My brother-in-law collects record players. He has a super-cool Technics turntable hooked up to the home theater, as well as other equipment located around their house. Practically every room on the ground floor is within earshot of one or more functioning turntable. He also has enough records to fill up a wall; most were obtained at the local flea market for prices ranging from $1 to $5 each.

For Christmas, he gave me a portable record player. It came in a brown carrying case and has a lid, so it can be closed up and brought along on trips. In theory, I could lug it along to the office and back. It was the most unusual Christmas gift I've received in some time, and at first I was a little skeptical. I couldn't see any practical use for a record player, and it did amount to extra clutter.

A few days later, however, when I played The White Album on it (this was part of the gift), I realized that a record player was very much needed. My brother-in-law understood me well. He knew that seventies kids like us had never really reconciled ourselves to the death of records. The music we loved then still sounds better to us on records, because that's where we heard it originally. In any case, music often sounds better on the medium it was originally recorded for. Bjork requires digital sound, but Dylan calls for vinyl.

Records are more amenable to connoisseurship. A record album feels substantial in a way that CDs do not. It may come with a poster, something you'll never find in a CD. The album cover can be framed. The record itself has to be held with care, without touching the grooves. Placing it on the turntable, turning it from A-Side to B-Side, manipulating the phonograph arm – all these require attentiveness. The owner of a record player has to take care of the needle, in the same way that an oboist maintains a reed.

I loved the gift. I played the White Album on it day after day until the kids started to complain. It was wonderful to own a record player – the only thing needed was more records.

One weekend, we decided to drive to Raleigh, NC to visit my sister and her family.. My bro-in-law took the opportunity to introduce me to the flea market. Here you could find Japanese porcelain, vintage issues of Life magazine, enough dilapidated chairs and tables to furnish a whole sad town, discounted Webkins plush toys, the entire Harry Potter series in all media several times over, and boxfuls and boxfuls of records.

My brother-in-law's finds included Steely Dan's "Katy Lied" and "Gaucho"; he does have that DJ-grade Technics. I chose stuff that I figured would sound good on the portable, mostly music that preceded my high school graduation and (more importantly) awareness of punk.

The records and their dates are as follows: Astrud Gilberto, "Gilberto with Turretine" (1971); The Kinks, "Preservation: Act 2" (1972); Wings, "London Town" (1978); Wings, "Back to The Egg" (1979); Abba, "Voulez-Vous" (1979), and Abba, "The Visitors" (1981).

Maryland is not a Super Tuesday state. (We vote on February 12th).

Assuming it's still a two-person race, I'll probably vote for Obama. I think the Democratic party needs a candidate with great personal magnetism to win in November, especially since it now looks more likely that the GOP will nominate McCain.

Hillary, in my (recently revised) view, belongs to a long and venerable tradition of intelligent, experienced Democratic politicians (Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale) who lack the charisma needed in a national election. I'd love to see her win and go on to become the greatest president in my lifetime. But it doesn't seem probable.

What's more probable is that she'll go into the national election with a handicap -- too many people, for one reason or another, dislike her. She'll then have to deal with the GOP's character assassination machine -- those charming folks who brought us the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, etc. Every ugly aspect of the Clinton administration will be exhumed. We'll be reminded why, by 2000, we were kinda tired of this couple. She will lose the independent vote to McCain and won't even manage a recount or Supreme Court ruling. It will not be pretty.