rocketman

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Posts by rocketman

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  40

  Anybody still buy vinyl records?

  by DanTheMan in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i haven't had a turntable in years, and i'm starting to feel all romantic about getting one and restricting my new music purchases to vinyl exclusively.. some reasons why:.

  longevity - cd's get to be pretty skippy after about 10 years, and after 15 or 20, they are pretty much useless.

  a vinyl record can last 100 years if taken proper care of.

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  rocketman

  
  Dan, I wonder if you've been reading Audio magazine lately. They are generally advocates of analog playback, and still run ads and test reports on turntables.

  Analog does have its advantages, but when my turntable started to give me problems circa 1990, I gave up on analog audio, basically because of the headache of cleaning albums each time I played them, and always feeling like I had to make a copy on audiocassette right away to avoid excess wear on the grooved playing surface.

  I do agree that many early CDs sounded pretty lousy, but with remastering techniques applied over the past few years, many now sound great, to my ears anyway. I have never done an A/B listening comparison though, pitting a good analog setup against a good digital one.
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  26

  Superbowl XL - It's Pittsburgh all the way!

  by drew sagan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm loving it.

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  rocketman

  
  I'm not a conspiracy theorist (I think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone), but I do at times throw stuff out there when it comes to sports, without actually saying there's some way the outcomes of games are manipulated.

  As for the Colts-Steelers game, I think that Joey Porter may have had a point when he said that 'everybody wanted the Colts to win'. The Colts were being touted as Super Bowl entrants ever since they beat the Patriots on that Monday Night game earlier in the season. People in general wanted to see Peyton Manning get to the big show.

  Once the Steelers managed to win that game and get to the Super Bowl, they then became everyman's choice to win. The storyline of Jerome Bettis going home to Detroit, winning, and then retiring is like a movie script. What could go wrong? - oh, that's right, the Seahawks were in the way, and almost ruined the script.

  I'm just throwing that out there as a possibilty; I'm not totally sold on games being manipulated. But I do wonder sometimes. I've watched football a long time, and this isn't the first postseason that's had me doubting my faith in the NFL. Almost every season, there's something that makes me wince - the Tom Brady fumble...oh, I mean "Tuck Rule" call. The phantom pass interference call against the 49ers when the Redskins won the NFC title game in 1983. The phantom blow to the head by Sugar Bear Hamilton to the helmet of Ken Satbler in 1976. The list goes on and on, and I just wonder sometimes.
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  26

  Superbowl XL - It's Pittsburgh all the way!

  by drew sagan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm loving it.

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  rocketman

  I've been listening to talk radio for the past two days, plus watching ESPN. Most commentators are somewhere in between Colin Cowherd (he's not recognizing the Steelers as champs) and Peter King from SI.com (he had a problem with only one call, the 'low block' call against Hasslebeck after he threw the INT). Most seem to agree that the officiating was poor, and that there were a couple of calls that were missed (Jeremy Stevens appeared to fumble after a reception; the officials should reviewed the out-of-bounds call on Jackson's reception near the goal-line pylon), but most aren't going so far as to say that the refs won the game for the Steelers or lost it for the Seahawks.

  Here's something I wrote on January 17th at my blog: (http://www.blogtext.org/rocketman/article/3446.html) "It seems to me that the playoffs each year are marred by some gaffe(s) on the part of the refs. The NFL had better start getting very concerned about it." I wrote that after the Divisional Playoff round, when Pittsburgh was the victim of that very poor call against Indy, the Polomalu INT that was ruled an incompletion. That weekend was marred by several instances of poor officiating.

  I won't go as far to say that games are "fixed", but everybody likes a happy ending, and the Super Bowl went according to script. It does make me wonder.
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  26

  Superbowl XL - It's Pittsburgh all the way!

  by drew sagan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm loving it.

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  rocketman

  I was pretty much an impartial observer for this game, though I did pick Pittsburgh to win (by a margin of 10...just missed). The officiating was definitely a problem, and one that the NFL had better address. But did it determine the outcome? No. Influence, possibly, but the refs did not win the game for the Steelers.

  It could be argued that Seattle lost this game as much as Pittsburgh won it. But the Steelers did make big plays when they had to. Interestingly, the Seahawks bettered them in every important statistical category - time of possession, total yards, and turnovers. Normally, the team that wins those battles wins the game.....normally.
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  155

  Which avatars are your favorites?

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some people's avatars make me smile, others make me think.

  there are some that i just love to look at.

  here are some of my favorites off the top of my head.

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  rocketman

  
  A few of my faves:

  Sirona's....I just want those fangs sunk into my neck.

  Gumby's - How can you not like that green rubbery guy?

  Kyrstal's - How can a guy (and many women) not love this?

  Then there's almost too many avatars of attractive females to name or post....and then there's mine, of course....

  The Rocket Man himself from the cover of Rock Of The Westies. My selection of this picture has a lot to do with a key teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses. This album was released in October 1975 - yes, the time when, according to Fred Franz, it was "the appropriate time for God to act!" Hey Fred, we're still waiting....
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  41

  Elders sting operation on myspace

  by troubled mind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a certain young person told me last night a jw friend of his from n.y. received an elder visit .

  the suspect was told that the elders had been lurking about on myspace and had caught several young ones with accounts there .

  they told this person's account was benign yet was counseled it was bad association to be on myspace.

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  rocketman

  Since there have recently been stories on various news progarms dealing with the possible dangers of posting personal information at web sites such as myspace.com, I can see justification for perhaps some general counsel, to be careful about posting such information. However, for elders to log onto such sites for the purpose of checking on young jws is way out of line.
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  22

  SUPERBOWL AND THE JWS

  by Mary in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  someone posted on another thread: the cong.

  i came from we were not allowed to watch football though i'm sure some did on the sly.

  football was likened to the christians being torn apart at the coliseum.

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  rocketman

  Most jws I knew watched that obscure, barely-hyped contest known as the Super Bowl, which you may have heard of. I had a few jws, including elders, over to watch some of the games, and I accepted some invitations to watch at some jw homes, including elders.

  But, we did one time (1999) have an elders meeting on Championship Sunday, and I missed the AFC and NFC title games that day because of that. I was very upset that my fellow elders chose that day of all days. They wouldn't have done that on Super Sunday, but true football fans aren't going to have meetings during the Conference Championship Games either.
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  43

  Disturbing paragraph in Dec 15, 2005 Watchtower

  by yaddayadda in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in the 2nd study article, page 29, paragraph 17.

  "a similar shocking end will come to the symbolic harlot who has the name "babylon the grat.

  " the harlot represents the false religions of satan's world, which have their origin in the ancient city of babylon.

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  rocketman

  Skally, the words secular and sect are defined as follows: Sect:

  1. A group of people forming a distinct unit within a larger group by virtue of certain refinements or distinctions of belief or practice.
  2. A religious body, especially one that has separated from a larger denomination.
  3. A faction united by common interests or beliefs

  Secular:

  1. Worldly rather than spiritual.
  2. Not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body: secular music.
  3. Relating to or advocating secularism.
  4. Not bound by monastic restrictions, especially not belonging to a religious order. Used of the clergy.
  5. Occurring or observed once in an age or century.
  6. Lasting from century to century.

  n.

  1. A member of the secular clergy.
  2. A layperson.

  The context of the article quoted at the outset seems to imply that the Watchtower is using the term "secular" according to defintions 1-3, rather than in the sense of the noun. Hence, Jehovah, the big Killer in the sky, pronounces lights out on religions and their supporters first (thanks to Blondie for her clarifying research) and then on the non-religious or "secular" part of mankind. That's my take on it anyway.

  Good points also by Gumby and Dan.
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  67

  If it was legal, would you have more then one spouse?

  by free2beme in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  often what we accept in society, is based on how and where we were raised.

  for example, in some countries it is okay to have more then one spouse and arranged marriages are how you marry.

  often we take these examples, and others that happen elsewhere, and label them as just wrong.

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  rocketman

  . Fairchild wrote: "He actually tried to hold on to all of us, saying that each one of us gave him something different he needed and he could not find all of these things in one single person".

  That's the major thing that bugs me about the idea of having more than one spouse. Who among us really can't be fulfilled by just one person? Personally, I think that a guy (or gal) who thinks they need more than one is a bit full of themselves.

  Don't get me wrong - we all have various aspects to our personality, and one person may not satisfy us in all respects. But I would think that means broadening ourselves to accept one person rather than thinking we're so 'large' as it were, that we needed multiple partners.
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  67

  If it was legal, would you have more then one spouse?

  by free2beme in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  often what we accept in society, is based on how and where we were raised.

  for example, in some countries it is okay to have more then one spouse and arranged marriages are how you marry.

  often we take these examples, and others that happen elsewhere, and label them as just wrong.

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  rocketman

  I find the idea intriguing. I must say though that the word "spouse" is a bit of a turn off for me, because the only real reason I'd want more than one woman in my life is for more casual reasons, like sexual variety, or just hanging out and having fun. But in the sense of marriage and all the obligations that arrangement entails, I'd porbably pass on the extra spouse(s).

  Married Filing Jointly Class