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Archive for December, 2008

getting there (especially in the city!): Sony NVU73T 4.3” Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on December 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

I’ve owned five GPS units. The Sony NVU73T is the best of them. I picked mine up at a Radio Shack in a hurry when my Garmin fritzed out like those old 1960s black-and-white pictures of what would happen to your TV if the Soviets snuck one through our defenses onto, say, an unsuspecting Kansas City.

Googling ‘Russians drop atomic bomb’ has not yielded any news reports but I sure am glad I listened to the Seattle techie at the Shack who said ‘this is a new product and it’s better than anything you’ve ever seen.’ He was right. (more…)

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sacred geometry of chance: Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

If he had never played another note, Ten Summoner’s Tales would by itself have cemented Sting’s stature as one of the late 20th century’s premier song writers. The music on this 1994 release still beguiles and satisfies, neither one stingily.

‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ proves Sting the past master of the oblique love song. He approaches his object in a circling pattern, canvassing all things that might serve as the existential center of the universe but fail to do so before the tenacious matter of his love for this woman. Though the Police hinted at the genre with the mildly obsessive ‘I’ll Be Watching You’ and Sting himself would crown it with ‘I’ll Still Love You’ on the Brand New Day CD, ‘Lose My Faith’ is the real flower in mature bloom. It is exquisite song-writing, performed unforgettably by what Sting has elsewhere called his ‘unschooled tenor’. (more…)

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a lot for a little: Hewlett Packard Officejet J5750 All-in-one Print Copy Scan Fax

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The Officejet J5750 is my first home-office move into an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/scanner device. I’ll never go back to multiple options.

That is not to say that the J5750 is the sturdiest or most reliable HP product I’ve ever owned. It is not. The simple HP1012 and 1200 printers, for example, easily outpace the J5750 on both counts. But then they don’t shoot for the same degree of difficulty as the all-in-one does, either. (more…)

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safety in numbers: Zechariah 8

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Zechariah inhabits that prophetic intermezzo in which the divine purpose lurches redemptively between well-earned judgment and the most deeply inevitable restorative mercy. It is not a bad place for a poet to live, for the space is rich in drama and pregnant with unanticipated action. Certainty of doom crumbles over and again when YHWH decides he simply cannot continue to curse those whom his heart drives him to bless. (more…)

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kicking up dust: Point of Grace, Steady On

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Point of Grace‘s extraordinary 1998 release displayed the formula working at full strength. Tight harmonies, Bannister-ish orchestration, flawless execution from start to finish, this was an album of Big Songs. There’s not a lot of angst or soul-searching in this album. PoG would only rarely go in that direction. Instead the four women of that era’s PoG majored on encouraging Christian messages with which `positive radio’ makes hay. (more…)

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desperate prayer: Psalm 143

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on December 24, 2008| 1 Comment »

No joy accompanies a prayer that’s been returned to sender. The leaden, silent skies mock our attempts to penetrate them. Our words deflect and fall to the soil that’s been dampened by our tears and packed hard by our restless pacing. (more…)

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strange things: Proverbs 30

Posted in textures, tagged , , on December 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The biblical proverbs owe a portion of their potency to what we might call the shock-and-recognize phenomenon. The pithy statements that are the warp and woof of this wisdom anthology are capable of startling with the apparent novelty of a declaration, then allowing the reader to settle back into the realization that, yes, he always felt that way but wouldn’t have found the words to say so. (more…)

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no reason not to move up: HP 75XL Tri-color Inkjet Print Cartridge

Posted in reseña, tagged , on December 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

When Hewlett Packard introduced the ‘XL’ version of its Inkjet printer cartridges, I was skeptical. If it’s that easy to fit three times the ink into a cartridge designed for my printer’s unforgiving cartridge socket for roughly twice the price of the standard size, why did HP start out with the smaller size in the first place?

Truth be told, the question still lingers. (more…)

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no reason not to move up: HP 74XL Black

Posted in reseña, tagged , on December 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

When Hewlett Packard introduced the ‘XL’ version of its Inkjet printer cartridges, I was skeptical. If it’s that easy to fit three times the ink into a cartridge designed for my printer’s unforgiving cartridge socket for roughly twice the price of the standard size, why did HP start out with the smaller size in the first place?

Truth be told, the question still lingers. (more…)

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never complains, never apologizes: HP LaserJet 1012 Printer

Posted in reseña, tagged , on December 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This economical little black-and-white printer may be the most reliable laser printer I’ve ever owned, and I’ve known a few. Our family networks to this printer from several computers scattered around the house via a wireless hub. This assures that it will print small, casual print runs as well as business items from my home office downstairs.

Short story: it never fails.

No alignment problems, no eternally processing virtual logjams, no blurring. Just one sharp print run after another. If HP ever alters the recipe, let’s hope it’s in the direction of some concrete improvement that I cannot at this imagine. Because right now, everything works

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