Bit Torrent

Allow me to rave (once again? I'm not sure) about bit torrent. If you haven't delved into the magic of bit torrent, give it a shot. You can read up on how to get started on Wikipedia and, if you are into bootlegs like me, then jump on over to Dime a Dozen and bask in the glory of what is offered by the websites's users. I have downloaded mad Led Zeppelin, especially early stuff. It may sound rough due to the limitations of audience recording back then but the shows are always amazing. I just can't say enough about how you can fill every little niche of your musical taste. Until I started messing around with bit torrent I could never find a Georgia Satellites bootleg. Now I have two. I never have been able to find a Was (Not Was) bootleg until tonight. You can find jazz on this site, obscure metal and blues bootlegs you never knew might even exist. It's a revelation.

There are bit torrent tracking sites out there where you can find illegal music and movies but don't waste your time with that. All you usually find there is mainstream stuff you can get anywhere and it's illegal and immoral to download that material according to our government and they know all about what is illegal and immoral, believe me. That's what is beautiful about Dime a Dozen, all the music indexed on that site consists of unreleased live shows and demo recordings so on one is losing any money. We all know that if you care enough about an artist to download their live bootlegs and takes 5, 6 and 7 of Strawberry Fields then you probably have all their albums anyway, so enjoy.

Other collecting goodness

I found a group on Yahoo! of guys that trade old NASCAR races. I just received in the mail today a copy of the race at Talladega in 1987 where Bobby Allison flew his car into the catch fence on the front stretch. The car takes out about 100 feet of the fence and came within a hair of going into the crowd. If that fence hadn't been reinforced shortly before that race his car would have gone into the crowd and NASCAR may have ended right then and there.

I watched a chunk of the race tonight after work and it's amazing how great the racing was when the cars were unrestricted. The pure speed and side by side racing is amazing. Much better than the big pack racing that takes place these days. For my feelings on today's superspeedway racing see my rant below. If NASCAR could find some way to stage a race at those big tracks that even remotely resembles what they were doing there in the 80's they would have a TV cash cow that would knock their socks off. You would think that alone would cause them to figure a way to fix the problem.