GCrites

Just wait until white pants come back. It'll be just like retirees at Cypress Gardens in 1986.

You'd normally have to go to the libraries in those respective cities to see this stuff. It will probably be awhile until I go to the McGregor Iowa Public Library, so this comes in handy.

^Americans at this time are too pacified, apathetic, distracted and frankly still too wealthy to riot or even put together an effective demonstration.

Even B.B. allowed people to smoke in public though the cigarettes were crappy.

Right, even in Columbus which doesn't seem to have the geographic phenomena of the other 2 C's, there's still quarries, the river, rail yards, highways, a nature preserve, flood plains and other places where people can't live in these mileage-based concentric circles.

Blah, I say none of this needs done except the reconstruction at Eastgate. Columbia Parkway is what is most congested from what I've seen, and there seems to be no interest in changes there. I suppose rail would help Columbia's traffic count, but the further east you go the less receptive people seem to be to rail. It's like building Washington Metro in Alexandria and Arlington first.

Suburbs are now poorer on average than core cities. There have been several discussions on this site about this recent phenomenon.

$3.79 at Chambers Rd. Kroger, too. Up $0.20 since Saturday.

Ever since the Balkanization of music became final around 2000, charts have been practically meaningless as far as what people are actually into. Probably only 300-400 pop records a year come out versus thousands of metal records, thousands of country records, thousands of Bluegrass records, trillons of rap records and so on. In fact, if you look at the album charts, today it only takes about 10% of of what it took sales-wise to make it to #1 as it did in the late '90s. 10%! Sales of albums overall are much higher than 10% of what they were then, but the sales are spread out over many more releases. As far as music's future goes as a form of entertainment goes though, as sprawl continues to lose popularity you'll see see it become much more important in the entertainment mix and cohesion will return to some degree.

As someone who works in the game biz, I can tell you that Guitar Hero and Rock Band are DEAD. They've stopped making the games; people don't buy them and game stores have completely stopped taking the equipment in on trade since everybody is dumping the stuff. Just like end of disco in the States except that people haven't brought all their stuff down to the ballpark to be blown up -- yet. I'd say that all those sub-genres are what destroyed rock and roll more as youth entertainment more than anything, and as far as live shows go, smoking bans, greedy large venues, massive additional sprawl from '85-2005 and overzealous DUI enforcement were the final blows.

Also, to touch on the "youth monoculture of the past vs. hyperindividualism of modern students" topic, I'd say that Metal was at the forefront of the hyperindividualistic "that guy likes this, this other guy likes that, and she is into this other thing and that's the way it is". In 1982 metal fans pretty much all agreed that Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, Scorpions and UFO kicked ass (though there was always disagreement reading Zeppelin). You get into the late '80s and everybody was either into Thrash, Hair, Death, punk/metal Crossover or the old British stuff. Fans wouldn't go shows outside their favored sub-genre except maybe a few thrashers would show up to a Crossover show. Of course, considering the time frame, the Internet didn't split all this up; there were so many magazines, fanzines, tape trading networks, band mailing lists/club newsletters, record stores and hotlines that you could find out tons about your favorite obscure bands -- and don't forget the often-inaccurate word of mouth. When I was in high school in the '90s being into unusual stuff overall, not just music, was frowned upon... musically, not listening to rap exclusively was odd -- even those who listened to the biggest bands of all time such as Nirvana or the Beatles were looked at with a stinkeye. You get past 2002 or so, and you start to notice that nobody cares what weird stuff other young people are into, because they're all into weird stuff themselves. Weird sports teams, weird cars, weird clothes, weird food, weird movies etc. aren't weird any more. It seems that things become un-weird when there's lots of information about them on an easily accessible basis. It seems that the only way a young person can be weird these days is to dress well or have a grating personality.

Eh, I never found much use for business magazines when I doing MBA or MS coursework. The WSJ came in handy somewhat often, but you're out there you're better off reading about products in your industry and trade journals, watching what your competitors are doing and learning about customers/clients and their behavior. People in school often don't have an industry. Business magazines always seemed to me like they're aimed at people who are looking at business from the outside or just want to get rich. It's like, if you asked them what field they were in or wanted to get into, they'd just say "Business." Perhaps I spend enough time on the internet getting pointed to articles that affect the macro scene enough that I don't need supplemental info. When you're doing research on public companies and don't have access to something like a Bloomberg terminal, Reuters, the company's website/reports and Yahoo Finance are a lot more useful than some article that might have an agenda.

Don't forget SPORTSCENTER!

Awhile back, I was listening to an episode of author James Howard Kunstler's podcast, The Kunstlercast. During it, they suggested that backers of transit systems refer to them as "public transit" rather than "mass transit" to make the concept more palatable to the general population. The reasoning is that "mass" is somewhat of a dehumanizing term and adds fuel to the "transit is communistic" line of doofus logic. Meanwhile people are said to have a better perception of "public" such as "public place" (as in "don't pick your nose in public") or the public library. Thoughts? Should we be calling it public transit on this site and in daily conversation?

^ Then you gotta add back all the minutes you spend pumping gas, sitting around at the auto repair shop, driving people to/getting driven to cars and other gymnastics, time spent parking, time spent with insurance companies/the BMV, washing it, and going to the auto parts store just to name a few.

The girls are more into TV than the guys. There's the MTV trance, celebrity news garbage and endless reality shows for them to consume. And don't forget the Disney movies! Remember, not every college kid is a social butterfly or even a weekend warrior. Some just show up to class, are in a daytime extracurricular or two (or have a part-time job) and go home for evenings of homework and screen.

It was convenient that the Red Zone was located next to the jail, so it will be good for Quarthouse as well but for different reasons.

I figured cursive was going to be something that was going to end up be downplayed with all this computer stuff going on. Schools might be spending too much time on computer stuff anyway; today's kids learn most of the stuff they need to know to be "normal" computer users on their own between social networking, looking for porn and online gaming.

Local TV news; I'm pretty sure it was in Columbus, but it may have been Cincinnati.

^ Multitasking lowers your I.Q. by 10 points; being stoned only reduces it by 3. Frankly, I think multitasking lowers it even more -- people (especially men) can go from fully-functioning humans to mush-brained cretins in mere seconds when faced with multiple stimuli.

Those "in the know" have been able to seek underwriters to prepare mortgages for them without a credit history for years, but the concept doesn't seem to be a part of our national consciousness.

Right, in your specialization it wouldn't be unusual for them to probe your history, though I suppose for someone in your field having been bankrupt at one point and then emerging from it successfully could provide practical experience and help build a rapport with clients. I did have a credit rating of 745 for a while; I signed up for a Firestone credit card in 2003 to save money on some tires and never used it again. Eventually it defaulted back to no credit rating. I found this out when I signed a lease for an apartment a couple years ago and had to get my folks to co-sign. What I do know is that back when I was an investment adviser we weren't checking prospective employee's credit ratings. Even so, my explanation for a lack of one would have went over well since making sure clients' everyday personal finances were in order is such a key aspect of that occupation.

They don't necessarily need the economy as a whole to be healthy... just their customers and potential customers economies to be healthy. I'd also argue that many companies flourish when the economy is slower -- including mine. People aren't going to sit inside playing video games when they have a bunch of money for speedboats, racecars and season tickets.

^ A car is strong. Many cars are weak. A train is strong. Many trains are stronger.

No matter what they do, all these roads still aren't going to be able to be kept in shape -- same with affordable short to medium distance air travel. We're going to be really sorry that we didn't build alternatives when they were affordable (now). Oh well, the Gov wants a throne of dirt and he'll get it.