Yea, I was only about a quarter of the way through until my show buffered and I haven't gotten back to it yet.

Thanks for pointing that out though; it makes sense of some of the longer delays.

I'll give it a good read sometime tomorrow.

You would think that the routes would be scheduled so as to minimize these kinds of traffic delays to a matter of minutes. Amtrack doesn't share it's track with anyone else, does it? Technical issues are more understandable for long delays, but seem like they should be much less frequent.

Do you usually ride Amtrack, or is there another railway you use?

I recently tried to take the Amtrack from Austin to Dallas, departing at 9:31am. At 9:29am, in the waiting area, I received an automated phone call telling me that my train would be late. I asked the young man at the ticket booth how long the delay would be and he said that our train would be pulling into the station at noon at the earliest.

How do trains get delayed over 2.5 hours? It doesn't make sense to me, there's no traffic on the tracks.

I was really excited to ride the train, but I ended up catching a ride with a friend who happened to be heading north that morning so I wouldn't be late. Hopefully I'll get a chance to ride in the future, but I'm not going to count on it being on time.

I've never heard of GDP but I guess he's a friend of theirs from Jersey... Anyways, thanks for the new Front Bottoms songs. One of my favorite bands recently.

New album by Geographer. Good stuff.

I was pretty worried for a minute. I got my hubwheel up to 8 dots a while ago and have been lurking ever since without a wheel. But I wouldn't have anywhere to go for internetting if I had to bump myself up before I could contribute again (although this could be the push for a hubwheel, guys).

crunch?

Thanks! I had never heard of storing energy as compressed air but that's pretty cool.

I'm not sure I understand the energy transfer. Is it wind turbine to (electricity?) and then into a giant compressed air tank for storage that's turned back into electricity when needed across the desert? I'm not saying it isn't viable, I'm just not sure I understand.

Great album. I've seen them a few times and the best opener to any concert I've been to was when they came out to "Do You Realize". I was up in the lawn and I was absolutely blown away.

If anyone gets a chance to see these guys live, do it!

Yea, just let me know what you wanna do. Hopefully I'll have a date if this doesn't work out, but I think that's being too optimistic at this point.

My all-time is Pacifico. If you like a nice cerveza, give it a try with a lime. Other than that, I am always down to try a new IPA.

That's absolutely the Stubbs I'm talking about. Are you gonna be in Austin for it? I was going to go with my cousin, but I think she just bailed, so I'm probably Shaking it alone

Hey, I think I'm going to see him at Stubb's too! I haven't checked out the other band he's playing with yet, but I've got plenty of time. And thanks for the shout out, I'm digging this album!

Thanks for doing all of this 8bit. I haven't had time to contribute on Hubski lately, but I still lurk and I can always make time for Hubskina.

Knowing anything about football is not going to help you understand this article, but I did still put the link up on my fantasy league message board.

You and your kitty remind me of a friend I haven't seen in a long time. I hope you and my friend are both doing well!

This is really all that I play on my phone these days. But I'm being beaten by the computer most of the time on setting 4/10 so I guess I need a bit more practice.

My biggest issue is opening. I know that there are whole books about how to open a match, but for some reason, I prefer not to use them. It's not paying off, so maybe I should go back for a look.

Nicotine yes, most things, no.

I'm not sure I want to quit yet, but I'm also young and always find myself addicted to a new buzz. I think I could quit either smoking or dipping cold turkey at a moments notice, but I may be overestimating my own resolve.

Sorry, it looks like I edited my last comment while you were writing this one, but I think you captured and quoted most of it anyways. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me this morning, so I took it off. Thanks for the response though, you dug at parts that I find true about that post in any state I'm in.

When I said that I command conversations, I don't think that I put that in the right way. I don't speak as often as a lot of people, but I've been told that when I do, my words have a bit more gravity than I intended. A large part of the way that I communicate verbally is the way that I present myself, and not necessarily the way that I present my ideas. This doesn't lend itself well to writing, and it is something that I need to work on.

I understand the difference you're making between friendly and hostile now, I'm just not sure that those are the terms that I would use for the audiences you are describing. It doesn't matter what we call them, that's just where the confusion came from.

And you make a great point about "interesting" rather than "strong" opinions when presenting an argument. It's just that "interesting" is a strange combination of substance and presentation that can be difficult for anyone to concoct over text to strangers. You're right though, and I think I'm going to spend more time trying to write anything rather than bouncing around just reading and wishing I could write as well as I would like.

Also, I would really like to know your lesbian/copter-splosion friend's nick-name if you don't mind sharing it.

Why would you consider an audience that needs your information as friendly? I would consider this kind of audience that is going to break down everything you present them as more hostile than those who are reading for pleasure. The people who read for pleasure might be a little disappointed by your writing, but they can stop at anytime with no harm done.

[Large Edit for the nonsensical post here from last night]

Whenever I write, I begin by writing the way that I would speak to a friend, and it always ends up being a mess of subtleties and phrasing that I have to edit out so that it can be understood by strangers on the internet. I never get to correctly express the meaning of the story in then concise way that I would like to. My spoken stories involve a lot of dialogue and backtracking that work while I am speaking, but I can't rely on inflection in my writing the way that I do while I speak. Maybe it's just a matter of working on my structure or word choice, but it's difficult for me to find the text that does my thoughts justice. I realize this is a common problem for any kind of writer, but I am so often dissatisfied with what I write that it gets deleted.

My issues as a writer often make me question how much of anything that I read that I am missing. Do y'all feel that you understand a writer's message most of the time, or does most of what everyone writes fall on deaf ears?

I don't think I could handle that much pressure. I would just kill off my character and let the mutees run rampant. And by rampant, I mean yelling offensive things at strangers, like the crows in Rapture-Palooza.

I guess it's too late to suggest that for this weeks movie, but it's a funny movie if you like Craig Robinson, Anna Kendrick, Rob Corddry, or obscene/apocalyptic humor.