u/Stuckin73

Hello, Oaklanders!

I have an old Onkyo receiver from the mid-80s. I know that the way the world is today, it is often "cheaper to buy a new one" than to pay for a repair. I'm hoping that somewhere in our fair city, or close by, is a good old fashioned electronics repair shop that can restore this receiver back to life. The basic problem is that it's not sending a signal to one of the speakers, and I've checked that both speakers are, in fact, working.

I found a repair place in Alameda, Champlifier, but they are geared more towards high end audio. I could buy a whole new system for what they are looking to charge. I'm hoping to find a shop that maybe only exists in my memory: a guy or gal who's been doing this kind of thing for decades. They repair radios, TVs, small appliances. Similar to a shoe repair place, but for electronics.

Does this exist? Or, has this gone the way of the eight-track cassette, the VTR, and everything else from my childhood? Thanks!

Why is it that I can walk into any grocery store and find at least five different varieties of hummus, as well as some babaganoush, but never prepared Tahini SAUCE. I want to be specific, I'm not talking about a jar of shelf-stable tahini with no other ingredients. I'm talking about a blend of tahini plus lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, etc. The stuff you drizzle over falafel, not the stuff that makes up 90% of the recipe for what you drizzle over falafel and has the consistency of peanut butter.

Why can Hummus sit refrigerated, on the shelves of groceries, but Tahini Sauce cannot?

Hi folks,

You know the frisbee golf course in Aquatic Park? It looks like somebody dropped napalm along the train tracks. Literally every single tree, every bush, everything that is green and grows has been decimated. Wha' happen'?

Does anyone know if Grand Lake Sew & Vac on Grand Ave is owned by the same people who run Berkeley Vacuum & Sewing Center on Shattuck? Does anyone have a preference for which store deserves my purchase? Thanks!

This is a CD single I own. There is absolutely no difference between the version of Say It Ain't So on this CD single, which is labeled "remix previously unreleased", and the "standard version" on The Blue Album. What gives? Does anyone have any insight? Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/yva74kck3veh1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=502b1c936078fbddce386cb460d37354cbad6787

https://preview.redd.it/7ra03jck3veh1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85f3bc79d39f8a33b8abf63f8273dba1e08ada46

I'm not saying doing all of these things is going to cure your insomnia. Especially those of you who have had it since you were a child, those of you who technically shouldn't even be alive right now. My particular flavor of sleeplessness was the hyper-awareness / hyper-vigilant type, so if that doesn't describe your symptoms you can skip this post entirely, no need to express yourself as to why I'm wrong or "You shouldn't say this works, because it doesn't work for ME!!!" 😫

1. COTTON, Cotton, cotton. Your sheets, your blankets, every part of your bed that touches your body should be cotton. Your body needs to be able to breathe when you're sleeping (or, as the case may be, lying in bed not sleeping.) Even if this means you're not as warm as you used to be. That's okay. Get used to being colder in bed. Being too hot in bed may very well be one reason why you're not sleeping.

2. No overhead lighting for the final three hours of your day. This one does not seem obvious, but actually makes a lot of sense. Don't have any lights on above your head. Don't do anything that might possibly fool your body into thinking it's daytime. Lights should be things like desk lamps, table lamps, or floor lamps that are not too tall. Using the bathroom? Consider having a night light because pretty much everyone's bathroom lighting is overhead. In short, three hours before the time you plan to be in bed, don't create any situation that mimics the Sun being overhead. Instead, mimic candles being on a table or a desk. (If we lived at any point in humanity's existence up until 150 years ago or so, it was DARK when it was night time. Our bodies and our minds have not caught up with our technology, so get back to how it used to be. When the sun went down, our world got darker, or was illuminated by fire, at a low level.)

3. You probably know this already, but have SOME ritual, SOME routine, that signals to your mind and body, "Now is when we go to sleep." It could be anything. It could be a night time prayer, it could be laying out your clothes for the next day, it could walking around the house/apartment and checking that all the lights are off. What you do doesn't matter. The fact that you're doing it consistently is what matters. For me, this might sound ridiculous, but the simple act of putting two towels over my bedroom windows, in order to block out the ambient light from outside, lets my mind/body know we're going to bed.

4. This last one I'm sure you've heard before, but it really is critical. Have a consistent "Going to bed time" and a consistent "Getting out of bed time." I know first-hand that this can be challenging. I work in Event Production and there are some days when we're loading out of a venue until 2am, so going to sleep every night at 11pm is not always an option. That's okay, do your best to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.

Our bodies like consistency. We are creatures of habit. Don't change up your sleep schedule daily/nightly. Do your best to target the same time of getting in bed and getting out of bed.

5. Lastly: ENJOY BEING IN BED, regardless of whether or not you are sleeping. This one might be hard, because it represents a mental shift, a change in your thinking. But honestly: is there anything better than being in bed? What if simply RESTING was enough? What if you didn't have to sleep, you just got off on being in a cool, quiet space, feeling comfortable? Do you not love the peace and quiet you get from lying in bed? Aren't you comfortable with your head resting on a pillow, your body lying still underneath some high thread count cotton sheets? If you're not, maybe you need to change your thinking.

Bonus: stop tracking your sleep hours. Throw that sleep log right out the window. Burn it. Do not give one more minute of thought, do not expand one more calorie of energy, trying to log the amount of minutes you are sleeping (or not sleeping.) Just create a schedule and stick to it. For me, it's in bed by 10:40pm, lights out by 11pm, waking up at 5:45am, out of bed by 6am.

Good luck! This monster can be beaten.

Forgive me if this has been addressed before. I haven't read any books on Nirvana, so I will admit that I am a little ignorant.

Was there ever a time when Dave busted out a guitar to show Kurt, "Hey, here's some stuff I've been working on." Maybe songs in a demo stage, or simply rough sketches of songs that eventually ended up on the first Foo Fighters album?

Was Kurt supportive of Dave as a song-writer? Was there ever any talk of "Tell you what, let's blow Geffen's and everyone else's minds, and on the next album, you play guitar and sing and I'll play the drums!"

Thanks, in advance, for your responses. Don't hate if my question is stupid. PS: Here's a pic of Dave and the boys from BottleRock, May 23, 2026, Napa California.

https://preview.redd.it/13qml954oy6h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81b11033de7cd824276a152714008ad46c420a96

Hi, TCM-ers.

What do you recommend as the best way to boost my defenses to avoid getting sick? My roommate came home from a trip to Chicago last night and he has this throat-centered cold that is going around.

Should I do a low-dose (3 pills twice a day) of Gan Mao Ling? Should I be doing Echinacea tincture drops? Maybe half a dropper twice a day? Thank you 😊 He’s staying in his room, and when he comes out he’s wearing a mask, but I’d still like to boost my defense mechanisms.

Me: 60-year-old male, 5'11", 205lbs, in relatively healthy shape. Good digestion, good sleeper, not looking to catch a cold. Thank you!

https://preview.redd.it/knekkb3wap3h1.png?width=1976&format=png&auto=webp&s=966e24595ec643870055bf72c0506971adede304

The truth hurts, ladies and gentlemen. But there it is. And I remember it, bitterly.

Does anyone have the designer skills to take the cover image from Check Your Head and, using the Check Your Head font, change Beastie Boys to Backstreet Boys? Like, the black and white image of the three Beasties with the words Backstreet Boys over their heads using the CYH font? I imagine I could ask Chat GPT to do this but, fuck that, you know?

Hi folks.

I'm really not a technical guy. I'm a super solid Cam Op, I am good with intuitively feeling my way into good shots, things like that, but honestly I am never going to be an EIC. You guys really understand, deep down, all these aspect ratios and frame rates and I just start to disassociate when I hear those terms. (I've been a Cam Op, in one form or another, since I was 14 years-old, so this stuff comes very naturally to me.)

HOWEVER ... I just had my first taste of being a TD/Camera Switcher, and I liked it. A lot. I want to do more of it. It has been suggested to me that that role often is coupled with Shading, and I think Shading is something I can handle. So: any reccos for where to take a Shading class? Evolve Media doesn't offer it anymore. The last time AV Educate gave it was in April of 2025. Can anyone point me to a good class where I can learn the craft of shading? Thanks! (Could be anywhere in the "lower 48" states of the US. Not looking to travel internationally for this.)

We hear all these anecdotes about how they thought they might last two or three years if they were lucky. How even in the beginning they were writing songs for other people because they didn't expect the band to last that long. And, as was the case in those days, a lot of bands DID NOT last long.

Is there a point where the group understood that, "Hang on, we're not fading away. We're doing songs that are different than what we did two years ago and no one seems to be minding." Was there a moment we can pinpoint where they realized they were more than just "another group on Top of the Pops" or the like? Thanks!

Hi folks. Is there any compelling reason NOT to vote for bi-weekly STRC distributions, as opposed to monthly?