badmigraine
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Posts posted by badmigraine
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Heh, just trying on an Xtreme opinion for size to generate some discussion and more posts.
I don't mind an onslope rail here and there (on a rental board!). I do think riding flatland staircase rails where there is no snow (they bring in a couple buckets of it for the takeoff and landing) looks, well, stupid.
After reading Ocean's post I had a look at this month's Snowboarder mag. Sheesh! He's right. Almost every snowboarder is flying...not a little off the ground, but soaring way overhead against a backdrop of sky and clouds. I wonder why nobody has yet sued the manufacturers for misrepresenting that boards come equipped with antigravity drives.
Dane, the things the athletes do at the X Games inspire me, too. I'll still watch it, for sure. I mean, I just watched over 20 hours of it on Internet live feed. Then I went into the pipe at my local resort and rode till my knees ached.
My personal style of snowboarding is not so much park/pipe... I am 39, have had one knee surgery and may need another, so I'll pass on the Cab 9's to icy runout.
In fact, I get more inspiration from FIS World Cup ski racing and the big-mountain/AT stylers than I do from pro snowboarders. Can you believe Hermann Maier came back to win a gold in his first race back after almost losing his leg in a motorcycle accident?
I wish there were more fuss made about events for the other types of snowboarders, too (racers, big-mountain freestylers, etc.) And more fun TV stuff about backcountry, cat skiing/heliskiing destinations, riding big lines, pillow drops, high-speed carving, etc. In some sense these kinds of boarding occur as arcane or unworthy of interest in the mass media market melange, and there are no heroes or puffed-up imagemeisters breaking down these styles and approaches for the common rider.
On the other hand, maybe it is better that my favorite kinds of rising remain little-known. I saw the "Human Slalom" clip and it was not pretty.
Also, in my post, I did not mean to offend Mountain Dew, Chevy Trucks or ESPN. I am available for sponsorship. Mogs and I even figured out that adding Malibu Rum to Mountain Dew opens up a whole new universe of Xtreme territory.
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Isn't this "X-treme" thing just about 20 notches past played-out at this point?
Is anyone else as bored and cynical as I am about yet another Mountain Dew - Chevy Truck - PlayStation 2 - ESPN corporate marketing fair that dupes ten or twenty more amazing riders into blowing out their knees, and tells the latest generation of impressionable kids that the "Dude Bro Brah" big air huck-and-spin and rail-riding scene is the ultimae shizz-nit to which they can aspire?
I watched a lot of the X Games live net feed and when you see that much of it all at once the whole thing appears as a caricature of itself.
You can see the balding, wide-hipped yuppie corporate marketing guys pulling the strings from behind the scenes and even worse, see what they actually believe kids want to watch or think is "cool".
You see several young athletes in each event take bad falls and get sledded off with blown knees and/or concussions. Uh...none of this ever makes the news or the final ESPN version.
The commentary is dopey and done over 3-4 times with this fake "Dude, that was Sick!" tone, to be imitated by legions of jr. high schoolers across the US.
And the events themselves... I mean come on. How many of us are ever going to do a backflip on a motorcycle over a 50-foot gap? How many people actually launch and land 900s over icy big-air jumps? Only very good skiers can qualify for the X Games. So isn't it a bit odd that about 10% of them in the slopestyle prelims would have to be carried off with blown ACLs? These are not sprained ankles, folks.
And what is the big deal about rail-riding? Am I the only one who things snowboards on rails looks stupid? Great on a skateboard, ridiculous on a snowboard. It's 100% "LOOK AT ME!" stuff. Don't you think those Chinese Circus Acrobats would be better at that stuff than a bunch of white middle-class suburban teens with $1500 worth of Forum equipment and do-rags blasting gangster rap on battery-powered boom boxes?
I'm not getting on a soapbox here or advocating some sort of reform. This is the sports/leisure industry and it feeds off dreams and amazing achievements. And there are benefits flowing down out of this dreamspace to the common rider/skier in terms of money thrown at development of equipment and resort terrain. That's nice.
I'm just sitting here thinking how stupid the whole Xtreme phenomenon has become. Isn't it time for a new and better dream? Shaun Palmer's bozo haircut, in-pipe drinking and screw you/screw the Establishment attitude was really something...back in the 80's. He's still an original, but the margin has become the mainstream and having to conform to this schtick in this day and age, having it shoved in our faces by giant corporate image marketing campaigns is a joke and a travesty.
You know the freestyle ski jumping event in the Olympics? Where some ponce in a spandex bib skis up a big ramp, then throws a triple axel acrobatic twist that he learned when he was a gymnast in college and practiced all summer long while wearing elastic harnesses and landing in a pool?
You know how stupid and far away from real skiing that is?
Well I think the X Games are getting just as absurd as that.
Time for a new dream.
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Hey NoFakie
I'm just starting to info-up on alpine boards, so I don't yet know what is good, bad and/or tweakworthy... I wonder if somebody else on this board has good first-hand info on this topic?
After learning about the boards, I'll move on to the bindings and the boots.
The bigger companies (i.e. Burton) are phasing out of, or have already quit, making alpine stuff. Their main market sweet spot has become wannabe-corestyle kids/teens of suburban parents who'll drop $1000 on gear to set up a PS2 junkie rail/big air punk.
Good for them. Keeps them off the real slopes where I wanna play.
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I've seen brownish blast holes in the snow in Japan, just like the ones you describe.
They are normally caused by Mogski's post-prandial flatulent discharges.
I believe Mogs' gaseous effluent itself is what causes big air jumpers to flap their arms in the "rolling down the car windows" motion. They are vainly attempting to get some fresh and breathable air at the apex of their trajectory.
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In my opinion, Italy is the best country. They have everything. A jaw-droppingly beautiful land, eons of history, fantastic food, style, attitude...
If Italy was loaded with Shibuya girls, I would never leave the place!
By the way, are there any Italians on this board? I'd love to know where to ride in Italy. I've only seen magazine articles about how rich people go to Cortina d'Ampezzo, but there must be great little towns where one can stay cheap and ski advanced terrain. The Alps? Dolomites? Si parla italiano.
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You can talk to Mogski about the special kind of bum sliding he does with his girlfriend...
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I hear you Ocean, the soul element really matters. And you don't find it in a hardboot-plate binding-racing board setup.
But on the other hand, part of me wants to go faster and faster and carve sharper and deeper...while still being able to hit the moguls and powder and tree runs.
I was a skier for almost 20 years, before I took up snowboarding. You can ask Mogski for confirmation, but I think my favored terrain and style of boarding is more what you'd expect from a skier than a born snowboarder. That explains the speed and the moguls. That explains my high stance angles (33 front, 21 back, and creeping higher every couple of weeks).
In terms of speed and carving, I've reached the limit of what I can do on my mass-produced all-mountain boards. It's not that my skills are superhuman, instead it's a simple limitation of my equipment: the edge can't hold as well as I want it to at speed and on icy hardpack...the waist isn't thin enough for the quick side-to-side that I want...the straightline speed is slower than that of most skis...
If you want to go faster and carve deeper, you need an alpine board and hard boots. I know you are rocking some Palmer PowerLinks. Do you like what they do for your edge hold? Imagine that leverage and bite times ten on an alpine board... And I am going to be giving this a try...next season when my Salomon 550 and Burton Supermodel are fully used up.
I've been researching custom boards on the Net and through acquaintances, and some of them appear to have excellent quality and performance.
Check out Donek and Coiler and Prior snowboards. Read what people say about them on the Freecarve site...
I'm probably going to get me a softer pair of hardboots (good ones have forward and lateral adjustability and variable stiffness, they are not old-style, ironclad ski boot prisonhouses), some decent plate bindings, and either the Donek Axis or the Prior 4x4...these are all-mountain boards done from the speed and carve perspective.
Because I want to go FAST, all over the mountain! I want to be SCARED again!
Bring it on!!
If an alpine board is too much, how about a regular freeride board with some of the great characteristics of alpine boards? All of these makers put out a regular all-mountain board for soft booters, and these are supposed to be excellent boards. I noticed that the Donek one is only $330...
Once you get over the myth that nobody can make a great, reliable snowboard as well as a giant company or former ski maker, there is a great world of custom boards out there.
Talk to Ben at the Hirafu Chalet about the custom pow boards made and sold in Niseko. These guys were making and selling something way better than the Burton Fish, years ago. And they still are.
Considering that Ben used to race Formula cars professionally, you should see the expression on his face when he gets rolling in the powpow on one of those boards. It's like watching an Aussie version of the Silver Surfer or Hobgoblin. ZOOM!!!
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Another name for it is "insulation".
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That's because none of you has seen how she unzips those bumps faster than a porn star unzips her black latex rubber catsuit...and sucks up the hump smoother than a honey-lubed piston!
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It only happes for about 6 hours each day... I had it going all day...it ended about 2 hours ago.
It's 6:13 p.m. in Colorado, man! They don't do the Winter X Games in the dark.
Try again around 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Colorado time. Japan's 16 hours ahead of Colorado, so that's 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., Japan time.
I think.
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For a taste of true smooth Italian espresso, try Lavazza espresso mix in a proper maker. Or go to the Lavazza Cafe near the intersection of Meiji-dori and Omotesando-dori in Tokyo.
My brother's Brazilian co-worker gave him some real Brazilian coffee...it was called "Tres Coracones". She said Brazilian coffee never tastes right unless you actually buy it there, then bring it over. Maybe the export mix or beans are different.
When I drank a cup of this stuff, it was a like a new drug to me...and this from a man who often starts the day with a triple espresso.
This stuff was amazing. Instead of the jittery, lightheaded, racing feeling I get from most coffees, I had a swelling sensation of sweet bliss in my chest, slightly molten, almost-invisible visual distortion effects like colorshift halos and glowing grids around everything...and best of all, the feeling that my brain had suddenly acquired mechanical linkage to a silent, offsite 90,000 horsepower turbo diesel engine.
These feelings of...er... well-being persisted through mid-afternoon...all from a double morning cup of the stuff.
Oh yeah...it tasted great too.
There were other houseguests at my brother's house that week. I can't recall exactly when it was, maybe after the 3rd or 4th day...but I began to notice that people's morningtime coffee time behavior was exactly like our college-days pot-smoking behavior.
Sitting around in tentative postures listening to music and having weird snippets of conversation...everyone gathered in the same room for no explicit purpose, protecting their cup of Tres Coracones with both hands...gazing down at patterns in the flooring, lost in the cascading spirals of some incredible glittering reverie...then flitting back into an ever-tangentially-shifting conversation with bright eyes and an embarrassed smile...then slipping back into lost worlds of reverie again.
We burned through that bag of beans in a few days.
When my brother told his Brazilian friend how much we'd enjoyed the coffee and shamefacedly requested another bag, fearing it was some kind of expensive gourmet brew, the woman just laughed and said "What? Tres Coracones is just an ordinary supermarket coffee in Brazil...next time, I'll get you a better one..!"
OH YES PLEASE
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Almost too good to be true... I spent most of today watching it happen on my computer screen...men's ski slopestyle, women's boardercross prelims...
X Games live feed on the Net for YOU
You get to hear the announcers swearing and talking to each other and re-doing botched commentary over replays.
You get to see almost all contestants and rounds, not just the edited few prime-time runs in the finals.
The live feed only works during the daily competition, Colorado time (subtract 16 hours from Japan time to get it).
At other times you can still view archived feed from past X Games.
With this and Mogski's games, you are all sure to be fired!
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Yeh...my vote is "Anybody seen Cheeseman?"
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Any coffee that I am drinking right now.
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How can we mere mortals--we obscenely bulging, rutting bags of fluids leaking the gases of corruption from more than one hole...mere pipes of flesh ramming in dead flesh and vegetation at one end, then blowing it wetly out the other--how can we even begin our worship prior to any divine apparition?
What does it all mean? What is meaning itself, what is "is"?
What is "what"..?
And we cry out in the darkness.
O what transcendent being will appear to guide our pathetic slavering lives?
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Many have reported good results after keeping slices of cheese warm and soft in their underpants while on the snow.
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Would it help to eat more cheese during the work week..?
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20 minutes from sick Alpine Valley, located right in the center of Carhartt territory.
http://www.skialpinevalley.com/
I'm trying to track down the perfect used snorkel parka, jeans/snow gaiters look in surplus stores around here. The preferred look is to bomb straight down the hill on rental or garage-sale skis, bent/lit Marlboro Red in your mouth, with dirty parka unzipped to reveal a can of Budweiser in the breast pocket.
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Here's a Quicktime vid clip of the Canadian Freeskiing Champeenships held at Whistler on January 11. It's a larger download...the payoff is about 3 minutes of play time including music.
Apparently the conditions were awful. Whistler's snowpack is low this year and everything is hard ice and rocks showing through. Bad light made it even worse... I read on another thread that one of the skiers took a bottle of blue Powerade up to pour on avalanche rubble in one of the runouts, uh to make it easier to see...
A French skier won it all.
The line that Daisuke Sasaki took made me choke on my coffee. Am I missing something, or did he almost die on that rock? My stomach is still in a knot. YIKES!
Canadian Freeskiing Championships, eh
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Marz, the answer to your prayers:
Click on Beer House in the middle of the page, then sigh in anticipation of the foamy payoff...
You can toggle the whole site to English by clicking the word "English" on the very upper right of the screen.
Some fine brews indeed!! They sell snacks too for those as likes to eat with their drinking.
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Yeh Ocean...it's liver damage!
Just finished din, now off to board all 150m of Alpine Valley.
It is dumping in Michigan!! Over 2cm today alone... All hail great Ullr!!
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Probably even less of you will believe that the first time I saw her, she was in a skimpy black bikini, hanging out at Fuller Pool in Ann Arbor.
She had transferred in from New York and was living in the Markley Dorms for the summer session.
Had lunch with her and she talked about water fights in the dorm and some other stuff.
Sorry to disappoint, but it never went further than a couple of lunch dates.
And now comes the part even fewer of you will believe: I lost interest in her because I met a much better girl.
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I doubt many will believe it, but I dated Lucy Liu in the late 80's, when I was a law student, and she an undergrad, at the U. of Michigan
Pet hates (harmless)
in General off-topic discussions
Posted
Pet hate: I like pets in general actually.
Somebody had to say it, just so we can get on with this thread!