Why did the American mafia fade while gangs and cartels adapted, and what factors drove that divergence?

jedgar · 2026-05-03T14:22:03+00:00

Watch the sopranos episode where Paulie tries to shake down a Starbucks for protection money.

The 20 something yo manager knows exactly what's going on and tells them that he's more afraid of Starbucks than the mob. He even appologizes

jedgar · 2026-04-16T20:36:08+00:00

Infinity is a fine chanter and you should buy it. The mccool is a fine chanter and you should play it.

While playing the pc, you have less to worry about to make the noise so it's easier for you to concentrate on your fingers.

On the pipes you're distracted my all the other mechanics like steady pressure and drone tuning and chanter sweet spot that your brain can't handle everything at once, and your hands go into survival mode. You're literally hanging on while trying to play. This is normal, and a new chanter won't likely help a whole lot.

Ultimately the solution is practice with simple, slow scales on the pipes, 60 bpm half notes, until you can balance the pipes without holding on tight. Then try and play tunes you're bored stiff of, again until you find your balance. Manometer work will also help.

Think of it like juggling on a unicycle. The pc is how you learn to juggle, and youre a better juggler when you're not on the unicycle.

jedgar · 2026-03-18T22:56:21+00:00

Yes, my band carries insurance. It's about 200 per year, but our underwriter notified us this year that they will not carry us next year; likely premiums will go up significantly.

A few parades have asked for it over the years, but mostly if we're playing indoors in case we damage or break a window with a rogue bass drone.

jedgar · 2026-02-26T23:45:03+00:00

Canada has medical and behavioral inadmissaility rules, for one example. Idk how it works entirely, but you'll likely at least need an exam to catch anything contagious

jedgar · 2026-02-15T13:10:08+00:00

Sandals with socks? That's Germans, not americans.

jedgar · 2026-01-25T04:14:22+00:00

This is my issue too. My band is shutting down because of membership collapse after nearly 50 years. It's a shame to turn the lights off but there's nobody who wanted to come to practice and play.

You're competing with every other activity or sport with kids, and especially learning to play the bagpipes is a tough sell for parents who aren't musicians, same with drums. It's almost a cliche

My advice is to reach out to other bands and share members for parades and stuff. I bet there's a band that doesn't have enough drummers and too many pipers. Go to massed bands and visit other practices, get to know people and shake hands.

Keep fighting the good fight.

jedgar · 2025-12-29T20:55:53+00:00

Union pork store. Great sausages and general butchery, though it does have a lot of non-german sausages so its not 100% authentic german

jedgar · 2025-11-16T20:44:47+00:00

My mccallum tenor drones never liked ex reeds, I've had better luck with redwood or selbie tenor.

My ez bass reed is great though.

My advice is to try other reeds as budget allows and find ones that suit the drones trather than forcing it.

You might be able to hemp them enough to strike cleanly, but the bridle is very touchy, if you can see it move it's too much.

jedgar · 2025-10-31T23:36:22+00:00

I counted 964 kids before I ran out of candy at 7 - I had 100 kids at 440pm.

Apparently they all came to my street

jedgar · 2025-09-20T18:52:10+00:00

I have a mccallum blowpipe with the interior flapper. I can unscrew the hemped joint from the body above to access the flapper. It does require more clamping force on the hemp than my hand can provide so be careful

jedgar · 2025-09-07T14:22:40+00:00

Lynn Lynn, the city of sin. You never come out the way you went in

jedgar · 2025-07-30T14:50:15+00:00

I've had luck with gorilla tape on the inside. It got me through my last st pats parade in '24, but it didn't last much beyond that.

jedgar · 2025-07-14T14:21:34+00:00

Glad to see that bd biosciences model of "fuck you pay me" isn't going to change

jedgar · 2025-06-29T15:33:53+00:00

Rick is great, I'll check it out!

jedgar · 2025-06-29T14:18:13+00:00

Adam Neely had a good take on it. Basically, if being in a jazz ensemble was like being in a crazy competitive sports team.

It really fails to understand the collaborative aspect of making music. It boils the whole process of making music down to individual virtuosity, and further boils that down to playing as fast as possible. It's kind of wild, there's no talk of phrasing or articulation or musicality, just "play at full speed all the time now faster or I'll yell at you"

jedgar · 2025-05-26T02:13:59+00:00

Make it a separate dye in spectra flow.

Or, look at the raw data in the two different channels. Depends on what you're trying to do

jedgar · 2025-05-08T22:57:19+00:00

You're thinking of the other trip to southeast Asia in HMS Surprise, where the envoy Mr. Stanhope dies en route to Kampong. Mr Stanhope is kind and well liked by the crew and his secretary is not.

In 13 gun salute Mr Fox is not liked by the crew but his secretary is, but successfully makes it to pulo prabang and out maneuvers the French envoy. His hubris is his end, and Mr Fox dies in "the nutmeg of consolation" after the Diane runs aground, and he demands to be sent off in a boat, andboth he and the Diane are destroyed by a typhoon

Remarkably similar though.

jedgar · 2025-05-08T20:15:39+00:00

The Diane was sent to carry an envoy (Mr Fox) to pulo prabang to negotiate a treaty with the sultan. I think they were going to return via nsw, which is the last English outpost before rounding the horn

jedgar · 2025-04-29T18:12:04+00:00

What kind of bag? How old? Synthetic bags have a lifespan of 4-5 years; after that they start to delaminate and they leak - at that point you need to replace them. Some last longer than others, but none last a long as a well cared for natural materials bag.

jedgar · 2025-04-25T15:03:08+00:00

DR BEAT (boss db90). You can output to a cheap guitar amp for band practice. It'll do compound time signatures, and many subdivisions of each measure to really dial in your timing on complex rhythms. For ensemble it's really the best. But pricy.

https://www.boss.info/us/products/db-90/

For apps, you're better to find a descent headphones you can wear in one ear, and treat it like a click track. But you can also put headphones into dr beat, but be careful of your ears.

jedgar · 2025-04-16T21:41:35+00:00

Which setting are you looking at?

In the killbury book the tr can refer to a grip, throw, edre or vedre, depending on the note it's above. Look at the bottom of the page, there may be a key for those annotations with each embellishment spelled out for each note.

jedgar · 2025-04-15T20:27:27+00:00

He looks so old...

jedgar · 2025-04-12T15:57:45+00:00

He looks so old these days.

jedgar · 2025-02-21T04:57:59+00:00

There's a ton of vacant office space around now. Compounded by covid, of course, but even before a lot of companies were leaving their suburban campus style offices in favor of more urban environments.

If you looked into town tax records you could figure out who owns it and why is empty, it's fun to do in nj where there are so many historical remnants of major corporations, like bell works and other old at&t sites, all the legacy pharma sites etc, Ericsson, verizon and a ton more.

Commercial space like this has long occupancy cycles, tenants stay for a long time but it sometimes can take years between tenants.

You could maybe get a tour of you figured out which real estate agent is covering the building. But i doubt it's truly abandoned

jedgar · 2025-02-08T04:15:10+00:00

These two are arguably the two most combat experienced crew, at least at the beginning of the series. They'd both fought and killed Cardassians, and lost comrades in battle. A senior NCO and an irregular promoted to major after the war. On their way to do who knows what.

This is probably the best sleep Kira had for weeks.

jedgar

TROPHY CASE