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Post by epaul on Sept 21, 2024 10:38:29 GMT -5
As regards a tonal palette, "pushed to the far end of the spectrum" doesn't strike me as desirable quality. The opposite. Minny Pearl's voice, for example, occupied a far end of the tonal spectrum. The far ends of the tonal spectrum are typically painful to the ear.
(copywriters, sigh, what can you do?)
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Post by epaul on Sept 20, 2024 9:06:20 GMT -5
Feels like September out there. Which is good!
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Post by epaul on Sept 20, 2024 9:01:48 GMT -5
HOOZAH!
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Post by epaul on Sept 19, 2024 12:49:21 GMT -5
I am grateful I have my community band. Twice a week, I'm in the music. Not listening from a distance, but within it, a part of it. That, plus the bars and cookies we have during break.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 19:35:49 GMT -5
On the other hand, something that big that's running directly at you would be a lot easier to hit with your arrow, especially compared to a flying duck.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 19:03:19 GMT -5
My neck of the woods couldn't grow beans or corn for crap in the 80s. And for only an inch over crap in the 90s. They were oddball crops. Now we proudly refer to ourselves as the Northern Cornbelt (and ND has led the nation in soybean production twice in the last ten years). I spent the first half of my life in USDA climate zone 3. Now I am in USDA climate zone 4... and very happily so.
Curiously, so far the climate change hasn't been symmetrical. Spring and summer are much the same as they were 80s and 90s. The difference, the telling difference, between then and now is longer and warmer falls and milder winters. Average first frost date is closing in on three weeks later than when I first started farming.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 16:51:39 GMT -5
Well, if a fellow is going to write about the King's archers bringing down a score of the necromancer's flying pig-like things, he needs to have some idea what such a shooting would entail. Live it, write it.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 13:16:00 GMT -5
I saw the blood moon. The red was very, very subtle, easily mistaken by some for a dull, washed out gray. For discerning eyes only. And the eclipse, if you count the yellow part, was over 90%!
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 12:36:09 GMT -5
Don, you read it pretty much like I heard it. He is a conservative economist, but he was talking events and economy, not politics or political advantage (which he wasn't interested in discussing). He was refreshing.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 12:29:46 GMT -5
Trump's attempts to overturn the election, and all subsequent Trump behavior since, has taken policy off the table for me. I care, but bottom line, there is a line beyond policy and Trump has crossed it. By a mile, not an inch. By ten miles. A hundred.
But, if I were to care about policy, I would have some concerns about Harris and energy. But, I would have concerns about the energy policy of a 'Trump that wasn't Trump' as well. I find no comfort with "all Green all now". I find no comfort with "Climate change, what climate change?" I did find comfort with Joe Manchin, but he's retiring.
I can bring myself to believe that Kamala's flip on fracking may be based on something more than an attempt to win Pennsylvania. There is a difference, I hope, between (A) someone who has been in a progressive bubble running as a progressive for progressives and (B) someone who has spent four years getting briefings on non-political, nation-based economic and energy facts.
Four years of being vice-president and privy to the same information the president gets from advisors who are paid to present information (not political points) can make a difference in a person's viewpoint. It is one thing for a politician dependent upon progressive votes to oppose fracking. It is quite another thing for anyone exposed to the actual dirt in the ground energy facts this country depends upon to work to oppose fracking... because you can't; not with a working brain. Without fracking, this country would have devolved into an economic shambles and a social disaster.
If Kamala means what she says, that this country has to continue to work towards "green" energy sources that don't feed a warming planet, but that for the foreseeable future, until the need for fossil fuels goes away, they can't go away. Then it's bully for her, in my book. Pursue multiple paths, don't slam a door shut until you don't need what's on the other side.
Plug-in Prius-type things could cut the use of gasoline 70% within ten years. EVs in select use even more, maybe. And natural gas fueled energy plants can cut the amount of CO2 they release 80% or more with the implementation of available strategies. And if that happens, who cares if North Dakota gets to run on coal. A pimple on an elephant.
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Post by epaul on Sept 18, 2024 11:36:40 GMT -5
Trump's "projected" head of Fed was interviewed on Firing Line (with Margaret Hoover). It was a great interview and he came across as fair, reasonable, non partisan, and interested in economics only. Concerning inflation, he didn't really lay a political blame for it. He just discussed events.
He listed the generally agreed upon "outside of our control" inflationary suspects: Covid, Ukraine, supply chain disruptions.
Then he addressed the "what we did" to cause inflation, the stimulus packages. He said he believed the first two packages were needed and necessary, and were bi-partisan and generally agreed upon (he was on board, himself). He then went to address the culprit, as it turned out, the third stimulus package, which he said was not needed and contributed to inflation.
What was interesting was why he said the third stimulus package was un-needed and contributed fuel to the inflation fire. He said at the time there was an argument for the third package, but the argument for it did not account for (mis-calculated) the dramatic effect the release of the Covid vaccines would prove to have on domestic economic activity and confidence (people's behavior and spending). The release of the third stimulus package coincided with the release of vaccines and, in effect, threw gasoline on a fire that didn't need it. He called the economic activity vaccine confidence unforeseen and unaccounted for in the calculations the third stimulus package was based on.
All in all, a calm reasonable fellow.
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Post by epaul on Sept 17, 2024 22:27:05 GMT -5
North Dakota is open for business!
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Post by epaul on Sept 17, 2024 8:57:50 GMT -5
Band this morning. And I didn't practice. I feel guilt, but, I can deal with it. (I'll practice twice next week).
Feeling really good for Kirk Cousins. He led a TD drive with only a minute on the clock and no timeouts to beat those nasty Eagles. And it was a Monday Night Game. Bully for Kirk. The local haters will have to suffer, hopefully for the whole season.
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Post by epaul on Sept 16, 2024 19:28:46 GMT -5
... Bill, I don't hate Trump or anyone else. If I'm blind, that isn't the reason. TMI! |
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Post by epaul on Sept 15, 2024 10:12:55 GMT -5
Perhaps...
Or are these social media tidbits of a kind with Kamala's various online blowjobs?
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Post by epaul on Sept 14, 2024 11:16:34 GMT -5
So, what if another, better handling, car is following you closely? Does it repel that car in some fashion -- laser, perhaps? Carpet tacks? If you are followed by a Corvette, do you take the curve 40 mph over the limit to avoid being rear ended? Taking a curve at the posted speed limit is not an unreasonable action. Speeding up to accommodate an anxious motorhead behind you is. |
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Post by epaul on Sept 14, 2024 11:09:12 GMT -5
My experience is with Honda's lane control system, but I expect all are about the same. Lane control offers no more of an impediment to a lane change than the center detent on a amp's volume control does to a quick crank to 11. I stand by that analogy.
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Post by epaul on Sept 14, 2024 10:50:07 GMT -5
(Shannon drives up to Sweetwater. Drives home with a $9,000 Collings. And two bags of Bit-O-Honey!)
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Post by epaul on Sept 14, 2024 10:48:15 GMT -5
Shannon,
Consider taking a Monday and Tuesday off work. On Sunday drive up to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Monday morning head over to Sweetwater (should be quiet on a Monday... and do make sure the showroom is open on Mondays). Play a bunch of guitars. Narrow it down to two. Write down their serial numbers (Sweetwater lets you order by serial number, you can get the same guitars you played). Head back to your room and order those exact guitars online and have then shipped to your home for a 45 day trial period. Drive home Tuesday.
- I recommended ordering the guitars online so you get the shipping box. You could let them know your plan to buy two/keep one and they will give you the shipping boxes.
- The trial period, which they promote, will offer the opportunity to live with the guitars for a couple weeks and play them pressure free in your own guitar room (with your strings on them) (and allow for trusted ears to listen to your playing... for free extra confusion). Little things, good and bad, that a showroom can mask will be revealed during a couple weeks of home play.
- A Sweetwater return label will run around $50 (they never did charge me for my return label)
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Post by epaul on Sept 13, 2024 20:05:09 GMT -5
I'm glad he is back in Chicago. The Bears never should have dumped him. But, he is Chicago.
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