Son-of-a-Weizen

...and all this time she thought it was due to those Alar-soaked apples she'd been using in the pies.

Is this an example of how the corner shopkeeper 'locks up' for the evening? ...or just an effort to provide shade?

I too was underwhelmed by the Columbia set. To me it was somewhat uneven and some of the organ tracks elicited a cringe. Mosaic's collection sets like this are a treasure hunt. This one just turned out to be a little light..... greggery peccary? OMG! The nocturnal gregarious wild swine is here?

The Monk 'Straight, No Chaser' SACD

That was the Holy Grail for many years, wasn't it? How about those Leo Parker TOCJs? They're pretty rare...or so I thought? One's on eBay.

A juicy steak & mushroom pie take-out from Mackey's Public House to celebrate my ongoing love affair with Lipitor. 190 and holding!!!

My Jack Sheldon impersonation in 1970.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuTwQEa62f8 ....do you know if this entire show is/was available on cd ....or if select tracks from that show appear on any of the various getz boxes/collections that blanket the earth, like this one (though it's a '64-'77)? http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/This-Is-Jazz-14-Get...7QQcmdZViewItem

Like the album a good bit ....though I wouldn't be disappointed if 'Over The Rainbow' weren't on it. Sort of a clumsy fade on 'What's Right For You,' isn't it?

First one I'd spin for a 14 yr old would be Mars Hotel. Plenty of time after to start easing youngins' into jams like 'Alligator'

Cut out the interior to make a .......

Super clip! Randy said he wanted to follow that number up with another old time Zappa favorite "Brown Shoes White Socks Don't Make It" but thought you might get pissed at him.

Didn't realize that this was released on vinyl in Nov. Any report on the quality of this vinyl? Always thought the Jasmine cd was a bit on the bright side. http://www.eastwindimport.com/album-detail...p;ProductID=827 http://www.jazz-sawano.com/index_f.html?188,analog

I saw this thread and almost went for it, then checked and realized I already bought it. I must be getting old. Well damn!!....that was kinda selfish of ya not to go ahead and buy that dupe anyway so that you could sell it to me. I got an e-mail from newbury/Amazon last night pulling the plug on mine because they said the cc charge didn't go through....but the card is fine, I checked. Some disconnect goin' on there. Before yanking the rug out from under ya, I wish they'd first drop you a line to say 'hey' there might be a problem...have a looksie.' The Newbury sets are now gone.

Don't know who it is.....but I'm moments away from scanning in the last of a 4.5 gig batch of old photos and transferring to DVD and I'm going to use this as the soundtrack if I can figure out how to merge it in with Roxio. Perfect timing, Barry!

Bravo....a nice catch!

Erik, Brought back a gift for you from Muenchen. Now parked in my driveway...... when can you pick up and take back to TX? A fair number of places still rolling out from the celler & across the floor the wooden kegs.... tapping 'em up on the bar (Augustiner, Ayinger, etc). A nice touch.

He's holding a Wolpertinger?

For sure, Erik!!!! Prost, you say??? It is indeed true that I'm fleeing the chaos of Inauguration Day and flying to Muenchen this weekend to do a bit of Prosting. If you aren't caught in the iron grip of 24/7 CNN Inaugural coverage, you can take an early train from Wien and meet me at Kloster Andechs in Herrsching for some cold ones and stories about my uncle and the SR-71, Rock-e-feller?? Maybe secret agent 'BeBop' will jet in and regale us with some recent tales of foreign intrigue?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123145414405365887.html Belgians Take Lots of Sick Leave, And Why Not, They're Depressed Dirk Cuypers, the top official at Belgium's health ministry, is sick of sick leave. Belgians, like many Europeans, are entitled to extensive or even unlimited sick leave -- and they tend to stretch the definition of the word. One study showed government employees in droves were calling in sick to pack before vacations and to sleep off holiday hangovers. Some government departments were averaging 35 days of paid sick leave per employee each year, more than twice the national rate and seven times the U.S. average. "It was perverse," says the 55-year-old former medical director for two big private-sector pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. He decided to do something about it. Dr. Cuypers and the minister for civil service set up a network of doctor-inspectors around the nation to smoke out malingerers. Each day since January last year, a dozen inspectors such as Vincent Quoidbach have been touring Belgium, knocking on the doors of 150 randomly selected sick and not-so-sick civil servants. Once, says Dr. Quoidbach, he discovered that a man taking time off was really working a black-market job, given away by the paint on his hands. Another man answered his door with an undone belt as a woman hurried out the door. Others, faking bad backs, got to the door too fast. Europe has long suffered from sick-day disease, and many European governments are trying to fix the problem. The average European worker took off 11.3 days in 2005, compared with 4.5 days for the average American, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris. The cost of those lost workdays to Europe's economy is sometimes as much as 1.3% of gross domestic product annually, says OECD senior economist Christopher Prinz. Discuss But changing Europe's sick-day culture isn't easy. Half of all Belgians on medical leave say they suffer from depression -- the country has Western Europe's highest suicide rate. "You can't contradict the opinion of a psychiatrist," says Dr. Quoidbach. "It has to be obvious they're cheating." Francois Lombard, 48, is one of three full-time sick-leave experts at SD Worx, a Brussels consulting firm and payroll processor. His message, delivered in a slick PowerPoint presentation: Coddle, don't punish. Sixty-five percent of people on sick leave could be working, he says, but only 5% are proven cheaters. Sending doctors to inspect, as the government is doing, is "useless and expensive," he says. "It's more efficient to motivate people to return to work." Mr. Lombard's method found a recent subject in Fabrice Vandervelpen, a 36-year-old manager at a frozen-vegetable packing plant in southern Belgium. In September, he called in sick. His girlfriend of six months had just left him, he says. A psychiatrist diagnosed him with depression and certified him for medical leave. "I stopped by his house that evening," says Jean Dubuission, human-resources director at Hesbaye Frost SA, Mr. Vanderpleven's employer. Mr. Dubuission had recently listened to Mr. Lombard's presentation. He advised the younger man to "get out, play sports, meet other people." Mr. Vandervelpen says he spent his first two weeks off writing poetry at his parents' home, where he lives. His mother, Marie-Jane, often took him shopping for new clothes, she says. He played soccer again with his local club, FC Burdinne, and volunteered as club treasurer. He visited a Catholic shrine in Banneux, Belgium, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1933. In November, Mr. Vandervelpen bought a bright red Alfa Romeo MiTo for $30,000. Zipping through the hills and sugar-beet fields in his new car made him feel better, he says. He visited his ex-girlfriend and went to parties. Mr. Dubuission visited a dozen times. If the law didn't mandate paid sick leave, he would have gone back to work sooner, says Mr. Vandervelpen. Hesbaye Frost paid his full salary for the first month he was off. After that, a government-backed insurance company picked up 80% of his salary, which the law guarantees indefinitely. "The government keeps €1,000 [about $1,357] a month in taxes off me, so why shouldn't I get help when I don't feel well?" he asks. He makes €2,500 before taxes. On Dec. 22, Mr. Vandervelpen did return to work. The visits of Mr. Dubuission and other bosses had impressed him. "They've showed they care," he says. He asked for a new, higher-ranking job -- and less interaction with workers -- at the same pay, in order to cut down on the stress. The company says it is considering the request. Companies that take a tougher approach usually lose in court, say employers and labor unions. In 2007, Eric De Raeve hired Bertrand Uylenbroeck on a four-month contract as a worker on a cargo barge. For five weeks, Mr. Uylenbroeck took frequent naps on the job, both men say. Then, he took paid sick leave for depression for the rest of his contract. Mr. De Raeve fired him. "What's the point of hiring two people to do the same job?" he says. Mr. Uylenbroeck, however, filed a complaint with the national Catholic workers union. "I took breaks because [Mr. De Raeve] didn't give me enough to do," says Mr. Uylenbroeck. Mr. De Raeve says Mr. Uylenbroeck is lazy and shouldn't get a settlement. The union took up his complaint, and expects to win about $10,000 in unpaid wages when a judge issues a final ruling in March. "We win 70% of these kinds of cases," says Alain Vermotte, the union official handling the matter. House Calls One morning recently, Dr. Quoidbach downloaded a list of a dozen employees from a government Web site set up by Dr. Cuypers. He made 14 stops of five minutes each and certified all 14 employees as sick. He enjoys his job, he says. The government pays him $46 a visit, and in between stops, he listens to his favorite CDs. "My wife won't let me listen to Bartok at home," he says. Nathalie Deroissart, a 34-year-old accounting assistant in the 30-story national pension office, is a regular for Dr. Cuypers's inspectors. She regularly takes off sick 20 times a year, usually for stress and high blood pressure. She welcomed medical inspectors six times in 2008. "They've always been nice and certified me as sick," she says. Her comfort on those days, she says, is the 1:45 p.m. broadcast of "Les Feux de l'Amour" ("The Young and the Restless"). In the pension data-entry department where she works, "when you need a day off to see your kids or something, you call in sick," says Alessandro Scalzo, a colleague. "When I wake up tired, I usually take a sick day," says Evelyne Boux, another co-worker.

I thought that was what Mighty Quinn was going to be all about with the Pepper Adams, Don Ellis, etc material? Have they shifted gears?

That was my reaction. "Premium" lifestyle brand, mind you! -_- Finally, some shirts....though that premium lifestyle name sounds like they'll be aimed at the health conscious crowd and'll probably max out at a size L that'll soon shrink to Med after the first wash. Horrors. I've already made about 15 of my own shirts under the 'non svelte beer drinking guys' label with sizes XL and XXL. You can hunker down and hide inside a jumbo Jutta Hipp & Zoot and blend into the scenery like a big 'ol bush while quietly sipping a bottle of suds. Should be standard issue for all combat pilots in the event that they have to parachute into enemy territory............with forests, of course. Navy SEALs get the camo 'True Blue.' This fool lost his --- was captured and will soon be toast.

Good....I'll be over there soon...hope it stays nice & cold! I hate this 39F & wet weather.