Topic: What are you thinking right now?

[6pairsofshoes]

I had an office chair with a detached armrest that kept tangling my headphone cord resulting in the headphones constantly getting tossed onto the floor.  This was not good for the headphones.  One side finally gave out.  I figured they were goners.  These were relatively inexpensive (c. $70) Sennheisers that I used with the computer. 

Just before I was about to put them in the ewaste, I decided to give them another look.  Found that there was nothing wrong with them that a new cable couldn't fix.  Got one on ebay for about $16 bucks and they now work fine.  I just have to wait a couple months for the slow boat from China earpads to get here.  They were only $2 with "free shipping" but at this rate, I could have rowed over there to pick them up myself faster.  They'll probably get here in early August.

[8ullfrog]

I miss my Bose QE-2s. They folded up, and fold was point of failure.

I bought some Sennheisers, but they weren't as good as the bose.

I wouldn't be surprised if you had the same senns as me. I hear the 280's are amazing, but who the golly can afford them?

The earpads, yeah, holy poo do they molt. Also the bass register isn't as low.


Replacement parts on the bose were wish and pray.

[6pairsofshoes]

These are HD497.  I have some other, more expensive, ones that I use for the stereo.  They're HD600s.  They have velvet cushions, kind of like fuzzy bedroom slippers for your ears.   I got them for a good price on amazon; I suspect it was because they were about to come out with an upgrade or something.  They're open back headphones, like the HD497s.  I could see the virtue of the noise canceling ones for travel, given the ambient noises on planes and that sort of thing.

[8ullfrog]

https://en-us.sennheiser.com/dj-headphones-closed-hd-205

Can't say I recommend them. The bass just doesn't get the job done. Plus, if it's not at the perfect angle, the sound cuts out.

[6pairsofshoes]

Yes.  They look quite cumbersome and sort of awkward to pack for traveling.

I used to take Amtrak and other commuter rail a lot and the cell phone conversations used to drive me batty.  I was heading up the Hudson River Valley one morning on a MetroNorth train containing a young woman ranting and cursing into her cell phone to a degree that would have made a Longshoreman blush.  She was so loud that the entire rail car could hear every word.  I told her to watch her language and she ignored me.  Really, had there been children present it would have really been beyond the pale but most of us were just commuters trying to read in peace.  For people like that, closed headphones are a good solution.

[8ullfrog]

Hah, I'd be tempted to go full SLJ. "SHUT. THE golly. UP."

Yesterday on the dog walk, the homeless man who made his camp in a parking island under a tree, confronted mom, and it seemed he knew it was her who reported him.

I was ready to throw down if he got aggressive, but he didn't. He moved all his poo back behind the goodwill (About 200 feet from the parking tree).

Apparently the influx of dumb naffs is HUD's fault. They're bringing them down here, but not housing them. I watched one screaming man get arrested this afternoon.

Mom said it's nice not to have bottom santa staring at her every time she walks the dog.

And she got a lead on DS9 DVD's!

[6pairsofshoes]

I've checked and the cheapest online sets of the DS9 dvds are in the $25 range.  Even craigslist has them around that price.  I keep checking the random DVD giveaways on Nextdoor, Freecycle, craigslist on the off chance that someone might decide that theirs is taking up too much shelf space.

There is so much money around here and people routinely just get a wild hair and give away all kinds of stuff.  Once, a woman living in a loft decided to downsize before a move.  She actually had shopping carts for people to move around her loft and fill them.  She gave me a large number of sci fi books, lots of vintage Philip K D ick and others that she recommended.  I should get a new DVD player as the ones we have skip constantly.  It's annoying not to be able to watch even commercially produced DVDs.  At any rate, I'll keep looking.

[8ullfrog]

I remember when they first came out they were around $230 a season. I vowed to never pay that.

I used to have the NiteShdw rips, they were great. 480p, he cut off the credits, and they were compressed just enough that you could fit an entire season on one DVD-R. They were perfect for an iPod video.

But he got sued and they hit him HARD.


Blu-ray players are backwards compatible, and I see them every day at my goodwill, for about $10. Ours is a launch Sony a friend got from some raffle and gave to mom.

[Update]
It was DS9 2-7, so I bought em.

[8ullfrog]

Holy bless'ed poo, I paid $90 for OE-2 on clearance, but looking now, they wanted $239 for the bless'ed things!

[6pairsofshoes]

Yeah.  Pricey.  I love my earpods.  They were a Xmas gift from my brother.   Very good sound and much better than speakerphone.  Apparently there are cheaper knockoffs for around 40 bucks that work relatively well.

I went to the Goodwill yesterday and picked up a Michael Graves/Alessi teakettle for just under $3.  They routinely sell for about $190 new.  It's missing the little whistling birdie, but I can get one for about $20.  I was lucky because it looked like crap.  Someone had ridden it hard and put it away wet, so it was dirty and basically so ugly that it was cheap.  A little time cleaning it and it was sparkly and nearly new looking.  It's probably hard to understand now just how revolutionary this design was in 1985.  There have been so many cheap imitations in the interim that it's probably lost that power, but I remember how amazing it seemed when it was newly produced.

I drink a lot of tea, so it will get used.  Michael Graves was Mr. Society Starchitect of the 1980's PostModernists.  He became paralyzed through a freak complication of a sinus infection and devoted the remainder of his life to making hospital furniture design and appliances that disabled people could use more easily.  His own experiences in rehab drove him to this.  He was wheelchair bound after the illness.  He was also involved in designing interiors for the Wounded Warrior Project apartments.  He died in 2015.  It's nice to see an architect work to make interiors more accessible to everyone, so he became quite the admirable individual. 

He also designed kitchen equipment for Target including a somewhat cheesier cheaper tea kettle.  This is a link to the Alessi version.  https://www.alessi.com/us_en/designers/from-g-to-k/michael-graves/kettle-9093-9093.html

[8ullfrog]

I should be sleeping but I'm not.

They "moved" my appointment, much as a shitty manager messes with a schedule, I now have to take an earlier, crappier bus.

I always aim for a 2:30 appointment because the Noon bus always does right by me.

grats on the kettle. Never been my speed, but I've heard it can be an expensive habit.

I miss those headphones. I have two pairs of headphones, both of which have drawbacks, and two pairs of earbuds, which annoy the poo out of my ears. No wireless though, my S5's battery performance was never particularly impressive.

[6pairsofshoes]

Yeah.  Lordy, the Bose are $350 on amazon.  I paid less for the Sennheiser HD600's.  Do they really sound that good?  I don't have any noise canceling headphones.  I expect that if I regularly traveled for business, I'd be in a position to need and also to be able to afford them.  That has yet to happen.

Sorry about your appt time rescheduling, 8ully.  Taking the bus isn't fun.  I have very few memories of fun bus trips.  The train is another story, but busses are inherently annoying.

[6pairsofshoes]

I don't know that those are available over here, but we're in a 100 year old building with antiquated everything, including my warhorse of a gas stove, from the 1950's.  I love the stove. 

I just need a kettle that will boil water and, when achieved, shriek the news to the world lest I forget it.  The current one is sort of bland, an Oxo stainless steel, not as sturdy, but ear shattering.  I'm waiting to see what the little bird whistle will accomplish.  There's also a dinosaur version of the whistle for a variant called Tea Rex teakettle.  I might opt for that.  Just need to remember not to melt the polypropylene.

[dweez]

Yeah.  Lordy, the Bose are $350 on amazon.  I paid less for the Sennheiser HD600's.  Do they really sound that good? 

Bose is supposed to be the best for noise cancelling, at least for the consumer. I was looking at a set and the $350 tag was a bit off-putting. I eventually went with Beats Studio 3 cuz I got a great deal though I feel I'm falling farther and farther into the Apple bit (Apple bought Beats several years ago).

[8ullfrog]

Best bass response I've ever heard.


My doctor appointment was cancelled at 9 AM. I'm glad they did that, because I would have been on the bus at 10:30, and showing up to a cancelled appointment would have spun me into a new dimension of pissed off.