Jazzmoose

I got the same feeling, except it felt more like a reprint of what some adult thought my father should have been reading at my age. There was some definite mold on those two series...

Wow! You actually took off? I have to admit I never got past the planning stage after reading that book.

Man, I remember spending quite a bit of time with those at one point! One word of advice: if you decide to revisit the series, just grab two of them. One to enjoy, and one to let you know that one was enough...

Seeing how this thread has gone, I should mention that by "you" I mean the generic retail customer, not you in particular...

For a repair done out of shop, 4 to 6 weeks is the standard response. It may be quicker, but if they tell you it'll be done in two weeks and it takes three, they know you'll be done there raising holy hell, so they cover their ass by extending the expected turnover.

That's hard to believe; the movie made sense...

Jerry West was the pen name, I'm too lazy for a web search to find the real name. I learned to read on those books, and still have a set on my shelf. (Okay, I'm missing a couple of the last hard to find ones.) After the Happy Hollisters, I went through several kids books. Encyclopedia Brown I remember, plus normal nonseries books (hard to remember the names now). I remember reading a few Hardy Boys books. I tried Tom Swift, but thought they stunk. I wasn't completely lost to books until the sixth grade when I found Jules Verne. After 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island I was lost forever... Edited to add: My god...how could I forget Dr. Seuss???? My parents must have signed up for that book club as well as the Happy Hollisters, because I remember tons of them, plus related titles like Are You My Mother?, source of the sentence that was burned into my brain for all time: "You are not my mother; you are a snort!"

The only record club I remember joining was Records Unlimited, back in the early 70s. I assume it worked like most record clubs, although it was an early convert to the not having to buy eight or ten LPs to finish your obligation. That was a pretty important difference to a high school kid... Strange that I can find no reference to this on the internet. Another forgotten aspect of life, I suppose.

It's not bad with a little bit of worcestershire sauce...

Give the man credit for nerve!

I have to agree. The best stores I've found (Streetlight Records in the Bay Area comes to mind) must have someone on the staff who knows what they're doing, judging by what I found in the bins, but apparently he or she didn't work there on a daily basis. I certainly never ran into a 'knowledgable sales clerk', and to be honest, wasn't that interested in finding one. The only reason I prefer music stores to online shopping is because I'm an old fart who is used to doing things that way, and because you just can't duplicate the feeling of bin diving on line. I always found much more interesting things by mistake in a store than I ever found on purpose on line...

Well, according to modern laws and parenting practices, we all had no business living past age ten anyway...

I served with winter: I knew winter; winter was a friend of mine. Sir, you're no winter.

I think the writer has a serious case of missing the forest for the trees. This recognition of meaningful patterns is not just something that happens because one believes something. Surely I'm not the only one who hears voices in the fan and realizes that they aren't real voices. Or spots faces in meaningless, even random, design patterns on walls, carpets, etc. We don't have to believe that such things are real in order to hear them or see them. I would imagine that this ability of the brain to create images and sounds out of chaos is what gives us art.

Me.

I got off work tonight at midnight and got to enjoy that wonderful rite of winter's arrival, the first scraping of the windshield. The whole van was encased in ice. What fun!

I caught my ex watching the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas thingie on PBS. I won't say it led to our break-up, but it couldn't have helped...

He's good, but Vincent Maiolini Vocal phenomenon Mel Torme he isn't. But then it's hard to ignore an artist who has had a Vocal Phenomenon named after himself...

It doesn't support your argument, because it is completely false. In spite of what you and other chess players may believe, the desire to destroy your opponent is not something that only happens in chess. Or chess and boxing. You're talking about an approach, not something that is inherent in the game. This approach can be applied to almost any endeavor. Naturally, those that rise to the top in the game are going to exhibit this quality more than those who don't; that's what it takes to win. But to think that this is something unique to chess boggles my mind...

This late correction to the story just in: make that ex-husband and ex-girlfriend...

Sarah, we hardly knew ye...

I think you're missing Dan's point, not vice versa. He doesn't think chess is a gentlemanly game played by aristocrats. He thinks chess is a game. Period. What you are describing applies to ALL games, sports, etc. whether you approach them that way or not. When I was a kid a lot of people refused to play Monopoly with me, because when I played I was out to completely humiliate my opponents. It's the only way I knew to play. But I didn't delude myself into thinking I was playing a bloodthirsty sport.

Can't tell you how happy I'll be when I get DSL again and can bother to click on links like this...

Well, if they wise up, the kids will tell the adults to shove the trophies up their collective ass and go have some fun.

Sorry but unless you have blood-splattered pieces, I call "bullshit". I must admit, I've never seen anyone's ear almost get detached from their head in chess...