Dr. Sacrebleu

Hi all, my MAcbook is 6 years old, and slow and the disk is full (of what I do not know?). It is time to get a new computer. I wanted to get the new imac, but at 1400$ it is just too expensive for me. I am almost computer illiterate, and have an iphone, and my whole cd library (9000 songs) on itune, so I thought i would stay with mac, but the price tag is just too dear right now. So I was thinking of either getting a laptop or a desktop (which I gather you get more of a bang for your buck) and totally reboot my old macbook to use when I travel. I really only use the computer for internet, for pictures (about 12000 pics and 500 videos) and to store my music (9000 songs). I just want something totally hastle free that will last for a while. Is that so much to ask for. What is your advice in regards to desktop vs laptop, and should I get an external hard drive to boot. Looking to spend considerably less than 1200$. Thanks for the advice

I originally posted the runner up list to show how laughable it was to try to find a runner up in the Tour in the the years of Lance's reign, but upon further reflection, other than the couple that actually did test positive, many paid an actual price for circumstantial evidence. Basso for example was banned for two years, though he never tested positive. Ullrich had all his titles post 2005 erased, though he never tested positive in a race (he did test positive for amphetimines in the off season, and was suspended for 6 months. claiming that it was due to a disco extravagance). I of course don't mean to say that Ullrich and Basso aren't guilty as hell, the point is that 1) not failing a drug test is not irrefutable proof that you are clean 2) circumstantial evidence HAS nailed previous riders that paid the price 3) That Lance was not totally singled out (though the USADA clearly does have a hard on for him, as they are trying him for organized doping rather than individual doping to avoid the statute of limitation) Lastly, I hate the term 'circumstantial evidence'. It's like "he got off on a technicality". It always sounds like a totally unfair judgement. But, just as 'getting off on a technicality' can be the fact that the suspect was beaten into signing a confession, circumstantial evidence can be more damning than a smoking gun. To Az's point of nailing the brash Yankee, I will remind him that it is the USada going after him. I do take his point of the previous legends also being doped to the gills to heart. well said. Solomonic judgement: Lance keeps all titles, keeps all monies, signs a complete confession. Never gonna' happen

Should Armstrong be stripped of all his titles here would be the Tour winners. LOL 1999 Zulle, Escartin, Dufaux 2000 Ullrich, Beloki, Moreau 2001 Ullrich, Beloki, Kivilev 2002 Beloki, Rumsas, Botero 2003 Ullrich, Vinokourov, Hamilton 2004 Kloden, Basso, Ullrich 2005 Basso, Mancebo, Vinokourov This would mean that Ullrich, counting his win in '97 would have 4 titles, becoming the 5th most succesful rider of the tour, right behind Anquetil, Mercx, Hinault, and Indurain, ahead of Lemond and Bobet. This is in fact the biggest problem of this whole story in my mind. While I have no doubt that Armstrong is guilty, so were the others, and there certainly is very tangible proof against all these runner ups. I can't abide by a cheater winning, but I just don't see how to untangle this web. I think the only solution is to break out a bunch of asterisks to put next to everyone's name in the books....which of course gets complicated by the fact that as Az notes earlier, all of our champions of yore also were doped to the gills. Must admit that even a solomonic ruling on this, regardless of the legal one, is really hard to come up with

Frankly that sounds like a bit of a right wing political sound bite that isn't warranted here. I have a problem with Ben Johnson winning a gold medal while doped to the gills, I have a problem with Bernie Maddof making a fortune while defrauding his investors, I have a problem with a scrabble player keeping a couple of blank tiles in his pocket to win. While I certainly respect anyone's opinion that Lance did not cheat, as it is not an open and shut case, the issue is not 'success envy' here. The issue is cheating.

haven't posted in so long here that I don't know how to edit my posts anymore. Just a nod to Club and Cre8 who posted similar thoughts to my own as I was slowly typing

I must admit to being pretty conflicted on this issue. Lance Armstrong is a di(k. He says so in his autobiography, his dealing with Cheryl Crow seems to reinforce that, and my one encounter with him in a Marfa Texas restaurant that my friend owns certainly doesn't dispell that notion (it was also weird to see a grown man with 2 20 year old bimbos trying to impress them). But his personal struggles with cancer, and how he has dedicated himself to that cause are more than laudable, and make him an extraordinary man (btw I can not recommend his autobiography 'It's not about the bike' enough) There is no doubt in my mind that he cheated, as did a gazillion other riders in his era, and strangely, and I know I am opening myself up for a rebuke here, if he had won 3 or 4 tours it wouldn't bother me as much as it does. It is very similar to the McGuire Sosa home rune race; everyone loves it until a sacred record gets beaten. The Tour is almost as old as MLB, and as opposed to MLB has only one record that counts: titles. Lance won the one title that counts while doping (at least in my mind it is clear). The Tour is also like MLB in so much that it is so unchanged that we THINK we can compare the athletes of yore to todays talent (which btw is totally insane. Many people talk about baseball as if Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth could play in today's league just fine, which is of course preposterous) and like all middle aged people I find myself finding the athletes of yore preferable. Though the USADA does seem to have a strong case against him (and I don't want to hear it being dismissed as 'it's all circumstantial', after all, if you have 10 eyewitnesses to a crime, odds are that the guy being fingered will be found guilty) I don't thik Lance is wrong in saying that the USADA has a hard on for nailing him, as of today the USADA is claiming that he is to be stripped of his 7 titles, and as far as I am concerned that is not their call to make, and makes them look like the douches they are being portrayed as by Lance. Of course, should he be stripped of his titles that means that a bevvy of past dopers will all of a sudden be crowned (hellllloooo Jan Ullrich) so I don't see anything good coming from this. Anywho, this all reminds me that the tour used to be one of those magical moments for me as a kid that just totally lost it's magic for me once I reached my thirties due to all of the doping scandals. It just makes me sad.

Our crest from the scottish part of our family is a knigh tlooking behind him with a broken lance and the phrase "j'ai bonne esperance". As kids it always seemd to us that the knight was sir robin style bravely running away from danger and hoping that he wasn't going to run into trouble, what with his broken lance. Only later did we learn that that was to show that the knight had just jousted and that he had been victorious having broken his lance on his opponent. He was looking behind him to see his fallen opponent. Our unofficial motto is left to us by our great great great grandfather who had written a letter to his sons explaining who he was and where he came from. Remarking that his father had come from Paisley in Scotland he said "the men from Paisley are famously bow legger which means they could neither run nor fight". Yup. That's me all right

What does 'f' mean?

Hey SEC. Nice to see I am not totally forgotten here. I do check in rather regularly, but have pretty much stopped posting as my computer is on the fritz, so i mostly read stuff using my iphone, but typing well crafted posts just isn't possible on a hand held device. And the huddle only deserves my finest... As for the french elections, I will for the second time in my life vote for the right. Hard to call Mayor Bloomberg of New York and Sarkozy really right wing, but there certainly were candidates further to the left that I could have voted for... Two nights ago was the presidentila debate. I so wish we had similar things in the US. Two men at a table seperated by two journalist who are just there to give general topics and to keep an overall timer (that is to say, that rather than limiting each response to a certain amount of time on each topic, there is the equivalent of a chess clock calculating how much each candidate has spoken. At the end both candidates spoke roughly the same amount of time). 2 and a half hours of sometimes intelectual, sometimes frank, sometimes rough debate (they called each other liar pretty often, and kept on challenging each other's grasp on facts). These are not two great debaters, or intelectual giants, but the format mkes them seem like supergeniuses compared to the pre prepared answers US candidates get to slip in time and time again to the debates due to the format. You could not get away w that here. Cause if you didnt answer the question, the opponent had all the time in the world to come back to that point until you ANSWERED THE DAMN QUESTION. Anywho thats a all I can type now. All the best to thehuddle

what are your experiences. A French buddy of mine is going to Miami this summer and wants to see some sporting events (he really wants to see the Heat play). I was thinking of recommending stubhub. Anyone have any experience w them? Is it 100% legit and safe? I don't want to be responsible for him getting burned. Checked out prices for the Miami-Knicks playoff tickets. Seats at 80$ seemed super reasonable. Suspiciously reasonable.... All input welcome. Cheers

Wow. Just a whole new level of stupid. While I appreciate the full disclosure of of your story, fact of the matter is that you are 80% responsible for the whole kerfuffle. Sorry you had to hear what you consider racist and hurtful remarks, but it sounds to me like you made bad decision after bad decision before the confrontation happened.

I'm relatively certain that netiquette dictates that one makes disparaging remarks about fellow huddlers when either 1) you have a friendly relationship online w the poster and it thus comes off as a good ol' ribbing 2) you have a bon mot that is just a great zinger and that fits in perfectly w the discussion at hand and must be shared with the world Double checking, I find that your post fulfills neither requirement, and as a result comes off quite toolish

Once again, The nervous nelly factor at thehuddle is high in my opinion. While I agree that it us inconsiderate because the other kids parents are not informed, I would have no problem w a parent bringing over a kid that they thought was over their illness if it was just my kid involved. Some sicknesses are communicable well after the symptoms are gone and some are not. If we tried to keep our children away from potential communicable diseases there would never be able to send our kids to school.

Thehuddle has the best advice anywhere on the internets. I thought it would be interesting to test the collective brain of the huddle in terms of recommending movies. The idea is for each poster to respond to the previous post in a "if you liked ------, you might be interested in -------" A little like Netflix might do it, but this would be using huddlers as a database. One movie recommendation per post. Wait until one other recommendation before making another. I'll kick it off. Would be interested to see where the chain leads If you liked District 9, a science fiction movie that has a really interesting plot line (alien culture lives in refugee shanty towns around Johannesburg, and are an 'immigrant problem') a real human element, and strong acting. Though it inevitably has a bit of a 'car chase end' like almost all science fiction movies, every step of the way it is smarter than most such movies, less forced, and less reliant on overacting, too clever by a half sets, and special effects. All the blowing up and gunfights (don't worry there is enough to keep the bloodlusty interested) fit in nicely with the plot. It draws parallels to the immigrant plight without being preachy and didactic (the aliens aren't all poor victims, most of them are filthy subhumans, and the humans are not machiavelian animals (some are, some aren't, some are in between, like in real life)). Visually filmed looking like a collection of documentary footage, interviews, and a mix of pure inventive sci-fi stuff You might like...

Don't take this the wrong way Furd, but that sentence is the very embodiement of why I am glad I packed my bags and left the US 4 years ago. Under the name of 'personal responibility' we now say things and do things that are in my opinion unacceptable in a civilized society. To send a family member packing and cut them off because they made a mistake, even when it is clear that they are in trouble is neither decent, nor christian, nor acceptable. This sort of - - should-we-let-someone-who-made the-poor-decision-not-to-get-health-insurance-die - YEAHHHHHH! (applause) attitude that is now pervasive in the US, I find really tragic. PS I am talking about general impressions here Furd, I don't mean to attack your paritcular statement. It just reminded me of a larger societal problem IMO.