A Geek Goes Flying

I was never their hugest fan (I have never even seen them in concert). Their debut album, Hybrid Theory , came out a few months after I graduated college, just before I started law school and saturated my life. But I own that album, and  Meteora , on CD. I have a few songs bought on the iTunes Music Store from Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns ( Robot Boy is a mood). Their music wove itself into my life significantly and, kind of like The Killers, just always seemed to be a part of my soundtrack. When Chester Bennington shuffled off this mortal coil, I kinda figured the band’s hiatus would become permanent. Until last week, when I was cycling home, wearing my Bose Frames Tempo sunglasses (decidedly mid audio) listening to Turbo with Covino on SiriusXM and heard The Emptiness Machine for the first time. Intrigued, but not yet sold. Until I heard it on a decent setup . Okay. Emily Armstrong brings it. (Though, watching the video below, I wonder how sustainable that screa...

Found this article ( A Decade of Music Is Lost on Your iPod. These Are The Deleted Years. Now Let Us Praise Them. ) from this article ( Jewel-Box Heroes: Why the CD Revival Is Finally Here ), and I take exception: Everything you bought from 2003 to 2009 is stuck on a dusty iPod for which a charger can no longer be found, or on a MacBook that’s three MacBooks ago. Whether you bought that whole first Kaiser Chiefs album or just plunked down the 99 cents for ‘I Predict A Riot,’ you don’t have it anymore .   Ahem. I’m not necessarily proud of what remains from that era, but it’s still here. Screenshot of Apple Music in 2023, showing iTunes purchases from 2004 2004 was about when I got my first iPod, a mini, that I still have and use today (albeit refreshed ). And that’s just the music I bought via the Apple iTunes Music Store. A quick glance at my music folder on my NAS shows MP3s dating back to September of 1997! (Ah, college... I remember everyone having open Windows or AppleTalk sha...

A few days ago a mass drop special, offering the Sennheiser HD58X Jubilee headphones, caught my attention at a price I couldn’t pass up ($135, less the $20 for being a new drop member). I’ve been listening to Bose QC25s at the office and QC35 IIs at home, but they just lacked a certain je ne sais quoi . (In particular: Bass. Bury a Friend just gets murdered on them.) Meanwhile, I still  haven’t listened to Fear Inoculum , as I haven’t found the right time to sit down with it, without distraction. (I named my first Labrador Maynard, y’all...) Finally, cleaning house, I found (again) my old iPod mini first generation, and toyed with the idea (again) of modernizing it. It still works, but the battery is pretty weak, and the MicroDrive is a moving part that will fail sooner or later. So I ordered: A high capacity replacement battery (750mAh EC003, 3.7 VDC, 2.77 Wh) ($17 when I ordered it, free shipping) (no reviews; wish me luck ) (I would have gone with the relative known quanti...