I’m not that enthusiastic about tubes … except in performance amps.
Love the sound of a Telecaster through a tube amp pushing hard.
Dave Davies played the original “You Really Got Me” solo through the Brothers Davies’ first amp – a little green twelve-watt jobbie that he’d named the “Fartbox” for the sound it made when they both plugged in and turned it way up … But he’d slashed the speaker cone with razor blades and taped it back together and stuck pins and needles in it.
The first two/three chord power pop hit.
The label asked if they had a safety tape, because the one they turned in was way too distorted to release…
The reason for tubes in amplifiers is to channel more power than transistors can handle. The earliest stagew of pre-amping is done with transistors, but as you try to channel more power for high db levels, you have to have the tubes. I’m not a “music buff” by any means, but I know electronics…
😉
Another advantage of tubes over transistors…Tubes are immune to EMP bursts. Keep that in mind if you’re setting up your sound-system to be usable after a post-nuclear war Armageddon scenario…
😀
She’s beyond all hope now. We should go. It’ll be better that way.
It’s… it’s all just so tragic. Only the other day, I learned that an acquaintance of mine is a trans-humanist who believes in singularity. And a few months ago? Some poor middle aged woman in a supermarket let slip that her daughter believes herself to be an otherkin.
Not even when there’s a “three-yards-for-one” sale??? O_o (silver-braided to boot..drool..useful? nope! it’s the commerce-induced idea that it makes a difference. My ears are far too wrecked to notice the difference..it’s the idea You know.)
Personally I just go with monoprice.com or bluejeans cable.com No bs just real cables at a good price.. If your going digital a one is a one and a zero is a zero.. if your going analog as long as your cable is shielded from outside RF or crosstalk you will do fine.
That’s a great picture of Monica, and I love it. But, the natural everday sexiness of her in the chair is exactly what I love about women. The zen like sexiness by not trying to be sexy.
….and you can hug your mailman for getting it there in obe piece. Or you can thank the local nixie clerk for puzzle piecing it together if a machine are it first
Well, to me, seeing something on a screen is much like viewing an image via a slide projector (light shining through it in both cases). The image is much more vibrant. So I prefer it.
This one really hits home. First, when I was a kid it was the Sears toy catalog. In high school it was HiFi/Stereo Review. Oh to be sitting next to Monica listening to those mono blocks and smoooth tube preamp. Love the gear drawn in the background too.
“Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell… musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is… it has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um… smelly.”
I was greatly saddened to see my local B&N was downsizing…something about emphasizing their “Nook” offerings…and nothing will ever compare to the experience of the original Borders books in Ann Arbor, MI…
Well I agree about the smell of books, I have to disagree about the rest. I’ve been reading ebooks long before the Kindle came out. One word of advice: If you are going to buy ebooks, buy DRM free, or read the stores bookshelf policy very carefully. I’ll just cut myself off here, this isn’t the place, and you have the Google.
fa·nat·ic
[fuh-nat-ik]
–noun
1.
a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics.
Eagles fans, Flyers fans, any fan is creepy to those not similarly infected. I would classify audiophiles as fans. If you aren’t one, they’re creepy. If you are one they are perfectly normal. *glances around and sees nothing but normal people.
It was on mine. At least it was until I found out you could transform a Pandigital E-Reader into a small tablet PC with just a software change. Now, that unit is on my list instead.
One can own an eReader and still derive deep satisfaction from holding the printed page. 😛 I’m a prime example. I have a Nook (mostly for use when traveling or to keep in my purse for lunch hour entertainment), but the Nook could never replace my love for actual tangible books.
eReaders are just tools for convenience. I can’t tell you how many trips I went on where I finished a book I’d packed much sooner than I expected. I had to either purchase more books while gone (which was a packing nightmare since I buy books like some people eat potato chips), or suffer without anything to fill spare moments. Now I carry a library in a smaller package than one book…over 50 books on my Nook and counting! 🙂
From what I’ve read (I have no first hand experience) Kindle is probably the best overall as simply an E-Reader. They will likely have a color unit before much longer as well, so you may want to wait a while longer. Also, there are two or three competing technologies for color so there may be a shakeout for a while.
Forget the iPad, it’s too heavy to hold for any length of time and the back-lit screen will cause eye fatigue much quicker than a true E-Reader. Also tends to wash out in daylight, whereas the E-Reader gets better. The E-Reader lasts much longer and has no flicker since the screen only updates when the page is changed.
@txmystic – That question is best answered based on your personal preferences for what kinds of functionality you want in your eReader. I like that I can lend some of my books to people with the Nook (since I do that with my actual books all the time). As such, it is the best option for me (no other eReader allows that yet to my knowledge). Also, when I got mine, the Kindle did not have a version with wi-fi and 3G, and the Nook did.
The Kindle seems to be more “outside the carrier” eBook purchase friendly. A fair number of eBook sellers exist that aren’t B&N or Amazon, and it’s not necessarily easy to find eBooks formatted for all eReaders. B&N uses an epub format which seems to be available many places (since Sony uses it too), but I’ve not yet been able to get one of those purchases to open properly on my Nook. There are loads of Kindle formatted eBooks out there, so it very well could be a good purchase if you like to buy away from the carrier. (I’ll freely admit that I’ve downloaded free PDFs of some of the eBooks I couldn’t find at B&N or didn’t want to pay as much to own as B&N charged, and those PDFs always work, though they’re not always ideally edited.)
The iPad is…well…I’m highly biased against Apple products since I seem to be the only person who can make them have a catastrophic failure with one keystroke. However, in an attempt to be objective, the iPad is geared towards people who want a handheld computer that happens to come with a reading app. It’s just a bigger version of the iPhone. SoWhyMe has it right about the eye strain bit, too. As someone who only has to wear glasses when I’m using a computer because of growing eye strain problems, a handheld computer screen is of no interest to me. Besides, the iPad is probably going to be outmoded in a few months…like every Apple offering since they upgrade and release new stuff so frequently.
I’ve never understood avid readers. Of course it’s good to read in order to broaden one’s horizons, but simply reading as a pastime is not something I ever do. If I find myself with time to fill, I retreat into my mind. I can sit or lay for hours (day after day even) just thinking about things or figuring something out. It’s quite entertaining in there. I like to have something to write on as needed, but that’s about it. I view books as reference material, both fiction and non alike. An E-Reader for me would be a compact reference tool, in which I could keep many items. Having it all searchable would be a big plus, which is why I’m interested in the Pandigital E-Reader conversion. Ability to access the internet would be a big plus as well, even if it is slow.
Reading is sometimes educational and an excellent way to broaden my mind, but most of the time it’s escapism. While I can retreat into my head for hours at a time as well, sometimes I want someone else to have done all of the thinking for me. That’s when I read. It’s like imagination for lazy people. 😉
Oh…and I access the internet on my Nook. It’s slow, and in B&W (since I don’t have the full color version), but there is a browser available, and I’d imagine there’s one on the NOOKColor, too. Heck…there may even be one on the Kindle by now…or on whatever Kindle color version Amazon puts out when it gets to that.
Normally I would say something like, “she needs a life.” Thing is we know she has an amazing life. And, on that note, were it my task to figure out how to fix a creature with solar system destroying abilities, I believe I would be doing that to the exclusion of all else. Not relaxing at home (or the beach) as if everything is just fine, She tends to treat this problem as just something which can be left for when she’s more in the mood or for the next workday. She’s has accepted the task of defusing an exponential thermo-stellar bomb that could go off at any moment and time could be running out. It’s not like great quantities of snow could slow her down either.
We have to give Mr. Taylor time to tell his story. Which includes side arcs. Also, I think Monica’s kind of unsure what to do. She’s got a clue – maybe – involving celtic crosses and the graveyard in Ireland, but what exactly does it mean? She needs to get there and investigate, but since she apparently can’t ‘poit’ where she’s never been she’ll have to travel there conventionally, and that involves time off from work, getting on a plane (and we’ll see if that shiv in her brain DOES set off the metal detectors), and travel, which is impossible when everything’s snowed in… And even when she gets there, what does she do? She may be trying to come up with a plan for investigation, who and what to take with her, before taking the first step. Because for all she knows, she’s about to step into the Twilight Zone again…And not be easily able to step back…
She can have a more expert poiter like one of the GGGs get here there. No time off needed. As to a plan, she can, at least, go now to look the thing over and come back to have a much better idea of what to do in any plan. As they say, one accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand learned guesses.
Yes, yes, I know, I obsess too much over this sort of thing. Deal.
Not everyone can focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else for extended lengths of time. Most people need breaks or holidays to allow their minds the freedom to recuperate from stressful situations.
It’s like studying for a major test (only exponentially more important and stressful). You shouldn’t study for more than a few hours at a time without breaks. Monica probably won’t work for more than a a week or two at a time on this kind of problem without taking a few days to regain her mental balance.
You worry too much. Jin hasn’t exhibited any violent behavior lately. The last violent act consisted of shouting a hole in a wall. Hardly Earth shattering. I think she’ll be okay if she continues having a good relationship with her boyfriend. Her mom is back, things are looking up for Jin. As long as she doesn’t poke you too hard, lighten up. 😉 Now if the Great Sphinx is missing more pieces than normal in tomorrow’s strip, you can say “I told you so!”
True enough, but we’re dealing with humans here, even golem humans. With people, things can go bad alarmingly fast. Alan could break up with Jin tomorrow in some fit of pique and she could “go off.” Time is of the essence. If we were seeing Monica looking raqgged and at wits end, then maybe some time off would be justified, but that’s not the case. She is selfishly indulging herself while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. At least in my view, anyway, not that it means anything.
I bought a VOX 30W Hybrid amp with a 12AX7 Preamp to go with my Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II. It’s a great set up and I can get some awesome sounds out of it. I just need to get some new strings after trashing the original ones by learning how to play in the first place. It’s like they say, “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple is the “Chop sticks” for the guitar! When I can master: “Takin’ Care of Business” by BTO, I may be ready to play in public!
I can quote a lot of passages from a number of my favourite authors fairly accurately; goes with the “magpie mind” Kate says i have that makes me usually a pretty good bet to win trivia contests.
I know the feeling. I get the Cyberguys catalog every few months, and it’s a sweet soothing monitor-free bliss, and way cheaper than an iPad. I used to get the Sharper Image catalog as a kid but all they sell now is massage chairs, vibrating coat racks, and golf ball accessories, it’s juts not the same.
The joy of having lived in Charlottesville, Crutchfield was right up the corner, had an outlet and a scratch and dent store. Plus super secret locals only sales.
I have a vast library of literature and pubs on electronic formats and a Sony eReader to carry them around. Yet there is nothing that can replace the experience of a REAL book or magazine in your hands. for most of my life I have been the “guy with a book” among my friends. Stuck in my back pocket, tucked under my arm, or tossed in my bag; books have been constant companions.
It is neat to have people admire my reader and let me wax authoritative on it’s virtues and flaws. But in the end if I have a choice between reading a book on the reader or carrying the real paper and ink version it is no contest, give me my paper brick.
It’s funny, I first saw ereaders being used before the dotCom bubble burst when CNET had its own TV show on Sundays…I always wanted one of those things and even began toying with the idea of creating one in the early part of the decade…but now that they are here, I’m kind of mild about them (prolly because I was unsuccessful at stimulating enough interest/capital in my own design
I’ve been OCRing my personal library for decades. (Books are expensive!) Even an old 5″ floppy disk can hold so much text!
I find the electric leash most e-readers require distasteful. Presently I use my old Palm PDA for all my electronic copy. It works just fine.
I am rarely more than 50 feet or so from a book I am reading…
Sometimes I am within 50 feet of three or four I am reading. It gives me a choice of what I feel like learning/following at the moment.
You know, from what I have read, people once trashed paperback books as “rags” too. It was the end of reading as we knew it. Only hardcover books were “true” books. You had to have a hardcover in your hands to be a real reader. People waxed on the virtues of hardcover vs paperbooks. How nice it was to hold a permanent hard cover book, as opposed to those cheap, disposable paperbacks. They wouldn’t have one in their house. Now, paperback is the norm to which people are being all nostalgic and mushy. It’s only a matter of time before people go on about how much nicer it was to be able to hold an E-Reader in your hands instead of the new virtual books that are holo-projected from that little thing you wear over your ear, or clip to your glasses. Sure, it’s great that you have access to every work ever written and you can even project it to look like it’s in your lap even, but you can’t hold it or run your finger over a real, solid screen to turn the pages. And don’t even get me started about this new electro-telepathic gizmo they’re working on that sends images directly into your brain!
I find that a solar-powered, analog text-storage device is nice: just open to the bookmark, and (if there’s light to see) the text is there. No question of battery power and so on.
What will happen to all these e-book devices, of whatever form, if the technology breaks down? How good are the digital storage devices? Even the last century or so of books are in danger: the paper is acidic and gradually burns itself up. OTOH, there are medieval manuscripts that are still legible after 1000 or more years.
Going back, the rise of cheap pulp paper led to the rise of “shilling shockers” and “shopgirl romances” sold in railway stations; and in turn led to increased literacy in England and, again in turn, in the English-speaking world as a whole.
All the Schools have cut prices by saying that each classroom (sometimes not even that) can have 1 set of Textbooks and homework comes from online textbooks that you have to log in and down load each individual chapter. then they tell students to study from this… never mind that extended online reading sessions cause headaches ESPECIALLY on the school computers which flicker like crazy cause the refresh rate is lowest possible “to protect our environment” Poppycock If you wanted to protect our environment you would turn off the hall lights at night. not give kids migranes. PAPER ALL THE WAY
I don’t know. I like the idea of digital textbooks because it’s cheaper to update to the newest edition, and textbooks are ridiculously heavy. It would have been nice not to have the heavy backpack I lugged around in school, but to have a digital version of my book…or better yet, school issued eReaders that had every book I needed for the year already loaded onto it. Save kids back problems AND migraines while still being good to the environment! ULTIMATE SOLUTION!!! 😛
There is no data storage format that can match the longevity and durability of print. Period.
Also, the more of your senses that are engaged in a learning experience, the better your retention tends to be. (this, btw, is one of the reasons that the Holy Mother Church (and even more so the various Eastern Orthodox churches) favor using music, incense, beeswax candles, images, speech, and text in the Mass.) I personally prefer print to pixels, myself.
There’s something about having a nice wall full of old-school audio equipment, especially if one listens mainly to boomer-era music. Chemical Brothers do just fine on a digital format…
Ah, yes! The catalog. Both boon and bane to those with specific tastes. While you can see and order the latest and greatest, you also go through cover to cover like the newest offering from a favorite author, causing many a sympthetic eye-roll among your loved ones.
I’m not that enthusiastic about tubes … except in performance amps.
Love the sound of a Telecaster through a tube amp pushing hard.
Dave Davies played the original “You Really Got Me” solo through the Brothers Davies’ first amp – a little green twelve-watt jobbie that he’d named the “Fartbox” for the sound it made when they both plugged in and turned it way up … But he’d slashed the speaker cone with razor blades and taped it back together and stuck pins and needles in it.
The first two/three chord power pop hit.
The label asked if they had a safety tape, because the one they turned in was way too distorted to release…
You know, even with the riff in my head, I HAD to que it up…
Monica is sort of a cross between Marty McFly’s first scene in the Doc’s Lab in Back to the Future and Ralphie’s first scene in A Christmas Story?
The reason for tubes in amplifiers is to channel more power than transistors can handle. The earliest stagew of pre-amping is done with transistors, but as you try to channel more power for high db levels, you have to have the tubes. I’m not a “music buff” by any means, but I know electronics…
😉
Another advantage of tubes over transistors…Tubes are immune to EMP bursts. Keep that in mind if you’re setting up your sound-system to be usable after a post-nuclear war Armageddon scenario…
😀
I’ll leave today’s strip to the other grammar/spelling O/C types.
Oops – “OCD” types.
http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=544
Audiophile…
She’s beyond all hope now. We should go. It’ll be better that way.
It’s… it’s all just so tragic. Only the other day, I learned that an acquaintance of mine is a trans-humanist who believes in singularity. And a few months ago? Some poor middle aged woman in a supermarket let slip that her daughter believes herself to be an otherkin.
*sigh*
~D.
So long as she doesn’t start buying Monster Cable products.
C’mon, Monica’s not an idiot. *eg*
Not even when there’s a “three-yards-for-one” sale??? O_o (silver-braided to boot..drool..useful? nope! it’s the commerce-induced idea that it makes a difference. My ears are far too wrecked to notice the difference..it’s the idea You know.)
Nope, she’s an AudioQuest cable and interconnect fan! 🙂
http://www.audioquest.com/
Personally I just go with monoprice.com or bluejeans cable.com No bs just real cables at a good price.. If your going digital a one is a one and a zero is a zero.. if your going analog as long as your cable is shielded from outside RF or crosstalk you will do fine.
Of course paul is siteign the company that came up with this..
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2008/11/most-expensive-speaker-cable-world-audioquest-audiophile/
so I think hes pulling our leg a bit..
Third panel, greatest Monica ever…
Doh! Second…
Yep .
Well , they’re all great to me , but the second on , rawr !
Yup!
I don’t know. There’s also this…
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/still-getting-re/
That’s a great picture of Monica, and I love it. But, the natural everday sexiness of her in the chair is exactly what I love about women. The zen like sexiness by not trying to be sexy.
It rocks!
Oy ! This really takes me back in the day , when as a kid I’d be going through the toys in the catalogs circling all the toys on my wish list .
WOW!
I thought that I was the only one that looked at Crutchfield like that!
Yes, the screen is nice, but holding it in your hands, even as a picture, is a joy indeed!
….and you can hug your mailman for getting it there in obe piece. Or you can thank the local nixie clerk for puzzle piecing it together if a machine are it first
Well, to me, seeing something on a screen is much like viewing an image via a slide projector (light shining through it in both cases). The image is much more vibrant. So I prefer it.
Okay Monica, snap out of it before it’s to late.
This one really hits home. First, when I was a kid it was the Sears toy catalog. In high school it was HiFi/Stereo Review. Oh to be sitting next to Monica listening to those mono blocks and smoooth tube preamp. Love the gear drawn in the background too.
“Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell… musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is… it has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um… smelly.”
That may well be my new favorite quote. It certainly validates my love of the smell of bookstores…or better yet…old books. *happy purr* Heart books.
I was greatly saddened to see my local B&N was downsizing…something about emphasizing their “Nook” offerings…and nothing will ever compare to the experience of the original Borders books in Ann Arbor, MI…
Well I agree about the smell of books, I have to disagree about the rest. I’ve been reading ebooks long before the Kindle came out. One word of advice: If you are going to buy ebooks, buy DRM free, or read the stores bookshelf policy very carefully. I’ll just cut myself off here, this isn’t the place, and you have the Google.
Huh…good to know. 🙂
I loathe DRM. It’s why I link to Defective By Design on my blog.
Oh ya this shows how (slightly) creepy she is about Audio
fa·nat·ic
[fuh-nat-ik]
–noun
1.
a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics.
Eagles fans, Flyers fans, any fan is creepy to those not similarly infected. I would classify audiophiles as fans. If you aren’t one, they’re creepy. If you are one they are perfectly normal. *glances around and sees nothing but normal people.
2.
Wapsi Square fan. Fan-adict.
wait! warm paper? what did she do to that magazine?
Held it close to her bosom in sheer joy before reading it?
She definitely needs some male company just about now.
She may be getting off reading about all those male and female plugs and sockets.
That usually is all it takes to warm paper for me, too. 🙂
Warm paper as opposed to cold computer screen? Organic vs inorganic? Maybe?
I hope she didn’t do anything to that paper. 😛
So, I take it a Kindle was not on her Christmas list?
It was on mine. At least it was until I found out you could transform a Pandigital E-Reader into a small tablet PC with just a software change. Now, that unit is on my list instead.
I might have to look into that. I’ve been holding off on buying a dedicated device for fear of becoming a Kindle victim.
Here’s the article:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-your-pandigital-E-Reader-into-an-Android-tabl/
Instructables!
One can own an eReader and still derive deep satisfaction from holding the printed page. 😛 I’m a prime example. I have a Nook (mostly for use when traveling or to keep in my purse for lunch hour entertainment), but the Nook could never replace my love for actual tangible books.
eReaders are just tools for convenience. I can’t tell you how many trips I went on where I finished a book I’d packed much sooner than I expected. I had to either purchase more books while gone (which was a packing nightmare since I buy books like some people eat potato chips), or suffer without anything to fill spare moments. Now I carry a library in a smaller package than one book…over 50 books on my Nook and counting! 🙂
Nook v. Kindle v. iPad??
From what I’ve read (I have no first hand experience) Kindle is probably the best overall as simply an E-Reader. They will likely have a color unit before much longer as well, so you may want to wait a while longer. Also, there are two or three competing technologies for color so there may be a shakeout for a while.
Forget the iPad, it’s too heavy to hold for any length of time and the back-lit screen will cause eye fatigue much quicker than a true E-Reader. Also tends to wash out in daylight, whereas the E-Reader gets better. The E-Reader lasts much longer and has no flicker since the screen only updates when the page is changed.
@txmystic – That question is best answered based on your personal preferences for what kinds of functionality you want in your eReader. I like that I can lend some of my books to people with the Nook (since I do that with my actual books all the time). As such, it is the best option for me (no other eReader allows that yet to my knowledge). Also, when I got mine, the Kindle did not have a version with wi-fi and 3G, and the Nook did.
The Kindle seems to be more “outside the carrier” eBook purchase friendly. A fair number of eBook sellers exist that aren’t B&N or Amazon, and it’s not necessarily easy to find eBooks formatted for all eReaders. B&N uses an epub format which seems to be available many places (since Sony uses it too), but I’ve not yet been able to get one of those purchases to open properly on my Nook. There are loads of Kindle formatted eBooks out there, so it very well could be a good purchase if you like to buy away from the carrier. (I’ll freely admit that I’ve downloaded free PDFs of some of the eBooks I couldn’t find at B&N or didn’t want to pay as much to own as B&N charged, and those PDFs always work, though they’re not always ideally edited.)
The iPad is…well…I’m highly biased against Apple products since I seem to be the only person who can make them have a catastrophic failure with one keystroke. However, in an attempt to be objective, the iPad is geared towards people who want a handheld computer that happens to come with a reading app. It’s just a bigger version of the iPhone. SoWhyMe has it right about the eye strain bit, too. As someone who only has to wear glasses when I’m using a computer because of growing eye strain problems, a handheld computer screen is of no interest to me. Besides, the iPad is probably going to be outmoded in a few months…like every Apple offering since they upgrade and release new stuff so frequently.
iPad !! Watch out !!
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374774,00.asp
I’ve never understood avid readers. Of course it’s good to read in order to broaden one’s horizons, but simply reading as a pastime is not something I ever do. If I find myself with time to fill, I retreat into my mind. I can sit or lay for hours (day after day even) just thinking about things or figuring something out. It’s quite entertaining in there. I like to have something to write on as needed, but that’s about it. I view books as reference material, both fiction and non alike. An E-Reader for me would be a compact reference tool, in which I could keep many items. Having it all searchable would be a big plus, which is why I’m interested in the Pandigital E-Reader conversion. Ability to access the internet would be a big plus as well, even if it is slow.
Reading is sometimes educational and an excellent way to broaden my mind, but most of the time it’s escapism. While I can retreat into my head for hours at a time as well, sometimes I want someone else to have done all of the thinking for me. That’s when I read. It’s like imagination for lazy people. 😉
Oh…and I access the internet on my Nook. It’s slow, and in B&W (since I don’t have the full color version), but there is a browser available, and I’d imagine there’s one on the NOOKColor, too. Heck…there may even be one on the Kindle by now…or on whatever Kindle color version Amazon puts out when it gets to that.
Love M’s post and expression in the second frame! So unintentionally alluring lol
Normally I would say something like, “she needs a life.” Thing is we know she has an amazing life. And, on that note, were it my task to figure out how to fix a creature with solar system destroying abilities, I believe I would be doing that to the exclusion of all else. Not relaxing at home (or the beach) as if everything is just fine, She tends to treat this problem as just something which can be left for when she’s more in the mood or for the next workday. She’s has accepted the task of defusing an exponential thermo-stellar bomb that could go off at any moment and time could be running out. It’s not like great quantities of snow could slow her down either.
We have to give Mr. Taylor time to tell his story. Which includes side arcs. Also, I think Monica’s kind of unsure what to do. She’s got a clue – maybe – involving celtic crosses and the graveyard in Ireland, but what exactly does it mean? She needs to get there and investigate, but since she apparently can’t ‘poit’ where she’s never been she’ll have to travel there conventionally, and that involves time off from work, getting on a plane (and we’ll see if that shiv in her brain DOES set off the metal detectors), and travel, which is impossible when everything’s snowed in… And even when she gets there, what does she do? She may be trying to come up with a plan for investigation, who and what to take with her, before taking the first step. Because for all she knows, she’s about to step into the Twilight Zone again…And not be easily able to step back…
She can have a more expert poiter like one of the GGGs get here there. No time off needed. As to a plan, she can, at least, go now to look the thing over and come back to have a much better idea of what to do in any plan. As they say, one accurate measurement is worth more than a thousand learned guesses.
Yes, yes, I know, I obsess too much over this sort of thing. Deal.
Not everyone can focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else for extended lengths of time. Most people need breaks or holidays to allow their minds the freedom to recuperate from stressful situations.
It’s like studying for a major test (only exponentially more important and stressful). You shouldn’t study for more than a few hours at a time without breaks. Monica probably won’t work for more than a a week or two at a time on this kind of problem without taking a few days to regain her mental balance.
And play Russian roulette with the fate of humanity, hoping for the best.
You worry too much. Jin hasn’t exhibited any violent behavior lately. The last violent act consisted of shouting a hole in a wall. Hardly Earth shattering. I think she’ll be okay if she continues having a good relationship with her boyfriend. Her mom is back, things are looking up for Jin. As long as she doesn’t poke you too hard, lighten up. 😉 Now if the Great Sphinx is missing more pieces than normal in tomorrow’s strip, you can say “I told you so!”
True enough, but we’re dealing with humans here, even golem humans. With people, things can go bad alarmingly fast. Alan could break up with Jin tomorrow in some fit of pique and she could “go off.” Time is of the essence. If we were seeing Monica looking raqgged and at wits end, then maybe some time off would be justified, but that’s not the case. She is selfishly indulging herself while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. At least in my view, anyway, not that it means anything.
She already did the Poit-to-a-tropical-paradise thing, why not enjoy the seclusion of being snowed in while perusing one’s favorite audiophile mag?
Her problem is, she’s already HAD too much of a life.
Perhaps, yet who among us would not gladly trade places with her?
I wouldn’t. I like my slower paced life, thank-you-very-much! 😛
I bought a VOX 30W Hybrid amp with a 12AX7 Preamp to go with my Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II. It’s a great set up and I can get some awesome sounds out of it. I just need to get some new strings after trashing the original ones by learning how to play in the first place. It’s like they say, “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple is the “Chop sticks” for the guitar! When I can master: “Takin’ Care of Business” by BTO, I may be ready to play in public!
PTerry Pratchett’s Soul Music features the following exchange between a music-store owner and his troll employee:
“…and if anyone tries to play … what was that song? … Oh, right – if anyone tries to play ‘Pathway to Paradise’ … rip their head off.”
“Shouldn’t I give them a warning?”
“That’ll be their warning.”
Wow there are actually people who can (and will) quote Terry Pratchett as accurately as i can… I thought I was a freak
I can quote a lot of passages from a number of my favourite authors fairly accurately; goes with the “magpie mind” Kate says i have that makes me usually a pretty good bet to win trivia contests.
I can do a lot of Arthur Ransome, for instance.
Not until you can replicate Jimi’s “Wild Thing” from Monterey Pop…complete with the ritualistic burning…
I know the feeling. I get the Cyberguys catalog every few months, and it’s a sweet soothing monitor-free bliss, and way cheaper than an iPad. I used to get the Sharper Image catalog as a kid but all they sell now is massage chairs, vibrating coat racks, and golf ball accessories, it’s juts not the same.
http://www.cyberguys.com/
I used to get a monthly tabloid-format 32-page (or so) flier from MicroCenter. That was fun.
I need to get back on their mailing list – i’m going to be building a new computer in a couple months.
My first thought was that she was acting like Kryten, from Red Dwarf, with a vacuum cleaner magazine.
Once I got my mind out of the gutter, I realised she was more like a child looking through a sweetshop window.
The joy of having lived in Charlottesville, Crutchfield was right up the corner, had an outlet and a scratch and dent store. Plus super secret locals only sales.
I have a vast library of literature and pubs on electronic formats and a Sony eReader to carry them around. Yet there is nothing that can replace the experience of a REAL book or magazine in your hands. for most of my life I have been the “guy with a book” among my friends. Stuck in my back pocket, tucked under my arm, or tossed in my bag; books have been constant companions.
It is neat to have people admire my reader and let me wax authoritative on it’s virtues and flaws. But in the end if I have a choice between reading a book on the reader or carrying the real paper and ink version it is no contest, give me my paper brick.
Amen!
It’s funny, I first saw ereaders being used before the dotCom bubble burst when CNET had its own TV show on Sundays…I always wanted one of those things and even began toying with the idea of creating one in the early part of the decade…but now that they are here, I’m kind of mild about them (prolly because I was unsuccessful at stimulating enough interest/capital in my own design
…maybe I have to test drive one to see…
I’ve been OCRing my personal library for decades. (Books are expensive!) Even an old 5″ floppy disk can hold so much text!
I find the electric leash most e-readers require distasteful. Presently I use my old Palm PDA for all my electronic copy. It works just fine.
Electric leash?
I am rarely more than 50 feet or so from a book I am reading…
Sometimes I am within 50 feet of three or four I am reading. It gives me a choice of what I feel like learning/following at the moment.
You know, from what I have read, people once trashed paperback books as “rags” too. It was the end of reading as we knew it. Only hardcover books were “true” books. You had to have a hardcover in your hands to be a real reader. People waxed on the virtues of hardcover vs paperbooks. How nice it was to hold a permanent hard cover book, as opposed to those cheap, disposable paperbacks. They wouldn’t have one in their house. Now, paperback is the norm to which people are being all nostalgic and mushy. It’s only a matter of time before people go on about how much nicer it was to be able to hold an E-Reader in your hands instead of the new virtual books that are holo-projected from that little thing you wear over your ear, or clip to your glasses. Sure, it’s great that you have access to every work ever written and you can even project it to look like it’s in your lap even, but you can’t hold it or run your finger over a real, solid screen to turn the pages. And don’t even get me started about this new electro-telepathic gizmo they’re working on that sends images directly into your brain!
I find that a solar-powered, analog text-storage device is nice: just open to the bookmark, and (if there’s light to see) the text is there. No question of battery power and so on.
What will happen to all these e-book devices, of whatever form, if the technology breaks down? How good are the digital storage devices? Even the last century or so of books are in danger: the paper is acidic and gradually burns itself up. OTOH, there are medieval manuscripts that are still legible after 1000 or more years.
Going back, the rise of cheap pulp paper led to the rise of “shilling shockers” and “shopgirl romances” sold in railway stations; and in turn led to increased literacy in England and, again in turn, in the English-speaking world as a whole.
Actually, when I wax about the value of books over eReaders, I’m thinking of hardbacks. 😛
All the Schools have cut prices by saying that each classroom (sometimes not even that) can have 1 set of Textbooks and homework comes from online textbooks that you have to log in and down load each individual chapter. then they tell students to study from this… never mind that extended online reading sessions cause headaches ESPECIALLY on the school computers which flicker like crazy cause the refresh rate is lowest possible “to protect our environment” Poppycock If you wanted to protect our environment you would turn off the hall lights at night. not give kids migranes. PAPER ALL THE WAY
I don’t know. I like the idea of digital textbooks because it’s cheaper to update to the newest edition, and textbooks are ridiculously heavy. It would have been nice not to have the heavy backpack I lugged around in school, but to have a digital version of my book…or better yet, school issued eReaders that had every book I needed for the year already loaded onto it. Save kids back problems AND migraines while still being good to the environment! ULTIMATE SOLUTION!!! 😛
There is no data storage format that can match the longevity and durability of print. Period.
Also, the more of your senses that are engaged in a learning experience, the better your retention tends to be. (this, btw, is one of the reasons that the Holy Mother Church (and even more so the various Eastern Orthodox churches) favor using music, incense, beeswax candles, images, speech, and text in the Mass.) I personally prefer print to pixels, myself.
Monica acting like a big kid and showing off that massive smile makes my day
Am I weird that the only catalog I get (and look forward to) is the Harry & David catalog?
There’s just something wonderful about their fruit…
Nope. Not as long as you don’t think I’m weird for liking Smith Brothers.
Swiss Colony here…petit fours ruuuuuuuuuule!!!
And you and my wife should go bowling or something…she’s exactly the same way about Harry and David…
Ooo! Bowling! I approve! 😀
Whew! Then I can feel ok about my catalogs from “Better Cannibals and Abattoirs,” right?
There’s something about having a nice wall full of old-school audio equipment, especially if one listens mainly to boomer-era music. Chemical Brothers do just fine on a digital format…
Would you and the catalog like some alone time, Miss Villareal? 😀
You have to ask?
Geeze, lady – get a room!
Remember a nice warm room with really good sound qualities! Pamper yourself girl!
Ah, yes! The catalog. Both boon and bane to those with specific tastes. While you can see and order the latest and greatest, you also go through cover to cover like the newest offering from a favorite author, causing many a sympthetic eye-roll among your loved ones.
Audio Advisor? Awesome. And I’m not just saying that because of geographic bias.
Is it just me, or does M’s audiophile side come out right around the holidays?
More likely Paul’s does, so he puts it in the comic.
Fair point…
Audio geek…PERIOD!!! 😀
Led. The past tense of “lead” is “led.”