jeffmeden

+1 for the chinese 'accounting irregularity'. It's hard to quantify the cost of your army when you're a communist regime and employ soldiers who just happen to 'volunteer' their time... Don't think that we are so far ahead of them, they can hide billions and billions of 'costs' in other ways. Just as long as they never develop a navy, I can sleep at night... Not to drag this to the kitchen... but tell that to about 75,000 Iraqi civilians (you can find them in improvised graves).

The way I understand it (may not be correct, who knows) is that the two best things for your credit are 1) cyclical or long-term accounts with no past-dues on record and 2) high credit/debt ratio (meaning your allowed max credit is much larger than your actual borrowed amount). So if you can get a no-interest card that would be fine, move the balance, save the interest, and keep it after you pay it off. One thing I don't get is why (not to rag on you, just an observation) people 'save' money when they have high-interest debt. The savings basically comes at the opportunity cost of the interest rate on that debt. For example, if you borrowed $2000 at 20% apr, and you chose to save and keep 1000 in your checking acct and make minimums on that $2000, you are paying $33 in interest per month when you could be paying only $16.50 if you paid the card down right away. To be honest, I have never had to live off anything but a predictable income so maybe those with a more variable income need a different tactic. But, I digress. Oh, I forgot to answer the actual question. Wtf is my problem? Of all the offers I get, the lowest interest rates are typically with Bank of America. I have a card through them and their current balance transfer rate is 1.9% for a year. Not as many places are offering 0% intros any more since interest rates are up across the board.

Lawyer up, a buddy of mine got caught for 'street racing' in his beat to hell '91 GMC jimmy that could do like 80mph tops, because he was speeding and someone else was speeding and the cop saw them both running right next to each other. He got his license revoked for 30 days, suspended for 180, huge fine, etc etc. They don't mess around with that charge, it sucks bad.

I have a World Gym membership through work, and it's been great. I can't really complain since it's comped through my employer, but the gyms are in nice shape and never overcrowded. I usually work out at the one in Delaware, but have gone to the Hilliard one several times and it's top notch.

Does buying something that breaks suck? Of course! It would be bullshit if you drove it away and found the engine was full of vegetable oil, but from the sound of it that's not what happened. Its natural to be pissed, but put this in perspective before you have a heart attack. Personally the only euro bike I would put any faith in would be a BMW...

I think there is a misunderstanding here: The hill climb was no doubt a heavy incline short haul, which the low gearing and light weight on the model T make it a natural for. Those things were originally designed for a 20HP motor, so if it's true that they used 100hp motors they are 'modified' Model Ts that have no reason not to be quick. Oh and the H2 is a damn tonka toy, put a H1 in there and let it run over the model T on its way up the hill...

I bought my bike from Hinds, with the service plan, and take it in every 6 months or so for the scheduled maintenance. They are always scheduled a week out on service, but they do what I ask and they haven't F'ed my bike up yet. I have never had a 'phenomenal' experience that would make me recommend them to all my friends, but I would rank it as 'satisfied' and if someone asked, I would say its a decent place to buy from. The thing I don't get is that if there are so many complaints about how they handle their sales and service, why are they still the biggest bike seller in central ohio and why is their service department always booked a week in advance? A lot of people know and trust them, and while there are a few notable issues it seems like it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of their customers. Can anyone disagree with that?

Explain that one again? Antibiotics are prescribed to run 'full course' and when you stop taking them before you're done with the course, you risk getting an infection that is antibiotic resistant. Finish the bottle, or don't complain when symptoms come back!

Yeah, devry is definitely a 'like it or hate it' school that takes a certain personality type to really enjoy. When did they start offering nursing classes there?

Nice. I like how the dirtbike is all wheel drive...

Eli is part right. Mutual funds, FTW! I know it's not an indicator of future returns but all my savings in the past 3 years have been in a pair of funds that together yielded ~15% a year consistently. If you have less than $50,000 to invest, its the cheapest way to maintain diversity. Just stay away from hedge funds.

The thing is that these guys were obviously 'affiliated' with organized crime, meaning they probably did plenty of stuff that was worthy of jail time, but in the end they look like the victims and the taxpayers have to put $100M into their pockets. Way to go FBI.

Not true. The point is that wearing a helmet is an issue that affects EVERYONE, since as a civilized society we ALL bear the responsibility of health care and safety in public places. Just because it's our (motorcyclists') activity that is getting legislated, does NOT mean we are the only ones affected. How selfish is it thinking that no matter what you do and where you do it, it's only your business and no one else is impacted?

This shit is simple: One license for helmet wearers and one license for non-helmet wearers. Insurance companies base your premium on this. Every time a squid without a helmet on goes down, the cost is shared only by the non-helmet group. How is that for 'fair'? When your choice to not wear a helmet causes me and every other safety-minded person out there to have to shell out for your ass-wiping in the rehab clinic, it's then officially MY PROBLEM. If we lived in a country where it was socially acceptable to leave a smeared rider on the side of the road for 'nature to take it's course', THEN you can decide when and how to be safe. And if anyone doesn't understand Freedom, it's the whiny babies who cry 'nanny state' every time the government moves toward a law that is designed to increase safety. Guess how those laws get in there? VOTING. You don't like it, vote the other way, or GTFO. The public decides what happens to the public. Simple as that, it's not the government and its not the nanny state, its the majority of people saying 'we agree this is a good idea and we are ALL going to do it, so we can ALL benefit from it'. Repeat for the smoking ban in public places argument.

Be careful, that site 'gives away' a 30 day trial of the software. If you don't plan on buying it, make SURE your files are unencrypted before the 30th day, or you may be forced to shell out $20 to unlock the files!

Hell, I just put my porn on DVDs. Its not only easily disposed of, but it's portable too...

PCI-X != PCI-E... In case there was some confusion about the title.

Couldn't get the BMW and had to settle for the Mercedes... Somewhere there is a tiny German violin playing... j/k, I couldn't resist ;-)

Do you need to make use of the files while they are encrypted? In other words, are you looking for a filesystem-transparent tool or something that will simply encrypt and decrypt on command? There is a free tool called AXcrypt that does this for any file, and can use a key stored on a thumbdrive or something similar.

Glue traps FTW. I have dealt with many mice and rats of various sizes with this approach. My secret is simple logic: DON'T PLUG THAT HOLE! If you know where it's getting in and out from, then you are that much closer to trapping it. Plug the hole, and it will just make another in a more remote location. I keep one sticky trap right on the ledge next to the hole, which is in my garage at the top of the block foundation. For a sure-kill, I put another trap on the ground right below it. If anything gets stuck in the trap and thinks it will get out by squirming, TRAP SANDWICH FTMFW! I typically find a few droppings somewhere in the house in a few weeks, and head out to the garage to collect the dead rodent. Apply 2 new traps, wash hands, repeat...

I have a feeling that question was more rhetorical than anything. Ostensibly, they need your SSN because thats how they tell you apart from someone else with your name. More practically, they need your SSN because it's a very thin way of them making sure you are who you say you are. These are things we all know and accept. The question of practicality is what has many people (including yourself, I assume) in a quandary, as more and more companies demand this tidbit of information and it's pervasiveness as a 'national ID' grows, along with its potential for abuse. Lets take one more step and ask ourselves 'How should a company/organization tell me apart from someone else with my same name, and at the same time tell me apart from someone pretending to be me?'. This is where technology like Biometrics and old fashioned tidbits like your mother's maiden name meet and (Ideally) hash into something that can tell you from the other 'you' and the impostor 'you', in a secure and private way. There are a lot of techniques out there to pull this off to varying degrees of confidence, what have you all found to be not worth the hassle or downright unsafe to practice?

The common misconception with semiauto pistols is that smaller calibers are easier for beginners, easier to aim, etc. This has a LOT more to do with the type of gun you use and how you practice, and little to do with the caliber of bullet, at least when you are concerned with self defense. 22 cal is a good round to shoot for fun and for target practice, and just about anyone can become accurate in a brief time, but its not going to do much good in stopping a bad guy unless your shot placement is impeccable. Additionally, IMO, being good at shooting a .22 won't make you much more likely to be a good shot with a self defense round (9, 40, 45). Example, I have a 9mm S&W sigma, which is 'cheap' at $299 retail. The XD .45 is $499 retail and MUCH easier to get tight groups with, regardless of shooting a round thats twice as heavy (115gr vs 230gr). I can shoot both side by side for a day and always walk away with better groups on the XD, it's just a better gun hands down. The take home message is that if you want to rely on a gun for defense without spending a lot of time practicing accuracy, spend a little more money for a gun that will shoot better out of the box, and don't count on a smaller caliber being easier across the board.

State farm, multiline, and > 25y.o. FTW! Full coverage w/ $1000 deductible is only $190 a year for my '05 ZZR-600 (dull colored ninja). As a bonus, State farm bounced back nicely from Katrina and actually paid out divs this year! I can't remember the last time I got a div check but I think it was somewhere around 1999. I got $30 back from my bike policy alone.

Having a gun is having a gun, there is no 'beginner' phase where you get to carry around a 'practice' gun to shoot 'practice' bad guys (unless you go to police academy or something similar). The XD line is a very simple, very reliable, very easy to shoot weapon and IMO it's probably one of the best pistols you could use for home defense, for these reasons. This *doesn't* mean that you can just buy it, load it, and put it in the nightstand and wait for the bad guys. If you hope to be useful with any gun you will need to shoot it regularly, and if possible take some basic training classes such as the NRA pistol course (CCW permit prereq). I owned the .45 compact version and it was very quick to become accurate with. The only downside to the gun is it's bulky, I sold mine and picked up a Beretta 9000 .40 which is a lot more practical for concealing.

TTIWWOP! This guy must have had one serious guardian angel, cause a 3/4 ton truck aint exactly light.