I rarely find myself praising anything I find online, but there are a few standout websites that I visit regularly that are genuinely helpful to me on a regular basis.  These sites, for the most part, are free to use, and the advertising is not that intrusive.  For years, I used Altavista as my main search engine, but these days, Google is my number one choice in search engines.   When they began their public beta (testing) period for their mail service, Gmail, I signed up early on and giave it a fair try.  Since then, they have added numerous other free services for end users, and they are just now beginning to charge corporations for use of these services in an enterprise setting.  Google has come a long way, and I felt I should share some of my discoveries in case you may have overlooked them.

I’m not a hardcore gamer, but I still enjoy a good hour or two with an entertaining video game.  The Lego Star Wars game was released a couple of years ago, but it recently dropped to the sub-$20 price level, meaning it was an easy purchase for me.  I had never really paid attention to it, but for the money, it was worth a try.  I was not sure if it would just be a rip-off of the Star Wars story that would grow old after a couple of plays, or provide something unique.

Since I rewired that Music Hall turntable a few weeks ago, I’ve been giving it a chance in my main system to see how it behaves. I had mixed feelings when I bought it, and that has not changed. I certainly have reservations about recommending it to anyone, but in actuality, it is not really a bad little turntable. Confused? Read on.

A&M Corner got word today from Shout Factory that three new Tijuana Brass reissues are now available: the fan favorite Warm, the western-themed The Brass Are Comin’, and the overlooked second album of the TJB, Volume 2. Herb Alpert’s solo recording, Rise, is also imminent for reissue. Like the tired old cliché goes: there’s good news, and there’s bad news.