Day: April 26, 2006

Weird connections to the news pt. 2: Tony Snow

Who knew that my childhood home in Tidewater Virginia was such a nexus of fate? Last year it was my onetime boss’s spacewalk; today it was Tony Snow, one-time writer for the Virginian Pilot and editor of the editorial page of the Daily Press (my hometown newspaper in Newport News, Virginia), most recently Fox News commentator turned Bush administration press secretary.

And the Daily Press was, if I recall, a bastion of journalistic excellence in the early 1980s when Snow was the editorial page editor. But at least that was when it was an independent newspaper, before the Chicago Tribune buy-out.

The Great Record Rip: preparation

I haven’t finished The Project yet (latest stats: 12031 songs, 996 artists, 882 albums; 265.99 GB of lossless audio; 36 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes, and 17 seconds running time), but another audio project beckons: the Great Record Rip. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m the recent owner of a Denon DP-45F turntable, and with an iMic I’ll have the capability to take audio from the record player and digitize it.

Except, like every other project, the devil is in the details. So while the Denon is at the shop getting tuned up after twelve years in a box, I’m trying to put the software pieces in place so that I’ll be ready to start ripping some audio (in addition to my never-released on CD David Byrne record, the Secret Policeman’s Other Ball, and other oddments, the Lucadamos have let me at their stash of vinyl as well) when it comes back.

So what do I need to rip records? The following links suggest some help:

Oysters, anyone?

NYT: The Oyster Is His World. What is it about oysters that inspire great food writing? The article about tireless oyster promoter Jon Rowley (who happens to be the same guy who first shipped Copper River king salmon fresh rather than canned or frozen, so pay attention) is a great read.

Particularly interesting from my historical perspective: the description of Totten Inlet Virginicas, oysters native to the Chesapeake Bay where I grew up and which are now farmed in a bay off Puget Sound, as “the best oyster on the planet… uncommonly plump and sweet, with a memorably pronounced mineral finish.” Interestingly, Rowley credits micro-algæ for much of the character and flavor of the oysters, meaning that they might not taste so sublime coming from the Chesapeake. Still, I don’t know: oyster shells are the preferred paving material for driveways in the part of the world I grew up in, primarily because people insatiably ate so many of the things (at least prior to the James River kepone pollution problems and the Dermo and MSX epidemics) that they were about the cheapest building material around.