Second, the stereo unit is driving us nuts. There's some kind of loose connection (or several) in the speaker system, so that periodic "impact therapy" is required to get any sound out of it. It seems, after the manner of all mechanical things, to censor NPR in proportion to our interest in the story being broadcast.

Hence the Ask Husi item: What should we look for in a stereo, if we're only spending a couplea hundredbucks on it? Now that the MA tax-free weekend is past, we can go back to spending with mad abandon.

I have the glimmerings of an idea for the WFC. When, precisely, is the deadline? And well, OK, but a bad idea is still an idea, idnit?

So my series of tales about my sordid past in the space biz has had rather mixed response, ranging from "+1 FP!" to a silent yawn. More? or is that enough?

And another Ask Husi item: My existing 12-string Ventura guitar has developed a problem; actually it's been developing since before I bought the damn thing when I was in High School. There's a crack around the back of where the neck joins the body, and the neck bows a bit more than I'd like. This has the result that the action is to die for, or to die of, or something: you hafta press the strings rather far to get them to fret. This in turn increases the tension, making them audibly sharper than they should be, and rendering any kind of tuning scheme even more approximate than equal temperament and the mathematical vagaries of human pitch sense would demand.

So, I either need a metric allen wrench, so I can tighten up the rod that's embedded in the neck (tried the English ones last time I changed the strings); or I need a new guitar. Advice? Again pricetag in the couplea hundredbucks range, not thousand[s].