enderzero

I mentioned this in a thread some time ago, but at least in America it is a big time no-no to disobey a direct order from the ski patrol. You can, and most likely will, be arrested for tresspassing if you refuse to leave when they ask you to. I am confident that when this inevitably happens to me in Japan I can play the "dumb gaijin" card.

I agree. I think Yahoo mail is now and has always been the best major free email provider around.

I guess I will throw in my 2 cents now... I have an Xbox and my roommate has a Gamecube. We would have a PS2 if we wanted one...but we do not. I have played it plenty. I see the PS2 as good for the casual gamer, but for the real hard core gamer the Xbox is where it's at. Would your opinion be different if you lived in a country where the Xbox was doing well? I realize sales are very poor outside of the US, but it is doing very well here. The graphics are a generation better than the Playstation2. Compare them. There are obviously more games for the Playstation 2, but t

Are those buttons on the boogie board? What, does it double as a game pad as well?

This is really not worth arguing about. Some people are optimists, and some are pessimists. It's not going to affect the snowfall. Personally I am an optimist and I say Hell Yeah! It is awesome that resorts are opening as early as now even if it is just limited operations. To the pessimists - I can understand how you would not want to get your hopes up, but realistically it doesn't hurt the optimists if they do. Let us have our fun. Soon enough we will all be riding nice puffy winter pow and all thoughts of fall snow will be a distant memory.

s_f - is your email Hotmail? I think Hotmail has improved their junkmail filters since the release of MSN 8. That isn't saying much. It is unbelievable how much junkmail a hotmail address can get.

About half as many times as I would have to if I had a Mac...with twice the productivity.

I liked 13 Days. A very good historically based movie. I learned quite a bit about that particular episode. The DVD in the US is a 'Infinifilm' release which has an encyclopedia's worth of extra content regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis. I didn't bother but had I been trapped on a deserted island with nothing better to do I am sure it would have been incredibly interesting. ...a deserted island with a DVD player and generator of course.

That's true. I do usually take at least one more run after the broken bone. No embarassing sled rides for me.

Opening day to broken bone.

I guess my main goal is to be able to really get a feeling for Nagano before I go. That Hakuba map is great. I have some awesome street maps of cities in print form that show all streets, bus stations, train stations. Unfortunately it is all but impossible to find something like this for a (relatively) small city like Nagano unless you are there. Internet maps usually are digitally made and lower quality than I want. I would buy a map online but the few I have seen do not show any part of the actual map and I am not going to blindly purchase one. What I mean by transit map is a m

That IS pretty awesome!

Thanks Ocean, Yeah good tip about searching the Web...I actually (imagine this) tried that, but wasn't happy with what I found. Just thought someone might have a nice one already that may not be readily available on the net. Anyone have some kind of transit map...maybe in english??? Probably hoping for a tad too much. Anyway, Thanks

Does anyone have a good map of the greater Nagano area or a detailed Hakuba map they can post a link to? I would really like to get a feel for the city/cities before I go. I am most interested in trains, resorts, hotels, & commerce locations. Thanks in advance. BTW if you have something that sounds similar but for a different region post a link to that here too.

Halloween ... is also ... a big night ... for drinking ... ...ow!

little bird, Is that ski instructors only or ski and snowboard instructors?

Akibun, echineko, Sachiko, and any other native Japanese speakers... Do you plan to use the Japanese site instead of the English site? What about the forum? Are you going to read and post there instead of here when it gets popular? Just curious.

Yes. How many of us would *still* be skiing if there was no snowboarding?

That's a small board. How tall are you NoFakie? What a spectacular price though.

nulla - Baker is looking mighty white right now. But we've had the driest October on record here in Washington and November is supposed to be more of the same. Not looking too good for early openings this year in the Cascades. Ocean - *******

I promised to let everyone know about the boots that I checked out at the Snowboard Expo. Well the expo was lame but I have been to a number of shops in the last week and here are my findings. I have tried all of these boots on personally: Burton - Driver The size 10 I tried on ran considerably large. I am sure I could have fit into a size 9. I did not try a 9 though because I immediately new this was not the boot for me. The boot is too soft. This is supposed to be one of Burton's stiffest boot but it does not impress. On top of that, the liner is crap. Very low quality. And wor

I would rather drown in natto than watch that garbage.

I would say leave the Avatars off the forum. I don't really think they add anything to the atmosphere except extraordinarily long loading times. One vote against at least.

Snowboard Videos and BMX videos. I won't buy anything on VHS anymore though. DVD only. And pretty rarely do I buy them for that matter.

Ashton Kutcher and Stifler have got nothing on these two dudes. Be excellent to each other.