Regular Singular Points

I was searching through the basement again (I find the damndest things down there) and came across a collection of electronic tubes that I have acquired over the years. I have some tube equipment and I’m a big proponent of the technology, but, realistically, I’m never going to get around to using these old components and they really need a home. Most of these tubes are basically useless. How many people are going to find a use for Amperite 3-15 Automatic Regulator Ballest Tubes or GCDBGA TV sweep tubes? Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but audio amplification is currently the only use for tube technology. That said, I have to mention that in this collection of tubes is a set of 4 Telefunken 12au7′s (Know as ECC82′s in Western Europe). They appear to be perfect, and possibly matched. Hard to say when it comes to tubes … it’s not like the old days where you could bicycle down to the Radio Shack and plug them into the tube tester. I have a GE 6L6GA still in the box, too, but these are normally used in pairs so having one isn’t such a big deal. 12au7′s, however, are used in all sorts of pre-amps and I think I have about 12 of these, with the 4 Telefunkens being the most valuable. Here’s some possibly useful tubes I found:

Raytheon CK5814A Twin Triode Amplifier/Oscillator (4)
GE 6087/5Y3WGT (2)
GE 6J6A (ECC91′s) (4)

Some rectifier tubes:
RCA 6X4
GE 3A3
GE 5U4GB/5AS4A (2)
Raytheon 5U4QB
Dumont 6DA4A

Does anyone want them?

I was reading a blog entry, from someone who recently moved to Paris, pointing out that the hot water taps in France are marked with the letter ‘C’ and it reminded me of a funny thing about the Irish language.

Here’s the setup: you’re a foreigner in Ireland and you’ve had 4 pints of Guinness and find yourself in need of the loo.  Someone points you down a dark hallway and there are two doors, one marked “Fir” and one marked “Mná”.  You wonder, briefly, whether you’re latently dyslexic, but can’t figure out how to reconfigure “fir” so that it makes any sense at all (remember, four pints are involved).  Not that it matters in Ireland, but which door do you choose?

My Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar will be 25 years old in March, 2006. I bought it in 1985 (That reminds me: I gave my old, crappy bass to Liam Lynch aka Bill Niederst). I love this bass guitar even though my bass playing skills are not worthy of this instrument.

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I have upgraded this site to use WordPress 2.0 (Duke Edition) and the RSS feed problem (extra line at the top of the xml feed) appears to have disappeared.  That’s good news, but doesn’t explain what was broken in the first place.