Happy New Year of the Pig

I love Google for taking the care to celebrate everyone's festival and holiday. This year it is the Pig's turn, and you can see the other 11 animals waiting in the wings.

The left pic shows Piggie, friend of Gerald the elephant, in the highly popular children books of Mo Willems that say more about friendship than adult authors. My favorite pig!

Happy Year of the Pig

In the US, it is Chinese New Year's Eve, but in Asia, it is already New Year's Day, and folks had already finished their big family meal.

I wish to say Happy New Year to all my friends in Hong Kong - I miss you fellows greatly. In many ways, HK has shaped my audiophile journey more than the US. Especially in the 90's, exposure to gears, be it modern or vintage, was unrivaled - priceless education.

Pigging Out

It is going to be a quiet evening for us here, but yesterday our unruly crowd made another Long Island trip (roll down page for last trip) and pigged out, not once but TWICE. That was like pre-celebration of New Year for us.

First we visited R. Simon and Andy worked hard to fix his Walker pump, while I continue my "job" of picking fault with the main system. The paella seafood lunch, with risotto and garnished with sweet peppers, was absolutely marvelous.

VAS Stephen brought over the Linn LP 12 he hot-rodded for R. The Akito arm was re-wired with VPI tonearm wire. His ruby stylus Denon "DL-103" was also installed. Together with VAS step-up transformer, the combo seemed to be making good music but I was too deeply in conversation at the dining table to listen critically, only sauntering in and out of the horn room.

Then we re-visited Mark. The Accuphase amp had surely improved the bass but it seemed the treble became coarser. No matter, the real purpose was to eat hot pot, to mop up the leftover from last time.

In all, it augured well for the year of the Pig. The same to you all.