skategoat

edited to avoid controversial subjects New topic: Shrek 3 is really bad. Don't waste your money unless you're suffering from insomnia.

I enjoyed that book. Gave me a new perspective on Afghanistan. I'd love to visit there if they ever sort out the current troubles.

Not sure if anyone's caught it but those are step-in bindings. The seller might want to mention that in his listing. I would.

I've lived in Toronto for 27 years and had zero incidents. I lived in Baltimore in the seediest, crappiest part of downtown for 4 months and had zero incidents. I've hitchhiked across Canada and from Toronto to Florida and had zero incidents. Never once in my 45 years of living have I felt the need to be armed. I swear, I am living in a different universe than Justin A.

I couldn't finish "Guns Germs and Steel". I read about half of it and found that Diamond was just re-hashing the overall concepts, elaborating and giving more examples. That's fine but I got bored. OTOH, "Collapse" was fantastic. Finished it non-stop in about 3 days. Great book. The Easter Island stuff was fascinating.

That's good shooting. Since we're bragging - I made my second career eagle yesterday on a par 5, 466yd, 18th at my club. Driver, then hit a 18 degree hybrid to an elevated green. Never saw the shot because it was getting dark. Got up to the hole and there's the ball, 18 inches from the cup. Prettiest sight ever. Made my putt but if it was 6 inches longer, I would've missed it. Don't ask me my score though.

Wow, 2,300 vertical drop, 9,200 base elevation and I've never heard of the place.

How to survive a long, boring conference call - first, make sure you task some co-op student or other junior, naive staff member to listen in and take "action items" for later distribution. Prepare a couple of topics that you can throw in during the pauses. When other people are talking, surf the web and occasionally say things like "I agree", "Good idea".

A mallard duck landed in my backyard pool and swam around for a while. I put on my white bathrobe, grabbed a handful of Bran Flakes and tried to feed it. It didn't like the Bran Flakes and flew off. I was sad so I booked an appointment with my therapist.

I'm going to be in Sedona, AZ next March. What's the closest, really good ski resort to there?

Why do women take 4 times longer at an ATM than men?

I never read sci-fi. I think the cheesy covers put me off. But I like sci-fi movies and loved Twilight Zone. Maybe I'll give Heinlein a try.

Just a bit of thread creep here eh guys?

I can understand where you guys are coming from about factory farming, etc., but the fact is, without large, efficient farms using fertilizer, pesticides and machinery, we would not have the lifestyle that we are accustomed to. In Canada, only 2.4% of our population are farming full-time. In the U.S., the numbers are similar, I'm sure. There is no way those people could support the rest of us if it wasn't for industrialized, mechanized farming. No way. Same sort of conclusions hold true for organic farming. Organic or low-input farming is much lower yielding than non-organic. There just isn't the land available to feed our population if we went all organic. Want to talk about fish? You won't eat farmed fish. I can understand why. But then you lament the loss of wild stocks. The two are mutually exclusive. If you don't eat farmed fish, you're not going to have any wild fish to enjoy as a fisherman or naturalist. We've already raped and plundered the oceans beyond belief. As Mark Kurlansky put it, in his book "Cod", "Today, seafood is whatever is left." We ate all the cod so we moved on to haddock. We ate all the haddock so we started eating pollock. Now we're on to hake. Fish that we used to throw away. And this is just the North Atlantic. In the Pacific, we discovered huge schools of delicious fish in the 80's. We consumed them in massive quantities until a scientist discovered that the fish we were eating were born in Queen Victoria's reign. The fish were called orange roughy and live to be 100 years old. They grow extremely slowly. Too late, they're all gone. I'm sorry to tell you this but if you want to eat fish in the future, you're going to have to eat the farmed stuff. I realize the implications of fish farming - disease introduction into wild stocks, etc., but I'll take those risks rather than further plunder our wild stocks. We've dug ourselves a huge hole. We are completely dependent on petroleum based, mechanized, modern farming. I really enjoy organic foods and wild fish and game. The difference in taste between a free-range chicken and a factory chicken is unbelievable. I was stunned when I first tasted a real chicken. Same with carrots. The organic stuff tastes like - carrots, not plastic. But, wild foods and organic foods are going to have to be a luxury. There is no way we can wind back the clock unless we cull half the world's population.

To balance the Bad Beers/Wine/Cars threads, I say we start a "Great Books" thread. For me summertime is reading time. There is nothing I like better than sitting in the backyard under some shade with my face buried in a good book. I'll start with two great non-fiction titles I recently finished and one I read a while back but loved: Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky That's right, it's a biography of a fish. Fascinating reading about a fish that was so important to the world. I flew through this book in 2 days. So good, I think I'll read it again. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann What were the Americas really like before European contact? Some surprising answers and theories here. Some of the book tends to plod. I got confused by all the various civilizations in Mesoamerica. The book cries out for better graphing and maps. But, if you're a fan of natural history or just history, this book is a must read. Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor You think war is hell? Read about what the German and Soviet troops and the civilian population had to endure during this battle. Unbelievable what hardships people can put themselves and others through. Beevor is an amazing history writer. He really makes it come alive. His other books about Berlin and the Spanish Civil War are excellent too.

Years ago, while skiing, I took a jump and landed hard on the tails of my skis. My brand new rear-entry Salomons just blew up. The upper shell basically ripped through some rivets. I took them in to complain about the "shoddy" construction and a few days later, the Salomon rep called me. He said if my boots had not blown, my knee(s) would have. Made a lot of sense to me. I think the engineers and mechanical engineers in the house can explain this in product design terms. You design a product so that, in the event of a bust-up, you sacrifice a cheap part so that the more valuable part survives. If we make our gear super stiff and super strong, the weak point becomes our bodies. Case in point - I broke a board this winter. First time ever. If the board did not break, I am pretty sure I would have been injured.

I love it when someone uses the terms "no offense" or "with all due respect" when their intent is exactly the opposite. So you would consider nuclear weapons to be natural? Chemical weapons too? How about an F-18? After all, they're just tools and the result of our brain power. By your logic, there should be no controls on our exploitation of the earth's resources since we're just part of the ecosystem. That may be one of the most dangerous notions I've ever heard.

In order for us to be a natural predator, we'd have to kill the things with our bare hands and then *eat* them. According to CDC: "In 2001, 7,437 cases of rabies were reported in the United States. Raccoons accounted for almost 40% of reported cases." According to Arizona Fish and Game: Confirmed cougar attacks in Canada and U.S. from 1991-2004 - 50 attacks, 10 fatalities. I tell you, those friggin' raccoons are the problem. We need to declare war on raccoons. And I'm personally going to lobby to be able to carry a sidearm when I put out the garbage. Vicious bastard

My first car was a '72 VW 412. Rear engine (made by Porsche, no less), rear-drive wagon. The front end was so light I had to brace myself when I saw a transport truck coming in my direction on a two lane highway. After nearly being blown off the road, I had to make a quick correction or I would end up in the ditch. Same kind of drama when there was a strong crosswind. Every time it was in the shop (which was often), it took 4 weeks to get the parts.

C5, that made my day.

Right now, I'm using a POS Daenyx DVD player that I bought from Toys R Us for $39.99. It actually has a better picture than my $1,100 Panasonic that I bought in the mid-90s. Gotta love cheap Chinese labour. I'm keeping my powder dry until the HD/Blu-ray war shakes out. I have a Xbox 360 connected to my basement TV (Sony Wega rear projection LCD), so HD is the frontrunner right now but I'm not convinced enough to shell out for a standalone player for the Sharp. I also think computer based media players are the future but the offerings so far have left me unimpressed. I have a couple of Macs in the house so the Apple TV looks promising but I'll wait for the second or third gen. A little side-story for y'all. The Sharp replaced a 12 year old Panasonic 32" TV. The thing weighs a ton but I have moved it by myself dozens of times. But I must be getting weaker in my old age because I dropped the thing down a flight of stairs. It rolled ejecting dozens of plastic bits along the way. Maybe subconsciously I wanted to drop the thing so I would never have to live that POS again. Thank goodness CRT technology is going the way of the telegram. Edit: regarding audio. I using the TV speakers. I don't have my family room wired up for home theatre and since the house is open concept, I'm not planning on blasting movies on the new Sharp. It's purely for family TV viewing and we're not that demanding in terms of sound.

Got my ass kicked like so many others in the late 90s. But I've made a few good calls in the last 5 years. I stick to tech which I know and leave the rest of the stuff to the pros. ADBE has been berry, berry good to me and I think it still has a ton of upside.

To extend your analogy, let's say drinking Guinness out of a can is like having a quickie in some dank alley with Heidi Klum after she's played three games of squash. In other words, I'll do it if I have to but I can think of better circumstances.

Here's the deal with Guinness. Out of a can or bottle, it blows. From the tap, it has to be fresh and the lines have to be clean. The best Guinness is in the bar at the top of the Guinness building in Dublin. My wife had to drag me out of that place. The worst beers I have ever tasted: -Bohemia (Mexican, absolute ****e, supposed to be a pilsner but has a nasty, chemical aftertaste) -Buckeye (Ontario, thankfully discontinued in the 80s. The beer reps used to give this stuff away to students) -Budweiser (I don't know how this stuff sells. Oddly enough, Bud Light is actually palatable) -Coors Lite (If I want water, I'll order water) My favs right now: Hockley Dark (Ontario) Guinness Pilsner Urquel (Czech)

Took delivery a couple days early. This thing blows me away. There is direct sunlight on it when I took this photo. No reflection. Depth of the colour is amazing. I can't wait to get Blu-Ray or HD-DVD for this. Standard DVDs are a waste on this TV.