n_maher

I've been out of the scene for years so I have no idea what current reliability is like for Trumpets but in the early years of the return of the brand (mid 90s through mid 00s) they couldn't afford major issues so they overbuilt everything. My RS had zero issues in my ownership other than a fuel fitting recall that never caused a problem and was fixed proactively. I thought the early 1050s were pretty well thought of but I checked out long before those got into the higher miles. All I know is I can still find relatively low mile RS/ST's around here for stupidly short $$ (sub $3k). A couple other thoughts in the last few hours: Yamaha FJ, Honda VFR (older is better as far as I'm concerned), and I'm sure there are others like the Ducati ST. Bottom line, coming up with a list of bikes I'd like to ride would never be a problem. Convincing myself it's a good idea to get one again, that'd definitely be an issue.

Gene, We haven't had squat for snow so far this year so I suppose it had to arrive at some point. Yesterday was the first real storm of the season and if the one predicted for tomorrow night/Tuesday morning shows up it'll be a proper winter.

Excellent news, Chris. Greg, ouch. Crappy, yuck, but thanks. Me - cleaned 5" of snow off the driveway in preparation for the 2 feet predicted to arrive Tuesday.

I'd steer clear of adventure bikes, personally. Generally speaking, those types of bikes have to sacrifice at least something in the way of road performance in order to gain off-road ability. They are the uprightest of the bunch though and probably offer good enough road manners if you don't think you'll be pushing things very hard. Sadly, the bike that I'd most recommend is no longer made, the Triumph Sprint ST. If you've got a local Triumph dealer I'd still look for one used. The original 955 version is as near to bullet proof as you're going to find and has more power than is necessary. The 1050 is a bit quicker, but not as fuel efficient. I had a Sprint RS for a decade/24k miles and regardless of how I rode it it consistently got 48-50mpg. Mine had soft luggage which worked great for trips, the ST always had an option for hard luggage which is even better. Generally speaking the Triumph alternative was about 40% cheaper than the BMW and if you aren't planning on putting more than 100k on the bike, there's no reason to buy the BMW in my book. Yes, they make great bikes, but they certainly come at a premium cost. And really, you want Tyll to weigh in on this.

Happy Belated Birthday!

A very happy birthday to you, Mike!

The first post appears to have been modified for clarity. I appreciate their honesty and brevity.

When photography gets so technical as to intimidate people, the element of simple enjoyment is bound to suffer. Any man who can see what he wants to get on film will usually find some way to get it; and a man who thinks his equipment is going to see for him is not going to get much of anything. -- Hunter S. Thompson That, right there, is advice to live by.

I think I've said it already but it's like they listened to my wishlist of things that I'd want if I bought a FX body. I'm going to give it at least a few months to make sure that there aren't any fatal flaws that crop up and then start stalking the FM forums. Sadly, my D7000 is just about worthless on the used market. I might just give it to my FIL rather than sell it for $200.

Haj, I'm months away from whatever purchase I might make but I'm pretty sure that the 36MP of the D800 would be difficult to manage from a storage perspective.

You're like the CJ of people, you hate everyone I like. I'm trying to figure a way to get a D750 some time in the next year.

Sadly, not in my neighborhood. BBC America is not impressed.

Happy Birthday!

Ack! As we say in the gov, UNSAT!! Happy birthday to two of the best around.

That's actually the direction that I was leaning for my wife's next computer.

I'd take it as a sign and return it for a refund.

You should be able to dial those issues out, no? Even on the D7000 there is a focus plane adjustment that you can make lens specific.

I think you misunderstood me, I loved everything about Deadline and the Newsflesh trilogy. None of the content bothered me and I agree with you that it made the whole premise that much more believable. The Parasite story just kind of strikes me as a cheap knockoff, does that make sense?

-- but I'll probably still continue to read that series, too, since I'm now over it already. I had a conversation with Ian shortly after we both read Parasite and I said something along the lines of, "It's as if she said, "Fuck, if only and it hadn't been about zombies I could have made a kajillion dollars." So she started another series with a slightly different end of the world scenario and so far did some other stuff with the main charaters. But one book in and it'll never be Newsflesh. I'm not sure I'll even bother with the rest of the series, honestly. Now based on what you guys are saying about her other work, I will probably read that so thanks for pointing that stuff out.

The existing laptop is a Thinkpad and for the most part it was a pretty good experience. I blame at least half of the issues that it had on what it is, which is essentially a 2nd/3rd gen netbook made more serious. By their very nature I don't think those products age particularly well so the fact that I got 5 years out of it is a pretty good sign. And sadly, for him, I've bothered Grawk with this type of stuff before. I have given that some consideration but I'm concerned that it'll be one of those things that again, just doesn't work quite right as a result of trying to force something to be what it isn't.

Happy Birthday!

Fuck. RIP Stuart Scott. http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/12118296/stuart-scott-espn-anchor-dies-age-49 As someone who grew up watching a lot of late-night college hoop and Saturday mornings with SportsCenter this is just super sad.

I was asking you. The wife does not want to switch to a Mac (why, I can't really figure out other than the fear of the unknown) so I'm stuck looking for a laptop that doesn't really have to be capable of doing anything but has to be capable enough to not perform like a turd just doing day-to-day tasks. The five year old X120 just isn't cutting it anymore despite being rebuilt with a hybrid drive and fresh install of Win7. So new hardware it is, I guess. What that is, I really don't know.

This, 100%. Every year I have to allow for time for my ass to get re-accustomed to the seat. The first few rides are painful but you'll (re)adjust to a seat that fits well quickly.

Color me curious as well, my wife needs a new machine to pay bills, email, etc.