Neil Gendzwill

Doh! Should have spotted those, I used to have a pair. Anyways, just for yucks I googled and Vuarnet is still very much in business. Still making those same semi-horn-rim jobbies they used to, as well as a bunch of more modern looking styles.

Ah, Vuarnet - the Oakley of the 80s. Are they even still in business?

I could rent every movie on the list and not have spent enough coin to get myself to Toronto, much less Argentina.

Rotator cuff injuries also cause weakness in the affected arm, especially lifting straight up sideways. I didn't tear mine though, just tendonitis. But the one arm was way weaker, had to do a bunch of rubber band exercises to get it back.

Try DHL rather than UPS. I think they're cheaper to Europe. ETA: Scratch that, DHL is outrageous on their tariff rates (although apparently quite good if you have an account with them). Use USPS - airmail is $70, and if you're willing to wait for surface it's $34. Because the dimensions are long you might have to use EMS which would be $81.

The original Ender's Game is a classic of science fiction. The followup was worth reading. The rest I just couldn't get into. Similarily with Dune - the original is great, the followup sucks, the third book is worth your time, the rest are just Herbert and his heirs cashing in on the franchise. Feist is not bad, I can't get into Eddings or Jordan. Nothing ever happens, for 14 books at a time. If you want the opposite, where a lot happens in a short time, check out the old Fahfard and the Grey Mouser short stories by Fritz Leiber. Or if you like your trilogies but with a little more plot, try The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. Hardly time to catch your breath over three books, so much stuff happens. One of the things I like about Kay is that he really draws characters well (a consistent thing among authors I like) and then isn't afraid to kill them off - so you are never at a point where you're completely sure what's going to happen. Switching gears back to thrillers, another author whose work I like is Trevanian. Check out Shibumi, very suspenseful and also funny. Also good are The Eiger Sanction and The Loo Sanction. Fun with martial arts - The Ninja by Lustbader. Complete hooey, but well-written and entertaining hooey. The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry combines s/f and m/a to great effect, and there's a bunch of sequels that aren't quite as good but still worth your time.

Just turn like normal. If you want to skid, drop the inclination a bit and push the tail.

OK, OK. If you like SF&F, here's a few choices: Anything by Emma Bull but especially War for the Oaks Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, favourite is A Song for Arbonne Most of Barbra Hambly's stuff, start with Dragonsbane Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series, just find the first one and plough through the whole lot. Patricia McKillip, start with the Riddlemaster trilogy, I believe the first book is The Riddlemaster of Hed Neal Stephenson, try Cryptonomicon For thrillers, I love the Prey series by John Sandford. Also if you haven't read Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs, you're missing a couple of excellent thrillers. Give Hannibal a miss. Just finished reading The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of various essays, talks, letters to the editor and a half-finished book by Douglas Adams. Marvelous stuff, and just the thing to get you tuned up for the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. And if you haven't read the books, what are you waiting for?

I like a lot of those on the "B" list, too. Consider the following recommendations strongly seconded by me (I left out the ones I would only mildly recommend, but there were no movies on the list that I've seen and disliked): Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Princess Bride Snatch! South Park-Bigger, Longer, & Uncut Usual Suspects Whale Rider A Mighty Wind Animal House Best in Show Big Lebowski Blue Velvet Bound Bull Durham Chasing Amy Clerks Dogtown and Z-Boys Garden State Incredibles Lost in Translation Office Space Out of Sight Raising Arizona Repo Man Sean of the Dead This is Spinal Tap Usual Suspects

Haven't seen Once Were Warriors, but I loved Whale Rider.

If you liked Clerks, rent Chasing Amy or Dogma. Skip the other two (Mallrats, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back). If you liked The Usual Suspects, you might like Bound. I also recommend Out of Sight to anyone who will listen. The first season of 24 was far and away the best, but I'm still watching. The first two seasons of Alias are also well worth your time. The first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer contain some of the best tv, ever.

Recent or older? I really liked Lost in Translation from last year and Garden State more recently. Also The Incredibles, which is just awesome. If you guys haven't gone to Sin City yet, you gotta check that out on the big screen.

I think brakes for skateboards are a technical problem that hasn't been solved properly yet. For most boards, they're simply unnecessary and would add unneeded weight. For longboards, they would improve safety but there's a real issue with the rider not being attached to the board. Anything that's going to slow the board down significantly (like, to stop for a suddenly appearing car) is likely to launch the rider. To avoid that you'd need a fairly sophisticated mechanism that provides a real nice progressive control and doesn't allow a whole lot of sudden braking force - either that or skaters would have to learn how to compensate for the board stopping rather rapidly under their feet (we don't do so well now, as anyone who's caught a pebble can attest). Anyways, as most skaters a) don't ride longboards/downhill and b) have a fairly devil-may-care attitude, I don't think the market has justified a whole ton of development work on braking systems. PS at the speeds Sadao is going, you could still footbrake easily or even run it out if you had to.

Coleman slides aren't very practical at low-medium speeds or where you don't have a lot of room (like on a sidewalk). Practice the foot-drag, it's the most practical thing. PS that video of Sadao is pretty boring, the really talented sliders are way faster and recover from slides into speeds that many of us wouldn't be comfortable at to start with. If you check out ncdsa you might be able to find some race video, there's one pro downhiller (French guy iirc) who is able to enter corners way hotter than the other pros simply because he takes the whole corner in a controlled slide (at 40 mph+), like a sprint car. Also worth checking out is the old Powell-Peralta video from the 80s with Stacey Peralta and others doing a bunch of really cool slide work at speed.

Coiler AM comes in 19 cm width.

The straight tail version is from a few years ago. They changed to a turned up tail in 2000 or 2001 IIRC. They were still having troubles with topsheet delam with those boards though - I'd only buy it if it were a really good deal.

Hmm, they don't list the LSDs... BTW to find the Rad-Air stuff there, you have to click on "powder days" not "boards".

I wouldn't describe my 200 like that. It's not going to cross the fall line like a wasp-waisted slalom board, but it's amazingly nimble for it's size. Carves like a sumbitch, too.

Search for Rad-Air here, there are a couple of guys who can get them for you.

Man I'm seriously behind on the resort count at only 20. And apparently my youth was not nearly as wild as it should have been. Cheese cake is overrated. I'll take a good piece of pie anytime.

I usually hang onto the chair with my hands, allowing my companions to get ahead of me, then I stand up at the last second and give a little shove to get clear in case the chair is starting to turn. That gives me a clear path so I can just go straight.

You never pay the PST on international shipments, only the GST. I think similar to buying stuff from other provinces you are supposed to voluntarily pay the PST yourself. But here in Saskatchewan there's actually no way to do that except for cars (local paper ran a funny article on this a while back).

The problem with that sort of repair is the broken edge - sooner or later it will seperate again. I had a broken edge right between the bindings, so in a very vulnerable spot. Shop did a pretty good job of fixing it up, but one shot on a rock and it was gone again.

The PSIA is full of crap AFAIK. The only reason to ride duck is if you want to go backwards or land backwards.

Ken, you've convinced me. My folks are square-dancing in the evenings, I think that looks like a much better hobby.