Back in November of 1992 if was stabbed in my neck while I was sleeping by my estranged wife who I was in the process of divorcing. I lost nearly six pints of blood in less than 20 minutes. While I was recuperating at UCLA Medical Center, I heard "Little Fluffy Clouds" on MARS FM Los Angeles. I was pretty much in and out of consciousness all that day and on heavy doses of morphine. Somehow that sound really impacted me and made me feel much more at ease. I set the name "The Orb" to memory and went out and bought "Adventures Beyond..." the very day I got out of the hospital at a cool little indy CD store on Pico across from Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles. It quickly became my favorite CD of all time (and actually still is). I quickly introduced this album to all of my friends. We all had a lot of great "High Times" with "Adventures..." and some nice herb. Shortly thereafter I found the "Patterns & Textures" video on import NTSC VHS at the same store and the new release of "UFOrb" with bonus "Blue Room" CD single included. I was planning on dosing on acid for the first time the following weekend and saved the video and new album for just that occasion (also renting The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"). I have to say it was an amazing evening, even life altering in my way of looking at things. I saw "The Orb" live at an old hotel in the Wilshire district of Los Angeles (I think it was late 1993). It is still one of the most memorable live performances of my life. Since then I have bought every CD, import CD singles, etc. that I could find along with some nice bootlegs when visiting London and Amsterdam 4 years ago. I have met and spoke to Alex several times after his DJ gigs. The last one at whatever club Vinyl in L.A. is now called several months back where we shared my pipe of chronic with Alex and his mates and hung out for about an hour. He is a great guy and has really influenced my life in a lot of ways. Sorry this was so long and hopefully didn't bore to death anybody who read the whole thing. John Wintemute