From a couple years ago.
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That Will Do It
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And Her Face Just Ghostly
Another lesser-known project by “The Godfather of EDM,” Giorgio Moroder. It was also the debut of Chris Bennet, whom he collaborated with on Giorgio & Chris the following year.
My two favorite tracks on the album harken from Side 2 of the original vinyl release: La Nuit Blanche and In Love With Love.
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“I Don’t Understand How People Can Be Afraid Of A Fat, Elderly Man Who Wears Apricot Makeup”
Here’s what the brilliant E. Jean Carroll said about Trump: She’s earned every penny of those $88 MILLION verdicts.
“I don’t understand how people can be afraid of a fat, elderly man who wears apricot makeup, his hair done up like Tippi Hedren in The Birds and sits in a courtroom and moans and groans and complains and snorts. When the jury got a load of him, they were mesmerized. You’ve never seen anything like it…”
“He never sat still. And he talked the entire time, within earshot of the judge. He belittled Alina Habba, his own attorney. He would spit as he was talking. He didn’t smell so good.”
“The high point was the moment he stood up, with steam coming off his back and hot air blowing out his ears because Robbie Kaplan [Carroll’s lawyer] was giving the final argument and she was asking the jury how much it would take to make him stop. And she drove him so crazy, he stood up in the courtroom and left.”
“When a man is innocent… he stays and fights. He lost right at that second. He couldn’t have looked more guilty.”
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Congress Would Have To Be In Session To Do That…
Ostentatious Doesn’t Even BEGIN To Describe This Monstrosity
Let’s see…a 4 car garage plus an addition 2 car garage, a Billiards Room, a Billards Gallery, His ‘n Hers Offices, His ‘n Hers Bathrooms, His ‘n Hers Powder Rooms, Assistant’s Office, Conservatory, a BALL ROOM, a 21′ x 44′ Entry Hall with its own BAR, Butler’s Pantry, Elevator, a Hers Closet that’s bigger than our Living Room, and not one, but two Family Rooms…
It’s like those old illusion drawings where you’re supposed to locate all the things that are fucked up.
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Afternoon House Party
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Right?!
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365 Days Of UNF: September 17th
So That’s What’s Going On…
Downtown Phoenix Apartment Tower Heads To Auction After $128M Loan Goes Unpaid
X Phoenix, the 330 unit apartment community at 200 W. Monroe Street in Downtown Phoenix, is headed toward a trustee sale after its developer failed to repay a $128 million loan tied to the property.
According to Maricopa County documents, lender Mack Real Estate Group has scheduled the first phase of X Phoenix to be sold at auction on December 10 at Maricopa County Superior Court.
The property originally opened as a roughly $100 million development and marked Chicago based The X Company’s entry into the Phoenix market.
Ben and I were discussing this only a couple days ago; about how it seemed all progress had ground to a halt. To be honest, the entire concept and design of X Phoenix was odd from the beginning. Based on its description it sounded more like a high-tech dormitory for young adults (private bedrooms and baths, but shared living and kitchen facilities) than a traditional apartment building. Nevertheless it seemed to fill up quickly. Maybe I’m just old, but…no thanks!
The first phase of this building went up pretty quickly. It was directly north of City Hall so I saw it every day.
They started construction on Phase 2 in late 2023 or early 2024, and it seemed it was taking forever. When I retired from the City in January 2025, it still wasn’t finished, although it looked close enough that would probably be done by the end of the year.
Well, imagine my surprise when I was downtown a couple weeks ago and saw that it still wasn’t completed, and in fact, looked like precious little had been done since I last saw it 20 months ago. At least now I know why.
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In Which Your Host Effects A Successful Repair On A Piece Of Vintage Stereo Gear Without Destroying It
The other day I was dusting in the Living Room and after I moved my big Yamaha (as in main component) CD player to get underneath it I went to put on some music and the drawer wouldn’t open. I know it wasn’t the belt because I had successfully changed that with the proper size and thickness a couple weeks ago and it had been working without any problem ever since. No, this was something new. I was able to pry the drawer open with my fingernail and it worked just fine afterward, but the next time I moved it the problem returned.
I finally got tired of dealing with it, so I popped the cover yesterday to see if I could determine what was happening. I had the cover off 30 seconds and I immediately identified the problem.
There’s a wide copper grounding strap that makes contact with the metal tray when it slides into place. The raised nubbin that makes the actual contact with the strap was getting snagged on the strap when the tray attempted to slide out.
When I changed the belt, I pressed down on the copper strap a little too forcefully, and since tolerances are everything in this equipment, it made contact just fine, but was too tight to let the drawer slide back out. I gently bent the piece back upward a hair’s breadth, and everything worked normally again; something I need to keep in mind in case I ever have to swap the drawer belt on this unit again.
I don’t know why this just started acting up, or why it worked fine and then stopped once the unit had been moved (probably because I haven’t used it but a couple times since I changed the belt, preferring instead to concentrate on my portable players) but it’s fixed now, and that’s good enough for me.
When I was doing some research the other day, I learned that the DAC (Digital To Analog Converter) in this player was actually made by Panasonic. Panasonic, not Yamaha itself or even Sony. Panasonic.
Why is this significant? This deck dates from the period that Technics/Panasonic were pushing their own “MASH” (“Multistage Noise Shaping,” a 1-bit digital-to-analog conversion technology developed by Technics/Panasonic to improve sound quality and reduce distortion in CD playback) chips—yet there is no “MASH” branding anywhere on this player.
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He’s Not Just A Moron. He’s a Fucking Moron.
Afternoon House Party
I Could’ve Sworn I Posted This One Already
…because it’s such a funky layout with a bedroom physically separate from the rest of the house, but I looked and couldn’t find it.
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Back On The Prednisone
I finished up my last 7-week titrated dose of Prednisone this past Sunday. By Monday morning I was already sprouting new blisters on my thighs and upper arms. And by sprouting I don’t mean the usual one or two blisters that appeared overnight when I was on the Prednisone. I mean there were a dozen, and I swore as the morning drew on I could almost see them form in real time.
Fortunately I had a previously scheduled appointment with my dermatologist that day. She agreed that I obviously needed to stay on the medication while we wait for the Duplixent to take full effect (estimates range anywhere from five to eight months for the complete treatment of pemphigoid). So I’m back on another titrated regiment; this time only 3 weeks, to be reassessed when I see her at the end of the month. She also added 30 days of doxicycline and a B-vitamin suppliment to the mix.
And as far as the extremely stubborn areas on my neck, I mentioned to my physical therapist a couple weeks ago that no matter what I did they weren’t healing; they’d scab over, but would slough off at the slightest provocation in the shower the next day. She suggested putting xeroform under whatever bandages I was using. That made sense; the area on my wrist that they pulled for the to patch my tongue where the tumor was removed was covered with xeroform for weeks before it had healed enough to be exposed to the air.
So for the last two weeks I’ve been using the xeroform on my neck, wrapped in a gauze bandage and I’m seeing a definite improvement.
I hated going out wrapped in gauze like that because I was so concerned about what people would think, but then I said “Fuck it. I need to heal and what people may infer from my gauze (and the leprosy-like sores on my arms) isn’t important.”
Some days I feel like I’m a walking advertisement for the pharmaceutical industry, but you know what? Two days on the new regimen and the blisters stopped forming within 24 hours and we’re back on the healing path.
She’s not giving up and neither am I.
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Needs Color, But I Like The Layout…
Submitted Without Comment
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Every Accusation…
“President Trump alleged Tuesday that the July 13, 2024, attempt on his life in Butler, Pa. was part of a ‘Democratic plot’ against him.”
“Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA.”
“By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago? This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed.’”
Show us the evidence, Biff.
I still don’t believe this attempt was a conspiracy (they are too incompetent to pull it off). It’s not that they have a moral core, just that they are buffoons who couldn’t arrange a one-car funeral procession in a town with one street.
[source]
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Torturing Myself
The funny thing is about these Torturing Myself posts is that I soon realized that at some point in my life I had tasted nearly all of the things I posted. For the ones I hadn’t (very few, actually) I could easily imagine how they tasted based on the ingredients and similarities to other dishes I have eaten.
But still, that being said…
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Ravers 🤣
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Lunchtime Jazz
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At Least He’s Honest…
I Guess “Post Modern” Meant Something Else In The 60s
I don’t understand the bathroom arrangement on the second floor. Two of the bedrooms have their own, but also they’re also shared. And this his and hers bathrooms in the master suite?
At least there’s a guest bath on the first floor—even if it belongs to the Guest Bedroom…
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Won’t Someone Please Think Of The Billionaires?
That Looks Like An Invite To Join In
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I Like This One
365 Days Of UNF: September 16th
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The Future Is Exhausting: Apple, Read The Fucking Room
The new iPhone is exactly what nobody needs or asked for right now.
I think I’m done with the future… And I know that is a slightly inconvenient position to take when everyone around me is very excited about the newest, smartest, fastest, most technologically advanced thing humanity has managed to produce this week. But honestly? I am fucking exhausted.
We don’t necessarily want a better smartphone We want less smartphone.
I am exhausted by my phone.
I am exhausted by notifications. I am exhausted by Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, emails, news alerts, screen time reports telling me I spent six hours looking at my phone and then apparently expecting me to congratulate myself for reducing it by twelve minutes. I am exhausted by opening my phone to check one thing and resurfacing forty-five minutes later having watched a stranger clean their fridge…
And after years of being told that technology was going to make our lives easier, more efficient, more connected, I think a growing number of us are quietly asking a very different question: Can you please just leave us the fuck alone? And then Apple announces the new iPhone Duo, its first foldable IPhone, with a 7.6-inch internal display designed to give us more room to multitask, work, watch, create and generally do more things on one device.
The culture is moving backwareds whle the technology companies keep sprinting forwards.
And I understand why it’s impressive. It is impressive, and I want it. Why wouldn’t I, right? A giant screen in my pocket. Two apps side by side. More room to work. More room to watch. More room to… presumably never look away from my phone ever again. But do we, ACTUALLY, really, REEEALLY, want this? Because culturally, I don’t think we do.
The strange thing is that the culture is moving backwards while the technology companies keep sprinting forwards. And I’m starting to wonder whether they have completely misunderstood what we’re asking for. We don’t necessarily want a better smartphone. We want less smartphone. There is a huuuge difference.
I’m not asking for less technology because I hate technology. I’m asking for less because I like my life.
Somehow along the way, our phones stopped being tools and became environments. They became our alarm clocks, calendars, cameras, banks, offices, televisions, dating lives, shopping centres, newspapers, social lives and tiny little portals into everyone else’s existence. They are in our bedrooms when we wake up. They’re in our hands while we eat. They’re beside us while we work. They’re with us when we walk. They’re in our pockets at dinner. They’re charging next to our beds.
Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
And apparently the solution to this deeply “healthy arrangement’ is to make the screen bigger. I’m sorry, but… What the fuck are we doing? I’m not asking for less technology because I hate technology. I’m asking for less because I like my life. I want to walk somewhere without documenting it. I want to have dinner without half my brain wondering what notifications I’ve missed.
I don’t want technology to remember my life for me. I want to remember my own life.
I want to have a conversation without a device sitting between us, quietly recording, tracking, pinging and predicting. I want to be bored, actually bored. The kind of bored where your brain has to entertain itself. And this is where I think the tech industry has completely missed the cultural mood.
I don’t want a smarter life. I want a life where I can occasionally be stupidly, gloriously offline.
They keep asking: What else can we add? What else can AI do? What else can our watches hear? What else can our phones remember? What else can we automate? What else can we optimise? What else can we put on a screen? How about instead we ask: What can we take away?
So no, Apple. I don’t want your biggest screen. I don’t want another device that remembers more, hears more, tracks more, predicts more, or gives me another reason to stare at a screen.
I, actually, really, really, want less… Less fucking everything. And if that sounds anti-tech, maybe that’s the point. What if the most revolutionary thing Apple could build right now is a reason to put the fucking thing down.
[source]
I didn’t write this, but it definitely resonated with me. Odd, considering tech has been my entire adult life…
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Vomiting It All Up. And There Is a LOT of It Tonight.
Apologies for the sheer number of these tonight. And I know a some of them are a little stale at this point, but to paraphrase the famous quote from Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, post promptly when you find something you could miss it.” In bloging—especially blogs with a political slant—this is SO true!
And lastly…
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