The Thread For Sunday, January 19, 2020

I'm not going to debate whether this is a new decade or not. For me, I'm still in the the decade of the Sixties, both chronologically and mentally. If I'm not listening to "adult contemplative" new music, I'm rockin' out on the music I grew up with. I've posted a lot about that here, so no point in going into it again.

Winter has finally made an appearance, albeit a rather weak showing. So far. Temps have dropped to the seasonal average, but precipitation continues to be more rain than snow. That's okay by me, as I had to spend the entire last week at home, in front of my computer, teaching a course. Now I want to get out! And so I will today.

Tomorrow is a U. S. Federal holiday, and my company is honoring it, so a buddy and I are taking a day trip to Richmond, VA to join several thousand of like-minded people to rally against the creeping tyranny that is infecting too many of the states these days. Having lived abroad under a communist government, it amazes me that people think authoritarian control is a good thing.

But this isn't a political forum, so that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm adding some more tunes to my repertoire, and if I'm not careful, will begin to seem like a Beatles tribute player. Which isn't a bad thing, come to think about it...

Have a great Sunday, everyone. And I see some new names on member list -- a warm welcome to you all!

She’s a bright, brisk day here on the shore of Lake Michigan. We managed to get around 8” of snow on Saturday so winter has finally arrived here.

Not much to do except a Bloody Mary or three followed by breakfast with our usual group of friends. It should be a nice day!

It's been below 20F here and snowed a few inches last night. It's about 40F now and I have to go shovel. I'll probably wear a sweater (seriously, you'll sweat your butt of shoveling snow wearing a winter coat at these temps.

Yesterday, my wife and I headed out shopping and saw a helicopter hovering over a hiking trail a couple of miles from our house. When we passed the parking lot it was full of police cars, fire trucks ambulances, K9 teams, etc... A man was missing over 24 hours and they found his truck in the parking lot. Sadly, they recovered his body (it was well below 20F overnight). I don't know any more of the story. Maybe the parking lot should be lit so it can be easily seen if a car is there overnight.

Later I'll put my Mojotone Princeton Reverb back together. I tidied up a few grounds and stained the grill cloth with tea- it was still way to bright looking.

I tidied up the grounds on my Mojotone tweed Champ on Friday. My knowledge on these things have improved since I built the amps. They're never really "finished", you know!

getting ready to go out and snow blow and shovel. bright and sunny here, due to hit 40, then the bottom of the thermometer breaks off to start the week. It's going to get even busier around here as I start moving stuff into the apartment one armload at a time. My left knee is objecting mightily and I just tell it to eff off and keep going. Of course tomorrow's a holiday so I can't take the enormous mound of junk to the dump. I need the space it's taking up in the garage. Quite honestly I think we're here to the end of the first week of February, maybe longer.

We had about 3-4" of snow last night. The fluffy kind that the snowblower flew through. Took about a half-hour. Just renewed my Sirius radio subscription. It was supposed to go to a new rate tomorrow but I talked them back down. Tomorrow off and then a busy week. Have a great one everybody!

dang Sirius and all telecommunication companies. I just opened my comcast bill yesterday and it went up 14 dollars. Not even the cable part, just more fees and "inconvenience" charges. :mad:

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Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan

dang Sirius and all telecommunication companies. I just opened my comcast bill yesterday and it went up 14 dollars. Not even the cable part, just more fees and "inconvenience" charges. :mad:

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Last month we pruned the Comcast bill. Dumped services we didn't use and killed the land line - saved $100 a month. Other than not being able to get Paramount, I don't miss a thing, and Yellowstone won't be back for a while.

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Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie

We had about 3-4" of snow last night. The fluffy kind that the snowblower flew through. Took about a half-hour.

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We only got a couple of inches, but it's fairly dense- great snowball snow, but a little extra effort to clean up.

it's finally sunny here in northwest Tennessee, but it's cold. Cold or not outside, the sun helps my winter depression. I feel great today.

I had advertised my services as a bass player in a Facebook; the responses I got came from the weirdest people, including a guy I know. I got bad vibes from these guys. So I've given up on trying to play in a band where the music scene is in Jackson, TN. Instead, I'm just going to jam around with people I know here who aren't necessarily into playing in bands. It's great to play alone, but I love to hear my instrument playing with other instruments. Two totally different experiences.

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Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie

Last month we pruned the Comcast bill. Dumped services we didn't use and killed the land line - saved $100 a month. Other than not being able to get Paramount, I don't miss a thing, and Yellowstone won't be back for a while.

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At the new apartment, we're going to have internet only. I want to get a completely separate account for it. I hate comcast so much with their freaking nickel and diming you to death. As soon as I can be assured I can get the old landline number added as a second number to my cellphone, we're killing the cable and phone. We're hoping my brother can establish the new internet bill in his name so we have complete separation from the travesty that is the house account.

As it will probably be at least 2 weeks from now before we're completely moved in, we might as well keep the cable until the super bowl. As far as sports go, we'll walk to a sports bar if we really have to watch something. there are several within minutes walk of the apartment. don't even have to drive or call an uber.

I will watch a lot less television, that's for sure. I'll have to start gigging to find something to do with my time.

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Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie

We had about 3-4" of snow last night. The fluffy kind that the snowblower flew through. Took about a half-hour. Just renewed my Sirius radio subscription. It was supposed to go to a new rate tomorrow but I talked them back down. Tomorrow off and then a busy week. Have a great one everybody!

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I used to renegotiate with Sirius XM every year when my subscription was coming due. I always used the code ZWINBACK and would get it for $77 a year. When they refused to honor that I dropped the service and loaded a bunch of albums (think it is around 85) on an IPod and run my own music in the cars via USB.

By the way, never pay them with a credit card, it prevents auto renewing your account.

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Originally Posted by Laker

I used to renegotiate with Sirius XM every year when my subscription was coming due. I always used the code ZWINBACK and would get it for $77 a year. When they refused to honor that I dropped the service and loaded a bunch of albums (think it is around 85) on an IPod and run my own music in the cars via USB.

By the way, never pay them with a credit card, it prevents auto renewing your account.

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I almost never listen to music on Sirius - I listen to stand-up comics 99% of the time.

i never listen to people talking on the radio, something about the disembodies voices that rubs me the wrong way. This also lead to a dislike of Talk television as well. I also loathe commercials on radio. I'll pay 9.99 a month to listen to anything I want on Spotify without ever having to listen to a commercial.

Thanks for standing up, OldStrummer!

If we're going to keep our forum free from politics, you can't just say I don't want debate, but here's my political view. Either we keep politics off of the site or we risk a lot of enmity here.

Sorry, I guess I thought support of the US constitution was apolitical! If we have the 1st amendment treated like the 2nd, we may longer have a forum!

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Sorry, I guess I thought support of the US constitution was apolitical! If we have the 1st amendment treated like the 2nd, we may longer have a forum!

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I understand what you're saying. We have freedom of speech here thank goodness. It's one thing to say you're going to a gun rally. It's another to talk about creeping tyranny and communism. That demonizes the other side. I'm not anti-gun; I'm not for total weapon liberty either. But this is not a forum about our political opinions. We're just going to dissolve into arguments and dislike if we get on such subjects. I'm glad we live in a country where we can express our opinions, but we're too divisive. We should use language that brings us together instead of alienating us from one another.

I do support The Constitution, even if I believe and think different from you.

I hope we can just skip over the political stuff, and you know gun rights are political. We're all pretty friendly now, but I know from past threads that people have gotten heated and left the forum over political arguments.

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Originally Posted by ch willie

I understand what you're saying. We have freedom of speech here thank goodness. It's one thing to say you're going to a gun rally. It's another to talk about creeping tyranny and communism. That demonizes the other side. I'm not anti-gun; I'm not for total weapon liberty either. But this is not a forum about our political opinions. We're just going to dissolve into arguments and dislike if we get on such subjects. I'm glad we live in a country where we can express our opinions, but we're too divisive. We should use language that brings us together instead of alienating us from one another.

I do support The Constitution, even if I believe and think different from you.

I hope we can just skip over the political stuff, and you know gun rights are political. We're all pretty friendly now, but I know from past threads that people have gotten heated and left the forum over political arguments.

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+1

I use Tidal (it's like Spotify, but they have less music except you can get it in FLAC whereas Spotify's highest bit rate is not even really 320 kbps). I have the app on my phone and plug it into my car or bluetooth it and the car can control it. Good way to listen to music the way I do (an album, start to finish). I despise the radio and never listen to it now that Live From Here has the video feed on youtube.

Even the best case scenario, classical, is **** on the radio. I typically have a specific recording I want to listen to for any piece and it's NEVER historically informed.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

Sorry, I guess I thought support of the US constitution was apolitical! If we have the 1st amendment treated like the 2nd, we may longer have a forum!

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That's a strange thought, a document provisioning up a government is prima facie political.

Also this might surprise you but despite the brutally oppressive treatment of free speech in mainland China they use forums much, much more than we do in the United States.

I believe the Constitution to be a statement to the founding of our country, and limits placed on government, as not to interfere with basic citizens rights. (There is even a part that says “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”)
Politics becomes apparent in the argument as to whether the founders really, really, really, meant what they wrote, because some people today disagree!

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

I believe the Constitution to be a statement to the founding of our country, and limits placed on government, as not to interfere with basic citizens rights. (There is even a part that says “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”)
Politics becomes apparent in the argument as to whether the founders really, really, really, meant what they wrote, because some people today disagree!

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well you know they did write that black people only counted as 3/5ths of a person so yeah, some people disagree.

btw I want to make sure I point out that this post is not political, instead it is a matter of pointing out historical fact that this was included in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution

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Originally Posted by OldStrummer

I'm not going to debate whether this is a new decade or not. For me, I'm still in the the decade of the Sixties, both chronologically and mentally. If I'm not listening to "adult contemplative" new music, I'm rockin' out on the music I grew up with. I've posted a lot about that here, so no point in going into it again.

Winter has finally made an appearance, albeit a rather weak showing. So far. Temps have dropped to the seasonal average, but precipitation continues to be more rain than snow. That's okay by me, as I had to spend the entire last week at home, in front of my computer, teaching a course. Now I want to get out! And so I will today.

Tomorrow is a U. S. Federal holiday, and my company is honoring it, so a buddy and I are taking a day trip to Richmond, VA to join several thousand of like-minded people to rally against the creeping tyranny that is infecting too many of the states these days. Having lived abroad under a communist government, it amazes me that people think authoritarian control is a good thing.

But this isn't a political forum, so that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm adding some more tunes to my repertoire, and if I'm not careful, will begin to seem like a Beatles tribute player. Which isn't a bad thing, come to think about it...

Have a great Sunday, everyone. And I see some new names on member list -- a warm welcome to you all!

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Just so I’m not making an incorrect assumption, what group of people did you plan on joining today?

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Originally Posted by CoyotesGator

Just so I’m not making an incorrect assumption, what group of people did you plan on joining today?

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I've been staying out of the political part of this thread even though it was my remarks that started them. There was a rally in Richmond, VA in support of the rights protected by the Constitution that the incoming legislature has proposed be restricted. Let's just say I joined several thousands of my closest friends in this regard. To me, the issue isn't "gun rights," it's "civil rights" as enumerated in both the Virginia Constitution and the U. S. Constitution.

For the historically minded, the Virginia Constitution was ratified in 1776, a full twelve years before the U. S. Constitution. Much of it was written by George Mason, including Article I, Section 13, which I quote:

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Article I. Bill of Rights

Section 13. Militia; standing armies; military subordinate to civil power

That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

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Mason declined to sign the ratification of the U. S. Constitution in its original form because it did NOT contain a Bill of Rights.

Okay, I'm done. It was not my intent to start a discussion on rights, guns or otherwise. I merely was stating my intention to be part of a rally.

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Originally Posted by redisburning

well you know they did write that black people only counted as 3/5ths of a person so yeah, some people disagree.

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Nor could the Indians be counted for census purposes. Since Lincoln was killed, and never able to purchase land in South America for the ex slaves relocation, an amendment to the Constitution gave them citizenship. (Indians weren't allowed to become citizens until the 20th century!
Women too only got the right to vote in the 20th century!
All done by amending the Constitution!