No dogs or philosophers allowed. Yes, they're ads, but they're very funny ads.

Here's a sobering story about computer buying. <I>[H] Consumer</I> went to Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and Fry's Electronics to buy a computer and simply tells us what happened. The money quote: "Most retail sales people are simply not going to possess the necessary knowledge to correctly recommend or explain every nuance of a piece of hardware. Even if a sales rep has all that down, a greater skill is required from them: relating that 64-bit-Lightscribe-GeForce knowledge in a non-condescending, helpful way to someone who is unsure what his hardware needs even are. The potent combo of techie know-how and properly relating it to an 'everyday' consumer is a difficult knack to develop. Most sales reps you’ll encounter are polishing one or the other, if not both of those skills, if they posses them to begin with."

<A HREF="http://blog.hometheatermag.com/markfleischmann/">Mark Fleischmann</A> sends us a cautionary link that argues that our immersion in the technological soup of bleeps, blips, and scattershot images is changing us from critters who think in words to ones that utilize pictures.

It's hard for me to believe that all of today's sunshine will soon be replaced by clouds and rain. Then again, there's no reason to trust in whimsical April. The forecast calls for the sky to fall at about 6pm EST. Right now, at 4:55pm EST, the tall, brick buildings outside my window are blanketed in golden warmth. I'm usually not so in touch with the weather's hourly report, but there's a special circumstance keeping me curious.

Starting this blog has made me feel almost the same way I did when Frank Sinatra died and I wrote in the pages of <I>Stereophile</I> that when I became a music writer, lo those many dark-haired days ago, I knew that someday I'd have to write a Francis Albert obit. When the blog craze first began to gallop, I knew intuitively that someday, I too would be sucked into the immediacy maw and be lured into venting my opinions, valuable or not, in the blogosphere.

Are the brains of animals hard-wired to detect the footfalls (or wingflaps) of predators? Dr. Cord Westhoff thinks so.

<I><B>Walking Down Rainhill</B></I><BR>
Hitchhike Records