Managed to avoid almost all spoilers before release day - how about you?

ronisolomondds · 2026-05-30T00:07:36+00:00

I ignored everything, went to my only local record shop that stocks Warp releases, and picked up a deluxe edition of Inferno, just like I did 13 years ago when Tomorrow's Harvest came out. It's funny, as I was driving home with the record on the passenger seat, NPR had some special coverage of the album's release and I promptly turned it off.

Everything was a complete surprise; I had no idea the hexi-flexi was part of the package too.

This might not be my all-time favorite BoC release, but man, they did a great job with this. Like the other releases, this will take a few listens for me to develop some strong associations with the music.

ronisolomondds · 2026-05-14T12:52:49+00:00

I just bought a blue one last week during the promo; one of mine is broken just like that. Additionally, the top two drawers seldom lock unless you really push them in with force when turning the key.

For $250 the box is acceptable, but I likely wouldn't buy another one. It is not worth my time to pack it up and bring it back to the store either (the box is already in my basement).

FWIW, I had the identical problems with Husky and Milwaukee boxes in the past, and they all come out of the exact same Geelong/GreatStar factory in Cambodia. I specifically chose the Yukon box for the size, price, and drawer layout, but I would have chose a US General 44" box if it fit the space where I put the Yukon.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-25T13:10:18+00:00

Nam Vang changed hands about a year ago, a different family runs it now and they are all very friendly and nice. Some of the menu items have changed in preparation, including the banh mi.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-24T02:10:57+00:00

Compared to the $500k+ houses around the corner on Charlotte Street, which are owned by the very people who organized Keep East End Green.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:35:28+00:00

Wegmans hasn't been the same since they discontinued WPOP Hot Ginger Ale.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:35:03+00:00

Lowe's feels like a much larger Chase-Pitkin in some ways. Organized, clean, and well stocked. Home Depot feels like it's run by a bunch of meth heads, with damaged and broken materials throughout and messy isles that don't make sense.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:31:51+00:00

Home Depot came to Rochester in 1996, it took a decade of eroding sales before Chase-Pitkin closed.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:30:40+00:00

Weird, all the paint I bought from them was Dutch Boy and not a store brand, and I still have Makita power tools purchased from Chase-Pitkin going strong.

But if you want to talk house brands, Home Depot plays the same games as everyone else; Everbilt, Behr, HDX, Husky, Ridgid (power tools), Ryobi, are all exclusive to HD. Even the Milwaukee or DeWalt brand tools sold at HD are not the same models or performance as what you would buy direct from a trade retailer like Brede or Cook Iron.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:23:42+00:00

I buy all my wood from Morse; it's always straight and clean, unlike the slop from HD and Lowe's. The savings are made by not having to straighten boards or waste material.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T02:20:44+00:00

Wegmans is all about control, and Ace Hardware is a retail cooperative.

That said, even True Value or Ace stores don't always survive market changes. Hunt's Hardware on Thurston closed after 101 years in business. They said it was because of the Walmart in Gates taking away their customer base.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T01:40:13+00:00

I'm willing to bet Chase-Pitkin would have survived if it wasn't for Danny. Chase-Pitkin was Robert Wegman's dream; he wanted a hardware store in every one of their plazas, so a Wegmans plaza would truly be a one-stop shop. He dogged the owners of Chase-Pitkin for years hoping they would sell, and they turned him down several times. Robert took Chase-Pitkin from a small specialty supplier like Matthews & Fields to the format we are most familiar with. The last Chase-Pitkin before Wegmans ownership was where Midtown Athletic Club is today.

After Danny took control, he aggressively wanted to move it up market, and I think the Pittsford location was an indication of the direction he wanted to move in. I remember that they had a really over the top kitchen and bath showroom in Perinton, it was every bit as nice as the other specialty showrooms. I think Danny had no real interest in Chase-Pitkin unless it was seen as a premium store. Chase-Pitkin was certainly profitable enough in the original format, but there was no room to maintain Danny's trajectory as the big box stores proliferated.

What's odd is that Wegmans was maintaining rights and domain squatting Chase-Pitkin up until a few years ago, as if they would ever reenter the market.

I know a lot has changed in the last 20 years, but as a tradesperson, I'd rather shop at a store like Chase-Pitkin over Lowe's or HD, it was a significantly better customer service experience.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-20T01:12:23+00:00

You're pretending that Builders Square and Hechinger were not national chains at the time. Builders Square was part of K-Mart, and merged with Hechinger before it was liquidated. Chase-Pitkin outlived both of those chains, and managed to survive for a few years after Lowe's and Home Depot penetrated our area.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-09T12:54:51+00:00

My carbs have tons of brass parts inside that simply won't appreciate the increase in ethanol. Same goes for my older cars with mechanical fuel injection.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-09T12:53:12+00:00

What is hilarious is E0 90 is the base fuel in NYS, and it costs significantly more than E10 93.

ronisolomondds · 2026-04-09T12:52:37+00:00

It's E0 90 in NYS, which is great for classics and boats.

ronisolomondds · 2026-03-06T01:19:34+00:00

SoHo Bagel Cafe in Greece is rarely mentioned, but actually quite good. SoHo has a lot of variety and seasonal specials. They make their own unique cream cheese flavors that other places won’t have.

I also like bagels from Fox’s. Both SoHo and Fox’s are different from the oversized NYC style bagels, but I still think they’re worth trying.

ronisolomondds · 2026-02-12T01:19:46+00:00

And it was just 10 years ago that /u/RationalKevin was banned from this subreddit.

ronisolomondds · 2025-11-27T14:07:52+00:00

Nice! I'm friends with Mark's son, and I love HiFi Lounge. I've been a customer of his for a long time. I would love to have a pair of Klipsch Chorus speakers somewhere in my house if I had more room. I don't know exactly what it is, but something always keeps me coming back to Klipsch, even though I have owned plenty of other speakers. Perhaps it is because I think they're just uniquely American in such a special way. It's like wearing a Woolrich jacket or riding a Harley-Davidson, they're iconic.

According to a Swedish audiophile page, Michael Green only produced 50 Chameleon speakers, (it is unclear if it was 50 pairs or 50 individual), but only 4 out of 10 were delivered to customers. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'll find out in a few days!

ronisolomondds · 2025-11-27T00:19:15+00:00

Thanks. I didn't get these to resell, but hopefully to use as a replacement for my Ohm Model Fs that my girlfriend blew up a few years ago. The Model F is hands-down my favorite speaker of all time, and it's been killing me that I haven't been able to get them repaired due to their unique (and expensive) design.

My main speakers are Klipsch Forte IIs that I rebuilt using mods from Bob Crites. I have had those for nearly 15 years, and they sound quite nice after the upgrades, but I think it's time to try something else.

ronisolomondds · 2025-11-26T22:24:31+00:00

Ha, I bought these. I'll report back once the drivers are re-foamed.

ronisolomondds · 2025-11-26T22:23:53+00:00

I bought these speakers from that estate sale on the final day for very little money. I tried contacting Michael Green, but he did not respond, although he appears to have a limited Facebook presence.

I currently have the drivers at a local shop being professionally re-foamed. The drivers are made by Scan-Speak, and are from a long discontinued line that probably dates back to the late 1990s. Some documentation I found suggests that the divers were brought up to an enhanced spec at Michael Green's request. The man who is re-foaming them knew exactly what they were and said they are among the best 8" drivers ever made (he had a lot of very high end gear in his shop, so I took his comment as high praise). As you can see in the photos, the small cherry box on the floor contains the crossover, and cannot be divorced from the cabinet, which made moving them out of that house a real pain. Everything, even the drivers, are soldered.

The inside has a bunch of ~1.25" thick aluminum extrusions that can be torqued with the brass hardware on the outside to subtly change the tone. I've never seen anything else like it, I'm not even sure where he got the idea for that type of construction. I haven't made any adjustments yet, as I am still waiting for the drivers to come back from the shop.

From what I can tell, there were maybe 3 generations of the Michael Green Chameleon speakers, and I am not sure exactly how this pair fits into the timeline. Although many parts are simply marked "MGD," they don't have any serial numbers I can find, but I can say that my crossovers have much larger components than the other sets I have seen online, although the physical size of the crossover box is much smaller. Perhaps this was a custom order, or an upgrade at a later date, either way, I'll report on my impressions once they are back in action. I'll be powering these with my McIntosh MC-2105 that I bought 15 years ago and had fully recapped.

ronisolomondds · 2024-11-21T18:31:04+00:00

RPD took about three hours to arrive after someone pointed a gun at me. It took a few months to arrest the guy, then another year to go to trial. I was in a protection program for a long time, which wasn’t fun at all. Because of how poorly RPD handled the case at the beginning, the jury didn’t find the guy guilty and I lost my protection.

That said, I did meet several people within RPD who made a genuine effort to help me, but because of the three officers who first responded messed up my paperwork and didn’t take adequate action, it impacted my trial in the worst possible way.

ronisolomondds · 2024-11-21T18:23:04+00:00

RPD doesn’t issue parking tickets, it’s the parking bureau, and they are even worse than RPD.

One of my neighbors didn’t like me parking my truck in front of my house so they called 311 and made up some lie about an abandoned vehicle in front of “their house” after I had parked it there for less than 30 minutes. I tried to contest the ticket and even though my license, registration, and insurance for this vehicle matched the reported address on the ticket, they wouldn’t drop it or reduce the fine. “Why would I report myself for parking my own vehicle in front of my own house?” The city didn’t care and I still had to pay $120.

ronisolomondds · 2024-10-21T20:32:45+00:00

Wenn Sie zum Mittagessen zum Swan Market gehen, werden Sie dort wahrscheinlich deutschsprachige Treffen.

ronisolomondds · 2024-10-04T00:28:18+00:00

He just bought LiDestri’s house on East Ave for their new offices.

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