mr2mk1g

Invade... er everyone...? or buy Euros...

So we defeat him by creating a more dangerous situation for ourselves than he represented? I guess that's one way to do things... kinda like that old joke where you stamp on the foot of someone complaining of a headache and say - "doesn't hurt so bad now does it".

Check for which lens they ship with (assuming you don't go body only) In the UK the XT (350D) ships with the USM lens if you buy it in silver and the standard lens if you buy it in black. Oddly this situation was exactly the reverse with the 300D where you got the USM only with the black body. ...course this could just be in the UK... I went black body only on the 350D and I also have the 300D (until I sell it in the next wk or 2) in silver so I can do a direct comparison. I find the black body much nicer to the touch and it appears to be a significantly sturdier plastic. Whilst this could be simply perceptional, I do remember being told when looking at 300D's 18 months ago that the black body was a stronger plastic or something but this could have been shop-Muppet-nonsense for all I know. Oh and I think the black one looks cooler.

Mr. Bill?

Sounds like they have that a bit arse-about-tit. High oil prices don't cause instability – it's instability which causes high oil prices. (admitting of course that the reverse might be true to a degree but it is most certainly overwhelmingly instability which drives prices up and not the other way round).

Kevin.

There are hundreds of threads and thousands of posts on here urging people to gear check one another in the US. In the UK it's mandatory and everyone gets a gear check every jump. I'm not saying it catches everything or is perfect by any means but it certainly means we never have to wonder if that bag falling out on the step would have been caught if only he'd had a gear check on the flight line. Another thing I think we benefit from is the Jump Master. It's a jumper, just an ordinary up-jumper, who is in charge of the load. It's their JOB to spot the load and check for traffic. I know everyone has to spot themselves and personal responsibility etc etc - but every load is always spotted and every load always has its airspace checked by someone who's virtual sole purpose is to do so. It doesn't and can't solve everything and certainly doesn't eliminate personal responsibility... but how many loads in the US go without ANYONE so much as glancing out of the door? It's also the JM's job to ensure that high pullers are at the back, big way FS at the front etc etc and that an appropriate exit separation is used. It means there's no climbing over people in the plane at 10k and no watching a solo 30 jump wonder unexpectedly exit in a sit in front of your 4-way. Not perfect for sure, but the system does FORCE everyone to have that conversation about what they're planning on doing before they even get on the plane. I found it very odd to be sat in a plane in the US with 75 jumps trying to ask people over the noise what they were doing so we could sort out the exit order. If found it even stranger that I seemed to be the only person on board who actually gave a damn. How many posts are there on here urging people to use an appropriate exit separation? How many would there be if there was a JM knelt in the door preventing you from exiting until he had judged the appropriate separation irrespective of whatever count you were planning on using? Nothing's perfect by any means, but these two systems mean people HAVE TO talk about what they're doing and HAVE TO look at each others gear. EVERY load is spotted and EVERY group has an order and minimum exit separation. Nothing can eliminate personal responsibility but systems like these can help preserve group safety even when individuals don't.

I generally buy some pasta and drench it in balsamic vinegar and cashew nuts. Or if I'm in a hurry I'll grab a baguette with a turkey, bacon and emental filling and cranberry sauce.

In general there are no jump number requirements for a BPA A-licence – only skill demonstration requirements. This is certainly the case for RAPS. For AFF you must complete the 8 levels in no less than 8 jumps and must complete no less than 10 consol's. So again, with AFF it's demonstration of skills rather than jump numbers which count. Subsequent licences (B/C/D) however do have jump number requirements (50/200/1000) and I see no reason why your previous jumps wouldn't count towards those. You may find that there is some scope for incorporating some of what you have previously learnt into your upcoming AFF program depending on just how long ago your jumps were. I'm sure they will discuss the possability with you and ultimately it will come down to what your instructors think is safe for you within the scope of the rules.

From another article on the same fine upstanding member of our community: Yup - sounds like she's a pretty fucked up kid. And yup, if the parants are happy with all the above and allowed it to occur, they're damn useless. (quotes from :http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=385968&in_page_id=1774&in_a_source=)

I voted "no". It can be done in a way which makes it a defacto prayer meet. This would be wrong IMO. It can also easily be simply a moment of silent contemplation – be that moment a-religious, Christian, Buddhist or whatever else it is that floats your chakras, it doesn't matter. I have no idea how moments of silence are done over there with you guys – but they're quite common over here and there's absolutely no religious connotations to them whatsoever other than those privately added by each individual in their own mind. That's one of the reasons why they work well – it's down to each individual what they do during that minute. If they want to think about their version of God, more power to them. If they want to reflect upon the life of the person they are commemorating, that's a great use of time too. Hell, if they want to quietly curse the person then as far as I'm concerned that is perfectly within their prerogative – you can't control thought after all. Moments of silence work because they are all-inclusive – it's up to the individual what they do with the time and so long as no one is forcing them to do anything in particular then everything's just groovy.

Once. I got attacked in the street by a very large alsatian dog. I had to have a flap of skin stitched shut. It had it's ribs put in and had to be put down. 2:1 to me.

you need to mop up afterwards.

Gigady gigady gigady goo.

It all depends when he managed to see the car for the first time. Remember he was out of sight to the car when the driver decided to pull out... If he only crested the rise 100yrds from the junction, at 100mph that gives him about 2 seconds to: 1) see the car, 2) decide to do something about it, 3) hit the brakes, 4) skid to a halt, 5) try to stay upright, So far as the crash investigators can tell, impact took place somewhere between 2) and 3)... certainly well before 4).

Sounds sadly familiar. My girlfriend is also a Barrister and we sometimes discuss interesting cases. She dealt with a case last week where a motorcyclist decided he needed to test some of the mods he'd just added to his drag bike. 'Course he doesn't own a racetrack so the local industrial estate with its generally quiet public roads would just have to suffice. Now, the police don't think he'd activated the NOS fitted to his heavily modified drag/race bike yet... but that didn't stop him getting up to about 100mph before noticing a small car pulling out of a junction some way ahead of him. The car he managed to T-bone was a little hatchback similar to that in the shots attached to the first post of this thread and despite the fact that race bikes really don't weigh all that much, Mr. Bike rider managed to spin the car a full 180 degrees on impact.. When the car had finished spinning, its occupant (who thankfully survived the smash) noticed that oddly the bike rider was still on the side of his car. I say oddly because normally you'd expect a rider to be thrown clear of the car as it spun violently around. This didn't happen in this case because the rider was now thoroughly attached to the car. See when I earlier said that the rider was still on the side of the car, what I ought to have perhaps said was that he was pretty well impaled on the car... or perhaps even more correctly; the car was impaled on him. His femurs had each managed to punch through the steel bodywork and anchored him where he hit. His head had made it most of the way through the roof as if it were some macabre can-opener. He's now suing the car driver for pulling out in front of him. Of course his Claim Form doesn't make any mention of the fact that when the car pulled out of the junction he was about a third of a mile away and doing a three digit speed, well out of sight of the car driver. He'll get some money for sure... just not anywhere near as much as he's asking for. To paraphrase Lawrocket – if you must shit in the street, don't be surprised if you yourself end up slipping in it... and it'll stink just as bad even though it's your own.

Friends and I couldn't make phree's system work under a load. If the helmet's being pulled from your head there's a load through the chin cup onto the sprung bolt through which the pin passes. We've found the load on that bolt can cause it to lock despite the force of the spring. Of course it does work without the load so this is not to say it's a crappy system or anything - it's a mod that costs virtually nothing and is better than fiddling with a buckle. On the other hand you can knock up a 2-ring release system from on old set of risers also pretty much for free. I'm sure you can find old un-airworthy risers hanging around any DZ - that's 2 cutaways per set that can easily be made to work under a high load. Another cheapy cheap system can be done to helmets with a ratchet on the chin cup. Drill two holes in the hook section of the ratchet Pass a split ring or cable tie through those holes (making sure you don't obstruct the working of the ratchet) and stick a suitable handle such as an old S-link hat (or similar) on the end. You now have a soft handle stuck out the side of your chin cup which if pulled lifts the hook of the ratchet clear of the rail and as your hand moves away from your face whole chin cup follows. Again, costs virtually nothing but is a nice efficient way of removing a ratchet operated chin cup. Note this only works where the rail is attached to the helmet and the ratchet is on the cup.

Um... Vini... page 1 dude: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2201820#2201820

I thought there was a surpluss before Bush took over? If so, is it not the case that people aren't just mad about the debt... but about the blowing of all those savings too? I don't know about you guys, but I know which kind of blowing I'd prefer to be going on in my national office.

I don't buy the figures either. 2 parachute centers in Scotland apparently contributed the patients to this study of the course of 5 years. 174 injuries from only two centers in 5 years? ...seems a little high to me... but ok, I don't have personal knowledge of the true figures. How does the study come by this figure? How in the world do they possibly know the total number of charity skydives done at the two DZ's in question over the 5 years? They study needs to know that before they can determine overall frequency and I doubt the DZ or BPA will tell them. According to the figures in the study more than 1 in 10 charity jumpers are apparently injured seriously enough to warrant a hospital attendance. That's about 1 every other load!! And about 3.4% of all charity jumpers are injured so badly they require hospital admission (69% of those injured). So this study would have us believe that on a busy weekend (with an arbitary example of 100 tandems done) an ambulance turns up 11 times every weekend to cart people off to hospital and 3-4 jumpers every weekend are so seriously injured they're admitted to hospital??? Every good weekend??? And that's charity only - before we even count the odd idiot hooking in??? This guy's off his rocker! Now I gotta call bullshit on this one too. They are generally required to raise double. I know Jan above suggests that the average perhaps goes down as people who raise less than required are allowed to jump - but that's not been my experience of how the system works. As far as I was aware, if you don't raise the required figure (being roughly double the cost of the jump) you don't get to jump. If it's actually otherwise and people can hit people up for sponsorship on their charity jump and get a freebie as soon as they've paid for the jump itself then maybe there needs to be a little bit more interest from the police as there would appear on the face of it to be a rather serious issue of fraud going on.

A few years back a mate’s girlfriend showed him pictures of animals in labs with SCART plugs hardwired into their heads so as to provide easy data uplinks during animal experiments. His girlfriend was horrified and had obtained the photographs as part of her protesting the research lab’s work. My friend just thought it was a really cool idea and wondered how wicked it would be to have hardwired access to your brain...

Sorry. That was a miss-type. I meant "Elves".

You're all wrong - it was Elvis.

It's Labour Party money not Govt. money or taxes so I don't care... in fact I'm kinda glad they're pissing away their funds on that money-pit. I'd expect Labour Party contributors to be rather pissed mind and want to know why in the hell they should be expected to stump up for the hair-do's of a woman who earns around double that of the PM...

heathen