Cid_MCDP

There are only two counties that can be in, Lancashire, or Yorkshire, but the smart money would be on Yorkshire. I like it because it says "Fish Fail."

You... eat... that?

I feel like Ali G when he goes to the farm and sees a chicken for the first time... WOT DA FUCK IS DAT FING? Seriously though, what the fuck is that?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ment/index.html Should be mailed to every US citizen. What I've been saying for years. You know honestly why so many people in this country stick up for the rich and the corporations? Because a lot of them are dumb enough to think that one day they'll be rich. I swear to God. I've seen it, I've talked to them. Even the people who have no shot at even getting to upper middle class let alone rich, they all buy into the American Dream hook-line-and-sinker and don't want to make the mistake of over-taxing the rich and end up screwing themselves. It's fucking amazing hearing a line worker who tops out at $13.50 an hour explain to you why the rich bear the financial burdens of this country. (Related sidenote- this is also why politicians make such big deals out of decisive issue that would normally be of no consequence to 99% of the American people. I see people here in southern Indiana roughly 1300 miles from the nearest Mexican border obsessed with the topic of Illegal immigration or people who have never knowingly met a gay person that's consumed with gay marriage. How do either of those things actually affect anyone around here? They don't. Why do the politicians want you all freaked out over them? Because if you're pissed off at all the gay liberal Mexicans that are stealing our jobs and free healthcare, you probably won't realize that the rich people are the ones who have destroyed/ are destroying this country and you should be pissed off at them. All these tea party groups... where were you fuckers when they pushed through the bailouts? I remember that shit- on Monday the bankruptcies started. On Tuesday, all the corporate stooges, I mean elected officials, lined up in front of the TV cameras and begged and pleaded for us to let them give the banks unprecedented amounts of cash. We said, "No." On Wednesday they asked again. We said, "No", again. On Thursday, they gave them the money anyway. We shrugged our shoulders, muttered "Fuck" under our breaths and went to work. Well, those of us who still had jobs, of course. I still think these "unprecedented economic times" were caused by American corporations seeking to punish us for trending towards an Obama win. It just felt an awful lot like 1992/ 93 all over again...

Enrique too? Carroll?

Haven't used Maya, but I've used ACAD off and on since around 2000. Good video card and lots of RAM will make you happy. With those requirements, a desktop will be cheaper than a laptop. It also really, really sucks trying to do CAD work on a laptop with their (relatively) small screens. Do you know what OS you'll be using? XP 32-bit will only let you use about 2.5 gigs of RAM regardless of what you have installed. If you wait for Windows 7, this won't be an issue. Any decent gaming video card will run other graphics intensive applications swimmingly. Video cards are like cars- just figure out what you want to spend then start reading reviews for products in your price range. Me personally, I'd pay on the video card and skimp on the processor if it comes down to one or the other. Big CAD files take up a lot of hard drive space and I'm sure Maya is the same way, but you can always add externals down the road if you find a deal on a nice system for a great price with a smallish hard drive. My wife bought me a 22" widescreen Acer monitor back around Valentine's Day. I think it was around $225. They might be even cheaper now. Get a good monitor though or you'll go blind.

They'll take anyone they can down with them though. Ever try to save someone from drowning? Writing has been on the wall since the late 90's. You're only as powerful as how much money you can generate and as we all know, sales keep going down, down, down. It's a shite business model and has been for a long time. Up until they dropped the CD prices over here in around 2003 or so, if you bought a disc in an actual music store (as opposed to Wal-Mart, for example), you'd pay around 15-20 bucks for a new CD. Many DVDs were selling for around the same price. Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, high prices were a huge part of the proliferation of piracy. If CDs had stayed relatively cheap, I doubt a lot of people would've gone to the trouble of figuring out Napster or Limewire or BitTorrent or whatever and ripping everything off.

Fish sticks. All I have to say on the subject.

Where are you going to build them? And what will you tell the nimbys? I can't argue, there are two of the fuckers within 25 miles of my house. So chronic masturbation is a side effect of radiation poisoning then?

The artists are the main reason this flawed business model has propagated as long as it has. At one time, back when everything was actually a physical product, playing ball with the record companies was nearly the only way to play ball. Sure, you had your anomalies even then (people like Ian MacKaye), but it was all so expensive- recording time, duplication, distribution. Now though, no reason for them whatsoever. I've got a Mac and a little Alesis USB 4 channel mixer. Sure, it isnt much different than having a four-tracker and a little studio to cut in back in say 1989, but the difference now is I can make something and have it available to you lot via the web. No CDs, no master reels, no distribution deal. Hardly anyone over here really listens to the radio anymore, it just comes down to having a good sound, getting out there and playing as many gigs as you can, and having a good web presence. It's still easier though to just let the record company do everything for you and be lazy, er, focused on your music. Why bother yourself with accounting or marketing? Hell, most of these people don't even seem to want to dress themselves. They don't want to be musicians, they want to be rock stars. Huge difference.

Basically they've realised: 1. Being at war with your own fans is not a good idea. & 2. The recording industry rips them off as much as it does the consumer. The recording industry will still win though, they have too much money not to do so. Why don't artists just sell their own music from their own website?? No reason not to now days. Unless you're a lazy primadonna who can't be arsed to learn HTML. I had to take all of our stuff down because of possible litigation over our band name, but even my little old band had tracks for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody, and the other usual suspects. There is absolutely no reason to go through these antiquated record companies any longer unless you can't get the money together for a proper recording, are lazy, would just rather someone else do all the work for you because you're such an artist. You're on their hit list now. Lols, they already hit me, bud. I work in a fucking factory and haven't played in public in 4 years. There is a RIAA over that as we speak. You think they're bad? I should tell you about the horseshit cease and desist lawsuit that's sort of been brought against me over our old band name. It's truly an amazing example of why copyrights in this country are ludicrous. You'd think there would be more killin in a country packed with guns and cunts. Oh, I'd say we've got more than enough of our fair share...

Basically they've realised: 1. Being at war with your own fans is not a good idea. & 2. The recording industry rips them off as much as it does the consumer. The recording industry will still win though, they have too much money not to do so. Why don't artists just sell their own music from their own website?? No reason not to now days. Unless you're a lazy primadonna who can't be arsed to learn HTML. I had to take all of our stuff down because of possible litigation over our band name, but even my little old band had tracks for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody, and the other usual suspects. There is absolutely no reason to go through these antiquated record companies any longer unless you can't get the money together for a proper recording, are lazy, would just rather someone else do all the work for you because you're such an artist. You're on their hit list now. Lols, they already hit me, bud. I work in a fucking factory and haven't played in public in 4 years. There is a RIAA over that as we speak. You think they're bad? I should tell you about the horseshit cease and desist lawsuit that's sort of been brought against me over our old band name. It's truly an amazing example of why copyrights in this country are ludicrous.

Are they still wanting to seccede from Canada? Haven't heard much about that lately. When they were making a big stink over it, the Habs were pitiful. I've always had a theory that Montreal's destiny as a province is largely dependent on how good or bad the Habs are playing at the time. I have no idea what a tad zut alors is. Nah, they know they have it pretty good here. Montreal is a city in Quebec. Zut Alors=DAMN!!=BLIMEY!! Personally I think that Health Care (here and the US) needs to stop being run as a business, it's people not clients or numbers. The government is supposed to have the public's best interest at heart. If someone is dying of cancer and there is a treatment for it, they should get it, end of story. Healthcare in Canada is far from perfect, but there are more people excluded from Healthcare in the states than we have citizens ffs.....seems a bit f'ed up. Geez- nothing like a typo to make me look like the typical ignorant American. I swear, I meant to type Quebec instead of Montreal that second time! Being a hockey fan, the sucession talk was kind of a big deal there a few years ago when Quebec was talking about bonking out of Canada. Don't know why- it isn't like they'd suddenly be kicked out (Montreal was one of the "Original Six" hockey teams in the NHL- being in Canda, I'm sure you already know this; just mentioning it for the cheap seats) of the league. Totally agree with your sentiments on us and healthcare though- it's ridiculous that we have a political party that is all about Right To Life but won't get on board for un-corporatizing healthcare. Course, these are the same people that are also pro-death penalty, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. (BTW- the other one is no better- pro-welfare but no healthcare? Uh, ok...) I can tell you exactly how that conclusion was arrived at and it is in no way indicitive of how we feel about medical inflation or efficiency- the line of thinking would be something along the lines of, "I pay for insurance, they should pay for my care." Since most Americans don't "directly" pay for their healthcare, they have no interest in making the process more efficient. That aside, we really don't have any say in the matter one way or another. This country's government is firmly in the pocket of corporations and their lobbies. Even if we did all suddenly wake up one day and demand the process become more efficient, it'd never happen. Saying we feel little urge to make things more efficient is akin to saying the American people feel no urge to make NASA more efficient because of the Challenger or Columbia disasters, or that we feel no urge to make the FBI and CIA more efficient because of 9/11. We have no say in something like that. We should be on the hook for a lot of things, but apathy towards medical inflation shouldn't be one of them. .........hahaha, no worries i thought about editing my post b/c your posts on here don't fit the american stereotype Lols, no, no. That's my bad. I have this bad habit of writing some stuff, adding my reply, then upon re-reading it, think of some better or less convoluted way to explain myself, edit the post, then pop back out. Sometimes my re-writes become re-wrongs. There are problems with Canadian Healthcare for sure, lack of MD's in rural areas, long emergency waits and redundant bureaucratic red-tape being the big ones. Lack of MD's......... not too bad if you live in a major center (lower mainland BC, Calgary, MONTREAL haha, Toronto etc.) but if you happen not to live close to a major center you could be looking at as much as a day's drive or in some cases a plane ride to get to the treatment or MD that can help you. Inconvenient yes, but when you arrive you get treatment , end of story. Long emergency waits............My Mom was a Triage/Emergency Room nurse for 35 years, biggest issue with wait times is people that don't need to be there clogging up the system. If your kid has a rash on his/her ass........that is not a reason to be in the emerge, go see your doctor, if you don't have a doctor go to a clinic. If your kid (and this really happened) HAS BEEN SPRAYED BY A SKUNK!!!........that is not a reason to be in the emerge, go to the grocery store and get some tomatoe juice and GO HOME. The people you hear about complaining of "waiting for 4 hours to see a doctor for 5 min", should probably never have gone to the emerge in the first place, people that are really sick/hurt, don't wait 3 hours b/c it's an EMERGENCY. redundant bureaucratic red-tape.........speaks for itself, it's here, it stops people from getting treatment they need. I think it is a sign that the government should stop listening to the bean counters and runnning the country like a business. So as long as you live in an NHL city, you're pretty much ok then? That's really not so much different than here. My hometown is a little bitty town in southern Illinois with about 6500 people. There's a hospital, but it serves largely as helipad for the bigger hospitals to lifeflight people out to their own facilities. You're cool if you've got like a broken arm or something, but if you've been in a car accident and have some real trauma, they won't even bother trying to fix you- they'll do what they can to patch you up and then stick you on the helicopter. Ditto on wait times here. Lots of folks in the ER in the evenings for colds because their regular doctor's office is closed. I'd blame the patients entirely, but our media is so fear-based here, you can almost understand their hysteria. HMOs have their own brand of red tape- even if a patient sees a doctor multiple times for the same issue, you won't see a specialist unless that original doc approves. Funny you mention that about goverment running things like a business- at the state college I used to teach at, I made that very same statement in regard to an equipment budget of mine that got cut as a cost-saving measure...

See, this is the impression I get as well. I was just curious to hear some of your views and experiences on your system. I can tell you the flaws in our system- the biggest one is you have to be working or retired from a job you've worked for years to have insurance because the VAST majority of us don't have our own plans- we're tied into the HMOs through our work. This works out great for companies because you're much less likely to up and quit a job if it means no money and no health insurance. Add in the fact that just about every company has new hires on a 90-day probationary period in which they don't have to provide you insurance and you suddenly become a model corporate employee. No, the thing I was referring to is the fact that the article that ChezGiven quoted seems to be pointing the finger at the American public for not being outraged at all the inefficiency in the healthcare system, not the system itself. As far as the mechanism for change being there, like I say, the billions of lobby money from the pharmaceutical companies and whatnot tend to throw a spanner in that mechanism. Why in the world lobbying is even legal in this country is beyond me. I can understand the need for it back in the day when you actually had to go to Washington to make your point known- like before the internet or phones or whatever, but it's terrible for all of us "normal Americans" that it's still in existence. Moore touches on it some in Sicko, but especially the way the HMOs came to be in this country is just absolutely corrupt. Lols... again, education spending in this country has decreased nearly every year I've been alive and that's 35 years. You seen Idiocracy? In the future, people are going to thing Mike Judge was a documentary filmmaker.

There'll be a press conference at 3pm!

Pretty impressive of the Taliban really, many here would be proud. Ok, I'm not condoning bombing the fuck out of civilians, but come on. The fucking Taliban wants to make in inquiry? I've fucking seen it all now.

Basically they've realised: 1. Being at war with your own fans is not a good idea. & 2. The recording industry rips them off as much as it does the consumer. The recording industry will still win though, they have too much money not to do so. Why don't artists just sell their own music from their own website?? No reason not to now days. Unless you're a lazy primadonna who can't be arsed to learn HTML. I had to take all of our stuff down because of possible litigation over our band name, but even my little old band had tracks for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody, and the other usual suspects. There is absolutely no reason to go through these antiquated record companies any longer unless you can't get the money together for a proper recording, are lazy, would just rather someone else do all the work for you because you're such an artist. You're on their hit list now. Lols, they already hit me, bud. I work in a fucking factory and haven't played in public in 4 years.

Hey, so all this being said... There's all kinds of stories in our press about the Canadian and UK systems ultimately being worse than ours- long waits for emergency care, expensive or extremely technical procedures not being "approved" (or whatever), stuff like that. I know first hand that our media can seldom if ever be believed when it comes to stuff like this, but for the sake of my own perspective on these things, what would you, any of you, describe as being the shortcomings of your (respective) nationalized healthcare systems? I'm pretty well aware of the problems with ours, just wondering if the alternative really is worse.

His brother… Lols... I'm sure you already know this, Tom, but be sure to take the brother's computer offline when you do this. Reason I mention it, we had a flare up of the Conficker about a week ago in my company. Thankfully my stuff wasn't affected, but it rocked a bunch of our plants and some corporate boxes. The big wig IT dudes went in and cleaned everything up, but apparently somebody wasn't offline when they did their cleanup and a bunch of stuff got re-infected. Well played people making twice my salary to do half the work... well played indeed.

Are they still wanting to seccede from Canada? Haven't heard much about that lately. When they were making a big stink over it, the Habs were pitiful. I've always had a theory that Montreal's destiny as a province is largely dependent on how good or bad the Habs are playing at the time. I have no idea what a tad zut alors is. Nah, they know they have it pretty good here. Montreal is a city in Quebec. Zut Alors=DAMN!!=BLIMEY!! Personally I think that Health Care (here and the US) needs to stop being run as a business, it's people not clients or numbers. The government is supposed to have the public's best interest at heart. If someone is dying of cancer and there is a treatment for it, they should get it, end of story. Healthcare in Canada is far from perfect, but there are more people excluded from Healthcare in the states than we have citizens ffs.....seems a bit f'ed up. Geez- nothing like a typo to make me look like the typical ignorant American. I swear, I meant to type Quebec instead of Montreal that second time! Being a hockey fan, the sucession talk was kind of a big deal there a few years ago when Quebec was talking about bonking out of Canada. Don't know why- it isn't like they'd suddenly be kicked out (Montreal was one of the "Original Six" hockey teams in the NHL- being in Canda, I'm sure you already know this; just mentioning it for the cheap seats) of the league. Totally agree with your sentiments on us and healthcare though- it's ridiculous that we have a political party that is all about Right To Life but won't get on board for un-corporatizing healthcare. Course, these are the same people that are also pro-death penalty, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. (BTW- the other one is no better- pro-welfare but no healthcare? Uh, ok...) I can tell you exactly how that conclusion was arrived at and it is in no way indicitive of how we feel about medical inflation or efficiency- the line of thinking would be something along the lines of, "I pay for insurance, they should pay for my care." Since most Americans don't "directly" pay for their healthcare, they have no interest in making the process more efficient. That aside, we really don't have any say in the matter one way or another. This country's government is firmly in the pocket of corporations and their lobbies. Even if we did all suddenly wake up one day and demand the process become more efficient, it'd never happen. Saying we feel little urge to make things more efficient is akin to saying the American people feel no urge to make NASA more efficient because of the Challenger or Columbia disasters, or that we feel no urge to make the FBI and CIA more efficient because of 9/11. We have no say in something like that. We should be on the hook for a lot of things, but apathy towards medical inflation shouldn't be one of them.

Basically they've realised: 1. Being at war with your own fans is not a good idea. & 2. The recording industry rips them off as much as it does the consumer. The recording industry will still win though, they have too much money not to do so. Why don't artists just sell their own music from their own website?? No reason not to now days. Unless you're a lazy primadonna who can't be arsed to learn HTML. I had to take all of our stuff down because of possible litigation over our band name, but even my little old band had tracks for sale on iTunes, Rhapsody, and the other usual suspects. There is absolutely no reason to go through these antiquated record companies any longer unless you can't get the money together for a proper recording, are lazy, would just rather someone else do all the work for you because you're such an artist.