To some, sports is religion.

Have you met any rednecks? They may not make much money, but they will blow all their credit on something like this. And their kids credit, neighbor's credit, and the cash from that liquor store they knocked over.

Funny - I really enjoy the beginning of the Silmarillion, but as many times as I've read about half way through the book I just cannot finish it. It holds my attention very well to a point (and it's been many years, so I couldn't even tell you what that point is anymore), but then gets rather long-winded. I want to read the rest because I keep hearing about all of these great stories that I haven't gotten to yet, but I just haven't been able to get there. Maybe next time I start at the mid-point.

I also dislike a lot of "modern metal", but I don't really care about understanding the words. Which is very fortunate since I very much enjoy folk metal and don't understand more than a few words of Finnish or Swedish (words I happened to pick up from listening to folk metal). What I don't like about a lot of the modern bands is the fact that they focus more on the aggression than the music. Yeah - having a good angry rhythm is great, but if the "melody" consists of one or two notes played fast with no variation, it gets awfully boring. On the other hand, if you've got a guitarist throwing more notes than should be humanly possible out there, but has no ear for melody it's just as bad.

I'll second your list of Tyr, Subway to Sally, and Skycad, and I'll also add in Finntroll and Korpiklaani as a couple bands I consider "required listening" for folk metal.

Mr. Smith was hanging out on Acacia Avenue closer to 30 years ago. I knew his neighbor Charlotte. She lived across the way at #22, but that was in 1982.

Considering that the link you provided has plenty of responses saying the same thing, I'm pretty sure you know what he meant. Just in case, here it is in plain english. The article you linked to showed what Android devices looked like before the iPhone and iPad came out. History tells us that the iPhone came out before the first Android phone. Therefore there was no Android device that looked different prior to the first iPhone like the article claimed. In fact, the picture showed a series of Windows-based devices in the "before iPhone" pictures. It is therefore a bad article and shouldn't be used as a reference whether you're wrong or right.

Personally, I abandoned the whole smart-phone thing as a bad addiction, but I won't buy an iOS-based device for my house. My computer is too valuable to install iTunes on. That and they're over-priced.

As a Red Sox fan who doesn't live or die by how the team is doing, I probably watch more Sox-Yankees match-ups than the rest of the baseball season combined. I don't think those games are too slow-paced. Yeah - they take forever, but it's the Sox and the Yankees! I can watch that game for 6 hours with a good group of guys and be very happy about it!

Of course, it's still better to watch how the Patriots or the Bruins are doing on any given game day.

There are people working and claiming to not be able to keep themselves housed or fed. Ask them to bum a cigarette or borrow their smart phone to look something up on the internet though... Most of them have money to spend on those things.

Made much less remarkable by the fact that "The Thing That Should Not Be" by Metallica is, in fact, based on Lovecraft.

Yeah - I enjoyed yours too. Great stuff! Thanks for listening.

Just wrote down the URL so I could check out your music after work. I've also gone it alone and recently put my first album up at bandcamp also. Haven't checked the style of your music yet, so it could be a completely different style and of no interest to you, but I figured I'd put it out there in case you (or anyone else reading) might want to check it out anyway.

The benefit of living in a rural area with a 45 minute commute is worth more than switching jobs or living in a city to me. You want to talk quality of life? I can enjoy acres of the outdoors without excess noise and light pollution without leaving my yard. My kids can go out and play without having to go to a park and be closely supervised. Etc. etc...

Yeah, it'd be nice to work closer and bike, but there aren't a lot of decent jobs in a rural area for a software developer like myself. I telecommute a couple days a week and that makes up for the commute. Like I said before, I would bike on occasion, but the lack of a shower here prevents that.

And yeah - not all cyclists act like I described, but certainly enough do that I wouldn't say they're any better than drivers. Back to the original point, remember that not all drivers are impolite either.

Actually, that contract has expired and you're living month to month. They can raise your rates at any time now even if the contract lacked the BS about being able to amend terms at any time.

I agree on most of that. Just one issue. Do you really think that cyclists are "more polite" than drivers? Really? I don't see it around here*.

I see cyclists thinking that they own the road, not paying attention at intersections, yelling at pedestrians as they bike down the sidewalk (illegal), and having the attitude that they can ignore the cars because it's the car driver's responsibility to look out for them. Yes - it's my responsibility to look out for you, but when you skip out into the middle of the intersection 5 feet in front of my car I can't stop or swerve quick enough to miss you.

That said, I've often wished I could bike to work in the summer. It's 32.5 miles each way on not-so-great-roads, so if I left myself enough time (say 2+ hours each way) I COULD overcome the pain in the rear to do it. However, I've got no shower at the office. My coworkers would not appreciate it. Oh yeah, and my wife works about 15 miles in the other direction, so moving would gain us nothing.

*here being New England.

I love it. Someone claiming the superiority of his home schooling over public schooling, but then an AC points out the flaws in his discussion. Both of those flaws, by the way, were taught to me in my public school education.

I'm not saying that home schooling won't work, but if you're going to pick on public schools for poor teaching methods, at least make sure that your teaching methods and facts are correct.