very subtle differences, often at nearly the same price point. Do most of these brands accept standard-size nozzles? We have, for example, a peculiar-loking dusting thingie that's great. It would ba a pity not to be able to use it.

Gimme 45 minutes and a waterboard. It'll sing like a canary.

Gawd, I've got to get on my bike. haven't ridden forty miles cumulatively in the last three weeks.

Nice! Now I know there's at least one other person on the road who still has downtube shifters )

Had a really frustrating day at work Wednesday. I was so frustrated I was fit to be tied. It wasn't the usual corporate nihilist back-stabber bullshit. It was just ordinary bad luck. On Thursday I had barbeque for lunch with Miguel. On Friday, Bonnie and I sat and watched the full moon rise over the swamp. On Saturday, we had a delightful time with friends. I feel much luckier now.

Hmm. I did some quick online checking. It appears that the Dyson is about the only one with a vortex particle seperator instead of a bag. Is this a personal preference thing or does one approach or the other have real advantages? I really disliked the bags on our previous vacuum.

OK then. I'm clearly out of my depth here. I haven't even heard of most of those brands, except Miele, which is I think what the cleaning crew at the office uses. The overall theme I'm hearing, though, is that these things are like anything else. There is annoying generic junk and stuff that doesn't suck - or in this case does suck. I'll be making a field trip or two to specialist vacuum dealers to get a feel for the machines you've mentioned. I like the idea that some of these might be used comfortably without ear protectors. I always feel like a geek with and pissed off without. Not to mention what it must sound like to the cats.

I could have sworn there was a thread on this, but I can't find one. We're about to replace our not-too-old Bissell vacuum. We'd like something that cleans well, vacuums up cat hair from our Olympic-class shedding specialists and doesn't require frequent repair. Anybody have a recommendation? Are the Dysons worth the price of admission? I see a Hoover on Amazon that looks pretty similar to the Bissell. http://www.amazon.co...33834391&sr=1-6 I wonder if it's riddled with semi-fatal design flaws. It's certainly cheap eoungh. The Bissell is nice, apart from not being able to get cat hair off upholstery, but the brush bar has under-specified bearings (or a badly done belt and capstan, depending on your point of view) and crappy labyrinth seals. When it fails, which is frequently, it usually manages to spin a bearing or overheat one of the seals badly enough that the plastic body of the brush bar is trashed, so it's not just a trip to Boca Bearings to fix it. Grrrrr.

Found some guy's laptop in the middle of the street. There was a contract of some sort closed in it. There was a phone number on the contract and that guy was v-e-r-y concerned about his contract being in the middle of the street. So shortly, Mr Probably-shouldn't-leave-his-laptop-on-top-of-his-car phones me, tells me what kind of laptop he's missing and rather promptly shows up at my workshop to reclaim said laptop. He was quite grateful/relieved. My work laptops have my name and phone number labeled prominently on the case. Tomorrow, my personal one will, too. The laptop, by the way, was a Toshiba. I estimate it hit the pavement at about 30 mph. It didn't look too great, but it was probably repairable. Best of all, it was able to boot into the OS, which means its owner hasn't lost whatever's on the hard drive. I was impressed.

I have to admit that it's a little sick that I always click on these threads when I see them on Twitter. Usualy some newbe gets shredded by lions. But this guy does seem polite. So, I have 650s and like them. Yes, they sound better with better amp, better cables, better source, but they are pleasant and satisfying in their own way regardless. Kind of warm and comfy. I also have HE 500s and I like them even better. They happen to get along famously wih my amp. I can suspend disbelief pretty well with them. They sound better or worse according what's in the rest of the system and what music you play, just like the 650s and every other headphone (with the obvious exceptions that sound awful no matter what). I've always had a warm spot in my heart for planar and electrostatic drivers in speakers, so it kind of follows that I would like orthos and stats. But in the end it's all just flavors. Go with what floats your boat and don't worry too much about what we think.

For followers of NPR podcasts an the Cowboys Junkies - just got a tweet that they have a Tiny Desk Concert coming out soon.

You should talk to guys who design mobile phones. They use itty bitty litttle board-mounted speakers. Unfortuanately, we don't have anybody like that here. There are forums chock full of such people, tough.

At the newspaper, we've used dozens of Lenovos with good results. And the Dell Latitudes have been warhorses. (Hundreds of them) A lot depends on what your IT department's hardware folks can suport well. Laptops tend to, ahem, need hardware support. (like when they get dropped down a couple flights of stairs)

I thought the cinematographer guy had good hair.

Happy Birthday!

Going to the dean sounds like a good idea to me because it might leave scar tissue on the ta. But that's just me. I'm not exactly a role model )