I have a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones. I bought them one wet, rainy evening about eight years ago, when Marianne and I went shopping down on Shattuck in Berkeley. I’ve bought several other pairs of headphones over the years, even tried out Charles’s expensive noise reduction jobbies and nothing comes close. I bought a pair of Sennheiser noise reduction headphones last August, used them and like them very much. I let the old Grado’s fall out of use, but then a while ago all the fiddling around unpacking the Sennheiser’s just got too annoying and I plugged them into Bob the B2 Stealth Walkman, and damn if they didn’t sound good. Need to find a new pair of foam ear pads, but other than that, they’re the best thing I’ve ever heard. If you ever need headphones, start here.

The good folk at Interaction have announced the 2005 Hugo Award nominatees. Many congrats to K.J. Bishop, the first Australian (to my knowledge) to be nominated for the John W. Campbell Award.