[Tfug] top/bottom and middle posting

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 01:04:15AM -0800, Bexley Hall wrote:
> 
>> My 2002 Kymco scooter has saved me an absolute fortune. 
>> The $3K sticker price, plus fuel & maintenance, plus insurance,
>> gets me a seven year average of about $60/month.
>
>I was looking into a scooter but it seems so "exposed"
>(given the "quality" of Tucson drivers).  How do you
>handle long trips (e.g., feenigs)?

I don't?  Honestly, who wants to willingly go to Phoenix?  As for safety... I
suppose it mostly comes down to playing the odds.  I don't drive much, though,
and my frequent trips the UA are done via bus.

>> Being a poor student, I honestly can't see how I could
>> afford a car...
>
>Driving as little as I do (~2K/year) it always feels
>wasteful when I look at insurance costs, etc.  I figure
>with such low annual mileage, I'm probably spending
>close to $1/mile!  :<
>
>OTOH, when I need to lug something across town, it's
>a lot more convenient than having to rent a car/truck...

This is actually my solution to distance travelling or when I need to move
something large.  Especially when I was in western Massachusetts, I'd rent a
car for my infrequent trips to the Costco in Springfield, or when I really
needed to go someplace far from a bus stop in the winter.

I justified this in purely financial means.  Even with the added cost of
occasional car rentals, the total cost of scooter + rentals was still below
the total cost of car ownership.  Also, a scooter is far easier to transport
across the country in a U-Haul.  :)

>> What would you call somebody like this?
>
><shrug>  Swedish? ;-)

In a pinch, I suppose that might work.  :)

>>  A Net pen pal gets the idea across,
>> but it's not very accurate.  I know this is by no means
>> a new phenomenon, so I
>> suspect somebody must have coined a term for this, right?
>
>Actually, I never considered physical location or *how*
>someone was initially contacted as being worthy of a
>special designation (?).

Well, I have no pressing need to label him, but sometimes it comes up.
Suppose, in conversation, I say "I've got this friend in Sweden who blah
blah..."  I think that carries certain expectations and it would not be out of
place for somebody to ask how I met somebody all the way in Sweden, and so
forth.

If this were in pre-Net days and I say "I've got pen pal in Sweden and..."
that connotes something entirely different, but it also suggests that there is
written correspondence.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
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