Hey, I know that guy! Mark Murnahan is one of my driving school buds and if it weren't for my despising Subaru the company, I'd try to get him onboard co-driving One Lap in my 08 Screwbaru STi. Going for engine #3 in less than 10k miles. Drove it to the dealership because of Check Engine Light constantly complaining about an O2 sensor (likely left dirty/oily by previous "technician" who replaced engine #1, and may've contributed to #2's failure), they dismantled the engine to determine what everyone already knew; that 140,140,140,75 compression is probably a broken piston ringland, and refused to rebuild the engine even if paid because I expressed less than warm, fuzzy feelings about the technician who lost a wrist pin from this engine, inflated the tires to 54 PSI before I took delivery, and constantly displayed a serious lack in fundamental automotive knowledge.

I'm the bad guy, but I drove the car up there and had to have it flatbedded home with the engine in boxes in the back. With less than 10k miles on it. And fasteners under the hood on the firewall where real mechanics do NOT put them, and even a wristpin puller (thanks, dude! Didn't have one of those!) thrown in. Wonder how many things fell off the truck on the way home.

But I digress. Tale is slowly being told at www.mysubarusucks.com

Murnahan would be a formidable co-driver in One-Lap. One of the few naturals we see come up through the ranks in driving schools. I think he was instructing toward the end of his second year in the hobby, which I believe is unprecedented.

Last time he ran, he was using some really cool technology (he's a major dotcom geek, too, and has great marketing chops) so people could interact with him and his co-driver and watch them go down the road from inside the car.

Now if only they'd put in web-controlled servos, I could help him perfect the "Diamond" line at T7/T8 on MAM.

Requisite on-topic: I think I recall Mark telling me about this company. CVT's that can handle mucho torque? CV Joints that rob less torque than what everyone uses these days? I'll need to check it out because I think CVT that can handle real power would be real cool. Especially if the uppermost ratio is either infinitely high or just so darned far up there that if you catch a good downhill, you're doing a few hundred RPM at 100 mph.

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -0.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59

I once got caught as a bagholder in a company whose story sounded good (biodegradable canine chew toys -- interesting you'd mention Churak and this company's ticker was CHUR, I think. Or possibly CCUR?), and was adding a bit daily for a very long time. They later went belly-up very shortly after I was able to get the shares in cert form to start a "Wall of Shame".

I'd wager the same self-medication that made their story sound good to me was also in use when the idea to make dog munchies/toys occurred to them.

For reasons still unknown to me, about a year later it suddenly was trading at about 5 times my cost. I'm surprised it even came to my attention. I was fortunate to have a full-service broker who was able to arrange a short sale of all my shares with delayed delivery so I could get them the cert.

You just never know....

Sure wish I could post to the Jailhouse to reply to that one.

I about wet myself laughing when reading the copy Matt sent me.

Oh, and the answer to his question? 42. Is it bad news that he hit upon the ultimate question though?

Actually, those numbers came from an anonymous demographic survey conducted eons ago. When folks like the AIM crowd and Ze'evs Turnip folk were probably the majority of our population and those survey results likely true. Neither of those groups has a single knuckle-dragger in them.

Anymore, hard to guess. So many people out there with Virtual Tourette's and the like, it's hard to get a read on IQ and education level.

Haven't heard the word "FidoNet" in soooooo long.

Ahem. A PC in a spare room? How about a room full of PCs, each with its own modem, a Netware fileserver, a server for the CD jukeboxes, and a 6- and an 18-disk CD jukebox. Punchdown blocks in the closet and a running joke that if my house burned down, there'd be a roughly house-shaped structure remaining from all the network and telephone lines.

I remember I used to carry the entire FidoNet backbone.

Geez! D'Bridge! Haven't typed that in at least a decade. I'm sure you remember it as what most of us used to keep synched up with the FN backbone.

Oh, hi everyone. Hope we're all doing well here. I'm sure enjoying myself a lot more, especially now that I reached the point again where my job isn't my main living expense. But I must be losing my touch a bit. Took 4 months to make SI profitable this go-round. Took 3 months with iHub and 3 months the first time with SI.

Meaty, you're kicking butt with the new gadgetry here! Prepare to be selectively flattered via the most sincere method. hehe

I'll likely kill the FCKEditor on Talkzilla once I figure out how to do what you've done here in message composition. That is simply the worst POS editor I've encountered and I wonder if it might be limiting TZ's growth since the last several times I tried to cut and paste a bunch of stuff into a message with that editor, all I got for my trouble was an error message that I couldn't post a blank message.

The guy's friends warned him he was naming it horribly. I think he named it just right.

Nah, you were right.

I've stuck the dumptruck a time or two, but the hardest part of getting it out of trouble is just hooking up to it with whatever machine I'm using at the time.

But it's definitely the bigger toys I'm adept at getting stuck and have learned the hard way to be good at not only getting unstuck, but to feel when the machine is telling me it's on dangerous footing.

But also, no, I haven't had much opportunity to bury them lately. It was dry enough late yesterday afternoon and the wife had been complaining just enough about the state of the back yard and pond that I got in the Cat 973 for the first time in so long I was actually intimidated by it when I was getting in and firing it up. Sucker is scary big when you're not used to it.

But I managed not to level any buildings or get it stuck.

Puhleeze!

My leaving ADVFN and iHub has zip to do with what I think of their future and as far as I can tell, I'm the only one or one of very few people buying ADRs and now that I'm not bound by having non-public knowledge of a material event, plan to return to doing so.

I think ADVFN and iHub will do well.

This is simply a matter of my having found myself in a role for the past 3 years that didn't personally suit me. And getting back into the kind of environment, responsibilities, and operating mode that really suit me best.

And I think it works both to my benefit and ADVFN/iHub's.

Looks like ADR pricing is finally in line with UK pricing, trading is happening occasionally (or maybe it's just whoever realizing they messed up when they sold me shares from $2.50 to the low 3's), and there was a 5 million share buy in London today I have to wonder if isn't destined to become 50k ADRs.

admin can not read p.m.s. the only way to see them is if the sending party or receiving party copies them to an admin. i know this as fact.

There's a line between "can" and "do".

No part of iHub's software is written to allow for the reading of PM's not written by or to you, not even if you're an Admin, save for one exception. Any Admin can read the dialogue between the member and any other Admin so they can see if someone's been warned, they've broken a rule they've broken before, etc.

PM's do reside in our database, so technically we could read PM's if we wanted to. Not directly at the database level. Those kinds of fields don't display when browsed. Or we could write software to let us read them. Or have the system grant access to a PM if you're the author, recipient, or an admin.

We haven't done so, though, and don't plan to and have no need or desire to. The Admins are busy people. I'm sure reading what others are saying privately to others doesn't even exist on any wish lists. Speaking for myself, I can't see how it would be anything but a waste of time.

There is another way, though, which excel mentioned but didn't describe the mechanism.

If someone complains about PM's that were sent to them (I think this is no longer true with the forwarding option), at least when I was doing Admin work and I'm sure others do it the same way since it's policy, we don't take them at their word. We ask for links to specific PM's and permission to log in as them to read those messages and any replies. When I was doing the job, most of the time either the person would withdraw their complaint, or I'd see that the post they were complaining about was a response to an equally strong personal attack.

If I remember right, in excel's case, it was to do some debugging.

So, technically, we can. We just don't. And haven't incorporated anything into the site that lets us do it short of logging in as someone else. Which we also don't do unless asked.

I'm glad Dave satisfied my mild curiosity about the source of that post.

Though the freedom (within a site's rules) to pretty much say whatever you want is something I think is great about message boards, reading something where someone is so egregiously lying about you and obviously knew it when they posted it isn't a lot of fun.

Though the ridiculousness of what I was reading about myself did occasionally make me chuckle because it was like Chuckie had become an author at National Lampoon.

Yeah, I'm quite surprised myself. Due to the climbs in the LSE price and the ongoing gains the GBP is making vs the dollar, the ADRs are currently priced at a 25% discount to the LSE price. The Ask is $3.00 and I get the feeling one can get as much as one wants at that price. Friday's UK closing price puts the "real" value of the ADRs at $3.98.

I'm trying to get the whole mechanism and costs figured out. I think my LSE/ADR conversion was done at a cost of 1 cent per ADR.

It's still puzzling that there's no trading despite this seemingly easy profit because of the ADRs being so underpriced. It may be because the conversion process from ADR to LSE shares is a mystery to most. If I don't know, how likely is it others have a better grasp of it?

I think it requires the brokerage directly contacting Bank of New York to do the conversion, and it needs to be a broker that can deal with foreign shares, which I doubt most can. AG Edwards/Wachovia/Wells Fargo can, but they're not a cheap date and they're trying to get the mechanism and cost figured out for me.

If it were as easily done as said, buying ADRs, converting them to LSE shares, and selling them there would be like a 33% profit printing press less commissions and conversion fees.

I also need to ask my brokerage who has the conversion burden and what time requirements there are on them if I want to buy more ADRs and have the new ones delivered to me as certs. I would think the marketmaker who filled the order, but not sure.

As far as I know, I'm still the only person who has any ADRs and mine aren't for sale, especially at the quoted prices.

There have been some big block buys in the UK recently, but I wouldn't think that would be how someone who is interested would enter the ADR business, unless they're getting inventory to try to sell later at a profit here. I'd think buying the ADRs and putting the loss burden from conversion on someone else would be more desirable.

Currently only NITE seems to be quoting it and part of me wonders just how under the radar this company is to them and if one did it in small enough blocks, just how many shares someone could get while pinning a pending 33% loss on NITE before they'd realize they should've been paying attention.

I'm sure the first time someone accumulated, say, 10k shares (1 million UK shares) slowly enough to not wake them up, for a cost of ~$30k, then asked for certs and NITE had to pay about $40k to get them, that'd get their attention.

Well, progress seems to have stalled and it's not making a lot of sense to me.

It's quoted at $2.75x$3.00 in the US, but it's quoted at the equivalent of $3.03x$3.33 in London with $3.33 as the last, and trades happening at $3.18.

The first trade was a $2.50 sale to me, and I think all but one trade has been between me and 2 marketmakers. Still trying to decide whether to get all I can at the discount for as long as it's available from marketmakers asleep at the wheel, or transfer the bought shares to my full-service broker and if that would force conversion.

When there's only one marketmaker actively quoting it, I'd hate to chase them away by making them take a bath on conversion. Or if it doesn't chase them away, them quoting prices in line with London wouldn't get activity if the discounted prices aren't.

Brazil would be, I think, br.advfn.com and it's really been strong there. It's a version of ADVFN that's specific to Brazil, just like there are versions specific to many other countries.

throg.advfn.com is inhouse. The company is at 26 Throgmorton, which, before the LSE moved, was the equivalent of having an address on Wall St. in NYC. They're right across the street (well, more like an alley by US standards) from the old London Stock Exchange building, which has been going through refurbishment for roughly forever.

In fact, since I'm a bit of an etymology buff, I've got a book of word/phrase origins and was quite surprised to find "Throgmorton" listed in it.

Did anyone see the news about the ADRs? Since it's finally out, I'm ungagged.

Using the exchange rate and last price of the UK stock at the time of this writing, a share of AVFCY is worth about $2.64.

There aren't enough marketmakers in it yet, though. I was able to buy some at $2.50 through AG Edwards/Wachovia a couple of weeks ago to test to see if trading was possible. I put in both a buy order and a sell order, good til cancel, and the buy order was filled right away but the sell order is still open.

I can only assume that the shares sold to me were sold short as at the time and likely to this day, I'm the only person/entity who owns any AVFCY. The only way I know of to obtain them is to buy shares on AIM and have Bank of New York convert them to ADRs.

I can't buy them yet through TD Ameritrade either online or over the phone because, according to them, none of the marketmakers they use is handling the stock yet.

And, oddly, we're the only site I can find who shows a bid and ask for it. Not only with a crazy spread, but the ask is higher than the price on my sell order. Ask is $3.25 but my sell order to test trading is at $3.00.

I'd previously been buying directly on AIM through AGE, but the commissions are brutal, so I've been holding off waiting for the ADRs. Now I guess I still have to wait until more marketmakers are on it.

Or, maybe the only advertising MM on it right now (with a bid of $1.01) is so unaware, maybe they'd sell me all I want for about $1.25 and I can get better than a double simply by having my broker convert those shares to cert form.

I'm real unclear how it's supposed to work now that the ADRs are available and can be gotten by (presumably marketmakers) buying AIM shares and having Bank of New York convert them to ADRs for delivery to ADR buyers. To my knowledge, the only AVFCY shares in existence are in my AGE account and aside from my small test order, I'm certainly not planning to sell them anytime soon.

So they're finally available, but not what I'd really call "available" since I can only trade them through my full-service broker. I don't know what comes next. More marketmakers getting involved? Because as far as I know, AVFCY shares (outside of the ones I have) simply don't exist to be bought or sold until they've gone through the ADR conversion process, which means buying them through AIM first.

Does this look like anyone we know?

http://cars.talkzilla.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=15347

I think the similarity is uncanny and when I first met him, I kept calling him "Matt". When he was here this weekend, my wife even said "Hi, Matt. Bob didn't tell me you were in town!"

With the way the market's been lately, I don't know if the rolling paper business would do well because of more people wanting them? Or poorly because nobody can afford anything to put anything in them.

I don't remember your email specifically, but don't read too much into that. I turn 50 in just over 2 weeks.

I always forward advertising inquiries to our ad rep in London. If you want to contact him directly, email matthewc@advfn.com and tell him Bob sent ya.

Bob

iHub apparently crashed at 3:05 AM today. I just now restarted IIS, but Nate or Dave or John, you need to look into this.

The error message it was showing was "Server Too Busy".

It was showing no utilization.

It also didn't restart. I had to manually start iHub and SI (though SI was running fine on the few pageviews I did). You'll also want to double-check that I didn't leave any websites stopped that need to be running.

Thank you.

Bob

This is really addressed to anyone. Has HRCT ever done a reverse split in its history?

I sent a link to that message to a friend (who happens to do all the work on my trackhoe and 973) since his work truck has been parked at my place for a few months. <g>

It'd actually be a safer way to store it than in the garage since nobody would be able to reach it to steal tools or anything.

Hmmm.... I wonder if they'd consider taking us on as a "winning" project.

Free hosting for a year would be a real boon as we spend a lot of money on bandwidth.

Wow! Those ARE some strong numbers!

Remember the good ol' days when we'd get so excited because we'd get some large percentage growth in metrics from one week to the next? iHub and SI are too mature as businesses to be likely to easily see those kinds of numbers anymore but http://cars.talkzilla.com is doing that kinda stuff now. Like pageviews up more than 100% week over week, record posting volumes and averages for the past few days, etc.

Reminds me of iHub 7 years ago.

A couple of changes, which we'll make to the MDC pages in due course.

1. Each of the top 5 finishers gets a "Bonus" award starting with $500 for 1st place to $100 for 5th.

2. The competition will not necessarily end on 1/15/2009. It will end on the later of that date or the end of the month in which a total of 1000 points have been accmulated in the competition by all participants.

So, if the total reaches or goes over 1000 points (1 point per posting member, 5 points per subscriber) on, say, February 4th, the competition will come to a close on February 28th and checks issued based on the ending results for that day.

http://cars.talkzilla.com/boards/top_boards.aspx

Well, currently it's real close between the Nascar board and Wantobe's Cars/Music/Girls board, but the two of you are way ahead of the 3rd place board.

Which I think is really cool.

I'm not particularly fond of Nascar myself, preferring the kind of racing that involves braking, turning both directions, and having a lot more ways to get around someone, that's really just a comparative thing. I've been a road-course driving instructor for 8 years and a former SCCA racer, so that's where my head is at.

But in my book, no matter what kind of circuit or driving, if it's about people fighting as hard as possible to be ahead of everyone else at the finish line, it's all good!

I see that none other than the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is paraphrasing you, Tom. "I'm fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."

BTW, got the Mustang running again a few days ago and drove it to the office yesterday on year-old Hoosiers. Soooo nice to have that car not only running again, but a fresh motor that feels like a huge upgrade making just over stock horsepower. And it IS a huge upgrade. It's probably making around 240 and the old engine dyno'd last year at 160. 27k track miles will do that to a motor.

To delve even further off-topic, I'm in a serious state of agitation right now because I really do have a full plate at work (Talkzilla stuff) but if I loaded up the cars and headed to Topeka right now, I could spend 3 days playing on the racetrack, which I've only done 3 or 4 times this year. "I wanna go fast", Tom. I was already jonesing when I got pulled over in the STi for doing 72 in a 55 and started paying attention and found out how difficult and miserable it is forcing myself to do the posted speed limit in that car. Driving the Mustang yesterday poured fuel all over that fire!

3 or 4 weekends (one of which was only a 1-day outing sponsored by iHub/Talkzilla) is abusive to a guy who's accustomed to doing 12-16 weekends a year.

And I can't wait to do BIR and RA in the Stang. I decided to throw a spare/fresh racing tranny in the Stang while I had it apart, and it turns out it's got a MUCH shorter 5th gear. I think it's like .85 to 1 vs the stock .65 or thereabouts. A real usable 5th. With that gearing, I think 150-160 should be doable on either of those tracks. With the stock 2.73 rearend (I'm at 3.55), the car supposedly topped out at 146 mph stock and you had to use 4th gear for that. I'm thinking that at BIR, I might even be able to reach peak hp rpm in 5th now.

I probably should take this elsewhere, but this is the easiest place to find you. Are you using a T5 in the Pumpkin and, if so, is it the stock 5th gear, and if so, is 5th a usable/non-punishing cog given that car's aerodynamics and light weight? I had to use 5th at BIR and RA on my previous visits and it was hugely punishing everywhere but that downhill run to T5 at RA and even there it definitely wasn't ideal. And aren't you using something like a 3.08 rear because of the light weight?

Should be a huge difference between the stock cog on 160 horses and the new cog on ~240.

Come hell or high water, I'm doing RA next year. Have only 5 or 6 days on that track and it's easily my favorite, with MAM a close 2nd (and I'm going to get more insistent about you flying down and using the Mustang there next year -- I still owe you big for your generosity on my RA visit). The hugeness of BIR, but the technical appeal of MAM and elevation changes unlike any track I've been on.

To get back on-topic, though I try not to have a "favorite" stock (it implies an emotional aspect to a position), but do you or anyone else have an opinion regarding ACAS? I've been seriously loading up on it at prices that give an effective dividend yield darned close to 30%. Though I haven't been using strict A.I.M rules with that position, I've been using the philosophy in general. Adding on weakness, lightening up on strength. It's gradually become my largest (dollar-wise) holding by a substantial margin.

And I'm at the lowest cash level (as a % of worth) I can ever remember being at, as I've been buying solid companies lately with dividend yield being a secondary decisive factor, but an absolute rule that all of my new purchases and additions do pay at least 4% based on my purchase price. Though my expectation of capital appreciation has been the most important buy/don't buy criterium, I'm not even looking at anything that doesn't pay at least 4% dividends based on current prices.

Bush talking BEFORE the market open for a change this morning. Will be watching futures and see if he tanks them as much as he typically tanks the market whenever he gets CNBC airtime.


iHub's New Sister Site!

Pardon the off-topic intrusion, all, but I wanted to personally send Tom an invitation and wanted to include anyone else who might share Tom's and my love of cars.

We just rolled out a sister site at http://Cars.Talkzilla.Com

Yeap. For those of you who've paid any attention to me over the years (not that that's a particularly fruitful endeavor), I finally got a chance to do it!

Not really the most ideal day for me to post this, when all of our minds are very pre-occupied with the same subject (and though I think we've collectively got the best ideas, it's unfortunately for naught), but I'll go ahead and post it anyway.

A few days ago my years-long dream finally became reality. Talkzilla.Com. Specifically, Cars.Talkzilla.Com was rolled out on 9/24 to very little fanfare (I posted about it just on a car board on each of our sites) and now that it's largely bug-free, though still considered fully-functional public beta, I'm ready to start seeing a bit more traffic on it to test its load-handling capabilities and get feedback for layout changes while it's still relatively easy to make such changes.

The site is for people like me who absolutely love cars, but also for people who consider them nothing but transportation and might have a question about them. Alternative means of powering them and increasing their economy is also already a hot topic.

In the short time since its quiet rollout, it's gotten over 500 posts and nearly 100 members.

This will be the first of a number of Talkzilla sites. Once it gains serious traction, so to speak, we'll poll membership of all 3 sites to see what our next area should be. From this point on, it'll take very little time and effort to create new Talkzilla sites.

I should point out that the first 1000 accounts on Talkzilla can become Lifetime Premium Memberships on ALL Talkzilla Sites with just a little reading and a single well-directed mouse-click.

So I'd like to extend this invitation to come join me on http://cars.talkzilla.com, which is where I'm spending more of my time currently. No stock talk over there, though, please. That's what iHub and SI are for.

Bob Z.

PS. I'm "TZ Bytor" over there, and I and the QA board are automatically added to your Faves when you join.

When rolling out a new site, sleep is for wimps. :)

Heinlein put a similar idea forward in his first book, using economic theory put forth by someone else whose name I don't know.

It made sense to me then and still does.

I removed the passwords in those emails on the advice of a car-club friend who manages IT security for a financial company.

But now that I think of it, I think I've seen other sites send it via email, email isn't *that* non-secure, and it's not like we're transmitting the PIN number for your debit card.

I'll edit the routine today to make it include passwords again, and I'll PM you yours here.

Not that I'm aware of. And my awareness should be good.

About all you have to do to create boards is be signed in.

Another one for me to look into tomorrow.

It's having far fewer teething pains than I anticipated, but it's got some weird ones.

Since it was built by taking apart much of iHub's framework, reshaping pieces, and putting it back together, it's inherited some things that are necessary for iHub but not (yet) for TZ. I'm suspecting possibly data caching.

I'll look into it tomorrow. Some oddities with handling of userlevels, including not only people still being free who shouldn't, but my lacking Admin links that I had yesterday.

http://cars.talkzilla.com

I'm only going to announce this on the car boards on iHub and SI right now, and we'll shout it from the rooftops later once it's completed and gone through torture-testing, but we have a new sister site now.

The first 1000 members who click the Subscribe link on it get a Free Lifetime Subscripton.

Please, just car folks, though. We'll roll out other versions later once we're done with development on this one. Motorcycles will likely be the second one.

Anyway, it's still a work in progress with a very large bug list because, as you'll be able to quickly tell, it's basically iHub taken apart, laid out on the table, and put back together only with the necessary bits. But it's not as easy as all that. We've also changed some database structure issues (requiring revisions to nearly all the programs) that iHub has since we have the luxury of fixing them while the train's still in the service depot. In iHub's case, it's like trying to change axles while the train's doing 200 mph.

So I won't need to know about any bugs (especially the ones where "Site fall down; go BOOM!") as I'm aware of all or nearly all of them and am just knocking them out one at a time.

All of the basic functionality is there, though and it's now considered a live site, not a development one, so boards and messages aren't in danger of getting zapped for a do-over.

Hope to see you there.

PS. I go by the name "TZ Bytor" over there.

I also like what biker joe said (and I say frequently myself) that a downside of helmet laws is that without the brain-bucket you're more likely to be a fatality and not have the taxpayers handling your health care.

I didn't know Texas had the thing of stickering your bike for helmetless riding if you got extra insurance. I like that idea. I've also long preached about the need for tiered licensing. Prove you can handle what that 600cc crotch rocket or 800 lb luxotourer can and wants to do before you're allowed to ride it. And though I have a CDL and know what I'm doing behind the wheel of a motorhome, it floors me that if you can pass a driving test in a Civic, you can drive a Subaru STi, a ZR1 Corvette, or a 40-foot motorhome. And I hate paying the consequences of that. If I'm driving my pickup hauling my 48-foot enclosed car hauler, truckers give me the courtesy of letting me know when I pull back in front of them after a pass. I RARELY get that courtesy in the motorhome because they're so used to motorhome drivers barely being qualified to drive the car they're pulling behind it. I believe mine weighs in at something like 36k lbs. 18 tons and you don't have to have any kind of training or special endorsement on your license to drive it, but I need it for my dump truck, which weighs about the same when full of rock and is much shorter.

I absolutely despise helmet laws. But I don't despise helmets. Even when I'm riding in Kansas, where they're not required, I usually wear one. I consider it as important as a seat belt in a car. But sometimes if I feel it's safe to do so, I'll ditch the helmet, which definitely does make the ride more enjoyable. Especially through a particular park I enjoy out there with its low speeds and winding roads.

It should be my choice, and that's the problem I have with helmet laws. That they're LAWS. Same problem I have with marijuana being illegal but alcohol is legal. I think they both should be legal, but also think a DUI should be treated more like attempted manslaughter. Well, DUI involving alcohol; not weed. You're just not as big a danger to fellow drivers when you're going 20 mph to not draw attention to yourself.

Too many laws that tell us what we must do to protect us from ourselves; making crimes out of actions that have no victims. Protect me from others; not myself.

I choose to wear a helmet most of the time, even when I don't have to. And it should be my choice, not mandated. The way I put it is "I hate helmet laws but I love helmets."

One guy commented about if a helmet impedes any of your senses or your ability to completely take in your surroundings (which is important for situational awareness), you need to get rid of the crap helmet and buy a good one. Ummm, beg pardon? I wear a very expensive Shoei and it impedes my vision, decreases my situational awareness, and definitely muffles my hearing. A minor downside of the last item there is that when I had the BMW K-bike, if I had the stereo turned up to where I could hear it through the helmet, I was shocked to find out how loud it was when I took off the helmet.

And I really hated the one guy's comment about if you don't know what a "head check" is. I've been riding 35 years and hadn't heard that phrase in the motorcycling context before and though it likely describes something I already do, I couldn't say with any level of confidence what the phrase means.

Does it mean to check to see where your own head is at before throwing a leg over the bike? Or looking not at the car but the driver's head to see if he likely sees you?

And let me rant a bit about statistics. I wonder what percentage of CAR fatalities involve no professional training? Wouldn't it be something very close to 100% in this country, since there isn't as much training available? At my school, you had to take Driver's Ed, but I didn't learn anything in it I hadn't already learned in trucks on farms, so I don't count it as training. And my daughter didn't have to take Driver's Ed at all. I don't think it's even offered out here. She just had to have a parent as a passenger for such and such length of time and so many miles. Fortunately for her, her old man's a performance driving instructor, so she didn't just have a passenger making sure she unwound the wheel after turns and stayed in her own lane. She learned threshhold braking, late apexes, and had a lot of focus on situational awareness. "What all possibilities do you currently see for someone to screw up and what would you do about each of them if they happened?", expecting an explanation while she's driving. That kind of thing.

Anyway, helmet laws suck. And legalize pot! Though I can't imagine myself (well, okay, maybe a little) smoking a blunt while cruising helmetless down the boulevard, I believe strongly that I have the right to do so, but not permission from my government because most of the time they're a bunch of nannies who pass off their own self-interest as mine.

Sith Veale, hopefully the surgery has made it so you can more comfortably get in a lot of seat time. You did seem to be more than a little uncomfortable after any stint in the Pumpkin.

If I felt I could trust the 08 STi and also didn't have a major project I'm smack in the middle of you'd be seeing more than my smiling electrons in a few days. When I go to BIR or RA, I like to wait until there are back to back events before I do so. Nearly 800 miles to either track, so I like to have 4 or 5 days of track time to make the drive worth it. And nowadays fuel cost is becoming a factor on those long hauls. My previous Chevy (05) would've cost about 68 cents per mile, though I think the new one will be closer to 35 cents.

Two clubs are doing driving schools next week. And a long-time friend of mine is going up there to do one of them. In fact, when I introduced myself to him years ago he looked at me quizically and asked what I do for a living and when I mentioned Silicon Investor he said "That's why your name sounded familiar." Though he doesn't use the site, he's an active investor and had seen the site mentioned a lot.

I'll try to let you know a lot further in advance what date I've got scheduled next year. I've known about it for a few months, but as always, forgot to let anyone else know until pretty late.

Edit: The webcam in your signature is at or near your office, isn't it?


Let me die in my sleep like my uncle; not screaming like his passengers.

Forget you ever saw me you will. :)

Matt's so unsophisticated, when we were on the train to Paris, he looked outside near Calais saw an exit sign and said "Looks like we're in 'Sortie' now."

And in a wonderful restaurant in London by Tower Bridge, he was perusing the dessert menu (of course) and asked loudly what "Blonk Monge" is.

Matt's such a lightweight he drinks pints at a German restaurant.

Matt once told me over 6 years ago that my efforts to produce ad revenues were wasted efforts and that ad income would never amount to anything. I've been slapping him silly with money ever since.

Most of my own considerable heft must be muscle since I've been carrying The Fatt One around on my coattails for so long. (this is a roast, right?)

I had a driving school student a couple of events ago who really was a spitting image of Matt. Poor guy.

The way people make fun of Matt's love of KKD's has strong basis in fact. The first time I met him, when he came out to Boogerville, he made me drive 40 miles to the nearest Krispy Kreme and he was as excited as a kid at a candy store when he saw the "Hot" sign was on. He looked positively orgasmic with each bite. Of the donuts. In fact, he had one box of them under the table for about 10 seconds (Valerie tells me that's about right) and when he put them back on the table I commented "I don't remember ordering glazed..."

Matt got a metric ass-ton of money for his share of iHub when ADVFN bought us, yet he is still very interested in penny stocks. You can take the cracker out of the trailer park but...

What's the difference between Matt and the Animal Control guy trying to round up a dozen dogs? Well, the Animal Control guy is a Mutt Buncher...

What's the difference between Matt and a 6-foot high pile of elephant crap? Really. What's the difference?

Oh, when we were in Vegas, real men like, well, every male but Matt, were spending their time gambling and drinking. While Matt was at a Celine Dion concert. Seriously.


Let me die in my sleep like my uncle; not screaming like his passengers.

You have no idea how bummed I am that I'm probably going to be on the road in remote parts of Missouri or Iowa during the roast, so it's doubtful I can participate at all. :(

This would've been more fun than slapping him with Benjamins.

No, they couldn't "hack" their way on. Even if they had the programming knowledge to do so (I'd pit meatloaf against any number of hackers or even benign programmers any day of the week), they wouldn't even try.

It's obviously coming from an ad network. I've asked the ad sales rep to try to track it down.

It's got to be a network pretty low in the food chain, but I can't really track it down myself as I don't have the keys anymore to much of anything ad-related. And a reason I think it's a low-level network is that it took me quite some time to finally see the ad, and now that I have, it's there at least half the time.

Could you send me a screenshot? bobz@investorshub.com

I'm sure there's no way on earth the ad sales team sold them more ad space. I wonder if they're using one of our networks now. But networks typically require pre-payment.