RobBob

gregw & trask...I shoulda known you 2 bozos would jump on this thread before I could respond

I've got a Walrus big enough for 3...great tent...wait a minute, I didn't mean what it sounded like I meant. My kids think the walrus is soo cool, they love the logo.

ChrisT, Is that you?!

Okay, catbird, I'll do it before trask does. WTF is wrong with insurance?! I've never sold it, but I wouldn't hesitate to take it on as a job and consider it a good one. "There will always be jobs in insurance" is exactly what he's talking about. Trask's right, there are too many people whining about a lack of jobs, when what they are really saying is "I'm not able to fulfull my personal destiny! I'm above doing the 'average' job. I'm above doing a trade." Get a job, work harder than people expect you to, demonstrate your ingenuity and move up... or move onto something better when the opportunity arises. I see fewer and fewer people embracing this basic, logical approach to career. They think they are entitled. Unfortunately, I see this problem most often in young males in their twenties, who came from broken homes without a father. I see guys that ought to be enthusiastic hard chargers who instead are whining and quit within a year, moving onto the next short-term job. Oh, so your excuse is that you don't get recognized for your output as Worker#58003 in your cubicle at Microprogramming Inc.? Simple, go find another job at a smaller company where you WILL be recognized. Change careers if necessary. Move to a slightly less desirable place if necessary; shit, you're young and you ain't in the leisure class... yet. Work in something mundane and un-sexy if necessary, because others will stupidly pass by good jobs because they aren't 'cool' enough.

Crossfire is crap. Fifteen+ years ago it was okay, when it was sparring between two old journalists who would give each other an honest pummelling. Now what you have is that Clinton wank operator versus some prep-school-looking pussboy with a bowtie, in front of a dumb audience. Stupid show. I create my own crossfire by listening to NPR and then reading the Wall Street Journal.

I was talking to relatives in Ottawa over Christmas, and was surprised to learn that their move to gun registration has been slow & plagued with problems---namely that it's going to cost a lot more than any politician was willing to admit, and that ultimately this will be passed along in registration cost. Let me say upfront that I don't know the details of the Canadian plan...but the guy who told me this is retired from their Parliament. I have always vaguely been in willing to register my guns, and have restrictions on handgun ownership. But damn if I want to pay wore than a couple of bits for any such program. That would in effect be limiting the right to own for many.

Spanker you shameless treehugger, if I were Dante I'd condemn you to sawing spiked trees.

Hey trask, you stole my freakin' goggles! And BTW, who lowered my stars while I was away?

Damn I just got a nice deal on a pair of Carrera goggles in eastern Canada. A shop at Tremblant was taking US cash at a 1us=2cn exchange rate, and the goggles were $10 off to boot. I don't know which model they are but they are yellow-tinted, double-paned antifog and cost me less than $30 even with the extra tax.

last man on the planet...damn, all that doin and doin, then when you come up for air, just watchin awhile...

Later, folks---I'm off for 10 days to an eastern-Canadian Christmas in the Laurentiens. I was going to say something serious about the holidays. About telling your old parents that you love them (because eventually you don't know how many more holidays you'll be with them). And I was going to say do something really nice for your wife or husband or sig other---not a present from the store, but spend time doing something they want to do. And I was going to say that if you've got young kids, try to soak up every moment of that unquestioning love and wonder, and forgive them when they freak out on sugar by suppertime on Christmas day. Nah, if I said that, you'd just spray all over it and say I was a softie. Have a merry Christmas!

and trask I suppose you prefer Twiggy-like figures. I thought you were like 230...you like to hurt women?

I want the curves, but I want'em to be natural. Fake boobs are like fake orgasms. Keep them real.

You know what? We used to talk this kinda shit as surfers in high school. "You aren't a surfer unless you can... If you don't live here don't surf here..." etc. We would do shit like fight on the beach or in the parking lot over who owned the waves that day. Looking back on it 25+ years later, this had more to do with being young and wantin' to play king of the hill than anything else. And actually surfing was more exciting in the learning stages, the first few times I got into big waves, or the first road trips, f'rinstance, than it was when I got fairly decent at it. So screw it, I'll enjoy being a gumby, spraying past my ability, and hopefully I'll have some fun in the mtns in the coming year.

You guys don't realize it, but mtngoat is really another avatar of da Caveman.

Just don't want a personal-injury lawyer as president, DFA. Not a democrat OR republican one.

Mark my words, now that Gore has retired to the old tin mine in TN, there will be a shiny new darling that advances rapidly in the running for the Democratic nomination. His name is John Edwards, a senator from North Carolina. While only a rookie senator, this will be seen as an asset, since he has little 'baggage.' A smiling, vapid frat-boy, but possessing the gift of gab, he has everything including charisma and stories of personal suffering to draw Democrats who vote with their hearts and not their minds. Don't believe him---he's made a freaking fortune as a personal-injury lawyer, and represents what's wrong with America. I post this now so that you will remember in 20 months or so what a prescient thinker I am. My instincts have been good in the past. For instance, in early 1991, I attended a business meeting in the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock. Then-governor Clinton greeted each of us at the door with a handshake and a smile, and proceeded to give our group an extraorinarily warm welcome to Arkansas. (If I had known at the time what he probably was up to upstairs that day, I would have promptly washed my hands. ) After the meeting, I told my wife "I just met a future President of the United States." At the time he was an unknown like Edwards. Remember, don't vote for Edwards!

Offwhite that is amazing---I have had a mental picture of Dr. Flash as one of those clowns too! Maybe he really is one...a modern-day boxing clown-bot, programmed with NPR and Libertarian party feedback loops.

I was trying to correlate the Myers-Briggs personality profiles to this trait, expecting to find the ISTP as a predominant (risk-taker) type. Instead, it was the INTJ profile that coming up, which is quite different from ISTP. Could it be the deliberate thinking and decision-making involved that draws the INTJ? I dunno. Interesting subject. BTW, I still want mtngoat to take that M-B survey...but he thinks it's a trap, I'm afraid.

Now that the contestants have voted with their assorted avatars, let's hear from the rest of the audience...

...dinner with Crazy Polish Bob

Plus the US sue-me sue-you system isn't as prevalent there, right?

I like this thread.

nice!