Senate I Want to Believe-The Senate's Social Thread and Secret Society Roundtable

I think the movie's too predictable, but thats just me.

 

It was a fun movie. After all the reviews, I was afraid it was going to be too cerebral and contemplative to be any fun. Luckily, the critical hype was way overblown. It delivered the goods as an action thriller.

 

On a more light-hearted note, Chicago, the Windy City, just beat out a host of other cities in a "Most Beloved City" poll conducted by Paris based Veolia Environnement SA.

Chicago ranked #1, with Sydney falling 5 percentage points behind Chicago and capturing the #2 spot.

The city's cultural offerings, ease of lifestyle, proximity to the Great Lakes, and user friendliness were all mentioned.

HERE

The one thing that needed improvement was public transportation, but Chicago still has a better transportation system than a lot of US cities.

Here's the entire ranking:

Chicago-49
Sydney-44
New York-41
Berlin-38
Los Angeles-35
Lyon, France-35
Paris-35
Shanghai-29
London-28
Alexandria-22
Prague-22
Mexico City-19
Beijing-18
Tokyo-14

 

I'd disagree just in that I think Sydney is, just on its own, prob the top city, at least of those I've been to.

For Chicago though, I'd had a few days in Chicago while travelling to the east coast by train with a friend, and we were really impressed with Chicago. It really gets undervalued in general when people talk about places to travel.

I'm surprised L.A. is that high just because of how difficult it is to get around. Or that NYC is up there that high, but thats mainly as I really don't like NYC.

 

I hate Sydney but then I live here so I probably have a different perspective than a visitor.

 

I've never figured out how when I'm in Sydney, I don't get homesick for L.A., but I seem to get a bit 'homesick' for Sydney.

 

The past two days were busy, my brother left to go to on a mission to New Mexico, and then yesterday I went whitewater rafting and then saw Old Faithful and then drove back home.

 

The Economist has sent me something about getting a subscription. Thoughts?

 

I rank it as my second best subscription, just behind The Atlantic and just ahead of The New Yorker (I've got close to a dozen right now). Apparently, it's written largely by young writers (I suspect that means late 20s and 30s), or so says Wikipedia. It's expensive, but the breadth of coverage it gives is rivaled only by publications like the New York Times.

 

I like Consumer Reports.

 

I subscribed for a long time. It's really a brilliant publication, leaves you amazingly well-informed even if you only get through 20% each week. Unfortunately, it's also prety expensive, which is why I let my subscription run out. You can read most of their content for free at their website.

If you do subscribe, try to get them to give you a free publication, like the Style Guide. It's quite good.

 

Out of all the cities I've been to I would say San Diego is best. Beaches, sun, not to hard to get around, and once a year there is comic con.

 

My computer keeps freezing, then shutting down after about 15 minutes with a blue screen which says "kernel stack inpage error". Any computer wiz help would be great. I'm running a Toshiba Satellite laptop, about 9 months old - don't know much beyond that.

 

That sounds like you need some help from the Geek Squad!



I have an Alienware PC (about 3 yrs old), and I had to call them out because one of my RAID drives kept having this error message on it. They came out to my house and ran all kinds of tests, and now it runs fine.

But, I'm sort of clueless about tech help questions, though. Sometimes, when I have these freezing problems and whatnot, I'll just reformat my hard drives and load all my saved data back on the machine... which is why it's important to have a backup drive. I learned that lesson the hard way some time ago.

 

My help amounts to google, but still: http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/archive/topic/34731-1.html

 

I wonder if they make house calls to Sydney?

 

Oh, that's right.... Sorry, I forgot!

 

I hope you get your machine fixed soon at the least possible cost to you, LOH. Hopefully, it'll be something that's an easy fix.

It can definitely be an aggrivating situation to be in, though.

 

Thanks for the tips guys- I've got it on 'safe mode' at the moment and whilst it looks clunky the blue screen has not flashed up for over 30 minutes

I'll take it into work tomorrow and have one of our IT gurus take a look.

 

Woooo! I love the Olympics, especially when someone local wins eight frakking medals!

Congrats!

Anyway, enough with that. Is anyone else watching and wishing they'd cut out a lot of the sports that require judges? Seriously, it's too subjective! Also, NBC, gimme some shooting and archery! Killing me here!

 

I'm glad you got that temporary fix, but did you get those IT guys to look at it yet and find out what's going on?

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Phelps is just unbelievable! That win by 0.01 second was one of the most exciting things that I've seen in sports.



It's just amazing that he accomplished what he did, especially considering the level of competition he was swimming against.

 

Hey guys,

My wife and I are going to New York City this Monday and are returning on Wednesday. We're taking my grandfather-in-law (who is originally from New Jersey) to a Yankees game as a birthday present for his 80th birthday. He's a huge fan.

Do you guys have any advice or must-sees in the short time we'll be there?

We've got reservations to Restaurant Babbo (Mario Batali's place), and we're possibly planning to go to Lombardi's pizza and to Serendipity. We're also thinking about going to the Carnegie Deli, but we're also looking for a great bagel place...

 

DM, Les Mis is doing a second run, so if you haven't seen it already, I'd hardily recommend it.

Another thing you should do (although this probably wouldn't work with an 80 year old) is simply walk New York. Start somewhere and just walk for a couple miles. You'll get a good feel for the city, see some interesting places, and maybe find some good hole in the wall delis/restuarants. You can then take the subway back to wherever you're staying.

 

Thanks for the advice, Jediflyer.

Unfortunately, we won't have time to go see a Broadway show, as much as I'd love to (and I've been wanting to see Les Mis and Wicked).

We had actually planned a big trip to NYC before Katrina about 3 years ago, and we had booked up great seats for some shows... but we unfortunately had to cancel our trip.

Hopefully, next time we go, we'll have more time to see those shows.

 

Walking is a great way to get to know the city. Definitely walk through Times Square in the evening even if you can't make a show, or along/through Central Park. Or through Greenwich Village.