Rusty is right. JD dumped many small dealers and now you have to drive for parts. They don't follow the successful Walmart program of many little profits making a huge profit. Bad move in my mind. As a part time job, I service, on average, one machine every day of the year. 90% are Sears, or MTD. I really have to do almost no repair on the bodies, mostly routine stuff on the engines. I always loved my Wheelhorse 312A, non-Toro, but when I bought a used JD316, I have to honestly say that JD has it all over my Wheelhorse. Neither one has nickeled and dimed me, but my Eaton hydro pump did fail on the Horse after about 1000 hours. That set me back $800 for the part.

Thanks maggiepie, I have Romantika, and it is much darker than this one. I have decided that I was about as much to blame as Chalk Hill since I didn't get anything I had ordered, and I am sure I should have taken better care of what I did get. I actually have two surviving dark purple clematis from Chalk Hill (of the 12) and they are pretty. Since I did see the name of them, I will eventually (maybe) remember what they are. I gave two away...One died, and the other one is flourishing so that makes 3 of the 12 alive. not so bad. kay

I'm actually hoping that Sugar wins. I mean... think about it. The game is to "outwit" and "outplay," right? Well, I think Bob is great, and he's my second choice, but last week (geez, just a few nights ago, actually), it was really dumb of him to admit to Kenny that the "immunity idol" that Corrine had was fake. There was no reason to give up that tidbit of information. Bob should have turned the tables and "demanded" to know from Kenny why he had flipped with his vote. If Sugar hadn't gone to Bob to tell him that Kenny and Crystal were planning on blindsiding him, Bob would be gone. What Sugar did was brilliant -- she saved Bob, because she believes the "good guy" should win and she was sick of Kenny's lies and manipulations; and she saved Matty, too. She wanted Matty gone, but she didn't like the way that Crystal was yelling at Matty after she got back from the reward -- as Sugar said, there was no reason to kick him when he was down. Sugar is a LOT smarter than people give her credit for.

I saw an intriguing book at CostCo the other day called What If: THe World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been" by Robert Cowley. Here's how Amazon describes it: Amazon.com Counterfactuals--what-if scenarios--fueled countless bull sessions in smoke-filled dorm rooms in the 1960s. What if Sitting Bull had had a machine gun at Little Big Horn? What if Attila the Hun had had a time machine? What if Columbus had landed in India after all? Some of those dorm-room speculators grew up to be historians, and their generation (along with a few younger and older scholars) makes a strong showing in this anthology of essays, in which the what-ifs are substantially more plausible. What if Hitler had not attacked Russia when he did? He might have moved into the Middle East and secured the oil supplies the Third Reich so badly needed, helping it retain its power in Europe. What if D-Day had been a failure? The Soviet Union might have controlled all of Europe. What if Sennacherib had pressed the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.? Then the nascent, monotheistic Jewish religion might never have taken hold among the people of Judah--and the daughter religions of Christianity and Islam would never have been born. So suggest some of the many first-rate contributors to this collection, which grew from a special issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. One of them is classicist Josiah Ober, who suggests that if Alexander the Great had died at the age of 21 instead of 32, Greece would have been swallowed up by Persia and Rome, and the modern Western world would have a much different sensibility--and probably little idea of democratic government. Still other contributors are Stephen E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan, David McCullough, and James McPherson, who examine a range of scenarios populated by dozens of historical figures, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Chiang Kai-shek, Robert E. Lee, Benito Mussolini, and Themistocles. The result is a fascinating exercise in historical speculation, one that emphasizes the importance of accident and of roads not taken in the evolution of human societies across time. --Gregory McNamee There's also a What If II.