sputnik

Anasazi ruins, Chaco Canyon

the South Rim

---------------- On 4/8/2005 8:30:48 AM markmaple wrote: Pretty cool! I did notice that the satellite photos that I looked at are 2 or 3 years old. ---------------- It seems to be span times around the fall of 2003 judging from the yard work I was doing at the time. It's interesting that in downtown Chicago the shadows point different directions (mosaic of images from two different times).

I think I'll call in sick today. Golden Gate Bridge

I'm still playing with this. St. Louis Arch

Old Faithful, Yellowstone You can see people on the observation deck.

a local ski area

Ground Zero

Use this cool link and then click on "satellite" in the upper right hand corner.

"Requiem for the Masses" - The Association (1967)

Well that's a coincidence - on one of our cable channels (IFC I think), we just watched the1978 Martin Scorsese documentary "The Last Waltz" about the last concert by The Band. The film really showcased just how good those guys were. My recommendation is a group that also has the word "band" in their name - "The 12 Girls Band" from China. I was working in China last year and caught a televised concert by the 12 Girls Band on TV. They are 12 beautiful women that play contemporary music on traditional chinese instruments - the erhu, gu zheng, yang qin, drums, xiao, pipa, and others. I didn't get to watch the Olymics last year but I heard that they played in the closing ceremonies. I brought back a 12 Girls Band cd from China entitled "Beautiful Energy" that's available on Amazon. A dvd is also included (my interpretor told me that the Chinese text shown at the begining of the DVD advertises pornographic movies). It's pretty stagy but the women are quite beautiful playing these instruments.

Try a few other spammer tricks. Donald Fa9en. Donald Faqen. Donald Fa gen

I don't think that you can say *****willow or *****cat either.

As a general rule, when you're older than James Bond you're old.

From your avatar, it looks like you like fast cars. If you want to experience formula one racing and test the structural integrity of your house, play "Speedway to Nazereth" (loud) from the Mark Knopfler cd - "Sailing to Philadelphia". There are some other songs that have a strong and deep bass line on that cd as well. I'd love to hear it with a sub!

---------------- On 4/1/2005 10:34:00 PM lynnm wrote: I have given up on live concerts completely as it has been my bad luck on the last three attempts ( Neil Diamond x 2 and Arlo Guthrie ) to have my enjoyment obliterated by shrieking bimbos a row or 2 behind me ( N.D.) and about 6 noisy boisterous drunks directly behind me who when they weren't shouting "Duh!! We love you Arlo" amused themselves by yapping loudly amongst themselves ( between F*rts that would peel paint ). ---------------- Sorry you had such a bad experience at an Arlo Guthrie concert. Concert enjoyment has so much to with the venue. We saw Arlo Guthrie here last year here. The concert was set up in the lobby of an old railway hotel lobby. They had folding chairs set up for about 100 people and cost $30. I actually bumped into Arlo on my way back from the bathroom. I love going to concerts in these small settings. I saw him touring with Pete Seeger at Red Rocks in Denver in the early seventies in front of thousands of people. Arlo was playing one of his dads guitars and you could see the wear and tear on it. His son was also up on the improvised stage with him. His stage banter is so sharp and witty that I think he comes the closest to being a modern Will Rogers. You only really get that in person. My wife pulled me into a Harry Connick Jr. concert last year too. I would never have thought to buy any of his cds but he put on a really fun show. We also saw James Taylor, John Prine and Crosby, Stills, and Nash up close in a small venues. Since we can't fill out huge auditoriums here (we might just be a stopover point between big cities) it seems like the musicians that play here sort of relax a bit and just have fun. We still get alot of good concerts here and if you can catch a concert in a small town, I think it's well worth the price of admission.

Mark Isham - Film Music (Windham Hill). Soundtrack music from three films - "Never Cry Wolf", "Mrs. Soffel", and "The Times of Harvey Milk". My work and recreational pusuits have taken me to some very remote and isolated places in the cold regions of the world. This music is better than any other at capturing the special feeling of being alone in wild areas of the arctic landscape and high mountain ranges.

---------------- On 3/31/2005 12:52:15 PM damonrpayne wrote: I think, if there's a point to take from anything it was this: we can measure absolutely anything. If no one can show hard evidence as to why SnakeOil™ cables or whatever sound better ya might have to accept that its, well, snake oil. ---------------- Are the basic absolute measurements a total definition of the system being measured? Perhaps we can't detect everything that is going on. I've played around with different types and gauges of speaker wire lately and I can detect a difference in the bass particularly. Not because I have a "golden ear" or because I've done A-B-X sampling, but because at low frequncies, things in the house rattled with some wires and didn't with others (even at higher volumes). The rattling effect or lack of rattling was reproducible after switching and reswitching the cables to make sure the connections were consistent. None of the wires were smaller than 16 gauge and they were all new. I didn't try any expensive "audiophile" cables just different types speaker wire, lamp wire, coax, etc. from different suppliers. I dont know if any differences could actually be elecronically measured and logic says that wire is wire. But why was there a difference? I don't know anything about measuring amps but I assume it has something to do with measuring a signal gain over a frequency range. Can the "warmth" of tubes, imaging, or the depth of sound stage be measured and quantified electronically? Is there a way to analytically prove tubes yield a signal that is "warmer and more colored"? I'm not trying to be a wise guy, I really don't know - maybe it's a routine measurement. For the record, I am content with lamp wire (EDIT: and coax) cables and solid state equipment but then again, I don't really know how much I don't know.

I would be interested to hear the perspective of the non- American members of the forum. I just read through the Warren Buffet piece provided by Audible Nectar and really hits home. "Squanderville" reminded me of a 1998 PBS documentary entiltled "Affluenza". Af-flu-en-za n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. Here are some sample questions (perhaps a bit dated) from the PBS Affluenza web site, http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/home.html 1. Which of the following is comparable to the size of a typical three-car garage? a. a basketball court b. a McDonald's restaurant c. an "RV" (recreational vehicle) d. the average home in the 1950s. Answer: d. Many of today's three-car garages occupy 900 square feet, just about the average size of an entire home in the 1950s. Many people use the extra garage space to store things they own and seldom use. Often we hear that Americans have lost ground economically and have less purchasing power. But Americans are buying more luxurious items, partly by working more and going deeply into debt. The homes they live in and the cars they drive today are often bigger and more technologically advanced than those purchased by their parents. 2. The percentage of Americans calling themselves "very happy" reached its highest point in what year? a. 1957 b. 1967 c. 1977 d. 1987 Answer: a. The number of "very happy" people peaked in 1957, and has remained fairly stable or declined ever since. Even though we consume twice as much as we did in the 1950s, people were just as happy when they had less. 3. How much of an average American's lifetime will be spent (on average) watching television commercials? a. 6 months b. 3 months c. 1 year d. 1.5 years Answer: c. In contrast, Americans on average spend only 40 minutes a week playing with their children, and members of working couples talk with one another on average only 12 minutes a day. 4. True or false? Americans carry $1 billion in personal debt, not including real estate and mortgages. Answer: False. Americans carry $1 trillion in personal debt, approximately $4,000 for every man, woman and child, not including real estate and mortgages. On average, Americans save only 4 percent of their income, in contrast to the Japanese, who save an average of 16 percent. 5. Which activity did more Americans do in 1996? a. graduate from college b. declare bankruptcy Answer: b. In 1996, more than 1 million Americans declared bankruptcy, three times as many as in 1986. Americans have more than 1 billion credit cards, and less than one-third of credit card holders pay off their balances each month.

The only deals I've ever regretted are the ones I passed up.

---------------- On 3/28/2005 3:53:34 AM cmdridq wrote: ---------------- On 3/27/2005 9:40:43 AM Audible Nectar wrote: Doesn't that stink??? I've had too many issues with bidding on ebay. Here's the one that really gets to me........ I'll be surfing on ebay for an hour or two before an auction finishes. I'm ALL SIGNED IN and ready to go for the last 30 seconds. I enter my bid....then ebay wants me to..... SIGN IN AGAIN??????? Whaaaaaat????? I JUST DID. It happened on a second auction....I even considered "re-signing in" before that final bid, but you only had a link to "sign out". Lost that one, too. ---------------- Yeah, I've had that happen to me also. It's because sometimes ebay will want to verify it's really you. To avoid this problem, open another browser window and make a minimal bid just slightly higher than the current bid, and submit it. This will take you through any possible 're-signing in' procedures. Then make another bid with your maximum amount, but don't submit it. Watch the bidding screen in another window and when the clock has run down low enough for you, then submit your high bid from the other window. This also let's you monitor the current high bid in case you decide to increase your final bid (which you shouldn't be doing). This always works for me. ---------------- Another way is to click on "My eBay" a few minutes before the end of the auction, if for some reason your are not signed in, you'll have to sign in to get there. You can go diectly back to your auction from there. It's also handy to use the auction tracking features in "My eBay".

No Hawaiian shirt?

I've noticed that, as I grow older, the Weather Channel is getting more interesting.

I once heard a recording of someone burning a piano. It might've been Philip Glass.

That is way better than the usual "wash me" written the dust. You shouldn't worry either, it couldn't have been your wife - she could've unlocked the car and used the back seat.