Pain_Man

Like the handle. (Especially since so few people actually know what the word means--in all its iterations. Nor do most realize that the most imperialistic of all peoples are the Russians. I guess I should say were, hehehe. We put an end to that shit.) I've been buying from them for a couple of years now. Never had any problem (KOW). The products have always been as advertised. If they have an item marked as free shipping, it's always been free shipping. In fact, when they had a problem with my credit card number, they called me to confirm it (apparently I'd transposed two of the numbers). It's strange how different people can have such totally different experiences with the same company. What've been your experiences? >>>While I wouldn't skin my own mother for any amount of gelt, I'd gladly flay my ex-mother-in-law (and ex-wife for that matter) and turn them into a throw rug and throw pillow (Ilse Koch style...just kidding, about Ilse Koch anyway...) <<<

My parents moved from San Diego to here in Vegas in large part to help me and my wife out, especially with out first grade daughter. And they have been life savers. Absolutely. The SS Disability money also fills a small but very vital gap. Due to my condition, I lost more jobs than most people will ever have. I had 24 jobs between graduating high school (1988) and finally realizing that I couldn't even work part-time anymore (2002). My back payments, 3 yrs worth, were enough money for a down payment on our townhouse. So that alone was a huge help. All those years of pain actually turned into a concrete benefit: the roof over our heads. Funny how things work. The upside is that I've been at home with my daughter her entire life, excepting only a few weeks. So we've never had to worry about all the Day Care nightmares that so many people have. And I'm grateful for that, even if purchased at the price of 18 yrs of constant pain. I smoked weed and took ibuprofen for years to control the pain, especially before I was even sure what I had. It actually worked pretty well until my condition got a lot worse circa 1999-2000. Once I had a diagnosis (after a cystoscopy--if you don't know what that is, you don't want to, trust me), I was sent to a pain doc and my daily narcotics in take would, in all likelihood, kill the average person. But I've built up tolerance over time. But the pills have become a MAJOR pain in the ass. I do have some minor memory issues; mostly it's not forgetting things as forgetting the sequence in which they happened. fortunately, as I said, it's not too big an issue. But the narcotics leave me exhausted, often so much that I can't even do elementary household chores. They also interfere with sleep and cause me problems with nausea. I never messed with narcotics recreationally during my years in the Psychic Wars--and now I realize just how smart that was. Anyone who volunteers for dependence on narcotics gets what they deserve. I'm not an addict (having been addicted to other things in the past I know addiction when it's happening to me), but I realize that my body is dependent on them. They've also messed with my metabolism, slowing it down so that I've gained about 30lbs in the last two years. Not cool. Never had a problem with weight in my life. Now I've got a nice paunch (I'm thinking about naming it, but it doesn't like any of my choices). I also realize that the narcotics, the insomnia and the nausea often make me irritable and a lot more so than I normally am. Obviously, this has some unpleasant repercussions in my personal life. Repercussions I'd just as soon go away. I'm also a writer but I'm so tired most of the time I find it hard to bring my concentration to bear to begin writing the novel I've been planning for years now. (Actually two books.) I've got to find the energy to start exercising. Once I can get it going I know it'll be a big help, especially with the pain (past experience has shown this to be true). It'll also help me cut down on the amount of narcotics I take. I've already significantly reduced my intake (I've cut down the equivalent of 9 Percocets from my daily doseage). I hope everything goes well for you. As for my condition, Interstitial Cystitis, there's really no consensus amongst researchers as to what causes it, let alone what might cure it or ameliorate it. But the Federal government is finally pumping some serious money into research. I can only hope some helpful results will come out of the new research. The irony here is that the Senator leading the charge on IC is none other than Dingy Harry, Senate Majority leader and, by God's disgrace, senior Senator from my (adopted) home state. (This'll be a surprise, but the irony comes from the fact that I'm a Reagan Conservative.) This is a lot longer than I intended. So I'll cut it off here. As I said, good luck to you! You can always drop me a PM (no pun intended), anytime you feel like it.

Or over, or sideways, or upside down... There was something in the press that the an "extra long" Season 4 might be because they didn't want to go to a Fifth Season (since cable "seasons" are normally 13 eps instead of 22). It was in Entertainment Weekly which, not infrequently, gets things wrong. For instance, they compiled a list of the Top 25 SF Movies/TV Series of the Last 25 Years and left B5 off of it!. After getting 1200+ emails, they admitted that JMS' masterpiece should have been on the list (they had excluded precisely because it was a contained 4 year story arc--non-fans don't realize that The Arc didn't really begin until S2; that most of S1's eps were rather Star Trek like self-contained story-lines.) Tastes vary. I find Katee Sackhoff to be very sexy myself. And I love the Starbuck character. So complicated, so screwed up, so real. That--and her legs --made her intensely attractive to many guys. (Tho' I admit I was grossed out when she boffed Baltar.) One of BSG's glories is that, unlike almost every Star Trek incarnation--except maybe DS9--the characters are real people. With Star Trek and it's Commandment ("There Shalt Not Be Interpersonal Conflict"), psychological tension and personal conflict were sometimes replaced by bloodless storylines filled with Treknobabble. Never the case with BSG! It's not so much of what the mythical American Male wants but that there should be variety. Not all women are cut out for baking pies within the white picket fences. Some women want to kick ass (including my 7 yr old daughter) while at the same time retaining the option of being feminine when they want to be. Yet another reason why women are the superior sex. These types of characters, of course, go straight back to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the Alien movies. She's never particularly, ah, pumped my 'nads--as we said back in the day--but she certainly created a template for strong female characters that kick ass without apology. I have to part company with you hear. I found the trial episodes riveting. Lee's closing argument was absolutely brilliant. And while if I were Adama I probably would have seen to it that Baltar had an "accident" before a trial, once it came to one, I thought it was handled brilliantly. Lee proved that they'd all done things that were morally ambiguous at best. Baltar's real crime on New Caprica was not so much collaboration as it was cowardice. After he, did have a gun to his head when he signed the mass murder order. Damn, Alter! You've only been posting for six months and you've got almost as many posts as I do. You are one prolific dude.

According to a story on TV Guide's website, Battlestar Galactica's 22 episode fourth season will be it's last. (Tho' this isn't really a surprise considering that Katee Sackhoff has taken a lead role in the upcoming "remake" of The Bionic Woman; and Edward James Olmos had made public statements about the end of the show recently.) Shooting begins this month and the season will debut in JAN 2008. The announcement was made by the show's creator Ron Moore, who shares Executive Producing duties with David Eick; who claim the decision was theirs . As you can read in the article, they say they always had in mind a "beginning, a middle and an end" and that the show's been moving toward it's denouement. That's as maybe but, imo, as with Farscape, it appears SciFi is shooting itself in the foot by cancelling a hit show at the crest of its curve. It also reminds us B5 fans how that show ended with a massive number of plot threads unresolved and the potential for several more seasons as well. Let's hope that Moore and Eick don't leave us hanging the way JMS did. (To be fair to JMS, the first of what is projected to be several straight-to-DVD B5 movies is already finished and will be released sometime this year. Hopefully, some of those loose ends will be resolved; without the participation, and with the death, of nearly all of the core cast, one does wonder...) It may have been, superficially, Moore/Eick's decision, but it's far more likely that they were told by SciFi/Universal brass that their per ep budgets would be drastically cut, or certain key stars contracts wouldn't be renewed, etc. Or perhaps they were simply told the show was done and "wouldn't you rather be the ones to make the announcement?" We won't know until the inevitable book about the "true story of BSG" appears. From the article: "Eick and Moore are holding a conference call this afternoon to discuss their decision." Let's hope the show goes out the way it came in: with a helluva bang. I think it's clear (tho' arugable) that the show had several more seasons in it and it's sad to see it go. Rome is gone, Deadwood's gone and soon, BSG will follow them. With the sole exception of Showtime's good (but not great) The Tudors, there's going be damned little worth watching on TV for the forseeable future. Oh well. Thank God for DVDs and Blockbuster's new online/mail service. I'll be able to watch all those Voyager eps I missed. Here's the url for the story: BSG to End After S4

I have no idea of the reliability of this website, but it says that BSG's days are numbered: http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_ezine...mp;article=2465 There are links to interviews with Sackhoff, Olmos and a producer. haven't had a chance to watch them yet. Goddamn Sci-Fi channel. "The show is great. The ratings are great. Let's cancel it!!" Like HBO with Rome & Deadwood. The suits can stand having top drawer shows on TV. If BSG goes after Season 4, that'll mean no syndication (you need a 100 episodes minimum). And the only decent show left--decent but not great--will be Showtime's The Tudors. This makes me ill.

I haven't seen anything in the press about Sackhoff leaving BSG. Dear God--let's hope not. She's one of the Big Four on the show, the others being: Olmos, McDonald and Callis. Shooting for Season 4 of BSG begins next month--but won't air until January. This Michelle Ryan doesn't appear to have done anything that would be familiar to US audiences excepting an episode of the Agatha Christie based Poirot (my Old Man love's the show.) IMDb Page And, my God, the Bionic Woman!? Some of you, probably a lot of you, are too young to remember the Lindsey Wagner incarnation (I wonder if she'll get a cameo?). Let's put it this way: it wasn't good. But, then again, neither was The Six Million Dollar Man. Tho' I do cop to having had the Steve Austin doll with the "Bionic Eye". (If only I had gotten the Oscar Goodman doll. That's the one worth the bucks.)

A plug from a supermediastore.com customer's Verbatim review...thought Lightning might like to know. "I've backed up 98 [discs] with these Verbatim 95310s, burned at 4X with a LG drive, and only had 1 coaster. Suggest you avoid Nero software with DL discs which has compatibility problems with standalone DVD players. Imgburn is best." (emphasis mine) --Johnny Bob

Sometimes, I wish I'd bought a Mac ten years ago when I had the choice... Time is Running Out for Windows XP Dell promises to still sell Win XP systems, despite Microsoft pressure to move on to Vista. Matthew Broersma, Techworld Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:00 AM PDT Microsoft will force PC makers to stop selling machines running XP by the end of this year, despite ongoing compatibility problems and demand for XP from users. Demand for XP is particularly strong among small and medium-sized businesses, according to Dell, which announced it will continue offering some machines with XP pre-installed. However, the clock is ticking, and Dell and other PC makers will be obliged to stop selling machines running XP by the end of the year, despite ongoing compatibility and performance issues with Windows Vista. Dell has decided to continue offering XP on business systems through the summer through a feature called "Customize with Windows XP," the company said in a recent blog post. Dell said the move reflects strong demand for XP machines, especially for smaller businesses, which often buy systems in small numbers from OEMs. "Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system," said Tom West, director of small business marketing at Dell, on the company's blog. "The plan is to continue offering Windows XP on select Dimension and Inspiron systems until later this summer." Dell isn't planning to offer XP on consumer systems, saying they prefer the "latest and greatest," a situation that displeased some customers. "Thumbs down for not offering this to home users," wrote one user. "Many home users - especially gamers - do consider XP the 'greatest' - especially after all the media articles and benchmarks showing very poor gaming performance and compatibility on Vista," wrote another. At the end of this year, however, Microsoft OEMs' contracts will no longer give them the option of selling XP-powered machines. This is despite problems that have surfaced for consumers as well as businesses, such as games and application incompatibility and driver problems. Most recently, users complained that Vista's start-up, shut-down and application load times are far too long compared with Windows XP. Users on Microsoft's Performance & Maintenance forum, who sound pro-Vista for the most part, have vented about a variety of speed issues. "I have XP and Vista running side-by-side [but] I twiddle my thumbs waiting for certain apps to load up on the Vista machine while the load is instantaneous on the older XP machine," wrote a user identified as William. "I've tweaked it as best as I could with the info available and I am still very disappointed." Doubts have also been raised about Vista's security, after it emerged that Vista was affected by recent widespread hacks involving Windows' animated cursors, even though that portion of the code was addressed by an update more than two years ago.

It said that both Gilmour and Waters are still acting like children after all these years.... (Imo, opinion David Gilmour has polluted the Pink Floyd name with second-rate, sub-par material that sounds like out-takes from his 70s solo albums. Obviously, opinions differ, but can anyone seriously compare A Momentary Lapse of Reason with Darkside of the Moon, Wish You Were Here or The Final Cut--or even Obscured by Clouds or [/i]Atom Heart Mother[/i]?? Roger Waters was the heart and soul of Floyd. A Floyd without him is like a [hypothetical] Beatles reunion without Lennon.) Pink Floyd Members Appear At Barrett Tribute May 11, 2007, 10:25 AM ET Lars Brandle, London The surviving members of Pink Floyd took part in a tribute concert last night (May 10) to pay respects to their former frontman, Roger "Syd" Barrett. Guitarist David Gilmour, bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Rick Wright all appeared on stage at the "Syd Barrett -- Madcap's Last Laugh" gig, held at the London Barbican venue. But it would appear the long-feuding Gilmour and Waters have yet to bury the hatchet. The pair appeared separately, the BBC reports, and were not photographed together. Gilmour, Mason and Wright performed "Arnold Layne," the group's first hit and one of Barrett's best-known works. Waters performed a solo version of his own track, "Flickering Flame." The concert was held to pay homage to Barrett, who died on July 7, 2006, at the age of 60, following complications from diabetes. The artist had spent the better part of the past 30 years living in seclusion in Cambridge, England, after being forced out of the band due to deteriorating mental health issues. Other performers on the night included Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde and Soft Boys singer Robyn Hitchcock. They then took part in an all-star finale of one of Barrett's best-known compositions, the psychedelic track "Bike" taken from the band's debut 1967 album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." Waters, however, did not join in. The Barrett concert is part of the Barbican's Only Connect series of events, which offers a podium for unusual collaborations and cross-arts experimentation. Contemporary composer Philip Glass and punk-era artist Patti Smith will take part in a performance of piano and poetry on Oct. 19, under the Only Connect banner.

It's quite impressive, kirk. Never could get the hang of working with my hands. Before cars became chipset chariots, I used to be able to the basic stuff: change oil, drop tranny pans, change out drive shafts, etc. Beyond that, I'm useless with this kind of stuff. My eldest brother-in-law's got the touch though. Now that he's living here in town, he'll be able to do a lot of stuff we've wanted to get done. I notice that we have the same garage door. Paper-thin aluminum, could probably punch fingers through it. But as my Dad always says, "Locks keep out honest people." I have to keep the wheels lubed with that silicon crap or it gets cranky.

You're a newb, so let me tell you the Number ONE rule on this site: Do not EVER discuss decrypting/circumventing (so-called) "copy protection" for DVD-Videos or video games discs, or the software that enables one to do so, even if doing so is perfectly legal in your country. It's not in the UK (where this site is hosted). DVDShrink's major purpose is restoring to consumer's their rights. Unfortunately like the US government and the EU, the UK government disagrees . It just isn't "on" as our British cousins say; even seemingly harmless topics (e.g. news stories) should be avoided. We only discuss the manifold legal uses for ImgBurn on this forum. (Except in the "Chat" section where pretty much anything goes outside of Rule Number One.) Nothing personal, just wanted to let you know.

I didn't know, but I can relate. And I certainly second crule's wish that it works out for you! I know how utterly debilitating a life-changing disease/condition can be. I've been living with one since I was 18 years old. Since I'm 36, that's half my life. I have a chronic pain condition. I've been in pain, constantly, for 18 years. I currently take enough narcotics to get the entire IB forum subcriber base stoned off their asses. (I kid you not, my daily intake is the equivalent of 60-70 Percocet per day. I also take Valium 10mg/3x a day; as well as Marinol--synthetic THC, no unfortunately, it does not replace God's herb ). As you can imagine, I'm often not in a condition to drive. I too don't want to live with having killed or injured someone because I drove when I shouldn't have (I did enough driving under the influence as a dumbassed kid to last me a lifetime; I'm not about to try God's patience after He kept me out trouble all those years go). I find myself frequently forced to rely on my wife and parents to do things most of you take for granted. Yes, I could get off my meds, but then I would be literally bed-ridden with the pain. Needless to say, because of my disability--which I admit makes me rather cranky sometimes--I've never been able to lead a normal type life. Missed college. Due to my condition I had 24 jobs in the 12 years after high school; I finally said "Fuck it" and went on disability--and what a grand fortune that is! At least I'm getting my Social Security money, which is something the vast majority of my generation will never see. I thank God I was lucky enough to have a beautiful, caring woman fall in love with me. I shudder to think of what my life would be without her--and the most amazing gift of all, my daughter. There's a not too dissimilar electrical stimulator for pain patients. But it involves threading filaments into the spinal nerves. There's no guarantee it'll work (in fact, the chances are so iffy, that you have to have a temporary unit installed; if it works they then install the permanent one ). Either way, the cost is more than $60,000; enough to make the insurance company turn blue. They'd much rather give me the opiates and send me on my way. Not that I'm terribly excited about having anyone messing about with my spinal nerves. No thanks. I can quit the meds at will. You can't unparalyze yourself the same way.

It had a pretty good help file. I used v. 7.0; they are now at 7.1 so who knows what has changed. Already having multiple programs that do what BlazeMP does, I didn't reinstall it when I got my new rig at the end of last year. And since I bought a brilliant 22in 16X10 Samsung LCD monitor (225BW), I watched the other disc using WinDVD 8 (which, as you know, converts PAL discs automatically). So I haven't felt the need to convert the other disc (but I probably will). But, if memory serves, it was a fairly easy process; exceptin' the annoyance at having to wait and wait and wait and wait... Does your machine have dual cores? I've found it makes a HUGE difference. My P4HT was a 2.8 but my 2.67 Core Duo 2 blows doors. It's so much faster that the P4HT, it's hard to believe. (And, my God, the way video games look and play!! The action's so fast, the games are actually more difficult because the AI--if that's the phrase--moves faster.)

"[America is like the] worst kind of beautiful woman; a powerful woman that we desire but feel unworthy of, and whom we must therefore degrade." --Yves Montand "The French loved the Americans who liberated Paris in 1944, but memories fade and affection sours when gratitude turns to resentment. When Charles de Gaulle demanded that the United States take its NATO soldiers out of France, Dean Rusk, Lyndon Johnson's secretary of state, asked with blunt eloquence: 'Should we dig up our dead in Normandy and take them home, too?'" (And, yes, we should have taken our "hallowed dead" home!) An excellent column from the Washington Times: An unexpected French kiss By Suzanne Fields May 10, 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy talks about "new cleavages" in France, but he's not talking about Parisian decolletage. The man France elected president is talking mere politics, about the "social cleavages" between the left, demanding more government largesse and rigid laws mandating laziness, and the right, railing against the 35-hour work week as devaluing merit and undercutting competitiveness in a hard new world of market economies. Mr. Sarkozy seduced enough of the women of France to run his majority to 53 percent. When his Socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, campaigned as a feminist and worked on her image as a "mother" who would be the first female president, the French media swooned. So did the intellectual class, but nobody else bought the feminist-first mystique. Like women in America, the women of France voted for the candidate they thought would be the most competent leader. A woman is a woman, but that doesn't necessarily make her the best president. "We do not want a president who changes her ideas as often as she changes her skirts," hissed Michele Alliot-Marie, the conservative defense minister. Miss Royal's perceived superficiality was derided by another female commentator who called her the "Emma Bovary of politics," reprising Flaubert's novel about a bored housewife who seeks excitement in a world she doesn't understand. What Miss Royal needed was Cyrano de Bergerac to give her words power if not poetry. She never found the answer to the famous question posed by Freud: "What do women want?" The Royal defeat ought to be cautionary for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Women, like cats, are not easily herded. They don't necessarily, or even usually, vote as a bloc. Most women in France, like most men in France, try to balance a satisfying home life with a successful work life and understand that rigid limits on the workweek retard their ability to tailor work to the different stages in their lives. One size does not fit all. "When you're young, you're ready to work like crazy to start a family, buy a house, and get your career off the ground," Mr. Sarkozy says. "Those who want to earn more want the freedom to work more." That's a tough sell in France, considerably tougher there than here. When France enacted a law enabling employers to dismiss workers under 26 who, after two years in the job demonstrate that they can't do satisfactory work, college students protested as if they were denied their birthright. They regarded as that birthright moving from ma mere l'Oye, or Mother Goose, to ma mere l'Etat, the goose of state responsible for laying the golden egg. They wanted to eat their eclair and keep it, too. Mr. Sarkozy prefers the American model. French Socialists, he says, look on work as punishment, something everyone should try to escape. "American society, on the other hand, understands that work well done is liberating." He defends not only the work ethic, but how the rewards of that ethic are distributed: "What could be more just than to ensure that those who work hardest and make the extra effort are able to earn more money and climb higher in society?" The cleavage Mr. Sarkozy decries includes the deep chasm between the United States and France. Not since Lafayette and Rochambeau saved Washington at Yorktown have the two countries expressed authentic affection for one another. The American ascendancy in world affairs coincided with the French decline, and jealousy, as Richard Chesnoff reminds us in "The Arrogance of the French," destroys affinity. Yves Montand compares America to "the worst kind of beautiful woman; a powerful woman that we desire but feel unworthy of, and whom we must therefore degrade." Reconciliations have been sporadic and brief. The French loved the Americans who liberated Paris in 1944, but memories fade and affection sours when gratitude turns to resentment. When Charles de Gaulle demanded that the United States take its NATO soldiers out of France, Dean Rusk, Lyndon Johnson's secretary of state, asked with blunt eloquence: "Should we dig up our dead in Normandy and take them home, too?" The Paris newspaper Le Monde, in a fit of reconciliation after September 11, remarked that "We are all Americans now." The sentiment waned when America went to war against Saddam Hussein. "Whatever our disagreements, France and the United States share the same values: freedom of speech, thought and faith; equality between men and women; and love of life," writes Nicolas Sarkozy in his book, "Testimony," which became his campaign manifesto. "We will prevail if we stand together." Kissing can be nice, but it takes more than a kiss in the heat of a moment to reconcile.

One more thing: I have a DVD-RAM drive made by the Sony-NEC is new partnership. It's actually worked out quite well. Especially since it cost 35 American. Web address: http://www.sonynec-optiarc.com/

@blikkies Can you source this information? I'm curious to know where you found it. Especially since I'm a Plex customer. (A former owner of a 716 and current owner of a 760.) There so much "name-badge" engineering (as the car people call it) in consumer electronics, and IT products are far from being exempt from it, what's important, imo, isn't so much the source of the components (I know from having worked for a supercomputer manufacturer that every system or peripheral contains third-party hardware and software), as the company's CS/return policies. Plextor's is great. They shipped me a defective burner and the return process was blissfully easy. Even tho' I wanted a refund instead of an exchange, they still paid the return postage, without my even asking.

It's basic economics. Supply and demand. There's no call for PAL discs. Therefore no one sells them. If there was a sudden jump in demand, it would be provided for. When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). Therefore I had to adapt. I don't recall anyone berating the French for this trivial difference. And the US is the largest market on Earth and in history. There is absolutely NOTHING "insulated" about it. We set the standards, we set the style, we set the pace. What's "insulated" is your puerile loathing of all things American. I can't decide whether to laugh at or pity you. Like the teenyboppers said in my ancient youth: Get a life. (And it ain't the years, babe, it's the mileage.)

I ordered my father a PAL disc from overseas that did not have CSS or any other so-called "copy protection" bs, so there was nothing in US law preventing my making a copy of it for him to watch on his HDTV (my Old Man, God bless him, still can't program the VCR). Thus, I too had the same problem of converting PAL --> NTSC. I found a program called Blaze Media Pro. It does many, many other video and audio related tasks (ripping CDs, converting video formats from one to the other, etc). Most importantly, though, it converts discs easily from one "standard" to another. (Why there isn't just one is beyond me; falls under the same category as, "why is there just one telephone number format?") This is their URL: http://www.blazemp.com/blaze_media_pro.asp It's $50 American, but has a 21 day trial which is plenty of time to burn a few discs. I was able to convert a 2 hour dual-layer DVD from PAL with ease. It preserved the layer break of the original, pressed disc and I was able to burn it to a +R DL using Nero or CopytoDVD (can remember which) with no problems. One draw-back: it took 19 hours to do one disc. (Since each frame must be changed, one can see how much work's involved.) I was (then) using a P4HT 2.8G w/1.5GB RAM. I now how have a Core Duo 2 w/4GB RAM and an X1950XTX Crossfire video adapter system with 1GB of VRAM. So I imagine on my new rig, it would be significantly faster. (I have one disc that needs to be converted, but I haven't got around to doing it yet.)

It's not "brain fart." The proper term is Cerebral Flatulence.

meritline.com is offering 20 pk spindles of Verbs with free shipping for $39.99. (US only, far as I know.) Here's the URL: Verbatim 20 pack Supermediastore.com is offering the same item for the same price but with free UPS Ground. If you live west of the Mississippi, it shouldn't take that long. Supermediastore.com deal

Sometimes when I burn a +R DL (I do not recall seeing it with SLs) and IB completes the verification process, I see the following in the log: I 16:10:16 Device MD5: bf241753752fd6df44236a549b91e11b I 16:10:16 Device (Padded) MD5: fc48ffe5bca43646829d147bae719163 I 16:10:16 Image MD5: bf241753752fd6df44236a549b91e11b Can someone give me a quick explanation of what a padded MD5 checksum is? And why IB creates one? I'd appreciate it. Thx. >Not to worry, this is from a DVD created (and owned) by my wife's company for marketing purposes. I sometimes make copies for them for distribution to their clients & employees.<

I remember .50 a gallon gas (and 25 cent candy bars). Funny thing is, factor in inflation, and we're actually paying less for gas now than we were paying under that cowardly, utter failure of a President (one helluva of a kisser of dictator's asses; if there were a Nobel prize for sucking up to mass murderers and oppressors of freedom, ol' Jimmy would win hands down). My parents first house cost $18K (the average price of a car is now over $20K). Their second house (the one they nearly lost during the Carter Depression) cost $44K. Both single family (first one was an R2 lot). 3.5 yrs ago we bought this town house--3BR unit of a triplex--for $149,500. Also, next time you happen to watch Diehard, look for the scene with the cop at the gas station. The price on the AM/PM Minimart sign? .75 a gallon!--in 1987. (Thank you, Reynaldus Magnus.) Even God hates the Cubs--and no wonder! During the '84 pennett match, their Neanderthal fans threatened and harassed my 70 years old grandfather. Watching the Padres (specifically Garvey's gorgeous triple) smash the Cubs "dream" was one of the sweetest moments* in sports history... I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Cub-hater. Not much to do with the team; as with Dallas, it's the fans (most, but not all--of course). Growing up in San Diego, it goes without saying that I'm a Raider-hater. (*Watching the Chargers lose to the 49ers in '94, not so sweet; guess it balances out.)

I've not gotten my "free" Vista upgrade yet (came with the Gateway I bought last NOV) so I'm still using XP. From what my programmer brother tells me, Vista is wretched mess. And Office 2007 is even worse. Anyway, thanks to both of you for getting the info out there. Even though I use a UPS with a program that sends the system into hibernate if its on battery after a fixed period, it's still good to know.

Yikes! Hope you've got an understanding sister. I'll be 37 this year but the "0" birthdays have never really bothered me. For some reason turning 26 did. For some reason it felt as tho' I was crossing some threshold of my own. The odd things is how, suddenly, everthing seems to be 20 years ago. Next year, 20th high school reunion (do our British cousins do that? I wonder...), last 20th anniversary of the Challenger accident. As Indiana Jones said, "It ain't the years, it's the mileage." Our generation was in such a bloody hurry to grow up. I keep thinking of that line in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "If you don't take time to smell the roses"... We haven't spent a lot of time doing that, have we? Again, have a good one.