Today’s retro comic is a Sunday from 1998 and features the two “throw-away” panels in the top tier. These are designed to be discarded, along with the logo, if newspaper editors want to dispense with the entire top third of the cartoon to save space. Not long afterward, I went to the standing bookends logo. Yes, I did it to save work. Absolutely. Check out the component stereo—and vinyl is making a comeback. Well, it appears the “comment” problems here are largely solved. I told many of you via Facebook yesterday that I would elaborate. Turns out it was a spam filter, what WordPress calls a “plug-in.” I know. The first thing WP tells you in the event of a problem is, Start disabling plug-ins. I did not do this sooner, because, frankly, this doesn’t usually work, just like Microsoft’s familiar option, “Would you like us to search for a solution to the problem?” Also, I have used this particular well-known spam filter for more than a decade, and it hummed along in the background, doing a very good job. Until recently. Now, I’ll have to manually weed out spam occasionally, but it sure beats having to manually approve every post and having everyone agitated all the time. As for the “signatures” on your posts, this seems still to have some issues. I suggest everyone fill in the information again, and we’ll see what happens.
Take Five after Meals
By Jimmy Johnson
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79 responses to “Take Five after Meals”
Lovely!
I never cared for Spam…. I don’t like Hot Dogs either!
I love Spam, and Hot Dogs. I usually eat them unheated, right out of the container. The Spam is especially good that way. Odd, some people think that’s weird.
Given a choice, I’d settle for spam and cheese sandwiches over anything that requires more than 5 minutes to prepare.
Quality of music reproduction, in descending order:
1) Reel-to-reel
2) 33 1/3 rpm Vinyl
3) ?etamax
4) Cassette
5) VHS
6) CD
7) 45 rpm vinyl
8) MP3
And, related to Arlo’s problem, the 12″ packaging on an LP allowed the cover art & liner notes to mean something.
I pity the youth of today, listening to crappy music with crappy reproduction through crappy earbuds – alone.
They are missing the magic of gathering your friends around a killer stereo, getting…….um……in the mood for listening, and dropping the needle on something amazing you’re all hearing for the first time – together!
I would put the 45 under the cassette. I still own a Harmon-Kardin turntable and Teac dual cassette and a 1975 Techniques (sp? too lazy to walk in the other room) and no plans to get rid of it. The old receiver weighs a ton more than the new Yamaha for the TV surround sound. I have many memories of shared music in the 70s before Disco killed music. Of course I thought that was the bottom, little did I know they would get a shovel and dig deeper to create rap.
I don’t that you could convince me of that, but it’s a close enough thing that I’d be more than willing to consider it.
And I forgot to put 8-Track between CD & 45.
The best thing about 8-tracks was the instant gratification of deciding you didn’t want to hear a particular song, and being able to instantly skip to a different one (admittedly, often landing in the middle of the new track, but still).
The factory stereo in my truck gave out, taking my last cassette player with it. The new one has MP3 capability, which I haven’t used. The good part is that MP3 storage doesn’t get scratched or stretch, like records and tapes can (and do).
I am by no means an audiophile but I am surprised reel-to-reel tape is considered the best reproduction. It seemed to me that the stretching of tape due to changes in temperature, humidity and wear and tear of the physical components would make reel-to-reel less reliable.
The challenges reel-to-reel has in re longevity are the tape itself deteriorating, and information migrating onto the part next to it. But both of those take decades, and can be forestalled by proper care; the same, of course, applies to all the others, as well (except MP3; digital files gonna corrupt).
My ranking was based solely on quality of sound reproduction, which R-T-R wins hands down – though the only change I would make were I to rate them on long-term usability is to move the 45 ahead of the CD.
The actual problems reel-to-reel has in re longevity are the tape itself deteriorating, and information migrating to an adjacent part of the tape. Both of these, however, take decades, and proper care can forestall them significantly. But then, the same is true about all the named media (except MP3; digital files gonna corrupt).
My rating, though, was based entirely on quality of reproduction – which r-t-r wins hands down. But if I were to rate them on long-term usability, the only change would be to move the 45 above the CD.
Sorry – I thought it hadn’t posted; is there a way to delete one?
Sure there is, but be careful not to poke your eyeball with the icepick.
Hey, Gene, watch it! I met Dave Brubeck once! I’ve spoken with his son Chris a number of times! A little respect for them, please–
? The record shop near me is selling turntables with a USB connector so I can spin vinyl into my computer. Which puts it on par with my CD/DVD player.
Of course, my computer now only accepts the smaller USB-C size (“universal” isn’t).
Yes, it would put them on a par with a CD – but why would you want to degrade the sound quality like that? Especially as you’re simultaneously moving them to much less stable platform?
two complaints… first, digital music is in no way a degradation of sound quality, and secondly, not unstable, either.
Love the title. I am a Dave Brubeck fan.
Montana Phil – so am I.
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Glad the gates to the Village are open again, I missed you guys.
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As anonymous said we were afraid you were ill or worse.
I think the commenters on 7/21 missed the point.
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The “Hot Tub” is the humidity where they are.
Jimmy – so glad to hear the problems were technology related rather than health related or another sort of life crisis. Wishing you the best! Welcome back Villagers.
testing
Did I/we/the site pass the test?
Hi, everybody. I’m enjoying the recorded music discussion. Cozmic Cowboy, your post brought back happy memories. Now I’ll try the name fill-in. It didn’t hold yesterday. We’ll see if today is a better day.
Nope. Name gone. Came up as me rather than one of the rest of you, though.
Trying again on the laptop (rather than iPad). Just to find out.
Before the glitch, there was a little check box you had to click to save your information. That has been missing for a little while now. But that’s ok. I don’t mind redoing the information rather than what we and Jimmy have been going through with the site the last few weeks. So better to leave well enough alone.
If it’s okay to name names, was Akismet the misbehaving spam filter plug-in? Yikes, upsetting to hear about it turning bad — if this was the culprit.
No comment.
It is SO good to see many of the old gang back. I have missed my cyber friends!
While I never ate Spam except in Hawaii, I do like Vienna sausage. We used to eat them with slices of slab cheese and crackers, plus a cold Coke.
I was fed SOS by my mom on toast so grew up eating that too. Ghost and I aren’t eating much processed meats now. No bacon, sausage, ham, hot dogs, etc.
Ghost still drinks Coke. He made me quit cold turkey after 73 years of addiction.
Yes, but I can quit anytime I want. 😀
In fairness, it is my only vice.
It rots the teeth, and I can prove it. All I have to do is point to where I used to have teeth. Gave up my 1.5l/day habit overnight, so I know it can be done. Hopefully, the chocolate milk I drink now has enough calcium in it help me to preserve the teeth I still have.
Welcome home, everyone – especially Jackie!
Re 7-21-21 real-time cartoon: Philosophical question…are pruney fingers more vexatious than fingery prunes, or less.
Hello! Glad to see everyone back. when it comes to canned meats, I like Spam, Vienna sausages, and most sardines! 🙂
Just want to know if I am the only one happy that you fixed the cement problem. I shouldn’t start reading before my eyes wake up. I’m glad the comment problem is resolved. If you continue to spoil me with daily posts, Well, I’ll just have to get over it.
Hate to tell you this, but getting music on a CD is now considered to be the way old people do it. Same thing for movies on DVD.
For me, only two things were better in the so-called good old days: album covers and school cafeteria lunches.
School lunches – at least in this town – are horrendous.
I have t disagree (not about the school lunches in your town, but generally). Back in ye olden days, school lunches were godawful… maybe 1 time in a month it would be something I actually wanted to eat at the time. And it didn’t get much better in the university dining halls, either… even with 4 or 5 choices at every meal. In contrast, my daughter’s high school offered specific themed food options and her university dining hall was set up like a fast-food mall… you could go to the burger bar, the pizza place, or the taco spot. (Or, for people who found those choices limiting, they had a salad bar with fresh salads and vegetarian options.) These kids today… they just don’t know what it was like
I was fortunate to have had cafeteria food at least as tasty and nutritious as my mother made. Of course she hated cooking and was the first to denounce her efforts. But we never suffered malnutrition or food poisoning, so she did something right.
Trucker:
We need a Like button.
Great comment!
Testing.
James:
I spoke only in reference to the high school here in Shermantown. Lasagna, meatloaf, baked fish, pork chops, and on and on – all made from scratch. Heck, we even had a full-time baker and pie maker. It was great.
The dining halls in the first university that I attended were even better.
I ate as does the proverbial pig. Thanks to a high metabulism, I didn’t gain an ounce.
It wasn’t awful, from beginning to end; there were popular highlights. I went to school before Reagan, so they were still trying to get kids to eat more vegetables instead of looking at the ways that did work, such as noting that pizza sauce is made from tomatoes, which are botanically fruit but count as vegetables (strictly speaking, ALL fruits are vegetables.) So we’d get pigs-in-blankets, which are edible, and a glop of seaweed-looking canned spinach on the same tray, and nobody along the line seemed to figure out that we weren’t getting any nutritional value out of all the seaweed in the trash can. We WOULD eat corn in the form of cornbread, or as the little segment of corn-on-the-cob, and mostly would not eat it as loose kernals, so they put loose-kernal corn on the menu more than any other option.
Re: Today’s strip of July 22nd 2021,
As some of you know we have a place in Maine where one runs in to some interesting characters. I have a plummuh up nawth by the name of Wayne Bean. Wayne is an old Yankee and speaks with a wonderful Maine accent. Well one day my oversized bathtub broke and I had Wayne the original house plumber come by to fix it. Well Wayne and I diagnosed the Fargone problem and ordered the necessary pahtz to fix ‘er and while I was at it I mentioned to Wayne that the lens on one of the lights in the tub was cracked and wasn’t that an electrical hazard…well Ole Wayne started to say it was no good and would need fixin so we ordered a new light for there too…and that was when we went some’eres one doesn’t go with an ole Yankee plummuh….Wayne I sez, “Why do you think they put a light in the tub?” “Phil,” he sez “I don’t want to go theah.” “But son’t you think it is kind of weird, I mean what are you looking for in the tub that you can’t find without a light?” “Phil, I don’t wahnt to think about that.”
So that was where we Symply left it…
During your travels in Maine, did you ever pass through either Cabot Cove or Crabapple Cove?
Stay away from Cabot Cove – the murder rate there is worse than NYC or Columbia.
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Or almost as bad as Midsummer, England.
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Make sure you visit the WW&F Railroad Museum in Sheepscot(Alna),ME
I have not been to either, I am in the northwest mountain lakes region(Symply near Bethel; Fargone out there)
“did you ever pass through either Cabot Cove or Crabapple Cove?”
Which was the one Hawkeye Pierce was from?
School cafeteria in Southern MN 50 YA run by 2 Norwegian (decent) cooks turned out
food that was as good as any restaurant. It did no good to my waist line being the kitchen
was next to my shop class room.
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according to a chart at my dentist the acidity of Cola is only 2 places from battery acid. and not
that many points.