TMoney

Happy birthday, Dan!

Happy birthday, Colin!

Happy birthday, Steve! Hope you and Suzy have a good one and get out for a nice walk in this lovely weather.

Fantastic! You make us proud, Kerry.

Oh no! RIP, Dunhill! 😥

Happy birthday, Jeff!

Euphoria I had been reading chatter about this show everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to NY Magazine so I decided to give it a chance. I used the last few weeks to get caught up. I agree with what I have been reading. There is something here. This show is going to be ultra-polarizing for people. The edgy-ness is turned up to 11, but once I got passed it I started to really like it. Euphoria has some genuine interesting insights and things to say about the human condition. I like (most of) the characters, I like the writing, I like the style, the young cast is great. I LOVE the music. This show has a maximalist vibe that really hooks me. The best thing about this show are the two leads. One of them is a trans woman. The honesty and vulnerablility in her performance have helped me better understand people like her. The other lead is Zendaya. She has this wise-beyond-her-years presence that commands the screen every time she is on. I can see why she is starting to show up all over the place in movies and TV. She is really talented. If you have been curious about this one, give it a chance. It is really something. Edit: Apple Music has a playlist. https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/euphoria-official-playlist/pl.bf5d5f278b43425aa72fa69849081002

Someone asked me in PMs what I thought of the DCA Stealth so thought I'd share what I wrote here: I think this reviewer hears the Stealth more or less the same way that I do: https://www.headfonia.com/dan-clark-audio-stealth-review/2/ In particular: At first, I did honestly find the Stealth a little unexciting – I didn’t feel the urge to reach for them for some ‘fun’ time listening. However, given time, you become accustomed to their astonishing level of clarity and textbook tuning that really does become your new ‘benchmark’ in terms of tonal performance, which then makes everything else seem a little flawed. Instead of looking for the dopamine-inducing dose of mid-bass ‘shove’, you begin to become a junkie for the remarkable little world of pinpoint imaging and brilliantly separated sounds that envelop your head – all in a perfectly comfortable and outside-world-blocking cocoon. From 100hz and up they sound more or less totally neutral to me. After getting used to them I can now hear what people don’t like about the HD800s’s treble. Achieving neutrality does not "wow" me, but after I listen to other headphones I can more clearly hear their flaws. Interestingly, I think the downside to the Stealth is below 100hz. You’d think the bass would sound boosted given the harman curve adhearannce, but the opposite is the case. Stealth feels a little too light and not as anchored down there as I’d like. It is funny to compare them to the (also closed back) Apple AirPod Max which is their exact opposite. Incredible, controlled bass, but lacking everywhere else. I also wish they weren’t closed back, but that is what it is. I’m happy with them, but if I had to do it over again I’d have kept the $ in my pocket. There is a sweet-spot on the price/performance curve and these are way past it.

For the espresso-curious like me I thought this was a useful primer on some of the terminology and concepts that are getting discussed in this thread.

Built to Spill - Perfect from Now On

Happy birthday, Mike!

Meat! RIP! I first learned of Meat while watching Fight Club. I thought it was hilarious that someone would call themselves such a stupid/hilarious name. The fact that he played "Bob" made it even more funny. Later I'd find Bat Out of Hell, Rocky Horror, and his other works. I love him as a performer. Listening to his stuff is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Everything he does is always over-the-top-as-hell and that makes me happy. Glad he'll be reunited with Jim Steinman in the thereafter so that they can keep on suing each other and making music.

Thanks, everyone! Back in December I was hoping to do a bigger party, but then Omicron happened. I ended up having a nice dinner with family and will hopefully do something bigger with friends once the COVID wave is fully broken in late February or March.

Happy birthday!

Station Eleven The last thing I'd think would be worth watching would be a show about the fallout from another global pandemic. This one starts slow with lots of separate threads. The beauty is in how they all come together. There are some great moments. The cast is great. Lori Petty and David Cross as the mother and father of a stage troupe that circles a post-apocalypse Lake Michigan just works. Watching the show gives me some of the same feeling I get from reading a good book. I'm not surprised that the show-runner is a novelist. I'm excited to see what he will do next, and I think I'll be picking up one of Ms. St. John Mandel's books too.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, memelord!

RIP 🤘

Happy birthday, Barista-in-chief!

Rex Stout - Fer-De-Lance. My first Nero Wolfe. I like it! I think I’ll for sure be coming back to Nero and Archie for some more fun mysteries in the future. - At a friend’s suggestion I did an experiment and read this while listening to music in the background. The friend mentioned that having ambient music on while reading helped their brain having something to bounce off of when they inevitably lose focus on the book. There might be something to that. It seemed to work for me. I burned through the book a lot faster than I usually do in just two evenings.

RIP, coach!

Happy birthday!

Because I must be half-dyslexic I read the title as “Caesars instead of Case-ers.” Happy Boxing-Day eve, everyone!

Happy birthday, Ric! Double nickel!

Happy birthday!