lurch

*dashes back into the room while the others are still dazed from being beat with a 2x4, stands up the somewhat dented tactical nuclear device, sets it for 3 seconds, hits "engage" again, sticks his fingers in his ears and exits the thread at warp factor 8 leaving a lurch-shaped hole in the thread, a series of blurred afterimages and an echoing chuckling sound with heavy doppler attenuation comes through the hole left behind. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

*lurch shows up out of nowhere carrying a heavy package of some sort and sets it down in the middle of the thread. Opening the box he produces a small portable tactical nuclear weapon, about 50 kilotons yield, give or take a bit. Setting it down next to the box he sets the timer for 30 seconds and hits a button marked "engage". Stands there looking around the thread smirking for about 25 seconds then wanders off the thread into the cybernothing, leaving the problem for the local inhabitants to deal with. He never says a word during the entire operation.* Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Tuesday at about 1200 feet over skydive pepperell I looked down and found I was flying maybe 10 feet, 15 tops, directly above a hawk. I could have spit and hit it, it was so close. It didn't seem alarmed at my presence, just matched my course and speed and sat there, chilling, wiggling a wingtip a few times.... After like 20 seconds or so I broke formation with him to set up for final (can't get distracted, lot of canopies flying about) but wow was that a privilege...I was kinda wondering is this a rare thing? How many of you out there have found yourselves sharing a thermal with a bird? Christ he was so close I could have done CRW with him if he'd been so inclined, the distance from the bottom of my shoes to the bird was smaller than the distance from my head to my canopy....and he just hung there, absolute dead standstill relative to me till I peeled off to the right. I'll remember that beautiful moment forever I think, only in skydiving could this happen. Wow. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

LMAO I always pinch and blowq, it's never difficult I do it once under canopy, left turn with hlaf toggle check alti and blow nose all in one manourvre I do the same damn thing under my havok fullface as part of control check. I go with a havok fullface and goggles underneath, put the plastic back in the helmet only when it gets too damn cold to stand it. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Now THAT is a beautiful snake. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Kinda why I never got a snake. Snakes are cool, I watched a roommate feed mice to a small constrictor, beautiful milk snake, bizarre process watching something eat something else 3 times wider than it's own head. I just wouldn't want to have to feed a baby anything to anything else. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

It thought you were going to feed it. The trilling sound was it saying Hi Mom! You just fed a child to a monster. Congratulations. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

The thing that bugs me is, these people will continue to do this kind of thing, with the same mindless bureaucratic lack of respect for property rationality or privacy, devouring luggage, gear, people's time, playing this insane game like a clean afluent skydiver is as likely to be a terrorist as muhammad al-gibber with the turban and the nervous look. And they'll keep on doing it until forced to stop by legal action and lots and lots of money, because thats how government agencies and bureaucracies work. Next they'll insist that every laptop must be opened and all components visually inspected, by them, out of your sight of course, with an axe, and when you protest your destroyed laptop they'll say sorry we're not responsible for damage, you shouldn't travel with a laptop, we gotta make sure none of your laptops are bombs..... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Dunno....depends on whether or not they join the bandwagon of insistent persistent pols trying to stuff an income tax down our throats. They keep trying, over and over again, rephrasing it a bit each time trying to make it sound appealing and attractive, the solution to all our education funding problems. You want to grant yourself the right to help yourself to another 5% of my paycheck to pay for someone else's crack whore welfare baby going to a school he'll drop out of anyway? Um, fuck no. You breed em, YOU feed em. Ever notice how once you let them get it passed, there's a million and one reasons to keep it on the books or expand it somehow...in 5 years it'd be 7%, in 10 years it'd be 12%...and the landscape would start looking a bit ratty as people get poorer and the money bleeds away into pols' pockets and campaign funds. Fortunately defiance and common sense still have some strength here. No matter how you try to convince me that surrendering more money will somehow save me money, I ain't buying it and apparently neither is enough of the population of the state. We have greed and corruption here too, but it does not yet rule the system. This is a randomly generated troll rant, sick of hearing about how so sorry but we really need to take that chunk of your paycheck, its for a good cause and we're sure you can get by just fine without it so if you don't mind we'll make it a law says you have to give it to us....we just have to make you pay "your fair share" of your neighbors kids, and their neighbors, and... like locusts. I'll vote for the guy who keeps his grubby paws out of my wallet. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

New Hampshire is awesome place to live. 96% of the state is mountains and trees. The other 4% is either water, rural, or medium to small urban. We have authentic , real, homestyle just like grandma used to make clean air here, not too bad even in the cities We even have clean water now. There's real fish in our rivers again No state income tax. No state sales tax. (politicians keep trying to get NH to accept one, "For the children!" Yeah, sure. right. It keeps getting shot down. We're not buying that line here.) No adult seat belt law. (Under 18, though, belt em.) No motorcycle helmet law. No mandatory insurance law No firearm registration law or waiting period Excellent roads/highways Live Free Or Die on our license plates And somehow they manage all this without taking 2/3 of your income in taxes. Nearby states, (cough cough) could take a hint? New Hampshire has just one huge glaring flaw: No dropzones...But there's one 2 Minutes south of the Mass border, 15 minutes from home, so its all good. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Brilliant. Thats got to be the worst big-brother device ever designed. No matter what people think of it, they will use it. Which, of course will simply give rise to the Goblin Grenade. Religious revolutionary ritalin snorting whackos from montana will implant themselves with packaged explosives triggered by subcutaneous wires detonated by their wristwatches. It'll never end. And I will probably live to see it. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

SNOST! Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Fluffy Alliance? busted up laughing man thats funny rotflmbo Personally my porn name is Sherlock Lowell. Sounds more like an attorney or something. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hanging under canopy at 11,000 feet as the sun sets, Red and blue light creating the truest art, painting clouds on the horizon in long streaked lines of light, shadow and color in a picture nobody but me will ever see, a picture that will never exist again but here and now, the world spread in grainy gray and purple at my feet flying with friends, higher than eagles ever dared I AM living forever. Moments like that never end. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Prince of Darkness was scary as hell with the guy dissolving into bugs and posessed people with their skin peeling off. and that chick with the computer: :You will not be saved by the holy ghost. :you will not be saved by the god Plutonium. :In fact, :YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED! The Gate scared me when I was small, no gore, just well cultivated sense of dread, disaster and inevitability. Coupla kids accidentally fulfill the conditions necessary to open a gate to the elder chaos gods, who are seriously pissed off about being stuck out there, wielding a bible at them just pissed them off. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Curious, myself...thinking of scoring an lcd but...last I saw nobody built an lcd that could display frames fast enough for serious gaming without smearing and blurring. Seeing em in circuit city tells me nothing about hardcore game performance. Are they still smeary or is there another reason why they suck for FPS games? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I've seen people do that, and it always seems phony somehow. Yeah. How do you think I got to be Lurch? I acquired that from an aff instructor who thought I reminded her of the adams family butler. I've never even seen the show...I had to research the reference. Internet. Video stills, audio clips. Oh, THAT guy. Ok.... Every self-granted nickname I ever saw seemed somehow horribly pretentious...I could run around calling myself Darkmage or G-Money or some crap but come on, gimme a break... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Major-ass screamin fast fallrate sunset load lands in the peas drinkin beer with a buncha skyrats around a fire at 2 am vibes. Loads of em. Good luck.... ((((((((((V(((((I(((((B))))))))E))))))S))))))))))) Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

High: Being part of a friend's 100th jump seven-way High: Downsizing and test driving a sabre 170, dumping at 10,000 and nailing the peas on my first landing under it. High: doing the same thing again dumping at 10 grand twice more and landing within spitting distance of the peas twice Higher: Dumping at 12 grand sunset load, dancing with clouds and nailing the peas again, this time perfect dead center with an audience, putting an awesome finish on a 5-jump day. Low: Having my old car's 20 year old radiator blow a seam and spray coolant everywhere on my way from the dropzone to a friend's house- Counterlow high: Succeeding in fixing the problem in a parking lot with nothing but a pocketknife and a pair of gerber folding pliers by hammering the split tube flat and folding it over with the knife and crimping it shut with the pliers...I can't believe that worked. I'd like to thank Ray for the loan of the javelin with the 170, It made the day extraordinary. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Well, I'll admit your avatar gets me all sticky where it counts.... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Well, reading that post of yours I got the image of a schoolteacher scolding the hell out of some punk...that was a beautiful beating you just delivered, richly deserved and long overdue. Ignorance is one thing, sheer bad manners is another. One is excusable, the other, he should have known better. If you come off like a 10 year old fundamentalist preacher to a bunch of skydivers you should expect to get smacked for it. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

For Sue: -laughter and applause- well spoken! I'll save you a spot by the fire in hell with all the other good people. For Rhino: Again, I DO hope you outgrow that someday. To put it in polite language, your mental hygiene leaves much to be desired. Having this imperative telling people they must be "saved" or face eternal torture irrespective of life love and quality...to carry such a disconnected-from-reality program in your mind must itch like a sonofabitch. Reading Stephen Hawking may offer some relief from the discomfort and some perspective on how little what you think has to do with what IS. Hell is bitterness rage and regret. Heaven is growth learning respect life light and friends. I have discarded the former and embraced the latter. What do I need to be saved for? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Where DO you guys get the notion that anyone who doesn't buy the party line will be tortured eternally? Rhino, most of the people I know and care about don't buy into your version of "serve him THIS way or burn in hell" which means by your standards they're all going to hell. Screw heaven, I want to be where my friends are. If your heaven can only be accessed by people who believe as you do, your heaven will be a rather empty lonely place and the few who make it there will be people I would not want to spend eternity with. Heaven and hell are SUCH restricted ideas. If being "saved" involves agreeing to be THAT deliberately narrow minded and judgemental for ever after, I damn well hope it never happens to me. Rhino, I hope you outgrow that someday, and make it to the next level...where there's room for any belief that doesn't involve eternal torture and you're judged by your quality, not your dogma. All these people, of the highest possible quality, and according to this guy they're all getting tortured forever unless they alter their own minds to fit THAT silly blueprint. Most of us have much wider horizons than that, my friend. Its the next level. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

if thats the blanket that helps you sleep at night so be it, but dont pretend you have any better knowledge of the nature of reality because youve adopted the mythos of on of the most violent cultures on earth as your security blanket... if thats what 'reality' is like i will gladly stand at the foot of his throne and tell him how arrogant, evil and unjust his system of salvation is, then jump off the cloud myself turning a few points and nail many docks on the way to hell with all the rest of the freefliers & other wonderful people who are unjustly damned by your myths for not believing in "the one true god".. far better to be with them than all the bastards i've met in my life who claim to be 'saved' simply because they accepted a carpenter who got himself nailed to a tree as their personal savior.... "do something while your still libel..just let the martyrs do it all for you...how easy to get your wings....." save your sorrow, it is unwanted and unneeded..there are many things beyond mans comprehension, lame attempts by jewish philosophers to confine divinity to their narrow cultural understanding of the universe have no meaning to me i have seen and experienced far more than they could ever imagine and none of it cried the name of their mythical savior..... Pure poetry, Zenister. Personally I regard god as the great enemy, the great opponent, my worthy adversary. Save a slot for me in your hellbound freefly bigway zen, cause if I ever meet the christian god in person, I will demand an explanation, then take him on, fists, teeth and feet. "Not well put. All you have to do is be saved. You can be a great person. If you don't do that one simple thing and get saved you will be turned away. Simple but true." If THAT hypocrisy is the Truth then that "god" of his can take his salvation and shove it. Saved from what? My "sins"? The only usable definition of sin in a living man's world is doing something that hurts others. I try not to and when I do, that pain comes back to me and I learn from it. I do not need to be "saved" from the error, I "save" myself by knowing better from then on. I'll be turned away? I won't be turned away because I would reject anything offered on such terms. I will always be an honest, considerate, good-to-others person, deliberately, in full knowledge that I will reap no eternal reward, that everything good I do is lost in an abyss, as temporary as a raindrop, forgotten as soon as given. If heaven can only be accessed on THOSE terms I reject them totally, and will do everything I can to make the world a brighter place than I found it. And I will walk proudly into hell with a fierce grin and head held high knowing I did it on my terms, alone, with no payback or reward except knowing I did it right, improved some lives and left laughter and light behind me. And I know all the friends I've lost and will lose will be waiting by the fire with a beer and a pie and a spot on the log saved for me...because as near as I can tell, they've rejected those terms too. Personally "Jonathan livingston seagull" describes my spirituality better than I ever could. I just want to spend my life flying with my friends trying to learn enough to make it to the next level, and leave salvation to the salesmen. Is this evil? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.