It only took one trip to the Jazz Record Center to convince me that it was time to buy a turntable. I finally got one this week so I can play my minuscule, but growing, vinyl collection.

I only owned a handful of LPs growing up. In my high school years, CDs were state of the art, but still quite new and out of reach for many, including myself. So, cassettes were the format of choice. Low cost and portability made up for the low audio quality.

When I was living in Boston, I spent a substantial portion of my meager paycheck at Newbury Comics, Tower Records and the used record store in Kenmore Square. Later, in the bay area, it was Amoeba and Rasputin Music in Berkeley that provided the goods. In those years, I amassed respectable collection of a few hundred compact discs, which I hauled around the country every time I moved.

Digital music changed the way I listen to music, as it did for many. My whole collection has been ripped and I carry the “best of” around in my pocket ready to deploy at an occasion. On shuffle, this provides a stream of somewhat eclectic music–much of which might fall in the oldies category at this point. It became rare to pick an album and listen from beginning to end.

With this new turntable, I realized how much I missed that album listening experience. I love the sound, complete with the pops from the less pristine albums. Having liner notes and photos on the covers that are big enough to see also adds to the experience. I’m also enjoying digging through crates at record shops, or wherever else quality music can be found.

Speaking of music, we added a new musician in this week’s edition of Jam Nite. It’s really nice to have another guitar in there. Now, we need to find a human drummer. Drummers, drop me a note if you’re interested.

In other news, Supreme Bowl II happened on Saturday–always a great time.

---

Links

• SystemSix
  Very cool calendar/display project, might be worthy of a full-blown post.
• Craig Newmark Is Donating $10M to Help CUNY’s Journalism School Become Tuition-Free via Slashdot
• the thing no one will say about Apple Vision Pro
  Casey Neistat shows us what the future of computing looks like. He also give us a preview of what life might be like navigating around people participating in the future of computing.
• There’s a Tax Season Villain, and It’s Not the I.R.S.
• Sailing (Directly) Into the Wind
• St. Pete: Gulf Coast Urbanism In a Hostile State
• Hell in a Handbasket: Burgers Where the Cheese Comes in Syringes
  This is wrong for so many reasons.