Letters to the Editor
BryanS
Published Letters: 365 Editor's Choice: 1
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Still waiting for some games
[Read the article: The $400 PlayStation 3 comes to the U.S.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sony can drop the price of the PS3 to $100 if they want. I don't think it's going to get them back into the race until they have some solid exclusives that show off what the console can do.
I work in the videogame industry, so I needed to buy a PS3 for work purposes, but I held off as long as I could. Finally, once the 60 GB model was discounted and discontinued, I broke down and bought one for the hardware backward compatibility. That was more than two months ago, and I still don't have a single game for it. If a game comes out for the PS3 and X360, I go with the X360 version, because I like the controller and the online service much better.
I did buy one Blu-Ray movie, to test the quality on my fancy-pants new HDTV, but even on my brand-new 42" plasma with its HDMI inputs, there wasn't a huge enough difference in quality to justify paying $10-15 more per movie by buying the Blu-Ray version instead of the DVD.
Maybe in a year or two, when Sony's finally lined up some killer console exclusives on par with Halo 3, and their online service is competitive with Microsoft's, and they put the freakin' rumble feature back in the controllers, this will be a console worth buying. But even though this holiday season should be better for them than last one (and really, could it have been much worse?), I don't think this is Sony's year. I predict a third-place finish behind Wii and X360, respectively.
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Really?
[Read the article: Punch-drunk Rudy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rudy Giuliani's running for president? Since when?
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Something else that's five minutes ago...
[Read the article: Sperm on, sperm off]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry to go off-topic, but can we please declare a moratorium on shoehorning in gratuitous references to the Nintendo Wii, in an attempt to seem all hip and with-it? It's been done to death, and in this case, the metaphor doesn't even work.
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Finally learning to be practical
[Read the article: What will YOU do with your fiscal stimulus check?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll be paying off the new PC I bought, within the six-month no payment/no interest term. Take that, stupid economy!
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I paid $1200 for a dead cat
[Read the article: What I wouldn't do for my cat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Two years ago, my seven-year old cat developed acute anemia of unknown origin. After five vet visits, a transfusion, a heavy dose of vitamin K, and lots of testing, poking, and prodding, I had to put him down. The good people at Dove-Lewis Animal Hospital in Portland, OR were good enough to lay out all of the pricing options for me in advance, with multiple recommendations for treatment. I made it clear that I couldn't afford the best treatment possible. The vet replied with the best practical advice I could have received at that time: You might pay $25,000 and still have nothing but a dead cat to show for it.
So instead I paid $1200 for a dead cat. It wasn't the best investment I've ever made, and it certainly didn't come at a time when I could afford it, but at least it eradicated any potential guilt I might have felt about not doing everything possible to save him.
After a few months of going petless, I adopted two awesome kittens from the Humane Society, and they've done an excellent job of charming the pants off of everyone who meets them.
And then, right around his first birthday, one of them suddenly became paralyzed from the waist down. The vet said that it was likely that he had a heart condition that had caused him to throw a clot, which was cutting off the blood supply to his back half. If it remained there, his muscles would have atrophied, and his kidneys would have shut down. All of this would have taken several days, and it would have been extremely painful.
The vet recommended an $850 echocardiogram as the first step in diagnosing what the problem was exactly, with additional office visits and treatments being almost certainly necessary. The vet was also unwilling to begin any sort of treatment without having that EKG done first.
Still dealing with the vet bills from my first dead cat, I wasn't willing or able to rack up more for what could very well have been my second one in a year. I asked what the alternative was. He told me to give the cat half of a baby aspirin and wait three days to see if it helped him throw the clot. If not, I'd probably have to put him down.
Well, 10 months later, the cat is still around, and he's healthier than ever. Aside from that initial vet visit, it's cost me about $4 in baby aspirin to keep his blood slightly thinned, to help prevent clots. And even if he doesn't wind up leading the longest life, I'm pretty sure that it's a happier one than it would have been if the vet's office wound up being his second home.
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pdxenglishstudent
[Read the article: What I wouldn't do for my cat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for reinforcing the stereotype that Portlanders and English majors are a bunch of smug pricks.
If your high horse ever requires medical attention, I encourage you to go with euthanization.
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Blind men and the elephant
[Read the article: What's the Obama campaign's position on superdelegates?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I see this more as Obama and his campaign manager describing two parts of the same likely scenario. Unless something drastic happens, Obama will win more states, more delegates, and more votes than Hilary during the primary. And if (or, more likely, when) that happens, the superdelegates, as "party elders," should seal the deal for Obama. It doesn't matter whether the delegates vote according to the will of their constituents or vote for the candidate who's going to run the better campaign against John McCain. Using either justification, most of them will be voting for Barack Obama.
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Is it just me...
[Read the article: What's the Obama campaign's position on superdelegates?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Or are the vast majority of the "Anonymous" comments very anti-Obama/pro-Hillary? With that level of commitment, is it any wonder that the primaries are going the way they are?
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The answer is: "2"
[Read the article: "No, You Can't"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The question is: "How many parodies can I see of the 'Yes, We Can' video before the novelty has well and truly worn off?"
Of course, this means that we should expect to see about fifty more variations in the next couple of weeks.
Stupid internet.