HiWire

Happy Birthday!

Thanks! There's a 14-page thread about it on the Steve Hoffmann forums: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/electric-light-orchestra-out-of-the-blue-new-remastered-cd-sounds-good.106924/ Gonna take a while to get through this...

Painkiller – Judas Priest guitar cover by Yuki from D_Drive I am getting their album, Maximum Impact and D_Drive will be touring in the US this year. Voices Moar guitar

So I'm looking at buying the Out of the Blue CD, but there seem to be 2 main editions, the regular 17-track release and the 30th anniversary with 3 bonus tracks released in 2007. Which one should I get and also – what is your favorite ELO album and song?

Ride On – Celtic Woman – they're like a classy version of the Corrs (j/k) ❤️ Siúil a Rún

Yes, the Deluge looks great too. The 3.0 firmware updates look pretty cool. They seem to do similar things differently – I'm looking at the heavy-duty MPC units out of curiosity – the MPC Live, MPC X, and also the Force.

The Akai MPC One just got a lot of press at NAMM 2020. The $699 price seems to be a big part of its appeal – it looks like an easy way to get into music making without a PC workstation... https://www.akaipro.com/mpc-one

Bose will be closing all of its retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia in a few months: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/15/21067715/bose-shutting-down-retail-stores-layoffs-north-america-europe-japan-australia They were the closest thing to a mass-market high-end stereo manufacturer for most people. It's almost more interesting to see which regions were exempted from the shutdown – still some strength in those markets.

That's why I got the Sony UHP-H1. The current Sony UBP-X1100ES has analog outputs, but it's a bit pricey, and there are also the Panasonic DP-UB820, Panasonic DP-UB9000, and Pioneer UDP-LX500.

They are mostly the same for 1080p at this point. There aren't major differences in picture quality between the big players – Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, LG, and Oppo.

After watching that list, I feel lucky that I escaped the '90s (mostly) intact... the horror. So much crap. 😦OMG Whigfield amirite? I think the lesson here is that #1 hits are not necessarily the most beloved music, simply the most popular at some given time. I get a lot fewer warm fuzzies watching '90s videos, having lived through all of it.

Thanks! They seemed like a lot of money at the time they came out, which is why I didn't buy them for years... every time I look at the HP-2, I feel like I should be listening to them every day, all day.

I bought my brother a hand grinder for Christmas – a local coffee place roasts their own coffee, so I bought him two bags to start. Personally, I've been cutting down on coffee, but I still drink it a few times a week – it's more of a treat that way: https://www.hario.jp/seihin/productdetail.php?product=MMSP-1-HSV I have a little Bialetti Moka Express stove top coffee maker that I sometimes use – definitely not for fancy coffee... it's old school, but fun to use once in a while:

Big in Germany – All German #1s of the 80s: Just as random from YouTube... a vocal critique of Elizabeth Fraser singing in Massive Attack's Teardrop (from Mezzanine)

I don't like the idea of holograms, or at least treating them like a performance. I get that they give event promoters something to sell, but, in my opinion, this is "dead music", not live music.