gogo

I think she was more in the "never won at the Olympics" category of hype, a Michelle Kwan kind of thing. She's won a ton of other competitions, but she got injured at Torino, so this was supposed to be her big Olympics. And she has won a gold and a bronze, so I don't think she's doing too bad. Also, re: crashing. Watching the half-pipe competitions, I was struck by how some of the riders who looked like they were doing great were knocked out of contention by falls near the end of their run. In a lot of cases, I was most impressed by the ones who failed the most spectacularly. It's defin

I still don't understand what was going on that first day we were there... where was everyone?? They sure came out of the woodwork for the rest of the week. Me three. I've already got a place picked out and everything. Of course, the fact that it isn't currently for sale might drive the price up just a bit. I'll be posting pictures from our trip, as soon as I sort through them a bit. We saw the doubles luge at Whistler, and the women's halfpipe at Cypress, for two amazingly fun days (although, too cold for a couple of native Californians). Also, we had three great days of walkin

I really like that the title of the event sounds like a Mad Lib. Or the winning hand in Clue.

Oh, and here's a literary event you won't see every day: Dave Eggers serving grilled cheese sandwiches at City Lights on Ash Wednesday.

Still working on Ulysses (we're taking the train back from Vancouver, so I'm looking forward to a long full day of reading that, while looking out the window and watching the rainy Pacific Northwest flying by...). But for the short plane trip up there, the bus rides to Whistler, waiting around before events, etc., I've got this: The author is the son of the writer of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I first became aware of him while reading Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day. His part of that

No, I think the report was that they were 3 million apart on a 3-year deal. 37 vs 40, maybe?

The Giants couldn't have ponied up the extra $3million to get him for three years? That's ridiculous, over the next three years they could probably make that much back just by selling caps with Lincecum wigs attached.

Don McKellar. Either him, or J.T. from DeGrassi:TNG.

OK, I'm unpinning this, but have set a tickler on my calendar to run another round of this, sometime this summer. Start working on your lists now!

Bob, some of the information there is pretty old and perhaps out of date by now, but there are loads of links, Q&As, etc., in the Greatest Lost Track of All Time forum, further down on the main page. You can probably get started here: http://forums.viachicago.org/topic/84-bit-torrent-101/page__view__findpost__p__301998 At the very least, that'll give you a start on where to google for more info, or if you still can't find what you're looking for, try posting the question in that forum. Someone there should be able to help you out.

Excellent, thanks! I've never read any of his books, but will definitely check them out. Looks like something my nephew would love, too.

Alison, that looks cool. What did you think?

Is it really called the iPad? That is not a great name, no matter what it might do.

Just look at it this way: if you were Burgess Meredith in that episode of the Twilight Zone, would you rather have had the surgery or not? Dirty windshield or not!

Yep. My sister has prescription goggles for swimming. And we found out, when we went to Hawaii a few years ago, that some dive shops have prescription face masks available, you can arrange ahead of time to rent your prescription. But she'd have been totally out of luck for snorkeling, etc., otherwise.

I think it depends on how bad your eyes are. My sister, who has worn glasses since her early teens, has considered Lasik but decided against it, for all the reasons given above. But she was saying recently that she can't believe our mother is able to just walk around the house without her glasses. The minute my sister gets up in the morning, she has to put her glasses on, or she's not even comfortable getting out of bed. I think if my eyes were that bad, I'd see the allure of a surgery like that. The #1 reason she decided against Lasik was when she heard someone whose surgery did not go

I forgot to reply to this earlier. I think Ulysses is do-able. Now, Finnegans Wake, no way I'm sticking a toe into that pool...

While I absolutely love the enthusiasm for this idea, and I'm always in favor of VC doing group projects like this, I can tell you from experience that the best/fastest way to get money directly to this cause, without incurring additional fees, etc., is for folks to just make their donations individually. We did exactly what you've suggested here, when we made donations in memory of Natalie (see The Saint Genevieve Fund thread, still pinned in TTL), but that was a different kind of donation, and we felt it was important that it come from us as a group. I think in this case, individual donat

bbop had a great laugh one day, when we were waiting in line for a show and doing NYT crosswords, and I told him that "Sunday is just a big Thursday".

Recently finished: (How often does a book by a bona fide registered VCer get posted in here?? And yes, there is a Wilco mention, towards the end...) Almost done with What is the What, and yes, it's great, so you can all stop bugging me about it now. Next up: and for the long train ride home from Vancouver next month:

Yeah, it's mostly just interesting from a micro-demographic standpoint. What is my neighborhood watching vs. a neighborhood across town, that kind of thing.

For twelve big cities, a map of the relative popularity of the 100-most rented movies on Netflix for 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html?nl=&emc=ura3 (You may need to register to see that...) In my zip code, the 10 most rented movies of the year were 1. Milk 2. Benjamin Button 3. Slumdog Millionaire 4. Burn After Reading 5. The Wrestler 6. Rachel Getting Married 7. Doubt 8. Twilight 9. Changeling 10. Gran Torino

I still don't understand how this is something for Leno to be complaining about. He made the bone-headed move of agreeing to retire in five years, when there was really no need for him to do that. If he'd said no, NBC could have picked their horse at that point, and either dumped Leno and gone with Conan on the Tonight Show, or told Conan he'd have to wait it out, which would have put them at risk of losing Conan to another network. I still see this as an issue of Jay making a dumb choice, and then after realizing it was dumb, refusing to deal with it gracefully.

If I could step in and address the young'uns in the group : I think I've said this before, but for a whole lot of people (those old enough to remember watching Johnny Carson as host), the idea of the Tonight Show at 11:30(ish) is pretty much carved in stone. I remember a time when it was standard practice to watch the news and stay up through Carson's monologue at least, and decide after that, depending who the guests were, whether or not it was worth staying up to watch the rest of the show. But everyone watched the monologue. It was the ultimate water-cooler show, even when the jokes we