Just got back from a feeding-my-live-music-jones trip to LA and San 
Diego... saw Neil Finn, Rhett Miller, Jonathan Richman, David Garza, Jon 
Brion, and the Solipsistics twice. That oughta hold me for a while.

My main point being, while I was there, I picked up Kristian Hoffman's 
"&." I'd hesitated earlier because some past experience with albums of 
duets has led me to believe that they're often less than the sum of 
their parts - but this is wonderful. Would've made my top five if I'd 
bought it last year. I know I'm way behind the curve on this one, but 
just in case there's anyone out there who's still on the fence, hop on over!

"Circle of Friends" is exactly what it sounds like - they pass out 
ballots to a bunch of people they know. Actually made me homesick 
reading it... I didn't get a ballot to forget to turn in this year! (And 
since I'd just come back from "home," the instant homesickness was kind 
of a bummer. :-)) That's all I'm saying about THAT thread, because I 
grounded myself from Audities for a while and only let myself come back 
on the condition that I don't comment on threads such as that one 
anymore. I'm tough, but fair.

On no subject at all:
I was reading MacAddict, and learned that the pan-and-zoom-on-a-still 
effect in iMovie is called "The Ken Burns Effect." That's the official 
name. I wonder if the effect that allows you to suck all the life out of 
a vibrant topic is called the "Treading Perilously Close To Violating 
Ken Burns' Copyright Effect."

E