HeadphoneAddict

I took one accounting class and one economics class in undergraduate school, and they really helped me when I went into private medical practice later. It didn't stop me from hiring an office manager, but rather it made me smart enough to know I'd need one of those.

I just noticed that my Audible copy of Huckleberry Finn is read by Elijah Wood, and Wizard of Oz is read by Anne Hathaway. I have the Dracula you mentioned that I have yet to listen to.

That's very generous of you Brent. I still have few un-listened audible books to try out in my library, but they were mostly free public domain books like Tom Sawyer and Dracula or Sherlock Holmes. If there are not too many others interested then I'd always be happy to add another book to my library. We mostly listen to them on longer trips in the car. I like that I can use them on my Kindle 3G with keyboard too.

I really like the Audioengine D1 DAC - you power it with a USB port (wall adapter for example) with digital input, and RCA out (as well as headphone out). The RCA output quality is a bit better than the headphone out, and should serve you well as long as you aren't looking for a 5.1 DAC.

Happy Birthday!

Sitting in a timeshare condo surfing Head-Case while the wife and kids ski here at Steamboat Springs. I don't get to go up the mountain and snowboard anymore (bad lungs, bad!) but I get to enjoy all the good food and hot springs afterwards... I'm so tempted to strap on an oxygen tank tomorrow and get in three runs from the gondola on a half-day lift ticket, but the last time I did that I ended up in the ICU for 3 days. Don't think that's worth the extra $ on lift tickets and rental gear, when I could just live vicariously through others and then drink at the end of the day. (hmmm, could be drinking now, but the cupboard is bare)

My brother-in-law had the exact same issue, when he came to me for help a while back. I had to help him try adding a few different email addresses to his old Apple account in order to find one that the Apple ID site would allow using as his ID, which ended up being [email protected] address. He had even tried setting up a new never-before-used iCloud ID and adding that to his apple account, but it wouldn't let him change the old ID to that new iCloud address because Apple does not allow merging of accounts yet. The main point is, try adding more of your other email addresses as your email for the old Apple ID, until you find one that can be transitioned into being the actual ID name instead of it just being the email associated with the old Apple ID name. Apparently some addresses are acceptable to Apple, and some aren't. But also be sure to not let that email address used for the ID lapse, because even if you have other backup email addresses in your account it would feel weird to have your ID be an inactive email address. Bro-in-law tried to use his ISP provider email, until I reminded him that if he changes from Qwest to some other provider then the email address will go away. I wanted him to try to use a gmail, which is always free for pop access. After renaming your ID to an active email address, you can still add all your spare email addresses to your Apple ID, so that anyone who knows even one of your emails can FaceTime or iMessage with you. Another option - you could also just leave your original old Apple ID the way it is and only buy things with it - and then get a new iCloud ID for photo stream (you can disable any other iCloud feature you wont use). You'd enter the old ID into just the iTunes and App Store as you do now, but the new iCloud ID would be entered into your iCloud control panel on the Mac or iPhone settings. We actually do things this way ourselves - we use my old .Mac Apple ID from 2003 for just the family's App and iTunes store purchases (and for a shared family event calendar), and then we each have our own private Apple ID that we only use for personal iCloud data syncing and messaging.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Belated!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday!

I have a set coming for my son's birthday. http://amazon.nuforce-icon.com/NuForce-HP800-Accurate-MonitorClass-Headphones-for/M/B00ADG99V2.htm I'll eventually compare them to V-MODA M-80, MDR-V6, SRH-840, and HD25-1 II

2013 Subaru Tribeca

Thanks Brent, I wanted one of those and ordered.

I probably shouldn't have wasted so much time on my missive about the subject this AM...

Good job Wayne!

Happy Birthday!

A higher tax on firearms to be used for improving access to mental health care might not be such a bad thing. I practiced part-time pediatric psychiatry for 7 years before I retired (mostly limited to ADHD, depression, OCD, anxiety, autistic spectrum disorders, bipolar disorder, and reactive attachment disorder). During that time I came to see just how terrible access to mental health care was in this country. We have 350,000,000 guns and only 47,000 Psychiatrists. When I needed to refer a patient to a board certified psychiatrist it could take weeks to get them seen. If they needed hospitalization for suicidal ideation or psychosis it was often hard to find them a hospital bed (only 100 psych beds here for a population of half a million). I would normally leave it up to psychiatrists to determine which "at risk" people are unsafe to own a gun, and to decide what kind of re-assessment should be done to give people their rights back after they have been successfully treated. But, not only is it hard to find an opening for services, there's not a good way to force someone who is simply "acting strange" according to family and friends to get help. A 72 hour hold often isn't enough time to assess the situation, and anything longer than that can itself be an infringement in someone's right. On the other hand, since we can't get everyone expertly evaluated, the way the government would have it is every soldier with PTSD would lose their right to keep and bear arms, even if the psych assessment was that they are not a danger to themselves and others. And possibly every person treated with Prozac for being too sad could lose their right. And so on and so on. It's too easy to lay out criteria like that, because we don't have enough psych services to see and treat everyone who needs care, and right now there is no way to properly terminate and reinstate someone's right to own a firearm based on a psych determination. Once they take it away you usually can't ever get it back, and there is no appeals process. And, there is no consistent way for the medical community to report the mental status of someone into the background check records. Since there is no requirement to do a psych eval on everyone who wants to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, even just banning identified "at risk" people wont completely solve the problem because there are still people who could snap with no signs of problems prior to the event. That leads people to ask for a bigger step - banning firearms completely so those not identified as at risk wont have access to firearms. But that will only stop the 99% who are law abiding citizens from owning firearms for protection, plus maybe keep some of the mentally ill from getting them if they aren't smart enough to find firearms on the black market. At the same time it gives the criminals free reign to prey on the weak and unprotected in their "gun free" zones. So yes, I would rather pay a higher tax on firearms which would be used for improving access to mental health care, than to see the government try another failed assault weapons and high cap mags ban. We already pay a $200 tax on every sale or transfer of a suppressor, short barreled rifle, or full auto weapon, and the number of sales or transfers of those items is much lower than it would be if there were no tax. And, you don't see people committing crimes with those weapons, with an almost infinitesimal rate of crime by the people like me who have NFA tax stamps. That's one way to reduce the numbers in circulation without completely taking away the rights of the law abiding citizens to have a choice in how they defend themselves. It still doesn't make much sense to tax a "right", but we already have to get permits to assemble (such as a parade or protest) or to marry. So we've gone down that slippery slope before without the world ending. The $200 tax isn't what stopped me from buying a full auto weapon, it's logic. Partly from the fact that accuracy suffers when firing off too many rounds in succession too rapidly, and ammo is too costly to waste by "spray and pray" method. It's just stupid to use a full-auto for self defense, although sometimes fun to shoot with them at targets (I've been to a couple of machine gun and silencer meets). It's also partly the fact that a full auto weapon costs 20-30x the amount of a semi-auto version, ever since the manufacture of new full-auto weapons for non-law enforcement personnel was banned in 1986. People have to buy a used 25 year old weapon, and ones for sale are getting harder to find. Like I said, I don't see much use for a full-auto weapon for self defense, but I stand by someone's right to own one (one who has passed the background check and paid the fees). If we pass a semi-auto weapons ban all it does is increase the cost for a used one, and even if you went door to door to collect them there would be hundred of thousands out there in the grey and black market to be used in crimes. If the ban was stricter and people were required to turn them in but didn't, you would have normally law abiding citizens become statutory criminals, for no reason other than from defiance of an unconstitutional ban. Note - The Clinton ban lasted 10 years and didn't do anything to help reduce violent crime, and when it ended we still saw crime rates drop. Prior to the ban they sold 10 years worth of assault weapons in just a few months (I bought 4 at the time), proving that people wanted these firearms for self defense (and to stockpile for their children, or make a profit), since there was no 10 fold increase in gun crimes to match the 10 fold increase in sales. Just the threat of a ban has me wanting to go out tomorrow and order a second AR-15 that I otherwise wouldn't want or need or afford. In regards to closing the "gun show loophole" - I'm not totally against a background check for all sales of firearms by private individuals, if there were assurances that the records wouldn't be saved to be used to round up and collect a persons firearm collection in the future, should they be banned completely by an over-reaching government. The biggest argument people use for allowing private sales to continue unmolested is that the buyers and sellers don't want government keeping track of whose door to knock on when "big brother" decides we no longer deserve our rights. I still think that banning the private sale of firearms without a background check is an infringement of our rights, but not as severe as taking away our choice of guns or magazines. And, as for locking up firearms to keep them safely away from the deranged neighbors and family - I keep all but one or two locked up in a gun case or small rapid access safe, and the ones that are left out are kept close at hand in case of need for self defense. But we don't need the government mandating that it must be locked up, rendered inoperable, and unloaded away from ammo, which renders it useless for self defense. That would mean every time I take off my pants I have to unload my .38 or 9mm from it's pocket holster, take it apart, and lock it up; or be forced to keep it in my pajamas - I'm not doing either. In my house everyone is trained in the use of firearms, and I would feel safe if none of the firearms were locked up. But, in the event of a home invasion I don't want a stranger using our firearms against us. But if any of my family were acting the slightest bit mentally unstable I would at a minimum change the lock combinations, but more likely put them in a more secure heavy safe that can't be opened with a hacksaw.

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Waddles, has passed away." The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead," replied the vet.. "How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$750!" she cried, "$750 just to tell me my duck is dead!" The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now $750."

Man, I'm still afraid to get back into this discussion but I appreciate everyones comments, on both sides. I especially want to thank Peter and Dan (and others) for representing their positions so well, which are more in alignment with my feelings. This is a very touchy issue, and one where a good debate is still unlikely to make someone else change their position/philosophy just based on the discussion at hand.

The $89 Image X10 deal is back at Amazon! (I used the head-case amazon link) http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-Image-X10-Noise-Isolating-Earphone/dp/B000WAHFBK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1355896292&sr=8-2&keywords=klipsch+image+x10

That article makes perfect sense, it just doesn't explain the spoiler above. I'm not saying the guy really had his soul go to heaven and back, but one part of his experience is still difficult to explain. I bought Dr. Alexander's eBook right after I saw him talk on TV a while back, but I've been more interested in finishing my 7 book James Rollins Sigma Force series of books first. I may have to read this next, just to find out what all the fuss is about.

Thanks for the link, but after Dusty's comments about magnetizing the watch I wonder, how good are they?

I watched him in a TV interview, and he explained part of why why he believes his experience was real.