Winter break is almost here! I guess I've stared enjoying it early. Went riding for about 5 hours up at Eldora this morning. Given that I've been on a two year hiadus (more or less) from riding, it feels great to get up there and catch some air or cruise through powder, which was in abundance today. Not that anyone cares but I'll recount the tricks I did.
*note, all tricks are ones I landed smoothly
1 FS 360
3 FS 180 Indys
2 BS 180's
2 BS Boardslides
5 Stalefish airs
By the way, stalefishes (sp?) are my favorite grab. Here's how you do them.
1) Get some air
2) With your back hand, grab the heel edge of your board. the closer to the middle, the better.
3) Tweak the hell out of your back foot so that it's farther forwards than your back.
4) Untweak your back foot and release the board.
5) Ride away and try not to get hit by all the girlies throwing panties at you.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Skullcandy... Really?
Having re-geared myself for what may be my most epic snowboard season to date, I've been looking at random smaller items I need (bandana, replacement lenses, headphones, etc). About a month ago, my old headphones finally kicked the bucket, so I needed a new pair obviously. For snowboarding, I find ear canal buds work best. They block the most sound, stay comfortable for the longest time and stay situated better than any other ones I've tried.
So there is this company called Skullcandy that makes headphones targeted towards certain subcultures such as snowboarders and their ilk. I figured hey, I'm a snowboarder, I need new headphones, and I got 30 bucks to plop on some new ear buds.
These are by far the worst quality headphones I have ever had in my entire life. First, the rubber earpiece is far too rigid to adapt to the contours of the inner ear to be even remotely comfortable. They are cheaply constructed, and the earpieces fell off on several occasions with minimal impact. Lastly, and in my opinion by far the most important, the sound quality is complete and utter shit. I'm at a loss for words to accurately portray how bad their sound quality is. The bass sounds like what you hear from those rice cars who blare their subwoofers at 120 decibels. Highs are, well, non existant. Mids i guess are ok, but nobody listens to music for mids.
After fiddling with the equilizer settings on both my MP3 player and my computer for close to an hour each, I finally gave up on these pieces of shit. Even though I was almost flat broke, these were about as good as having nothing at all. Went back and bought a mid level pair of Sonys, which are infinitely better.
Closing thoughts: The ONLY reason to EVER buy a pair of these headphones is if you want to buy something that you think will make you LOOK like you fit in with a crowd that you don't. If you want even the slightest bit of value from a pair of headphones, please... for the love of god, steer clear of anything bearing the Skullcandy name.
So there is this company called Skullcandy that makes headphones targeted towards certain subcultures such as snowboarders and their ilk. I figured hey, I'm a snowboarder, I need new headphones, and I got 30 bucks to plop on some new ear buds.
These are by far the worst quality headphones I have ever had in my entire life. First, the rubber earpiece is far too rigid to adapt to the contours of the inner ear to be even remotely comfortable. They are cheaply constructed, and the earpieces fell off on several occasions with minimal impact. Lastly, and in my opinion by far the most important, the sound quality is complete and utter shit. I'm at a loss for words to accurately portray how bad their sound quality is. The bass sounds like what you hear from those rice cars who blare their subwoofers at 120 decibels. Highs are, well, non existant. Mids i guess are ok, but nobody listens to music for mids.
After fiddling with the equilizer settings on both my MP3 player and my computer for close to an hour each, I finally gave up on these pieces of shit. Even though I was almost flat broke, these were about as good as having nothing at all. Went back and bought a mid level pair of Sonys, which are infinitely better.
Closing thoughts: The ONLY reason to EVER buy a pair of these headphones is if you want to buy something that you think will make you LOOK like you fit in with a crowd that you don't. If you want even the slightest bit of value from a pair of headphones, please... for the love of god, steer clear of anything bearing the Skullcandy name.
Religious Conspiracy Theorists
Thinking about religion from an atheist perspective often presents problems. Not having ever been deluded into believe in a deity, it's hard to grasp what really goes on in the mind of the believer. Sometimes I feel I may have an insight into whats going on in there, and I like to write it down. It may be right, it may be wrong, but it's a possibility.
One of the traits of conspiracy theorists is to find meaning where there is none. To take something simple, perhaps mundane in explanation and weave an elaborate web of explanations to explain things that don't sound right to them. Take the Kennedy assassination for example. To use a scientific term, a shitload of research has been done on the subject, and it points strongly to the story of Oswald shooting him from the Texas Book Repository. Simple, serene... boring. The conspiracy theorist can't understand how something so profound in its implications could be explained by something so simple. So they tell a story of lies, deciet, deception, trickery, cover-up, and so on.
Personally, I can understand this urge to make things more meaningful. In some sense, I even do it. A squirrel follows me home for ten minutes, and maybe I think he likes me, rather than the fact that he sees the corner of a power bar falling out of my backpack. Sometimes it's an interesting, or even comforting thought to think things are more meaningful than they are. It doesn't mean they are however, and these thoughts should be treated as such.
But given that I can understand this innate human desire to "blow things out of proportion", theists seem to be doing the same thing. The explanation that the universe just began without a purpose, creator, direction, that life is nothing more than a chemical scum with opposable thumbs, doesn't sound very fun. Perhaps the human capacity for religion is simply an extension upon the tendency to create a story where there is none. Could religion be nothing more than an unconsious creation of a conspiracy theory to make the lives of believers seem more interesting?
Again, I don't know. It's an interesting idea, but I'm certainly not going to go out and declare a fucking jihad on anyone who disagrees with my point of view...
One of the traits of conspiracy theorists is to find meaning where there is none. To take something simple, perhaps mundane in explanation and weave an elaborate web of explanations to explain things that don't sound right to them. Take the Kennedy assassination for example. To use a scientific term, a shitload of research has been done on the subject, and it points strongly to the story of Oswald shooting him from the Texas Book Repository. Simple, serene... boring. The conspiracy theorist can't understand how something so profound in its implications could be explained by something so simple. So they tell a story of lies, deciet, deception, trickery, cover-up, and so on.
Personally, I can understand this urge to make things more meaningful. In some sense, I even do it. A squirrel follows me home for ten minutes, and maybe I think he likes me, rather than the fact that he sees the corner of a power bar falling out of my backpack. Sometimes it's an interesting, or even comforting thought to think things are more meaningful than they are. It doesn't mean they are however, and these thoughts should be treated as such.
But given that I can understand this innate human desire to "blow things out of proportion", theists seem to be doing the same thing. The explanation that the universe just began without a purpose, creator, direction, that life is nothing more than a chemical scum with opposable thumbs, doesn't sound very fun. Perhaps the human capacity for religion is simply an extension upon the tendency to create a story where there is none. Could religion be nothing more than an unconsious creation of a conspiracy theory to make the lives of believers seem more interesting?
Again, I don't know. It's an interesting idea, but I'm certainly not going to go out and declare a fucking jihad on anyone who disagrees with my point of view...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
