If you're interested in a really special look at some of the best albums of 2006, you can visit <a href="http://www.trismccall.net/index.html">The Tris McCall Report</a>. You'll find that Tris has just begun to unveil the results of his annual <a href="http://www.trismccall.net/critics_poll_2006_results.htm">Critics Poll</a>. Today, he shares his thoughts on the voting results for the year's top albums. If you like what you read, check back each day this week for further commentary.

Last week I went to an advance screening at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) of <I>Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life</I>, a new film about the short, creative, and ultimately kinda sad life of songwriter/arranger Billy Strayhorn. "Strays" or "Sweet Pea" as his friends knew him was part, some would say most, of the brains behind Duke Ellington's success in the forties and fifties. The film will be shown on PBS around the country in February.

Using the acoustics of gunfire to calculate the location of snipers. It doesn't work the way you might imagine.

Guitarist Barry Finnerty remembers his bandmate, friend, and rehab mentor.

"The United States Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) spectrum chart, dated October 2003, depicts the radio frequency spectrum allocations to radio services operated within the United States. This chart graphically partitions the radio frequency spectrum, extending from 9kHz to 300GHz, into over 450 frequency bands, and uses distinct colors to distinguish the allocations for the thirty different radio services."

So string theory <I>is</I> good for something?