GCrites

People used to ride with blown-out muffler packing on their two-strokes a lot in the old days. That's pretty irresponsible today. Stock XRs have a muffler that looks like a maze inside that doesn't wear out. If you got a loud silencer for it, you could eliminate everyone's hearing in a 100-yard radius permanently with that thing.

SE Ohio is legendary for its dirt bike riding. We have the gnarliest, most technical, snottiest trails and races in the lower 48. When any American hare scrambles or enduro racer hears the word "Ohio", they aren't thinking of some cornfield. They think of torture, mud, hills with no run at them whatsoever, months of wear to a bike in one race and barely being able to fit through the trees. Only Hawaii has a more legendary rep, but of course it's a lot harder to get there than here. West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennesse's terrain is somewhat like ours, but you don't get the sheer amount of ruggedness, wealth of nasty water features and ridiculously steep, short hill runs that drive people insane. They have a lot more powerline runs and ski resort-type stuff.

^It's your tone. We can hear the anti-urban talk radio hosts in your tone, choice of words, asinine challenges ("oh yeah, find me a place to get highlighter markers in OTR") and assumptions that everyone has made logical decisions on their own in the presence of heavy subsidies, advertising, marketing and salesmanship.

Sega built up too much debt by releasing and redesigning all those different systems in the '90s. They had to get out of the hardware business. Sega also angered third-party companies by not telling them early enough about the system's release. That's why there's no EA games for Dreamcast.

^"Sorry Akron, if your Aeros would have won just two more games you wouldn't have wound up in the top 15." - Forbes

The mid-'90s was a chaotic time in the video game business.

+1

You know, I'm starting to think these days that almost all of our national collective efforts are going into making sure this number increases -- or at least doesn't drop.

Looks like that's not it. But, now I wonder what the building you pointed out could have been. Did it just sit there as a mostly demolished ruin for years? If you want to see the 1957 historic aerials on paper, go to the map area of the Main Library. The book is 3'x3' and must weigh over 50 pounds.

I'm talking '70s-'80s probably.

I don't really understand that ranking, or more accurately, how they came up with the title/description. Wouldn't the cities whose residents are going out and getting tons of work (teeth whitening, breast implants, etc.) done actually the "insecure" ones? Right, your first though is a place like L.A. where that industry is huge. But, a ton of people live in L.A. -- many different types. So even L.A. is the epicenter of that, there's still tons of people that don't do it.

It's very simple. If enough well-adjusted kids from educated middle- or upper-class families started attending CPS (or really any urban district, for that matter), the state report card ratings would rise. And then perception of the schools would change without the administrators, principles, or teachers significantly changing anything. But there would have to be a critical mass of these families and students. What people everywhere don't understand is that the state's report card ratings are a sham. They correlate much more closely with demographics than with what is going on in the classrooms. And yet when people run off to the exurbs to avoid get away from the "terrible" schools in the inner-rings, they are oftentimes basing that decision mostly on something that is blatantly flawed. I remember when we moved to the exurbs from the suburbs that at school the trailer park kids got all the attention and that my classmates spent an inordinate amount of time talking about "n-words"... of course that's not the word they used. I also remember not having nearly as much time for homework because of all the time I spent on the bus and in cars (got too much of a headache trying to do homework while in 'em) . That's why I flunked the 7th grade.

Kunstler digs it too. Though I don't think he's seen it finished.

I'm trying to remember what was there before. It was a historically significant building that survived 670.

People in rural areas do walk. There's often lots of good scenery to be had, land needs to be inspected, chores done, dirt bike trails need to be maintained, the mailbox is far away and going into town often leads to walking around the old town. Outer-ring 'burbs, exurbs and ribbon development are the problems -- they're sprawl. Walking though that stuff can be miserable.

Those under the age of 16 can render a 5200 controller useless in seconds.

I've got an exciting antenna story. Couple months ago, I decided to hook up an Atari 2600 to a tube TV in the basement. After the 2600 was installed, I turned on the TV and it started naively auto-scanning for analog channels. Something most people don't know is that an Atari is actually a pretty good antenna with its long RF cable and circuitry. I forgot to turn on the Atari, so the TV went right past channel 3 and stopped on channel 44 which apparently still broadcasts home shopping over the analog airwaves. So, I'm wanting to play some Atari, but instead Snooki's coming through the Atari selling perfume and whatnots on home shopping. She was looking good, if not a bit snowy. I watched for over 10 minutes.

They could have that CGI groundhog from Fox NASCAR coverage, Digger, do it.

Yet another Columbus fast-food innovation.

^^ that chart illustrates why there's so much home shopping and Jesus on cable. They aren't listed because those channels pay the cable companies to be on the air rather than the cable companies paying them. I like how Fox News is one of the most expensive channels.

Do keep in mind that if you move somewhere for "good schools" when your child is 3 that the school might not be such a good school by the time your kid or their younger siblings are teens. When the schools get worse, property values go down (or stagnate) and you get stuck. I don't know Cleveland 'burbs very well, but it's been a concern here in places like Reynoldsburg, Grove City and even Hillard already. When I talk to people from those areas it seems like a lot of them have problems. But, meltdowns haven't been a problem in Grandview and Bexley, our older inner-ring 'burbs. Of course, you pay for that stability with elevated real estate prices and property taxes.

^ That's 'cause those kids' folks raised them in bike-unfriendly places.

^Nowadays girls don't care if you have a cool car. It's almost like they don't like it when you do because they think you'll bore them with details about the car, spend a bunch of time working on it and hanging out with "boring" car friends at the track. That you're a "car nerd" that they can't relate to. That changes when the car is worth over $100,000, though, because then it means that your a rich guy. Then they get excited.

I guess one good thing about having gone to high school in Pickaway County is that all my friends have trucks of their own, keeping me from having to be the Guy With the Truck.

I streamed some stuff through my roommate's account on his Wii about a year ago and the quality and selection were terrible at that time. There wasn't anything I wanted to see. I ended up watching coverage of a Moog keyboard festival. It looked like Youtube video from 2007 and my tube TV couldn't even "analog out" much of the blockyness. But I haven't used it recently.