Australia has been fast chasing the "We are the chubbiest chaps in the world" title apparently (i.e. it amuses the skinny news people to make these reports, probably on the days when they feel bad because their partner has been discovered to be having an affair with someone that actually _has_ a personality and pointing at others makes them feel better, the bulemic, botox using fools).

Anyway, it looks like the US is going to make a shot at ensuring they are not approached in the blubber stakes by removing even more incidental exercise from your day to day life.

The Segway [amazon.com] is finally available.

Of course the problem with it is that it is so cool that even I want one and my anger and pointing out the flaws is simply because we antipodeans have been excluded from this product (oh, and I get angry at television people too easily).

Of course with a 10 mile range you kind of want some way of recharging it on the road... 40 odd kilos is a fair whack to carry home. Remember that the pub being 4 miles away means that your round trip is going to be something like 12 miles. 4 miles there in a straight line, 2 miles in the bar and outside dicking around showing your friends and attempting to pick up chicks by doing tricks with your segway on the bonnet of some dicks sports car (future monkey will of course work better and is approx $4980 cheaper), then you will start the 4 straight miles home and run out of juice about halfway. Meaning you'll need to drunkenly carry the damn thing the remaining 4 curvy miles home. Ahh well... I still want one.

Maybe you shouldn't have had that third beer before you tried to work out that math...?

4+2+4 =.... 10.

And I don't see how going halfway through the 4 miles home (2 miles) leaves you another 4 curvy miles to go.

Or are you attempting to include the drunken state in that math?

[pendant mode]And the Segway battery is good for approximately 15 miles between charges.[/pedant mode]

In Response to zamphir (#2886):

Your tags are mismatched, but I really like the idea of a pendant mode. I'm not quite sure what it would be used for. Perhaps to point out new medallions, or it could decorate the text with sparkly jewels. There are less useful html tags out there, perhaps the w3 people will incorporate <pendant> into the next revision.

In Response to misere (#2897):

Maybe I shouldn't have had that third beer before I posted, then...

In Response to misere (#2897):

Hmm... a quick trip to m-w.com reveals that pendant mode would probably derive from this definition:

pendant(n): 5b - something secondary or supplementary

The more common definitions, having to do with dangling ornaments, are notably more amusing in this context, but perhaps less practical. Such are the horrible choices with which we are faced.

In Response to zamphir (#2886):

Well, your first point I agree, but the reason that getting you halfway home leaves 4 curvy miles to go is that you are drunk, and thus the miles you walk will be curvy. When you walk a curvy mile, you don't go as far as when you walk a straight mile. Speak to Euclid about it.

[pedant mode][pendant mode]Don't even start with me about Earth's surface not being Euclidean. It's locally Euclidean, which is good enough for 4-mile spans.[/pendant mode][/pedant mode]

In Response to mea37 (#2901):

Thank you very much... I was thinking maybe I had gone off into one of those "makes sense to me, hell I even think it is mildly amusing" whilst people stand around bemusedly... oh and the other thing was that the segway gets an average of 10 miles, 15 was under optimum conditions.

Now for the main point of my reply.

read the title... hehehe tit.

I got so excited.. now I am trying to think of other rude words I can make by starting a topic with a title which will be truncated... wheeee an afternoon of puerile fun awaits. Possibly with arse talking ala ace ventura...

Well this certainly is ironic.

After showing my friend a "Goats" strip she claimed she could tell "just by reading it" that the author was "at least 400 pounds." I tried to refute it but without corroborating evidence she won't listen to reason.

So Jon, please, straighten her out. If I let this one slide then who knows what sort of claims she might make in the future. I'm pretty sure she was responsible for the "War of the Worlds" radio play hysteria, though I can't pin that one on her because she falls back on some flimsy alibi about being born 30 years too late.

In Response to eisenkrote (#2924):

Well, you tell your friend that while there are certainly 400+ pound cartoonists out there, I am not one of them. She's off by about 200 pounds. I didn't check my weight this morning, and while no one will mistake me for a sleek male model, I generally hover around the 200lb mark.

You can also tell your friend that I can tell that she's extremely ugly by the way that she makes prejudiced assumptions.

For those of you interested in cartoonists with weight issues, go check out Superosity [superosity.com] by Chris Crosby. He's been on a weight loss campaign and has lost about 30 pounds. He just slipped under the 500lb mark for the first time since 1998. I'm damned proud of him.

In Response to jon (#2927):

Woah.
Well, congratulations. As someone who tends towards a "Dennis Franz"ish bodytype, 200 lbs. is my ultimate goal, and thus, I'm envious. I'm also somewhat overwhelmed. I meant no insult by my comment and hoped that by posting it in this forum, and couching it in outrageous detail it wouldn't be taken too seriously. If I misjudged, then chaulk it up to inexperience in these forums (that was my first post- what a way to make an introduction, ey?) and a residual head of steam coming off reading the Goats Codpiece/Canadian series.

If its any consolation my friends ominously threatened me if I didn't post the following disclaimer: "Any views I attribute to my friends in written, typed, or oral form are in no way representative of their true opinions, but are figments of my own twisted imagination."

And if my friends are reading this (and I know you are): there, see? I said it and I meant it. Can I have the key to the handcuffs now? Please?

                                        -A very foolish man

In Response to eisenkrote (#2937):

Oh, shush. You didn't offend anyone. I'm just playing with you.