Dave Garrett

I haven't been to SF in close to ten years, but the last time we were there, we stayed at the Cow Hollow Motel. It was comfortable and significantly cheaper than many other places we looked at. The free parking garage was a non-trivial incentive as well since we had a rental car. It was Christmas when we stayed there, and we ate breakfast on Christmas Day at that Mel's Diner across the street. Couldn't believe it was actually open.

See what you mean! My German-English dictionary gives "anger, wrath, ire". Well, I learnt something today!

Just got a new HP laptop for my wife for her birthday this week. 1.9 GHz dual-core AMD Athlon 64 CPU, 2GB RAM, DVD burner, 160GB HD, Vista Home Premium. So far no problems, although we haven't really used it for anything serious yet. The sole issue seems to be the amount of resource-hogging crapware that comes preinstalled - Vongo (from what I gather, some sort of video-on-demand service) is particularly insidious as it resists most normal attempts to uninstall it to the point where some people are calling it a virus. Googling around, I think I found the solution to get rid of it, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. The first thing I did was install Firefox and the free version of AVG Anti-Virus. Will probably also upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM at some point. Vista sure looks slick, but I haven't seen a whole lot so far beyond looks that would justify the bump up in hardware specs from XP required to run it.

My wife and I seriously considered that as well (in fact, it was the first place we immediately thought of when we started planning our wedding), but ultimately opted for another venue. It's not terribly difficult to arrange if you have some flexibility in scheduling, but they have a limit on the number of guests that they'll allow inside at once, which turned out to be the dealbreaker for us. I've never heard Music for the Rothko Chapel, but this thread has gotten me curious enough to seek it out.

Some of these comments sound like they could have come from PostSecret.

I miss lunch counters at corner drugstores. Fond memories of the one in my parents' neighborhood when I was a small child - always a good place for a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke. I highly recommend the book Going, Going, Gone: Vanishing Americana for a long litany of many similar things which were once commonplace and integral parts of daily life but are now long gone - the section on the Automat even mentions the ketchup-in-hot-water trick. I've heard this repeated so many times that I always wondered if it was apocryphal, but you're the first person I've encountered who's actually done it.

That is what I understood as well. It has become quite a large site and forum for Dead lovers. I didn't think that there were any secrets about it. Apparently not anymore - Rhino has unleashed their lawyers. The files are already gone, and the site owner has indicated he intends to take the domain offline as well.

Already one up on eBay touted as "newly out of print" with bidding starting at $200.

It's not uncommon for me to have 50-60 tabs open in Firefox all the time, as well as Thunderbird and whatever other programs I happen to be using at any given moment. And this isn't on a high-horsepower box at all, but rather a 6-year-old homebuilt with an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ and 1GB RAM running Win2K. I hadn't realized Macs had gotten so anemic since the Mac IIx I owned close to 20 years ago. All kidding aside, if I ever win the lottery I'll probably get a fully-loaded Mac Pro with one of those enormous, TV-sized Apple Cinema Displays. Ever seen "Pi"? THAT is the machine I want if I win the lottery! Yep, I've seen it. Did you know it was based on two real-life mathematician brothers who actually built a supercomputer in their apartment? The full, amazing story can be found in a (long but very much worth it) 1992 New Yorker article: The Mountains of Pi I was working in a university math department when this article was published, and one of the professors there pointed it out to me. Strangely enough, I don't remember much if any mention of the Chudnovskys when the film was in theaters, but it's the first thing I thought of when I saw it.

It's not uncommon for me to have 50-60 tabs open in Firefox all the time, as well as Thunderbird and whatever other programs I happen to be using at any given moment. And this isn't on a high-horsepower box at all, but rather a 6-year-old homebuilt with an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ and 1GB RAM running Win2K. I hadn't realized Macs had gotten so anemic since the Mac IIx I owned close to 20 years ago. All kidding aside, if I ever win the lottery I'll probably get a fully-loaded Mac Pro with one of those enormous, TV-sized Apple Cinema Displays.

Looks like the buyer's been NARUed at eBay, so presumably the sale fell through.

I think I've recommended this here before, but just in case: Total Recorder

I've been looking at laptops recently, as I'm probably going to be getting one for my wife soon. My requirements as far as specs were 2GB RAM, >120GB hard drive, DVD burner, and a dual-core CPU. You can get something matching these specs for $500-600 if you shop around - most of the big-box stores have had different machines in this price range on sale each of the past few weeks. Best Buy in particular has had some attractive deals, and you frequently don't have to screw around with mail-in rebates there, as you get the discount right at the point of sale. The downside is that you're pretty much stuck with Vista on the new machines. I'd greatly prefer XP, but I've heard reports of mixed results from those who've tried to "downgrade" Vista to XP.

The author clearly isn't familiar with the work of the Fugs.

Me too - just called Mosaic this morning. I haven't gotten an email from them yet indicating it's been moved to Running Low/Last Chance, but it seems like everyone that's put off getting this one is jumping on it quickly now.

I forgot this was on, and turned on the TV last night just in time to catch the Best in Show award. I'd read that Uno was favored to win, but I had no idea a beagle had never won Best in Show there. The crowd went absolutely apeshit when the judge announced the winner. And Uno got caught up in the excitement too, barking at his handler a couple of times.

Just found out about the KSB reunion concerts toward the end of last week, and thought about going but couldn't swing the $125 ticket price (despite it being for a worthy cause). The afternoon following the second concert, news of his passing had started to spread. Will be spinning the CD in remembrance.

My wife essentially left the music selection for our wedding reception up to me, so for our first dance I picked "Day Dream", the version on "...and his mother called him Bill". Johnny Hodges at his most achingly sublime. Lots of other Ellington played that night, but this is the one I'll always remember.

I got the Horsehoe Tavern box Saturday in the mail. Sound is nice. You'll like it. Is the Detroit Jazz Center Residency box still available? And are y'all getting these sets directly from Transparency, or through third-party vendors?

These titles have mysteriously disappeared all-of-a-sudden. Yeah, I had all 4 on order and they got canceled. I'm hoping they were just added to the catalog alittle too early. Maynard Ferguson LIVE AT BIRDLAND also got canceled. I had the recent Kenny Cox Conn on order at BMG for the past several months. I'd previously emailed them inquiring about it, and finally got a note from them this weekend cancelling it because "this selection will no longer be available for distribution through our club".

PM sent on the OKeh box.

Also from The Far East Suite: Mount Harissa Agra