Vodkapundit mentioned that the next Donald Fagen album is due out in a month. C00L. The two recent Steely Dan albums were okay, but neither could compare to 1993’s Kamakiriad or 1982’s The Nightfly.
Following his links I found this old article and decided to take his “show me yours” challenge. (So I’m two years behind the curve here. And your point is…?)
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You might have been wondering what I ever did about the elliptical trainer problem. I’ve posted an autopsy here, with lots of juicy photos.
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I’m reading my kids the book _Cheaper by the Dozen
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This guy probably “doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene / he’s got a daytime job, he’s doin’ alright.”
Disclaimer: I don’t have the faintest clue what all that music-dude mumbo jumbo means:
Also, the A/D converter has a huge effect on the quality. I use the top-of-the-line Digidesign 192 I/O, which sounds great in conjunction with my preamp. There are now some converters out there that cost a lot less money and might work just as well. If you just plug your bass into some crappy DI and use cheap converters, you will really have to work to get that sound where you want it.
I just think it’s cool that O’Reilly is interviewing musicians I’ve actually heard of. Well, I never heard of him, but I heard of his band.) A pity that my Dregs albums all perished in the great basement flood of ’93 (or was it ’94?). (Not that I have a turntable to play them on anyway, but still.)
A friend of mine is looking to unload his wife’s SAAB 9-5. He asked me if I’d be interested, because I bought his old SAAB 9000 back in about 1993. He was upgrading to Vipers and Corvettes and Monster Trucks. (He had some kind of Larry Ellison thing going on, I think, but he didn’t have enough money for a MiG.)
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A neighbor was nice enough to take us and our kids to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last night. It was very good; better than I expected–much better than I was expecting in October and better than even some positive reviews had me expecting.
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It worked like a charm. Details here.
Just saw Wolfgang “Boot” Petersen’s Troy
I haven’t read The Iliad, so I don’t know how badly they ruint it. But if these are the ruins, the original must have been outstanding. It makes me want to read it in the original Attic Greek.
My elliptical trainer is a ProForm 650 Cardio Cross Trainer. I got it from Sears in summer (August?) of 2004.
I have very few complaints. It would be nice if it had the features that the $4500 models have, but this way you save $4200. I use it about 30 minutes/day and the little electronic display (with km/s, etc.) is still on its first battery.
Unfortunately, the pedal axle just wore out. The steel just separated into two parts, and the pedal on one side stayed where it belonged, and the pedal on the other side fell to the floor. (It was a bit of a surprise when it happened, but no life-threatening injuries were sustained.)
The warranty is only 90 days (of course), so repairs will be on my dime. What do you suppose that will cost me?
I called Sears for a replacement part. They won’t give out actual part numbers over the phone, but my wife keeps instruction manuals, so the phone person just looked up model no. 831.285371. Page 15 of the manual has the exploded diagram you use to put the thing together, and by referring to its pseudo-part numbers I was able to explain what I needed:
* part 32 (the pedal axle) costs $20.99
* part 31 (the large bearing) costs $35.99 each, and I will need two, if I need any.
* part 30 (the lock washer) are a bargain at $2.19 each (i.e., they ought to be a nickel).
If it turns out I don’t need new bearings, then the repair will cost only about $40 including S&H. Otherwise I’m looking at the far side of $100, which is a real bummer.
In the process of taking it apart, I found that the machine screws (#15) — the ones that hold the plastic cowl on the flywheel — strip out pretty easily.
I think I’m going to be using WordPress for my blog.
Huh. So I saved it. How do I publish it?
Update: Okay. My user level needed to be higher for me to post. All I could do was save it as a draft. Now I can publish. I think. Let’s find out.
There was another problem, by the way. I installed WP using Fantastico and also by hand but both times I found out that you can’t administer it if you’ve configured Firefox to disable sending referers to the server. Why WP needs to look at referers to maintain its state is beyond me. Well, it’s not beyond me, it’s just unknown to me. If I knew more about HTTP and PHP and blogging generally, it might not be beyond me. I can imagine this is a feature to make sure that admin sessions aren’t hijacked. Or I could be totally wrong. Whatever. It took me awhile to find the answer.