Tokyo Tony

Man, I love astronomy. It's fascinating, even though we're really incapable of actually comprehending the numbers involved. A couple thoughts that always blow my mind: what was there before the big bang? Nothing? What does that even mean? The concept of a light year: the distance light travels in one year, and light travels at 186,000 km/sec (I think?). Then astronomers/physicists talk about stars and galaxies that are in the billions of light years from Earth. How freakin' crazy is that? Those numbers are ridiculous. There are billions of stars within our galaxy, the sun is just one of them. There are billions of galaxies in the universe. To think that intelligent life does not exist elsewhere in the universe is crazy. It's just a matter of when. If light takes billions of years to get to us, we may be able to detect intelligent life, but that would have been billions of years ago. Now that galaxy/star/planet might not even exist anymore. Craziness

I just threw up a little in my mouth

Ooooh, forgot about those. Freakin' love bloody marys, probably because I freakin' love tomato juice. I had a couple bloody marys earlier in the fall during a golf tournament that were unbelievable. Homemade mix, spicy, pure deliciousness

I also like St. Pauli Girl Dark and Heineken Dark if you can find them "fresh". Unfortunately a lot of imports tend to get skunky due to shipping delays. quote] I've noticed this as well, especially with corona. I like Heineken icy cold, but there is absolutely NOTHING worse than a skunked, slightly warm, Heineken. I think I'd rather drink poop.

First and foremost, beer. If I'm having a couple, something darkish - no particular favorites, but I'll usually get Sam Adams when I'm at a restaurant. For hot summer days, or when I'll be drinking many beers, nothing beats Miller Lite For mixed drinks my choice is gin & tonic (preferably Tanqueray - is that how you spell it?) And occasionally I like a nice whiskey neat. I have a nice bottle I'm saving for a special occasion - 30 yr old Ballantine's. Gonna be delicious ;D But in short, beer, and Miller Lite. Always a good call.

Yeah still comin' down here. Gettin' out a little early, which is nice like rice 8-)

That used to freak me out a little too when I would go deep sea fishing out of Miami. Just knowing you're in 1000 feet of water is kind of scary, and when you can see way down into the water in 50 or 60 feet, that's also scary. I just get that little butterfly twitch in my stomach.

$275M is a lot of Japanese lures and G Loomis rods. I think I could spend it with the help of a certain fuzzy critter And, by the way, that's capitalism for ya.

It's comin' down in CT - same up there in Noo Hampshah?

Yeah it's freakin coming down here in CT. We're supposed to get 5-10 inches, so I'm hoping it gets bad enough that we get out of work early.

Great catch there Bob - that's a real beauty ;D

My biggest fear is death, or the death of a loved one. I think about that all the time and how there are so many f'd up things that happen in the world to normal people (read the news, ever). Any of our lives can be forever changed for the worse in the blink of an eye, and that scares the ***** out of me. Phobias: spiders, centipedes

Well, you say that, but I could say the opposite just as easily. You don't have to be a fool to believe that there's nothing we can do to prevent or minimize "global warming". It's pretty logical: if you can't prove that we caused "global warming" (and in fact it seems that we did not, IMO), then there's nothing we can do that is the reverse of what supposedly caused it that would have a reverse effect. The recent rise in temperature is very easily within normal variance. I don't have any particular references to show that, but I know they're out there. Temperature is going up, yes. But no more severely than other stretches of time in very recent history, so the whole notion of "global warming" seems to me to be a ridiculously exaggerated idea that probably started out as a non-serious suggestion by someone who was joking, and it somehow took grip and snowballed to the point where it is now. As for the quotes posted above by Republican candidates, whether or not they really believe what they said, we will never know. It's politics. "Global warming" is such a huge pseudo-issue that sparks heated debates on par with those regarding abortion that politicians have to play it safe. Such is politics. We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not we cause "global warming", or whether or not there's anything we can do to prevent or minimize it, but I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We really can't say that "global warming" would be a bad thing overall, even assuming it's a real thing and that we cause it.

If we were to weight the pros and cons, that would definitely be in the column labeled "Pros"

Just a few things that really tick me off. I can think of a thousand, but here's a few... drivers sitting in the left lane going the same speed or slower than the right lane while a line of cars waits behind drivers using their high beams 100% of the time on dark roads, even if you're right in front of them people who breathe heavily on the phone or eat/chew audibly while on the phone die-hard partisan politicians politicians overly cheery people (I'm talking the occasional person who just always acts ridiculously happy even when the situation obviously doesn't warrant it) I'll add more later, but how about you guys?

I don't know if we can say that anything is "absolutely coming", and if there is nothing we can do now, that would seem to suggest that there was nothing we could have done to bring it about, especially considering the scale of time we're talking about here. Earth time vs. human time, that is. The problem with global warming "facts" is that there are so many seemingly factual pieces of information that directly contradict others. I don't know which sources are most trustworthy, but you'll always get a lot of this contradiction and it can really make your head spin. My stance is to take all of it with a less-than-average-sized grain of salt, and always remember that even if we are contributing to global warming, we can't say with any certainty that in the grand scheme of things, global warming would be a bad thing.

It's never a bad idea to keep the environment clean, but I hate that scare propaganda is used to push the cause. Pollution is a problem, but for a variety of reasons, one of which *may* be global warming. Personally, I do my part (within reason) to keep the environment clean for the sake of the wildlife and for the sake of people who have the right to live in and enjoy a clean environment.

I'm a very cheesy guy Sometimes I'll sit down in front of the TV with a brick of cheese and a knife and just go to town. I love all types of cheese, especially Swiss.

Yeah I've seen tons of iguanas down there there but the lizards I was talking about are the "Jesus Christ lizards", and it's amazing to watch them sprint across the surface of the water. Amazing, especially given their size. We're not talking little 3 inch lizards, we're talking in some cases a lizard around two feet (with the tail) just sprinting across a canal or something.

The whole global warming idea is ridiculous. I'm not saying it's not happening, but no one can prove that emmissions or any other human activity is the cause, or even significantly contributing to "global warming". I hate listening to people saying, "Oh man it's hot out today, gotta hate that global warming huh?" I cringe when I hear that. There are so many factors to consider that it's literally impossible to know whether we are having any effect on global temperatures - all we can do is speculate, and this speculation is precisely what politicians pass off as proven fact. The best quote I've heard regarding global warming was by someone at NASA, and it went something like this (I paraphrase), "It is very presumptuous to assume that the current global temperature is what is best for the world..." Basically, even if you concede that we are the sole cause of global warming (which as I said cannot be proven), who are YOU to say that global warming would be a bad thing overall?

Do the brown iguanas run across water? The ones I'm thinking of ran across the surface of the water, got up to about 2 feet long including the long tail, and looked kind of like dinosaurs, raptors, specifically. My buddies and I used to call them raptor lizards.

Mono definitely has a shelf-life that's not too great. My brother got a bad batch this past summer and I'm almost positive it was at least partly because the line was old (it was Trilene XL in an old box I hadn't ever seen before). He lost 5 or 6 fish either on the hookset or halway through the fight, and the line was just snappin in random places (his drag was set correctly too). It was hilarious Finally he switched rods

That is a really nice looking lure I know that bluegill pattern would kill on this pond I fish - main forage is bluegills, there are some big bass in there, and I KNOW no one else would be fishing something like that. I'll probably have to get one, but I'm looking forward to a report on when you use it to see how it works.

That's a good idea - I didn't even think of it because I hit 'em up so well the other day on those minnows/grubs. I have a couple 65 LC Pointers that could do the trick

Well I didn't get skunked, which is nice. Went out for about an hour and a half last night and did manage to land one fish, a brown 13-14". Had a couple others on but lost them, and I realized afterwards it was probably because my hook was dull from getting hung up a couple times on rocks > That one fish did make the trip worth it though, and I'll be back out there soon enough. They wouldn't hit the Powerbait forktail minnow, only a curlytail minnow/grub.