My crazy friend Tom , the same age as me, said once when we were teenagers that someday you would be able to play records in your car.

DeSoto actually had a system called the Highway Hi-fi that did this -- it was a turntable with some sort of fluid base to keep bumps in the road from making the needle skip. There were only a half dozen or so albums that were compatible with its weird geometry, though.

This random thought brought to you by Slashdot Car Nerd #227599.

--saint

I live in Buffalo, NY, the second- or third-poorest city in America, depending on who you ask. Yes, the city neighborhoods tend to have lots of corner stores that sell grape drink and Li'l Debbie knockoffs. But there are supermarkets and farmer's markets all over the city as well.

The entire city is fewer than ten miles wide. A bicycle trip with a backpack could retrieve a week's worth of fresh produce in less than an hour.

The problem isn't availability, it's education. Unfortunately, since poor neighborhoods also tend to have lots of single parents and a tremendous high school dropout rate, teaching that there's better food -- and a better life -- available is a bit of an uphill battle.

--saint

Why do I have this vision of Bugs Bunny confounding Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd?

Comcast season!
Verizon season!
Comcast season!
Comcast season!

*bang*

Epiphany is available in Ubuntu -- it also looks a hell of a lot nicer with GNOME than FF does. Give it a try.

--saint

Enhanced Driver's License. It's a substitute for a passport when crossing the Canadian border for poutine and strippers.

--saint

There was a time when it was possible to work your way through college as a waiter or a hospital orderly. That was before the government started shovelling money into our universities.

That was also back before colleges became thinly veiled resorts. Two hundred channels, wireless everywhere, free everything, newly renovated dining facilities -- there's a whole lot of money being spent on the non-academic parts of colleges.

I work at my alma mater, and I can barely recognize it.

--saint

I quit IT for a couple of years because it was boring to me. Linux brought me back, because it got me excited to work with computers again.

It does happen.

--saint

Oh, Papa U-bend, you are so learned.

Cite it, then.

I'm a cyclist too, and I've never heard of anywhere that bikes aren't allowed on public roads. Just a link to your state or city's statute banning it would be very interesting.

--saint

Hear hear.

I always tell people that the winters here in the B-lo aren't nearly as bad as perceived -- the problem is that we get one nasty, king-hell snowstorm every five years or so, and that's the _only_ time you see Buffalo on the news since we stopped losing Super Bowls.

Hence, the common misperception.

This is actually a pretty awesome city to live in -- nice and cheap, great food, outdoor festivals every weekend of the summer. I just went on a 20 mile bike ride yesterday, most of it along the riverfront, and it was spectacular.

Buffalo -- Not Just For Angry Polish Steelworkers Any More!

Why do people assume that parks have some naturally elevating and edifying effect on the populace?

Urban planners come up with these ridiculous tower project designs straight out of "City of Tomorrow", to maximize green space. And in a bad neighborhood, the first thing you're told is to stay out of the park after dark. Bizarre.

--saint

I wonder how Walt would feel if he knew that 90% of Americans couldn't afford to enter his theme parks.

He'd probably feel that it was due to the manipulation of the world economy by the global Zionist conspiracy.

Oh, Walt, you wacky anti-semite, you.

Really? You couldn't read the next line in my post? The one where I say that Apple sucks? You sat there, in the basement, veins straining in your forehead, lips moving dumbly, willing your way to the end of that first sentence and just ran out of steam?

Well, good work on writing a reply, anyway.

--saint

...and this means that we can expect Vic20_love to come along any moment now and complain that his OS X 10.1 machine from 19-dickity-6 doesn't have a patch out yet, so Apple sucks.

Not that Apple doesn't suck, but you don't really need to troll for reasons.

(Bye, karma, nice knowing you...)

--saint

If you were actually in Buffalo, as I am, you would know that Canada is really our neighbor to the west.