A few weeks ago, as I sat in the departure lounge waiting for my flight to Florida, I was horrified to discover at a very early hour that NBC had decided to restart my favorite 1990s TV show.

The cold harsh reality is that no one alive today under the age of 40 has watched night court during its wonderful run — and none of us who watched every episode and were teenagers at the time — want to watch a woke up reboot of a show that’s impossible to replay.

After going through four terrible episodes and wondering if John Larroquette was so desperate for money that I needed to send him some cash through Venmo, I gave up.

Why TV and film executives can’t leave the past alone and move forward with new and creative stories yet to be told.

It’s probably the same people who can’t understand why no one likes to go to the movies anymore.

I deny having seen Cocaine Bear four times. There were only three.

Portable bliss

Upon entering our local AMC to enjoy Cocaine Bear for the third time, my daughter caught me fiddling with a pair of FiiO IEM headphones that I planned to use so I could listen to a hockey game while watching a movie – one of them is there obvious gluttony at this point and not listen to the dialogue.

I currently have over a dozen DAC Dongles in my desk drawer and it was decided that I needed something more powerful to drive some of the new IEMs and in-ear headphones in my collection, including the wonderful Meze Audio 109 Pro and FiiO FH5.

Over the past two years, iFi Audio has released one great product after another, including the GO Link Dongle DAC, the Gryphon xDSD portable amplifier, and the ZEN Signature series.

iFi hip duck2

The iFi hip-dac2 is reminiscent of a whiskey flask and certainly impresses with the power of an 18-year-old Glenrothes.

iFi Audio hip-dac2 is a portable digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) and headphone amplifier designed to enhance the sound quality of music playback from mobile devices and computers. This is a modernized version of the original hip-duck with a number of design and functionality improvements.

Hip dac2 supports a wide range of digital audio formats including PCM, DXD and DSD and can decode high resolution audio files up to 384kHz/32bit PCM and 11.2MHz DSD. The hip-dac2 uses a Burr-Brown DAC chip. It also has a USB Type-C input for connecting to compatible devices.

Also read: Focal Stellia Headphones: Review

Hip-dac2 also includes iFi’s proprietary XBass and 3D+ audio enhancement technologies, which are designed to enhance bass reproduction and the music soundstage. It has a built-in rechargeable battery that can provide up to 8 hours of continuous playback and can also be used as a portable power bank to charge other devices.

In addition to DAC capabilities, the hip-dac2 also features a powerful headphone amplifier with a balanced 4.4mm output and a standard 3.5mm output. It can drive headphones up to 600 ohm impedance and has a maximum output power of 400 mW per channel.

Stay tuned for my iFi hip-dac2 review later this weekend.

Where can I buy: $189 on the Amazon

---

iBasso DC04PRO

The $119 iBasso DC04PRO is a portable USB DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) and headphone amplifier. What immediately catches the eye is the new industrial design, which looks very stylish; including a physical volume control.

The DC04PRO is equipped with two Cirrus Logic CS43131 DAC ICs and can handle PCM audio up to 32bit/384kHz and DSD audio up to 256x. It also has a built-in MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) renderer that allows you to stream high resolution audio from services like TIDAL. Before you get nervous, we note that last week’s MQA bankruptcy filing does not affect iBasso or any of the MQA-encoded streams currently available on TIDAL.

In addition to DAC capabilities, the DC04PRO also features a powerful headphone amplifier with a balanced 4.4mm output and a standard 3.5mm output. It can drive headphones up to 600 ohms impedance and has a maximum output power of 280 mW per channel into 32 ohms.

The DC04PRO is designed to be portable and can be powered by either USB or an internal battery for up to 10 hours of playback. It also has a compact and durable design, with a metal body and a handy clip that can be attached to clothing or a bag.

There is also an updated version of the iBasso UAC application that works with the DC04PRO.

My iBasso DC04PRO review will appear this weekend.

Where can I buy: $119 on the Amazon

---

Nile cuisine

Have you ever walked past a local restaurant and convinced yourself it wasn’t for you? That your “refined” palette was too good to be used on modest sandwiches made for school kids next door?

I grew up in a restaurant kitchen and never thought about it. I’ve eaten at some of the most sketchy eateries on the planet, enjoyed pho in the back of a riverboat in Vietnam, baked fresh laffa with friends in the Golan Heights, and tossed pies alone at a family pizzeria until midnight.

Restaurants with white tablecloths are not my thing.

Before the start of Passover last week, I found myself standing in front of Nile cuisine here in Long Branch. I have always found it important to support local small businesses, because without them, your community is nothing more than an endless corridor of Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and Wawa.

The Jersey Shore very quickly begins to resemble this.

But while we have places like the Kitchen of the Nile, the Empire has yet to finally take control of the galaxy.

I have walked or driven past this tiny Italian diner over 10,000 times in the last 14 years. You read it right. How is this even possible?

Neil’s is sandwiched between two hairdressers two blocks from my front door and less than three blocks from the beach here in Long Branch.

I drove to Kansas City for a barbecue, turned around and drove home.

My car was vandalized in Camden when I visited Donkey after the late Anthony Bourdain leaked our little secret here in New Jersey.

We have the best cheesesteaks in the Garden State. The people across the river at Scaridelphia think they only have the best.

But apparently I was too snobby to go to this sandwich shop and deli.

Not only can I hide in the back booth and watch my wife drive discreetly to get her hair done next door, but I can also enjoy every bite of the sandwiches this local gem has to offer.

Bread is all that is needed to make a sandwich, and the bun they use for cheesesteak is perfectly baked with a slightly burnt crust. The softness of the bread absorbs enough juice without getting soggy in the hands.

The combination of steak, onion, pepper and cheese rivals the Donkeys in every way; I really like the poppy seed buns they use in Camden, but overall this sandwich could be better.

When I was a little boy growing up in Toronto, there was a kosher bakery at the end of our street, and when they baked fresh blueberry buns at 5 a.m., I would open my bedroom window so the breeze could carry the smell home. my room.

Neil’s doesn’t open until 10; which is not ideal for those of us who get up at 5am but they made a new customer of a lifetime and you feel right at home. The food is not cheap; $14 for a regular sandwich – sounds like a really big one, but since 2003 I haven’t had the best Garden State sandwich yet.

For more information: Cuisine of the Nile