Assorted Bob – Page 107 – Suffering The Benz

Several interesting tidbits that have been building over the past several days/weeks:

Bottoms up: Got into some moonshine Friday night, and it was great stuff. A friend of mine is working on a documentary about disappearing Appalachian lifestyles, and one of the people they’re profiling is Popcorn Sutton, an infamous moonshiner. My friend had the presence of mind to buy a jug of Popcorn’s finest, which Popcorn even signed for him. It really was amazing. Not the wince-inducing turpentine most people think of when someone mentions moonshine. Check this out for a great photo of Popcorn.
Financial bliss: When I switched to a Mac at home, the only regret I had was not being able to find decent financial software. MS Money, which I liked pretty well on PC, wasn’t available, and Quicken, which I eventually settled for, simply sucks. It’s clearly a PC program that was puked over onto the Mac platform. Last week, I stumbled upon iBank. After poking around with it for a bit, I’ve dumped Quicken and made the switch. It’s designed for OS X and behaves accordingly. Only two complaints thus far: It doesn’t allow you to have “twice monthly” automated transactions, but I found a workaround for that by scheduling two monthly transactions, one of the 1st and one on the 15th; and it is a little goofy when you go to assign categories, forcing you to back out to the category option if the one you want to assign doesn’t already exist. Minor issues, compared to the supreme kludginess of Quicken.
Jazz find: They played a tune from Michael Blake’s 2002 recording “Elevated” on the public radio jazz show this week. Loved it. Told iTunes to fetch me a copy. I’ve been listening to it non-stop. Definitely worth picking up a copy.
Jerry’s Newfs: Read Phil Lesh’s biography several weeks ago. Some interesting inside stuff about the Dead’s early years, but the most interesting fact I found in the book was that Garcia had a pair of Newfs that he swam with during one of his attempts to get clean and fit.
Let’s get passive aggressive: I’ve been having great fun reading Passiveaggressivenotes.com on a daily basis. Some of the notes posted on there are a total scream.