It was November 1999, in New Orleans. I had been on the road for almost a month, traveling on my own aboard Amtrak trains. I had a rail pass that allowed me to get on and off wherever I pleased. That freedom was great, but I became terribly lonely. Part of the deal was I had to make at least two stops in Canada. So, I went from New York City to Rochester to Niagara Falls and then up to Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto. All the while reading crazy shit like Pauline Reage's <i>Story of O</i> or Henry Miller's <i>Quiet Days in Clichy</i>, meeting beautiful people, falling in love with perfect strangers a hundred times a day, discovering wonderful new places and then leaving almost as soon as some hint of a connection was made.

She had short brown hair, brown eyes, and wore a brown bomber and a blue and green checked ivy cap. Every ten minutes, we'd have to stop so she could take a picture of something.

She wrote your name down in my notebook and circled it and drew a bunch of funny pictures of cats.

Well, I wasn't able to attend Saturday's "Deep Listening" discussion at the Philoctetes Center. A plane to Mexico was missed and I wound up drinking exotic beers and helping newlyweds plan their honeymoon. Long story.

The new high gloss, high performance <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/708rega/">Rega P3-24 turntable</a> complete with TT-PSU power supply (sold as an option with standard finish P3s) is now available. The updated P3 was a big winner in our <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/">Products of the Year</a> celebration, taking home awards for both <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/index3.html">Analog Source of the Year</a> and <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/features/1208poty/index7.html">Budget Component of the Year</a>.

Times are hard. Our current economic landscape bears more than a passing resemblance to that darkest of American nightmares, the Great Depression. As I write this, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a $700 <I>billion</I> bailout plan to buy distressed mortgages and thereby offer a crutch to our ailing financial system. Times are hard, yet we persevere. Though we may lack some discretionary income, we find ways to maintain the essentials: food, clothing, shelter, and, for audiophiles, music. So for a short while at least, let's put aside our struggles and lighten up. After all, this great hobby of ours is meant to be fun, and is supposed to cure any depression. Let's celebrate music, and those wonderful audio components that bring us closest to it.