arlen

check out the "make your own" feature

Of course not! I mean, I lost interest in the boosies-o-rama that is the charmed ones, and now I spend all my time in faceless interaction with middle-aged men who use just their nicknames. What would be gay about that?

cc.com cured me of my previous addiction:

Doesn't Mandy Moore do a version of XTC's Senses Working Overtime?

Yoiu don't need one-way glass--nobody can see you masturbating from outside anyway:

fun diversion while waiting for snow

Hey, things are looking up in my home state! Republicans couldn't get their base of racist white dudes off their asses to vote, and it's now the 2nd worst state in the union!

bad baby names

How's flotation on flat, deep snow--like hiking with a pack? And any overal comments. Thanks!

Dru = Trask

Classic Trask! It's like Faulkner, only penned by a character out of Faulkner.

Idea A. Isn't gravity a couple fractions of a percent higher in the upper midwest, for real? I read that in a guide somewhere. The rock below it is a solid-ass block of something. Idea B. I have a half-finished bottle of liquid gravity behind the seat in my truck.

I did a master's degree in American Indian Studies at the U of A in Tucson, and where there may have been some belief among anthros during the 70s and 80s that Casteneda wasn't full of shit, that has pretty much evaporated. It's nice literature, but the Yaquis don't even practice the kind of medicine that DJ did. Their real culture is interesting enough, though: every Easter, they stage a massive outdoor mass cycle where Jesus is dragged into hell and sodomized by Satan for 3 days. Meanwhile the church ladies repel attacks by Yaqui gang bangers dressed up as conquistadors and lawyers and chase them into a bonfire. Great way to spend a Sunday, but harder to make a fortune selling off to flakes.

Emphasis on effectively. It's usually awkward to belay off the anchor with an autolocking device when it's lower than your shoulder, as is often the case at a ledge.

Why stop with just your email? It's the perfect time to erase the rest of your past and invent a new identity. You can probably talk Trask out of one of his avatars for a bottle of Courvoisier and a ride to Hooters.

I don't think it's how the rock looks, to climbers or hikers or whomever. And I certainly can't recall ever being disappointed to be face-to-face with a bolt hanger while on a route. It's seeing the x on the topo that feels like the climb is a little degraded. Most of the time, having to find and set up anchors the way the FA did isn't pure, doesn't make me more manly, definitely isn't easier on the environment or aesthetics--it's just fun. Clipping bolts is fun too, but to be truthful I don't really like the bolted aretes and faces between crack routes at Tieton or Vantage, as if it's the only climbing area in the world. Gives me more to do in a day, and I like that, but it'd be nice to get the sense from guidebooks, or other climbers, that a climbing community gives a damn as a consensus about bolting or not.

Don Mellor's American Rock has some good word about this topic. His whole point is that local ethics is mostly about climbers talking about the history of how a climbing area (or region) came to be over time. Given that places like Devil's Lake and the Adirondacks are essentially unbolted, maybe it's because they're situated in regions where culturally people just can't shut up about anything--thus ethics generally prevail? In any case, it amazes me. Climbable rock is a precious thing in the 'Daks, but if it doesn't take gear, it's not a line (exceptions noted). Whereas out here there's undeveloped potential all over the place, but most don't mind squeezing a line of bolts between 2 crack routes, and half the climbers that see it think it's wrong. Or maybe it's just that new routes are going up at 38, so if you're not puttin up new routes, you're not a climbing hero after all.

Probably the most versatile movie quote ever is from Quiz Show, when Herb Stemple says: You know what the problem with you bums is? You never leave a guy alone till you're leaving him alone.

You left out "send photo of bass boat."

Sad thing is, Ken Russell's The Devils is a lot more bizarre now than it was when I saw it in 1985. I think it was a children's movie when it was released in 1971. With a rawkin Peter Maxwell Davies score!