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I've come to the point in my life where feel that the most important thing that I could do for my health is to kick my caffiene habit. I've never been one for soft drinks, but I do love my coffee in the morning. The question is: how to do it? I have tried before but have always fallen off the wagon. I can get past the physical dependency - it's rough, but I can do it. The problem comes in with the mental dependency. For all of my working career, caffiene is the thing that gets me perked up and ready to work in the morning. Without it, it is so hard to get motivated. I guess I am looking for suggestions from others who have successfully kicked the habit. Oh - and don't suggest decaff. Decaffinated coffee is like a cruel trick to the brain. The mouth tastes that good coffee taste and the brain waits for the kick to come - and it never does. Kind of like drinking non-alcoholic beer - you could do it, but why? Suggestions, anyone?

Sorry, that last post didn't go as planned. I was trying to refer to Allen Songer's post about the Woolite Oxy Carpet Cleaner.

What did you use for a brush when you scrubbed your record with this stuff?

Aside from the expensive Nitty Gritty and VPI vacuum-type record cleaning machines, is there a simple record cleaning system that works well? I'm talking about your basic wet brush/cleaning fluid system where you spray or otherwise apply the fluid to the record and then brush off.

I would like to find a DVD recorder that has some of the better DVD player functions like progressive scan, upscaling, SACD decoding, etc. It seems like you can either buy a DVD recorder without the above functions, or a DVD player with the functions, but not an all-in-one unit. Has anyone seen a DVD recorder like this? Oh yeah, if it could play the new high definition DVD's (once they settle on a format) that would be great too![]

I'm pretty sure that the version you want is on the album "Blue Sky, Night Thunder". I have the album at home and could listen to it to make sure if you want. I saw Michael Martin Murphy at a small record store back in in the 1978-79 timeframe. He sat on a stool with guitar and played several of his songs, including "Wildfire". No piano of course but it still sounded great.

I bought an older turntable off of eBay so that I can once again enjoy my record albums. The cartridge on the turntable is old and needs to be replaced. I need a recommendation on a good inexpensive (<$50 ) cartridge. Obviously, for this price range it definitely won't be audiophile quality, but perhaps I can find one that produces music and performs reasonably well. Any recommendations based on personal experience would be appreciated.

OK, here is a bit of clarification on what I am looking for in a turntable: budget - less than $200, new or used - definitely used (more bang for the buck), manual or automatic - probably manual or semi-automatic, direct or belt drive - unsure. I was kind of under the impression that belt drive turntables were better, since the belt acts to dampen out any vibrations that the motor might impart to the platter. Is that correct or not?

A couple of years ago the cartridge on my Bang and Olufsen turntable was damaged and became unusable. I ended up selling the turntable because it uses a special B & O cartridge and I didn't want to pay the high replacement cost. I was planning on selling my record collection but now am having second thoughts. Although CD's are so nice and handy there's still something about vinyl albums - maybe it's nostalgia hitting me, I don't know. Anyway, I'm thinking about trying to find a good used turntable on eBay or elsewhere for not a great lot of $$$'s. I was wondering if anybody had any good recommendations on a good brand/model, etc? Also, any recommendations on good cartridges would be appreciated. Thanks for your help!

What's the deal with Downtown Disney? Do you have to pay to get into the area or do you just go there and shop, dine, etc.? Is it worth going to?

Thanks for the info guys. We are going at the end of this month and beginning of June. I didn't realize until after I had booked the package that we would be getting there on Memorial Day weekend. It will probably be pretty crowded there Sunday and Monday but hopefully will calm down after that. I hope by going a little early in the summer that we will beat the vast horde of tourists that will be heading that way as soon as school lets out. Perhaps the weather will be reasonably mild also. I realize that many miles will be walked and quite a few lines will be stood in, but hopefully a good time will be had by all. Funny - when I was younger I used to think that amusement parks were a blast. Now all I see is the crowds, the heat, the lines, and all the money spent - when did I become such an old fart?

Well, I am finally going to break down this summer and do the Walt Disney World trip thing with my wife and two kids (ages 11 and 8). I have been to WDW once BK (Before Kids) but it has been awhile. I was wondering if anyone had any words of advice, tips, tricks, etc. to make our stay more enjoyable?? Thanks in advance for your insights and help.

Thanks for the answers, guys. It sounds like a stand-alone DVD burner is my best option, since I am just looking to burn my tapes to DVD for archive purposes, and won't be doing any editing. One question though - since my camcorder is analog, not digital, will there be much degradation of the signal running it from the composite analog outputs of the camcorder to the DVD burner?

I think that this subject has been covered before, but I was wondering what kind of equipment it takes to transfer analog camcorder videos to DVD? I assume it takes some kind of an analog to digital converter, a DVD burner, and the proper software?? I notice that there are quite a few websites that offer transfer services, so I get the feeling the technology involved to transfer videos is either expensive, complicated, or both. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Since we're talking about spyware/adware removers, I have a question. I usually scan my system with either Spybot or Ad-aware, then use the removal function to delete the spyware/adware programs or files it detects. If I then run Spybot or Ad-aware immediately again, it frequently detects (again) the files that I have supposedly just deleted. What's going on here? Are these removal programs working or not??