Dave Garrett

Anyone else seen this yet? It just opened Friday in limited release (NYC, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Houston), but will hopefully roll out to a wider release soon. It's a must-see for anyone with even a slight interest in 70s funk and soul, but the backstory should ensure broad-based appeal among other audiences as well. Official movie website Also looks like Now-Again Records is coming out with a new "deluxe" edition of the outstanding compilation of KSB recordings they released in 2006: Kashmere Stage Band - Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974

Finally made it to this yesterday before it closed today: Helmut Newton: White Women - Sleepless Nights - Big Nudes Very impressive to see some of these photos in large-scale prints after being familiar with them in books. Also read a comment in the visitors' guestbook that made me laugh: "These photos smell like cocaine!"

Did you get rid of just the premium digital cable packages, or did you actually revert back to analog cable? Comcast, along with almost every other cable provider, is phasing out analog cable as they can cram a lot more digital channels into the same bandwidth that analog transmissions consume. Sooner rather than later, existing analog customers are going to get a letter mandating the switch to digital cable if they want to continue receiving service. Also, Comcast has a 250GB cap on residential internet service, so you may want to keep an eye on the usage meter available on their website under your account settings if you're going to be streaming a lot of video. I don't really use Hulu or Netflix streaming, so I'm not sure how much bandwidth they consume, but I've heard that streaming a lot of HD content can cause you to hit the bandwidth cap quickly.

As an aside, DeepDiscount.com currently has that disc and the other three live Airplane releases by Collectors' Choice Music for ridiculously low prices - between $2-3 per disc. Just search for "Jefferson Airplane" and you'll see them. Apparently they are blowing out these and a bunch of other CCM releases that have been discontinued in the wake of wholesaler Super D's acquisition of Infinity Resources (parent company of both DeepDiscount and CCM). I picked up all four for $14 and change shipped, only remembering after the fact that free shipping is offered on all orders of $15 or more.

$658.98. Somebody say something about a recession? Not that I'm defending yet another overpriced box set, but... Achtung Baby Price Tracker

Combine very sharp puppy teeth with the aforementioned puppy tendency to chew on everything within reach, and you're going to get regularly nipped even by the best-behaved pup. I had the same kind of scratches and bites up and down my arms and hands when our dog was a puppy, but she grew out of the biting/chewing habit (although not before ruining a coffee table I'd had since college and a few books) once her permanent teeth had come in. I'd definitely look into some basic obedience training before considering returning him to the agency, but this is probably not something you're going to fix in several days.

It's Garry Shandling's Show - complete series 16-DVD set for $49.98 at Daedalus Books.

Moldville

Looks like you do have to have admin rights to install it - if there's no chance of convincing someone in IT to do it, there's an older version available that doesn't require admin access to install it, but it doesn't have all the functionality of the newer versions. Details at the bottom of this page.

Looks really cool...don't know if I can install it on the corporate PC, but if I can... It's been a while since I've had to install it on a machine that I didn't have local admin access on, so I can't remember if that's required or not. It's basically a collection of Excel macros, and IT organizations tend to get cranky about things like that when they're not coming from a trusted source. Also, be aware that the developer publishes updates semi-regularly, and will force you to upgrade after a certain period of time by disabling the older version you have installed. Not sure if this is done by just embedding an expiration date in it or whether it phones home to check for available updates. Kind of a pain in the ass, especially if it turns out that admin access is required to install the updates, but it's so useful that I've managed to overlook these kinds of minor hassles.

If you use Firefox, various combinations of Flashblock, Adblock Plus, and NoScript will fix that shit right quick. I've used Flashblock for years, and it's dead simple - Flash content is automatically blocked but displayed as a Flash icon that you can click to enable the content if you choose to do so. Adblock Plus in conjunction with NoScript will give you almost total control over how webpages are displayed, but the downside is that figuring out what specific configuration best fits your needs can be complicated.

The most essential toolkit I've ever run across when it comes to having to deal with fucked-up data formatting in spreadsheets: ASAP Utilities

Unreal. This set has only been out for about two and a half years, and it was list priced at $120 when it was released. I got it at a pretty decent discount, but I still paid a hell of a lot more than $16.99. Anyway, if you're even a casual fan of the series or of TV Westerns, you should jump on it - it's a really nice set and beats all of the previous releases hands down.

Not sure where I ran across this recently, so it may have already been mentioned here: camelcamelcamel

Me too. At least they don't proudly advertise how low in carbs or calories their beer is. Anyone who's seriously concerned about either when it comes to selecting a beer is missing the point.

The full set of photos from that exhibit can be found here.

I've been on both sides of the eBay fence, and quite frankly there's plenty of bad behavior on the seller side as well. Wildly misrepresenting the condition of used items and gouging on shipping fees are the most common, although eBay has really tried to rein in the latter (and has arguably swung the pendulum too far in the other direction, so everyone suffers as a result of the actions of the most egregious offenders). But yeah, there's no shortage of asshole, bottom-feeding buyers who expect something for nothing and throw a fit when they're called on it.

Priceless! The untweaked "Nighthawks" is a personal favorite and is currently my desktop wallpaper.

The first computer I ever owned was a Mac IIx. And I've given serious thought to making the switch to an iMac for some time but ultimately couldn't justify the price differential. Macs are very nice systems, and OS X gets points from me for being Unix-based (and if not quite free like the various Linux distros, certainly inexpensive enough). But if you haven't lived with Windows 7 for a while, and your experience of MS operating systems is limited to previous versions of Windows, you might be quite surprised by how much it just works. This series of posts is worth reading, particularly the second one containing the Mac vs. Windows PC comparison table.

Not familiar with BJ's except through word of mouth - we don't have them here. And I can't say that I've really paid attention to the computer offerings at Sam's, as I tend to prefer Costco when it comes to warehouse club stores. The local newspaper has a very good technology columnist who publishes recommended specifications for desktops and laptops every year, geared toward novice, home, and power users. You will probably find his most recent update for desktops useful.

Sounds great, Dave! I am on Newegg's mailing list. Do you think that they would be a source of good deals for a unit? Most of their specials are for parts. Yeah, I'm on Newegg's list as well, but I've only ever used them for parts. They do have the occasional deal for a desktop or laptop there, though. I got my machine at Micro Center - they have stores in many cities, or you can order on the website (but some items are only available for in-store pickup). As an example, here is quite a good deal on a model that was the successor to the one I got, and this one's new instead of refurbished. I would also strongly recommend a bigger monitor as opposed to a smaller one - you won't be sorry. Make sure you get a DVI cable as opposed to the standard VGA cable that comes with most monitors, they're not cheap but are better for digital video applications.

I was pretty much in the same boat as you, with a 9-year-old computer that I kept intending to replace but kept putting it off because I didn't want to have to screw around with moving files, reloading software, etc. (I work in IT, so when I come home I don't really want to spend a lot of time fixing my own computer). What finally got me off the fence was running across a deal too good to resist - one of the local big-box specialty computer stores had a dozen or so refurbished HP desktops that normally sell for $450 or so for $339 each. They're not high-end gamer machines, but they have considerably more horsepower than you normally can find at that price point - Windows 7 Home Premium, 4GB RAM, AMD quad-core 2.9GHz Athlon CPU, 750GB hard drive, built-in wireless (this came in real handy when I was setting up the machine over the course of a couple of weekends, since I didn't have to run a network cable to my router in the other room). Of course, like all HP machines it had oodles of crapware preinstalled on it, so I had to spend some time removing all of that from the startup folder and reconfiguring it the way I wanted it, but after doing so I can't believe I waited so long to get a new machine. It's a lot faster than my old machine, for what I do on a regular basis (I'm not a gamer at all, but those who have played games on this particular machine have commented that it acquits itself respectably on that front for a midpriced desktop). Only real drawback is the anemic 250W power supply, which will have to be upgraded if I start using the expansion slots. Also got a nice 23" Samsung monitor on sale for $150, so for a little over $500 with tax, I'm very satisfied. The deals are out there, you just have to be patient and shop around. As an interim measure until you've accumulated the necessary cash, you may want to try backing up all your files and reinstalling your operating system - on a old machine, the registry can get corrupted over time and the quickest way to fix it is usually to wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything.

I'll be all over that, when they figure out a way to retrofit this functionality to an existing set of frames - it sounds like the electronics required are embedded in the frames. I should've probably bitten the bullet and gotten bifocals several years ago. I've resisted doing so up until now, but I've pretty much gotten to the point where I have to take my glasses off to read anything.

Try this: Malwarebytes But be aware that if you have some sort of DNS redirect going on due to malware, it may block your access to antivirus or anti-malware sites.

The one you have is indeed a reissue, in a slightly smaller format than the earlier limited editions. A quick comparison of the various editions can be found here.