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The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. Good story, quick read. It probably helps if you know something about chess. I don't and still enjoyed it.

Timothy Dalton had a badass quality that few of the other Bonds had. Especially not Roger Moore. I think Moore's appeal was in the charm/humor department -- unfortunately, he came off too foppish most of the time, while Sean Connery was able to be charming, humorous and cool all at the same time. Brosnan had charm and some cool (surprisingly so), but lacked humor. And don't forget David Niven in the original Casino Royale, perhaps the most foppish of all Bonds.

The Bond franchise is in a weird place. They've been doing essentially the same movie for so long now that no matter what they do, half the audience will probably hate it.

I was here in Richmond when it happened. People I work with here were on the phone with family and friends up in D.C. and were talking about smoke coming from the Pentagon before that was even on the news -- that's when we knew it was really bad. I also grew up near NYC and still have friends there, all of whom were in or near the city when the towers came down. One guy from my high school class (and possibly more, a lot of people I went to H.S. with went to work in NYC) was inside one of the towers when it came down.

5 years later. Iraq is a festering breeding ground for Al Qaeda, Bin Laden's trail has gone stone cold, and nobody feels any safer. Well done, Mr. Bush.

The trailer certainly is exciting!

TYVM!

For some reason I had an itch to hear this song today. iTunes doesn't carry it. Anyone have an .mp3 they could loan me?

Remember that Sidarth guy that Sen. George Allen got in trouble for making fun of? I read recently that he applied for some kind of special political seminar program at UVA, and for his entrance essay, wrote just three words: "I Am Macaca." He was accepted.

Wow, that song doesn't suck nearly as much as I remembered.

SweetTarts > Spree > Smarties > Bright Eyes

SweetTarts > Smarties

Am I the only one bothered by the giant's very small hands?

The hands don't look so bad to me, but the head is gi-normous.

Halftime Show

Crackberry

Past A Diving Vidro

The Ocho

S.P.F. 60

Delmon Young was hit by the first major league pitch he faced.

Warning shot?

Dang, this is right in the middle of a big project rollout at work.

Dovetail Joint

Suede Face

Bobby Riggs' Revenge

Greg Brady Bill

Augustus Gloop

Pink Floyd Landis

Zimmy

The next one.

So I got the record player today and tried it out with one of my few records (Billy Bragg's - Workers Playtime) and was impressed but noticed that the quality wasn't that great. So I was wondering, what difference does a cartridge/stylus make? How do I replace the current cartridge with a newer, better quality one? All help is appreciated.

 

Edit: I find that it is not so much an issue of quality as opposed to an issue of a lot of crackling and popping sounds. Also, the record I used had never been played or removed from its sleeve before so its not an issue of the record being scratched or anything.

Cartridge & stylus make all the difference in the world in terms of sound quality. Buy the best you can afford if you're serious about sound quality. Shure has always made good cartridges. I'm not sure who else is still in this business. Stanton, maybe.

Crackling and popping is most often caused either by scratches, or dirt/dust. Since you don't see scratches, it's probably more the latter. If you use a wet record cleaning system, you may notice a difference.

"Under state law, foreign flags can only be in the classroom because it's tied to the curriculum. And the principal looked at the curriculum, talked to the teacher, and found that there was really no curriculum coming up in the next few weeks that supported those flags being in the classroom," said Jeffco Public Schools spokeswoman Lynn Setzer.

It sounds to me like the school administration had a lot of latitude in interpreting this law.

Maybe this teacher was just an insubordinate jerk and they wanted him gone anyway, who knows.

Deckchair Mishap

How about Titanic Deckchairs

Speaking of little league, how about that 6-8 kid on the Saudi team. Holy crap.

That "kid" has got to be on growth hormone. Got to.

Hmm...it seems I might have been misinformed...Bill Chase was Chase's trumpeter, and AMG says he was "inspired by Ferguson"...

What a bunch of wussy administrators at that school. "We have no discretion when it comes to following the law." Even stupid-assed laws that serve no purpose? They should have backed that teacher.

RIP Maynard.

Maynard was partly responsible for introducing me to jazz. One summer while I was in high school, my sister brought home from college a stack of albums that her roommate hadn't had room for in his car and so dumped off on her. He was into fusion and pop jazz -- Maynard, Chick Corea, Bob James, lots of stuff like that. I spent the whole summer listening to his records and taped most of them. Over the years I recorded over most of the tapes, but kept the Maynard "MF Horn" stuff because I always liked it.

A few years later, when I was in college, there was a girl I was friends with, but we didn't date because she always talked about her boyfriend back home. Maynard and his band were booked to do a show on campus. I mentioned it to her and found out she was a big MF fan, so we made plans to go to the show together. This was wintertime in upstate New York. The night of the show, there was a big snowstorm, and Maynard never showed -- his bus got stuck somewhere out on the highway. They never rebooked the show.

Oh yeah, almost forgot -- in high school a buddy had a tape of a band called "Chase" that featured this trumpeter who reeled off these amazing high, fast solos, backed by a funky AWB-type of rhythm section and a grooving vocalist who sounded kind of like Santana's lead singer. I copied that tape and used to listen to it a lot. It wasn't until years later that I discovered that Chase's trumpeter was none other than Maynard Ferguson.