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Have we had the new Strokes? I really like it, Pitchfork hates it, you decide. "The New Abnormal" also feels like a pretty prescient album title.

I forgot to comment on how gorgeous Steve and Al's table and bench set and Doug's wooden version of mjolnir are. Excellent work gentlemen, your craftsmanship is exceptional. Me today: finished the last touches on my "Imus at Home" studio.

Have just gotten the Project setup, thru my new untested (and in typical Pars tradition, uncased as of yet) Salas phono stage. I have to check the arm setup, but powered it all on and couldn't detect any noise or hum (yet). I've done some reading on the Project and in addition to the sorbothane washers, apparently there is a damping trough for these arms that is ~$200 ish and seems to be very promising. I was reading a very interesting thread on diyaudio last night regarding a guy building what looks to be an interesting tonearm, which is pivoted but provides perfectly tangential tracking: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/327684-revolutionary-pivoting-tangential-tone-arm.html

Amazing playing on these sessions and the sound quality is good as well

This mine:

The stay-at-home lifestyle has reignited my old hobby interests and I've done some research on archery, crossbows, and, of course, swords and knives recently (thanks, Witcher novels!). Has anybody got serious experience with Benchmade knives? I've wanted one for a while, but they're kind of pricey compared to my usual stuff (Cold Steel). I don't have a large collection, but I do tend to favor medium-sized production tactical knives and martial-arts oriented combat knives. I lusted after the AFCK folder (in M2 steel – long out of production) back in the day: I've also wanted the full-size Nimravus with plain edge for as long as I've known about it: And, of course, the Infidel: On the martial arts side, I've always been attracted to stilettos/daggers (for their looks) and curved knives: Fairnbairn-Sykes fighting knife: Gerber Mark II (Vietnam) – I think the new-style serrations are an abomination: Spyderco Warrior – ridiculously overdone, which is why it is cool: CRKT First Strike (Steve Corkum) – handled one of these on a trip years ago – seemed a bit thick and heavy for its size, but I still want one: Even better is the CRKT Sakimori – they were mostly known for low-end folders a while ago, but they put out a few interesting pieces from time to time (this one is also discontinued). I had reservations about their choice of steel (O1) for the price as it is prone to stain or rust without care and it is relatively soft compared to modern super-steel alloys:

Isle of Man is all balls....balls of steel. Motorcyclists are the most untethered. They lose someone every year. Some of the most exciting racing there is! HS

I'm not saying that 3 weeks of quarantine has had any long term effects on me, but last night I taught myself to shave my head. In spite of some classic New England weather (colder today than it was last night, alternating bright sun and cold rain), I managed to get outside and continue hacking away at what I estimate is 8 years of brush growth. I had to stop in the middle at one point because cloudburst, but I was able to get back out and work for another hour. I may or may not have mentioned this, but I continue to be old, fat and cartoonishly out of shape.

I use FreeNAS + Roon + Raspberry Pi 4 or Audio Cast M5 or Apple TV. The Roon Server runs on the NAS where the files are stored. I have lots of compute (Xeon E-2136), RAM (64GB) and disk resources (80TB) in a small form factor that lives in my closet. I use a Node 304 case, which is as tiny as you can get for this setup. I use the RPI4 to connect to my SACD player which has a USB input that can do DSD, and the M5 for patio speakers and a portable speaker and ATV for everywhere with a TV. I have one exception where I need something custom, which is the input to Metric Halo / Headphone rig. I am building an embedded device that will run full OSX and be the size of a RPI4 and can connect via Ethernet to the MH. It all works amazingly well. Browsing around via the library via an iPad is fun and educational.

I loved it

Postponed morning bike ride due to snow. 😃 First time I can remember that we have had so many days that we can see snow on the mountains from the back yard. Summer may prove very interesting as we have an abundance of brush growth on the hills which if we have a dry hot summer will turn into fire fuel for October.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

RIP Mort Drucker, one of the Usual Gang of Idiots.

Found a new bucket list drive... heaven for me:

Smoked chuck roast. Much better than I expected. And a great excuse to use plenty of horseradish cream sauce.

The last 3 nights have all concluded with some John Prine 😥 jazzing it up with some sidewinder

I've been on Tidal for a while, enjoying it combined with my own library. I have found some obscure things on Tidal that are tough to find. I actually find some of the non-MQA releases sound better than MQA on Tidal! Some others have echoed my thought. For me, I added Roon to the equation, and love it all. I am a huge fan of the convenience, and have several Roon endpoints about the house (and in my Maine condo....if i ever get back up there!).

Short answer: Found out how weak I am. Long answer: Carried the MA770 concrete chassis speaker into a FedEx office two towns over because parking was better. Still I don’t believe I’ve ever hated handicap parking before. Yesterday drove around an empty Great America parking lot with Esmé as we talked about riding the still roller coasters in the future.