Egads jabe...I AM NOT FROM TEXAS! Hahaha. Walter asked me this same question a few years back, so I'll reprint my answer to him... Well, I do have a story, Walter...although I don't know how interesting you'll find it. Probably as interesting as any story from the 1,127th most interesting man in the world can be. First I'll start with the basics...as a kid, although I was born in LA, we moved when I was 2 or 3 to Huntington Beach, smack dab in Surf City, USA...Orange County, CA. So being in Orange County, we were a little sensitive about the big bad city to our north. I saw a California Angel game before I ever saw a Dodger game. Nolan Ryan was pitching. The Angels also seemed more colourful, wild and wooly(this was the 70s...the greatest decade ever for hairy sports heroes: crazy mustaches and afros and long hair sticking out from under helmets and caps) than the staid, clean-cut Dodgers, led by Mr. All-American Steve Garvey. Basketball-wise, I could be a Laker fan because Orange County had no basketball team, so it was Lakers or nothing. But after watching the heartbreak of the Lakers loss to Boston in the 1969 Finals, and the class and dignity of Jerry West, and the enthusiasm that the late, great announcer Chick Hearn brought to the game, it was pretty easy to be a Laker fan and not feel like you were just jumping on the bandwagon. Plus, in those days, the NBA might as well have been tiddly-winks, for all the majority of the country was concerned. Kids today have NO IDEA how different things are regarding the popularity of basketball and the NBA in particular. Being an NBA fan in those days of the 60s and 70s felt like being part of an underground cult. Which was another key to how I became a Raider fan. As I grew up in the 60s and became a rock and roller, and ingrained and interested in all things counterculture, if you were a hippie-rocker who was anti-establishment, the NFL was the evil empire and the AFL were the Jedi knights. The NFL Los Angeles Rams were this boring CORPORATE team who had George Allen as a coach...this was the guy who took play tips from Tricky-Dick Nixon, ferchrissakes! Yeah, the Fearsome Foursome was great, but for the most part, I hated the brand of football they played...run, run, run, 3 yards and a cloud of dust(just like the Big 10 college teams who always came to the Rose Bowl and get their hearts broken by USC and other Pac-8 teams who didn't treat the forward pass like a disease). They were safe, boring, predictable...and I even hated their uniforms. Also, because they played in the huge LA Coliseum, and because of the NFL's insane rules, their games were frequently blacked out...only when they were on the road would you have a chance to see them on TV. On the other side of the ledger, you had the Oakland Raiders of the AFL...and you couldn't pick a more contrasting-style team to the Rams if you tried. They were wild and crazy, aggressive in tactics and demeanor, they had hair and mustaches everywhere, they had awesome uniforms and logos...and they had the coolest sports theme song ever: If the AFL was the jedi revolt to the NFL's evil empire, then the Raiders were Luke Skywalker...or on second-thought, maybe they were more like Han Solo. For you soccer fans, imagine the Raiders being like the Brazilian or German World Cup teams: always attacking and free-wheeling, while the Rams were like the cowardly Italians, who just pack it in on defense and play for a tie. Hell, the Raiders even had a quarterback they called the "Mad Bomber": Darryl Lamonica! They had the ancient yet ageless George Blanda, whose accomplishments are too numerous to mention. They had a player, Jim Otto, with the uniform number "00"! How cool is that?!? They threw the ball all over the field from any field position and they played defense the same way, man-to-man, attacking and coming from all angles. Unlike the Rams, who pussied out and played mostly zone defense. John Madden, Fred Biletnikoff, "Old Man" Willie Brown, Big Ben Davidson, Gene Upshaw, Art Shell, Kenny "The Snake" Stabler, Mark van Eeghen, Clarence Davis, John Matuszak, Dave Casper, Cliff Branch, Jim Plunkett, Ted "The Mad Stork" Hendricks, Lester "The Molester" Hayes, Mike Haynes, Howie Long, Matt Millen...and last but not least, the coolest and greatest punter ever, Ray Guy...the only punter to hit the jumbotron in the New Orleans Superdome with one of his punts. Plus, it sometimes seemed like they were on tv more than the Rams were. I still can tell you the exact day I became a Raider fan...Sunday, November 17, 1968. NY Jets at Oakland Raiders on NBC. Yes, the famous "Heidi" game. It was the wildest craziest game I'd ever seen, and in fact, still is to this day. Unlike the poor folks in the midwest and east, we on the West Coast got to see the entire game; it had started 1:00pm PST, which was 4pm EST, so there was no danger of NBC cutting to "Heidi" for those of us in California. I fell in love with the team on the spot...I became a member of Raider Nation, the Silver & Black. Of course, just like with the Angles and Lakers, I had to pay my dues and see my team falter time and time again in the playoffs. But that just made the victories sweeter when they did come. Super Bowl wins in the 1976 and 1980 seasons rank among my most treasured memories...especially the Super Bowl in 1977 at the Rose Bowl, where the Raiders demolished the Minnesota Vikings, which remains the lone Super Bowl game I attended in person. When the Raiders announced they were moving to Los Angeles, I was both excited and concerned. Excited because my favourite team was moving closer to home. Concerned because I knew with the gi-normous Coliseum and the NFL blackout rules, there was a possibility that with the Raiders in LA, I would actually see LESS Raider games on TV than when they were in Oakland. Plus, everyone who knew anything about local politics of the time knew that the LA Coliseum Commission were a bunch of idiots. It was their bungling that led the Lakers to flee the Sports Arena and build the Fabulous Forum, for which Led Zeppelin is thankful. It was their bullshit that made UCLA seek a place to play elsewhere. Then their incompetence cost the Coliseum the Rams, who moved to Anaheim to escape the stench flowing from the LA Coliseum Commission. So I knew the combination of Al Davis and the Coliseum Commission would be a volatile one; sure enough, it was...almost right from the start. Of course, at that very moment I was entering the Army, so it didn't really matter...I was in Missouri, then Texas, then Germany, so the blackouts didn't affect me. I had a year of gloating during the 1983-84 season, when I could lord it over the Ram fans, whose team never won a Super Bowl during their entire stay in LA and Anaheim, while the Raiders in just their second year in LA won the Super Bowl over the defending champs, the Washington Redskins. I was in Germany at this time, and I had to get up at around 3 or 4am to watch the game...but it was worth it! Not just for the Raiders victory and watching hometown USC hero Marcus Allen(my favourite Raider) run circles around the Redskins; but also for the huge amounts of money I won in bets with all the Washington fans on base, hahaha! Yes, it has been a long dry spell since then, save a brief period in the early 2000s when it looked like we might return to glory with Jon Gruden. But save for the Super Bowl appearance in 2002(whereupon that strange bi-polar incident happened with our starting center and the Raiders didn't look like themselves in that game), it didn't last. At least the team moved back to Oakland, which is where they rightly and spiritually belong...not that it wasn't fun to have them here for a while; and to be able to wear LOS ANGELES RAIDERS gear! But, although it gets harder with each passing season, I still have hope that one day the team will rise from the ashes of the past decade and return to its rightful spot as scourge of the league. So there you have it, Walter. That is how a Southern California boy like me became, and remains, an Oakland Raider fan.

Yes, they are.

Well, after perusing the track listings for the IV and "Houses of the Holy" extra discs, let's just say I am a tad underwhelmed. Considering each disc can hold roughly 70-plus minutes of music, I find the extra discs rather skimpy. Where are the THREE different solos for "Stairway to Heaven"? Throw a live track or two on there. I also don't understand Jimmy's reasoning of only putting something out that hasn't already come out on bootleg. Only a very small percentage of people have heard the studio outtakes and alternate mixes that have been released on Godfatherecords "Studio Magik" and other similar boots over the years. Most Led Zeppelin fans, especially the casual mainstream music fans, have NEVER heard these, and so it would still be new to them. Plus, even for those of us that do have the various boots, we don't have them in near the sound quality that an official release would provide. I, for one, would have loved to have had "Fixing to Die/That's Alright" on the LZ III bonus disc in superior sound quality. Yes, I appreciate the effort Jimmy has put into remastering and the packaging and the different formats on offer. I just think he is wasting a golden opportunity to provide a more fuller and complete picture of the recording process of each album by skimping on the bonus tracks.

I'll take a slice, too.

This thread is about Susan's heartbreak so I will refrain from jumping in about CJW's "men have sex on the brain" post. Susan, I hope you give him the heave-ho. After 17 years I think counselling would be a waste of time...once a cheater, always a cheater. Besides, once the trust issue is broken, it is hard to ever get it back. You will always have that doubt in your mind and no relationship can survive once the trust is gone. I am sure you will have some friends and family saying "give him another chance" and all that tommy-rot, but you deserve better. In fact, after 17 years with the lout, I say you deserve to be on your own for a while...give yourself some "ME time". Do the things you want to do, whenever you feel like doing them. If you spent 17 years with a man with no hint of a wedding, I am guessing that marriage and having kids is not a priority with you, so you certainly don't need a man for validation. Don't rush into a rebound relationship.

Happy Birthday Charles J. White, Esq.! May you have all the water you desire.

What you are talking about is 're-mixing' not 'remastering'. People often get the two confused. Remastering is merely dusting the shelf. Remixing is rearranging the shelf entirely. No amount of remastering is going to make Robert's vocals clearer. Only a remixed ITTOD will change the sound in any significant way.

Happy 35th Birthday to "In Through the Outdoor"! The last true Led Zeppelin studio album. 35 years ago at this very moment, I was waiting outside the Licorice Pizza Record Store on Van Buren across from the Tyler Mall in Riverside, California. It would be another hour before its doors would open for business and I could be among the first to grab a copy of ITTOD on the day of its release. I bought two copies on that day...an "A" and a "D". In the ensuing weeks I completed my set by purchasing the "B", "C", and "E" covers. I still remember the excitement I felt, counting down the minutes to when the doors would open. Peering into the shop to see where the Led Zeppelin display was and if there was any hint to what the album cover looked like beyond the brown paper bag. I was first in line and it took a while before someone else showed up. By the time the shop opened, there were only a few of us waiting in line...less than 10, I think. I rushed over to the Led Zeppelin ITTOD display, picked out two of the most pristine looking copies of the album, then looked around the "New Releases" aisles for any other album that I was interested in...ended up getting Queen's "Live Killers" and Talking Head's "Fear of Music". Raced home on my bike and immediately went to my room and, after carefully opening the shrinkwrap and removing the album from the brown bag, put the record on with my headphones cranked up. I got a bowl of water and a sponge to wipe the album sleeve to see what colours the sleeve photo of the ashtray turned into. Like a silly kid, I opened the other one and also wiped the sleeve with the wet sponge...wanted to see if a different colour pattern emerged. Also wanted to check out the differences in the album cover...it was immediately apparent that the album cover represented different angles of the same scene in a bar. Anyway, as is evident by my posts in this thread, I was one of those who enjoyed ITTOD from the get-go...right from those spooky opening sounds of "In the Evening". It was NEW, that was the important thing...after three long years since "Presence", to finally hear some new Led Zeppelin was of paramount importance to me. I still enjoy ITTOD to this day, and will give it a couple spins during the day. It would be another 24 years before I would line up at a record store in advance of a Led Zeppelin release...that would be in May 2003 for the DVD/How the West Was Won double release at midnight.

Good answer...sounds right to me. Weirdly predictable how IV came out before the others.

I wouldn't buy this book just for the title alone...beyond lame. Plus I've come across this hack Dave Thompson's other books before and it's useless garbage. One to ignore.

Cor blimey! I'm the only one who remembered Robert Plant's birthday?!? A hearty toast to the Leo Lion, The Golden God himself, Robert Anthony Plant...an even 66 today! Keep following your muse, Robert...wherever it leads you. Many thanks for the music you have given us over the years...and all those droll Plantations! Happy birthday Robert and many happy returns of the day!

So much ugliness in the world lately, even in sports, which is supposed to provide a respite from the workaday world. From Little League to the Pros, you hear about the arrests, the tantrums and out-of-control coaches, players, and parents. Then, like a bolt from heaven, every once in a while something happens to remind everyone what is really important in competition and provide an example to the rest of the world of true leadership and how to mentor kids. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rhode Island Little League Coach Dave Belisle. His team had just lost their Little League World Series game to Illinois 8-7 and were in tears. Watch Dave as he gathers his team and gives them (and us) a talk that will melt your heart. I know the year is just half-over but he's my Coach of the Year, no question. http://m.espn.go.com/general/story?storyId=11374566&city=boston&src=desktop&rand=ref~%7B%22ref%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fm%3Fhl%3Den%26gl%3Dus%26client%3Dms-android-lge%26source%3Dandroid-unknown%26action%3Ddevloc%26q%3Dkids%2Breceive%2Bspeech%2Bto%2Bremember%2Bfrom%2Brhode%2Bisland%2Blittle%2Bleague%2Bcoach%22%7D

Not only do we have a beer fridge at work, we've got a grill. So yesterday I grilled some Louisiana hot links and some veggie kabobs for all the employees. Breakkie this morning: Bowl of Cheerios with fresh strawberries and blueberries and 2% lowfat milk. Glass of orange juice. Glass of tomato juice. Two glasses of water.

Marinating some peaches and beets for a salad later on.

THREE of the Top 10 Plays of the Day on ESPN last night were from the Orioles-White Sox game! Keep up the good work Black Birds...one of the few teams I picked in the baseball pool doing well. Adios Boston and Tampa Bay. Counting down the days when Butthead Selig is finally G-O-N-E GONE!!! Although, The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" has been running thru my mind..."Meet the new boss...same as the old boss." What are your thoughts about the new commish?

^^^ You made yourself unhappy? In what way? The good news is that just as one can make oneself unhappy, one can also then turn around and author their own happiness.

If it is your house, why should you have to lose it? You are the one kicking him out and since you are not married, he is not legally entitled to any of your property, right? Glad you finally got some sleep. Scylla had the best advice...sometimes quiet is best. Scylla's entire post was solid gold. Good luck Susan.

PC, I found my sheet with all the picks printed out and decided to make a single post with everyone's picks so it is simple for all of us to reference...and perhaps a little easier for you to tabulate scores. For ease of use, I unified everyone's pick format so that the NL picks are first, then the AL's, the WS prediction, and then the Cy Young picks, and edited for spelling and clarity. Walter and zepscoda did not submit their Cy Young picks. paul carruthers's picks: NL East: Atlanta NL Central: Pittsburgh NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Washington, St. Louis AL East: Boston AL Central: Detroit AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Cleveland, Baltimore World Series Prediction: LA Dodgers vs. Detroit NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander (Detroit) LedZeppfan77's picks: NL East: Washington NL Central: Cincinnati NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Arizona, Atlanta AL East: Baltimore AL Central: Detroit AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Seattle, Kansas City World Series Prediction: LA Dodgers vs. Baltimore NY Cy Young: Jose Fernandez (Miami) AL Cy Young: Chris Tillman (Baltimore) ebk's picks: NL East: Atlanta NL Central: St Louis NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Washington, San Francisco AL East: Boston AL Central: Detroit AL West: Texas AL Wild Cards: Baltimore, Oakland World Series Prediction: LA Dodgers vs. Detroit (Detroit wins) NL Cy Young: Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: Yu Darvish (Texas) zepscoda's picks: NL East: Philadelphia NL Central: St. Louis NL West: San Francisco NL Wild Cards: LA Dodgers, New York Mets AL East: Baltimore AL Central: Detroit AL West: Texas AL Wild Cards: Kansas City, Tampa Bay World Series Prediction: Philadelphia vs Texas Walter's picks: NL East: Atlanta NL Central: St. Louis NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Cincinnati, San Francisco AL East: Boston AL Central: Detroit AL West: Texas AL Wild Cards: Yankees, Angels World Series Prediction: St. Louis vs. Boston (St. Louis wins) Strider's picks: NL East: Atlanta NL Central: St. Louis NL West: San Francisco NL Wild Cards: Washington, Cincinnati AL East: Baltimore AL Central: Detroit AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Boston, Tampa Bay World Series Prediction: San Francisco vs. Detroit NL Cy Young: Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez (Seattle) jb126's picks: NL East: Washington NL Central: St. Louis NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: San Francisco, Atlanta AL East: Tampa Bay AL Central: Detroit AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Boston, Kansas City World Series Prediction: LA Dodgers vs. Tampa Bay NL Cy Young: Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: David Price (Detroit) jabe's picks: NL East: Atlanta NL Central: St. Louis NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Pittsburgh, San Francisco AL East: Tampa Bay AL Central: Cleveland AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Detroit, Boston World Series Prediction: Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland NL Cy Young: Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: Max Scherzer (Detroit) Bong-Man's picks: NL East: Washington NL Central: St. Louis NL West: LA Dodgers NL Wild Cards: Cincinnati, Atlanta AL East: Boston AL Central: Detroit AL West: Oakland AL Wild Cards: Tampa Bay, Texas World Series Prediction: Cincinnati vs. Detroit NL Cy Young: Kershaw (Dodgers) AL Cy Young: Anibal Sanchez (Detroit)

Happy Birthday ebk!!! May you have a glorious day and may your Orioles beat the White Sox tonight! Cheers!

Boring.

I should hope so. Well, I screwed up my day but I'm trying to salvage what's left. Lunching on a salad of baby arugula, beets, burrata cheese, walnuts, blueberries and cranberries, citrus vinaigrette. Also some mushrooms sautéed in sherry lovingly nestled on a bed of mashed redskin potatoes. A glass of water and a glass of 2012 Cline Cellars Cashmere red wine to wash it down.

Yeah, well while you were posting Arsenal tied it up just before halftime. Mind your defense, man!

The season started today. My only question is how Liverpool will torment their fans this year after last season's fiendish collapse? Right now my telly screen says Ars 0 CP 1...apparently chillumpuffer is taking on the entire Arsenal side single-handed!

You poor child. Losing a beloved grandmother is so sad. May I offer my condolences and sympathy.

Damn. Damn. Damn. The Grim Reaper adds another to his toll this week...Jay Adams. http://m.ksbw.com/news/skaterboarder-jay-adams-dies-at-age-53-friends-say/27510884 This really hits hard for me, for as a Southern California skate-surf-rat, Jay Adams was a true icon of my youth. One of the original Dogtown Zephyr Skate team, I had Jay Adams photos up on my wall next to my Led Zeppelin and Gerry Lopez and Steve McQueen ones. Only a year older than me. Damn. Rest in peace Jay.