Paula, your OS is sinfully huge, and just new last year!!! it is absolutely beautiful - it has a "purity" quality about it, as it also does in its yellow stage. I so LOVE this plant. When Paula/Ilovetogrow posted her pic on the Top Gun thread, I immediately fell for it. There were so many beautiful contenders I really had a hard time deciding, then I went with my first reaction. It just happened to be the first pic too, I think. It was a POW moment. Since then I've also acquired a few others from that thread. I'm grateful you added last year's pic. I think You must have been dancing all the way home with that one when you got it :-) Love the yard, I laughed right out loud when I read your comment...still chortling! Thanks! ;-) Eleven, you have the ultimate canopy for hosta gardens. Just look at that beacon in the centre of the bed! All other plants seem to "attend" to her. Very, very lovely. Is that Devon Green down a bit from FD? Near what looks like Inniswood? Don't have either but guessing from memory? MadPlanter, you're so on point! I do have many other hostas that are compensating for the loss, extraordinarily doing so well. Each day I notice something new, or see leaves widen, corrugation appear, etc. I am in my element! The biggest difference this year is that there are no slug holes!!! I haven't seen a slug for at least a week now. I can enjoy the beauty of leaf and shape of a hosta without being distracted by slug bites. I'm convinced the population decreased due to the harsh winter. The small ones I found helped themselves to the bait I scattered around and they are gone! As for your MMA, I'm sorry you had to be disappointed. After I read your comment I checked on it in my Grenfell/Shadrack Encyclopedia and the centre does go through colour changes, but it doesn't go all green at all. It likes morning sun to maintain its lighter centre. You deserve the real thing!

>>Some people can't tell the difference between average coffee and really good coffee, and so they don't care. Yeh, sure . . . some. But most people can tell because there is in fact a significant difference, so it's not a correct analogy. (And for the group of people that can't tell, why would they want to waste their money on expensive coffee ?) >>The same and the same as between average wine and really good wine. That's somewhat true, because the differences are much more subtle. But that begs the same question. Moreover, there's a problem of hype and expectation there . . . is a $200 bottle of wine really and noticeably 2000% better than a $10 bottle of wine in a blind test ? >>You get the picture. For sound, many have become accustomed to playing crippled lossy files through crappy sound systems and so yes, many can't tell the difference. That doesn't mean there isn't one. I have a medium quality system (several thousands but not several tens of thousands, nor several hundreds) and most people have been able to tell the difference if I do an A-B with high and low quality files. You just made the argument for "there's NO reason to not rip to lossless files" to be false. You're making a case for why some (5% ? - pick a number, doesn't matter) elite group of people might want to use lossless, whereas the rest wouldn't. As well, for some purposes yes, for others, no. We're not talking about "high and low quality files", we're talking about lossless, vs high quality compressed, and often less. Sure, there's a difference, but can a majority of the population (2σ of the mean) with the majority of systems out there tell ? No, and not even on decent systems. The evidence just doesn't support it. Thus, never say Never. There is not a one size fits all. ;-) This post was edited by kbarb on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 0:38

Don't know what "Docusate" is, marcolo, but does it help with a tooth ache? What can i say but that your grumpiness is rubbing off on me. :-) Still, I stand behind my sentiment including my frustration with the posts on GW both from nervous would-be owners and the peanut gallery that seems to encourage the mindless pursuit of some imaginary definition of perfection. This from people who - based on the collective set of their sentiments, statements and photographic documentation don't see that their own endeavours in their activities fall far short of achieving "perfection" - and understandably. The end result with the goading is more in line with bullying than holding a standard. That recognition to me came in a post that I saw from someone here many many years ago. Poster and her husband were doing a large remodel or a rebuild. It was a complex project as they had to attend to myriad issues, surprises and unexpected plan changes, so she said that they just asked the soapstone fabricators to do their best for them with the best slab they could give them as they couldn't add attending to slab selection and counter layout for fab to their plate. They said they preferred a movement-y soapstone of whatever variety and then left it at that. Well came counter installation day and they were nervous as they were going to be surprised. Well, you can guess what the average GWian reaction would be, right? Horror at the selection. Horror at the portion of the slab used. "I would have wanted this piece over here and that piece over there". "This horrible patch of pale gold in a stream of cream should have been cut around ... ". "I've been gypped ..." Not so. This couple said that they were excited but nervous about what they'd get. She said - and I'll never forget this - "we were left speechless. It was even more beautiful than we'd ever imagined." She loved the slab selection; she loved the counter layout the fab picked from the slab; she loved how it appeared in her kitchen ... If you looked at the stone in her kitchen - it had a thick band of white in a dark soapstone and it was easily what the populace here would be doing a collective double over and regurgitate yesterday's dinner over. I was moved reading her post because it was as much a commentary about the beauty in the vagaries in the much vaunted natural materials as it was an instruction in the how the right set of eyes and mind can appreciate said material. That it is done in the whole and not in scrutinizing the minutiae. Now, I'm not that easy-going to be sure and I have had no end of opinions about how wood or stone grain should zig vs. zag (minimally), how trees should grow their branches (symmetrically), how rose bushes should arch etc. But this lady issued the best instruction by personal example about how to appreciate nature. It governed my own ideas about regulating the tightness in the reins on my counter selection - at the time I was trying to figure out if I wanted a particular engg quartz or a black granite ctrtop. I decided that if I was going to go for the granite (that I'd convey to the fabricator what I generally wanted) and then let go and really prepare to be pleasantly surprised. It isn't to say that if you say "I like natural stuff" that you don't get to have an opinion about whether you get a carrera or a statuary or a black granite or a blue quartzite in your home. Really it is more about the fact that once you've realized the key characteristics about what you like, if you need something that zigs exactly the way you see it in your mind's eye and zags just the way you see it, then you are not looking at the right material. The best posts to my mind are the ones who delight in the surprises in their natural materials and the ones who delight in the perfect symmetry and perfect matches achieved in their engineered materials. Anything else makes me feel sad as I feel the poster made the wrong material selection. Madeline, this isn't to say anything to you other than that you might honestly prefer a different class of material - maybe it a man-made but maybe it is a different marble, as others have said. Calacatta with thick veins is more the norm in what I've seen than not.

I've had speakers in the ceiling all over the house, with centralized components, for nearly ten years, including in the kitchen. They don't get nearly as dusty as lower ones do because gravity has its way with dust. If you don't put them right where your hood should be, or directly over an unvented oven, they don't get cooking effluent either. I'd say the ceiling is the best place for the speakers. Rather than just going to a cupboard, you can run the wires to a component system in another room. Or you can put them on bluetooth to an ipod dock. One pair of decent speakers should do you fine. The good ones aren't particularly expensive nowadays. Just pay attention to the locations so most of the people spots (work zones and seating) get both speakers instead of just one channel. Cleaning is just a matter of getting up on a ladder, removing the grill and dusting. If you have a lot of dirt incursion into your house, a lot of exterior dust (earth), pollen or pollution, you might need to do this once or twice a year. :) Some people don't like music in the kitchen. I've found that XM caliente is fantastic cooking music! And while I don't generally play holiday music at other times, it's great for cooking for holidays, especially the massive run-up to Passover. Frankly, your husband's argument sounds to me more like an "I don't really care and can't be bothered" than a real concern. That is, it would be if it were any one of the men in my life. If that's what it sounds like to you, overrule him!