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Things You Don't "Get"


CrackpotForeigner

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I normally pick things up quite quickly in terms of sports/co-ordination skills but I went dry slope skiing when I was about 15 on a school trip and I was absolutely awful, fell and knackered my wrist as well.

Been put off ever trying it again since.

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9 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

My OH's sister went skiing in Austria last week.

She fell and shattered her arm. So bad they told her they might have to amputate.

It's put me off skiing a bit (more) :D 

One of my running club friends fell over while skiing - she was unhurt and about to get up, when a snowboarder came past and went over her arm. The sharp edge of the board cut right through her sleeve, and through the tendons of her arm, right down to the bone (which shattered). Blood everywhere, and she had to be heiicoptered out. Took years to heal. 

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The only time i've ever been on snow was a few years ago when I took MrsVM up to Fort William - she was turning 30 and 'never been skiing' was on her things to do by the time i'm 30 list along with 'never been to Scotland' so I killed 2 birds with 1 stone. We took Friday and Monday off to travel up there and back and did a long weekend. And although I wouldn't jump at the chance to repeat the drive from Cardiff too often it was great.

Firstly, we absolutely lucked out on the snow front - it would be like as if you'd booked it for this weekend - when we turned up the local supermarket was full of locals running round saying 'are you going up the hill tomorrow? Isn't the snow great?' to each other. The town was a-buzz with excitement so Friday night we were buzzing too.

We hired a little cabin about 2 miles from the ski place (and weirdly because it was out of season - more hikers and ramblers in the spring/summer than snow enthusiasts it seems - I got an absolute deal on the place). I booked one day of lessons for both of us and we decided snowboards were more stable than ski's. We had a lesson first thing, on the practice slope by lunchtime and we were let lose on the smaller slopes by tea time. Great fun. Really cheap to hire the stuff from the Snowboard Centre there although we invested in proper snowboarding socks and some decent gloves before we went. Our tutor was great - everyone was really nice - it all felt very inclusive. I have to report back to VT and say in the Olympics in a few years we'll be set! there were 6-10 yr old kids overtaking us all the time. They have little kickers and rails in this one bit and it was filled with kids skiing backwards down them all and stuff, we as 30 somethings at the time being taught by this lovely 20yr old being shown up by nippers everywhere!

Sunday was spent in front of the log fire watching Deer run past the windows of the cabin. The odd bruise being nursed from a few tumbles the day before but nothing major.

Like I say the travelling there and back was the worst bit though. Just wanted to add to the conversation that it's not all that prohibitive in price and you don't necessarily have to fly out to St Moritz.

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Blokes that wear shorts in winter with a thick jacket and bobble hat on. WTF is that all about?

It all seemed to start a while back with postmen wearing shorts in winter and now it seems that any macho man is following suit.

They have to be freezing cold, just have to be.

Bonkers.

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2 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Nice people milling round, not sun burnt brits with england flag tattoo's and pissed

 

I've not skied for a few years and yes they are a different sort of holiday  , but  on this point , maybe you should stop going to Magaluf and then you'd have better beach holidays

head out to Asia and you can have a holiday with sun burnt Aussies in wife beater vests and flip flops dropping their shorts every 30 seconds instead  :) 

 

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4 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I've not skied for a few years and yes they are a different sort of holiday  , but  on this point , maybe you should stop going to Magaluf and then you'd have better beach holidays

head out to Asia and you can have a holiday with sun burnt Aussies in wife beater vests and flip flops dropping their shorts every 30 seconds instead  :) 

 

Yeah, much better with white backbackers with dreadlocks and pyjama trousers. 

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30 minutes ago, imavillan said:

Blokes that wear shorts in winter with a thick jacket and bobble hat on. WTF is that all about?

It all seemed to start a while back with postmen wearing shorts in winter and now it seems that any macho man is following suit.

They have to be freezing cold, just have to be.

Bonkers.

@villarule123

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33 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

Why do scam-artists think that starting an email with 'Hi Dear', will make me believe it's from a reputable businessman?

They don't (necessarily). Scammers try to make emails as ridiculous as possible so that only the real targets, the purest and most gullible mugs, actually respond to them.

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14 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

They don't (necessarily). Scammers try to make emails as ridiculous as possible so that only the real targets, the purest and most gullible mugs, actually respond to them.

Yep, was going to say the same.

Read this a while back. It's a waste of their time if someone contacts them and can easily figure out it's a scam. 

They want the absolute **** mugs to contact them. They're there for the taking

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18 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yep, was going to say the same.

Read this a while back. It's a waste of their time if someone contacts them and can easily figure out it's a scam. 

They want the absolute **** mugs to contact them. They're there for the taking

For those who want this in fancy technical words, Microsoft wrote a research paper on it (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/?from=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fpubs%2F167719%2Fwhyfromnigeria.pdf). Summary:

'False positives cause many promising detection technologies to be unworkable in practice. Attackers, we show, face this problem too. In deciding who to attack true positives are targets successfully attacked, while false positives are those that are attacked but yield nothing . . . Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favour.'

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1 hour ago, imavillan said:

Blokes that wear shorts in winter with a thick jacket and bobble hat on. WTF is that all about?

It all seemed to start a while back with postmen wearing shorts in winter and now it seems that any macho man is following suit.

They have to be freezing cold, just have to be.

Bonkers.

I think the posties do it for comfort and mobility but i agree with you regarding the others who wear shorts in winter for no obvious reason unless they've just left (or going to) the gym

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2 hours ago, imavillan said:

Blokes that wear shorts in winter with a thick jacket and bobble hat on. WTF is that all about?

It all seemed to start a while back with postmen wearing shorts in winter and now it seems that any macho man is following suit.

They have to be freezing cold, just have to be.

Bonkers.

I'm a postie, I don't wear shorts at the moment but I probably could and not feel the cold too much. It's minus 5 as I type this and I'm walking around with warm hands.. You just get used to it. 

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Re: Skiing holidays. I like the idea of the snow and wooden chalets and drinks around a roaring fire in the pub in the evening. The only thing I don't fancy is the skiing itself! Not with my knees!

Edited by Xela
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2 hours ago, Xela said:

Re: Skiing holidays. I like the idea of the snow and wooden chalets and drinks around a roaring fire in the pub in the evening. The only thing I don't fancy is the skiing itself! Not with my knees!

I think I'd start off alright, then it'd just go downhill from there.  Seriously though it's one of those things I've always fancied doing having watched it on TV, until the Olympics last week where they had cameras at the top looking over the skiers shoulder and it looked terrifying.  I'd just pussy out just like when we did abseiling at school no doubt.  I'm really not good with heights.

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