Wes Phillips

I haven't written lately because my right hand has been in a cast from my fingertips to my elbow—rendering me, as a writer, essentially mute. Writing, thinking, and feeling are, for a writer, inextricably linked. How do I know what I think if I haven't written about it?

Looking for a small, manageable paperback to read on a commute to Great Neck and back, I picked up a vintage paperback of Ross Macdonald's The Drowning Pool, a novel I'd read 25 years ago. I didn't exactly remember the plot clearly, but my recollection of my fling with Macdonald was that most of his plots dealt with the sins of the grandfathers being visited upon the third generation after.

I stayed up late last on April 2—late for me, anyway: 11pm. I watched the last episode of ER in real time. (Hang in there, peeps, there will be an audio point after the jump.)

Here's an oldie but goodie: a vintage animated Telefunken ad. NOS roolz.

Last week I participated in Music Matters IV, the latest in a series of evening events at Definitive Audio in Seattle. It was my first time, so I didn't know what to expect.

My favorite audio product of 2008 isn't precisely an audio product—it's a home theater in a box. I'm referring to Polk's lovely SurroundBar 360, which sells for $1200 and gives you a low-profile 48" "sound bar" and a base station, which includes an optical disc player, DSP processing, and an AM/FM tuner. The base station, of course, contains all the amplification the sound bar requires. Also included is a special umbilical to connect the two pieces—and, in a savvy little detail that tells you a great deal about how much thought has gone into the SurroundBar 360, the connectors on that cable cannot be connected "wrong."