My hair gel smells like hamster feet.
 

sox always get lost in the dryer.

RFW2nd
 

AND make you wait in line 45 minutes to tell you it's not ready after seven hours.

[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited February 02, 2009).]
 

Send the pickle throwing midgets to the IRS, they deserve to be pickle-targets!!
 

(Take that IRS)
 

How is it that I can go to a fast food restaurant and get a king-size drink, a large, and a medium, but I can't get a small drink?

Does anyone know what the word medium means? (pun unintentional)
 

I'll just type in the punchline.

"...and, printed on every one, was the word MEDIUM."
 

(I better stop there)
 

And shim, I love the elevator quote!
 

On to another musing: I recently found out that water doesn't really go down the drain in the opposite direction south of the equator. The direction of the water's spin is determined solely by the position of the spicket, the tilt of the bowl, and other variables such as air currents and imperfections. Is that random enough?
 

Florida does feel colder than colder states. I'd rather be in 30-degree Colorado than 50-degree Florida.

Salt actually removes some of coffee's bitterness.
 

*****

As for my joke---well, obviously, it's not really mine---if you're motivated enough to look it up, it's joke #303 in Asimov Laughs Again.
 

and the bishop says "I can explain."
 

Keep Honking i am reloading.

and

My other auto is a .45 COLT ACP

dose Chcuk Norris ever quit being funny? the poor man has over 2000 jockes about him.

RFW2nd
 

quote:

---

I can't find my glasses anywhere

---

Have you tried the top of your head?

*****

If management would only admit the machine didn't work, it could be ripped out and we could get on with our lives.
 

quote:

---

Have you tried the top of your head?

---

Nope, my head is way too big for them to be up there.

I found under the kitchen table. Damn cat.

There has to be a lesson in there, somewhere.
 

Male dogs are also more sensitive than female dogs. You can tell a female dog 'No' and she'll just flip you the paw. Male dogs act like the world has ended. They also need to be told that they're good dogs a lot more often than the bitches.
 

PS: my brain is now always off, until around may it will come back on. i blame ther werewolf side of me for that.

RFW2nd

[This message has been edited by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (edited February 10, 2009).]
 

e4
 

"Shake, shake, shake sonora?"

oh, well. its just another day in paradise. cause you cant hurry love, your an easy lover, I wish it would rain, and were living seperate lives.
 

that was... ok... hehe... he...

buy it use it break it fix it write it quick rename it...

or, work it harder makes us better do it faster makes us stronger.
 

WHO WANTS STEAK?!?!
 

through the fire and the flames...

comes a steak!
icecream actually tastes good with ranch.

Im in arizona, so everything tastes good with ranch.
 

It irritates me when people use the word anxious when they mean eager.

ah, hotel california...
 

If I wanted dangerous (which would be great research for my cyberpunk novel I need to do yet another edit on) I'd go home to Detroit.
 

quote:

---

In the immortal words of Socrates, "I drank what?"

---

do violent video games give violent kids an outlet?
 

the one good thing is that Dice War, that the evil Crank put up on a previous Grist for the Mill thread is now gone. I know he put it there so I would be hopelessly addicted to it.
 

quote:

---

the one good thing is that Dice War, that the evil Crank put up on a previous Grist for the Mill thread is now gone.

---

I'm thinking about sending an email virus to the person who showed it to me.

The funny part about how I broke my addiction to that damned game is that my video card fried, and it took a few days longer than it should have to get it fixed. By the time my PC was back to 100%, I was so far behind on my real work, I didn't have time for games; and, by the time I caught up, I completely forgot about Dice Wars.

So, Snapper, I would like to thank you very much for reminding me about it. What's your email address?

S!
S!...C!

but addictive.
 

quote:

---

So, Snapper, I would like to thank you very much for reminding me about it.

---

Tiergan already sent me his thanks/curses for reminding him about it. Says he has a great story in his head but is now addicted, again.

I know so little about these things that I don't even understand what philocinemas is talking about...
 

why is there a "download" feature for a weight gain program?

Ill only eat a peanut butter jelly with creamy peanut butter, grape jelly, wheat bread of only one kind of brand, and only with the jelly side on top. wierd, huh?
 

*****

I'll try another random thought, kinda associated with it.

When you see someone talking on a cellphone at two in the morning, is it right to wonder just who they could possibly be talking to at that hour?
 

any suggestions?
 

lol.

where did Nintendos 1-63 go? why start at nintendo 64?
 

quote:

---

where did Nintendos 1-63 go? why start at nintendo 64?

---

Man, time for Mom to kick you out of that basement, DL. N64 was what, three, four, gaming systems ago?
 

ok?

not-so-random thought: why do people always assume a reference to an old system denotes an out-of-touch person?

no offense, I just like the classics is all.

[This message has been edited by dreadlord (edited February 26, 2009).]
 

Continuing the topic of jokes:
A turtle walks up to a tree, sighs, then begins to climb the trunk and out onto a branch. Spreading her limbs wide, she jumps... and lands in a pile of leaves. She crawls out of the leaves to return to the trunk and repeat the process.
On a nearby branch, Momma Bird turns to Daddy Bird and says...
 

Instead of throwing out another witty, innocent, but emotionally charged, comment, let me apologize.

Sorry.

quote:

---

On a nearby branch, Momma Bird turns to Daddy Bird and says...

---

"Should we tell her she's adopted?"

Dreadlords harsh reaction has me down. A game of Pong should bounce me out of this mood.

Computer memory works on a binary system. All sizes of memory, computing power, that sort of thing, is done on exponential powers of two. The Nintendo system operated on a 4K processor, Super Nintendo 16K, square that and you get 64K. Get it? Nintendo 63 would be incomplete. It's like choosing to use multiples of nine instead of ten.

That explanation isn't totally correct but it's close enough. The real explanation makes most people's head explode.
 

In my own defense, I did pay rent, and it was the first gaming system I had owned since my Atari 2600 back when I was a teenager in the 80's. Unless you count my Commodore 64 that I had during college.

dreadlord, I still have my N64 too. Zelda is still a great game, as is Mario 64. I still play them every once in a while with my 6 year-old. And as for the other part, I moved out of my parent's basement about 15 years ago.
 

hmmm... Mario 64... Im gonna have to try it now.

we all cool here?

by the way, why two "a"s in aardvark?
 

Even the most casual of browsers will come across it.
 

butterfly...

LOOK! A DISTRACTION!

[This message has been edited by dreadlord (edited February 27, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by satate (edited February 27, 2009).]
 

"Oh give me home,
Among the gum trees,
With lots of plum trees..."
 

My problem is that my mind seems to spend too much time flickering between the Procrastination Channel and FOIC-TV (Fixate on Irrelevant Crap).

Oh...by the way, the ADHD distraction jokes aren't even funny because and then my kids are taking me out for Buffalo Wings for my birthday tomorrow.

S!
S!...C!

Oh, and my husband says we're all nerds. LOL, he doesn't have room to talk because he's a computer geek and discusses Star Trek at work.
 

I've played Axis & Allies and Dungeons & Dragons at work. And my boss knows I keep the poker set in the trunk of my car....

I salute you.
 

a dyslexic athiest insomniac is someone who stays up late at night wondering if there really is a dog.
 

quote:

---

Rob, that was hillarious! where did you find that?

---

It's a modification of something I read in The Big Book of Death.

*****

Then there's the story of the frustrated necrophiliac, who solved his problems by becoming the coroner.
 

Does honking at a field of cattle as you drive past mean you're desirous of inter-species interaction?
 

Atheists believe there is no god. Agnostics admit they do not know.

There are degrees of dedication to either ideology. But if you want to see atheists in action you see people like Penn and Teller and Richard Dawkins who announce with certainty that "there is no god," that's what atheism is.

Agnosticism is someone who admits they don't know. Or think it can't be known. Or that it isn't known yet.

And a religious person is someone who, like the atheist, believes that they know the answer--they just reach a different conclusion.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited March 05, 2009).]
 

An agnostic is someone who admits they don't know and either thinks it can't be known or that it isn't known yet.

Atheists don't believe there is a god, which is different than believing there is no god. While many atheists believe there is no god, most of atheists I know continue to question. Which means the second group admits there could be a god; they simply don't believe there is.

Therefore, the acceptance of questioning is a line between an agnostic and an atheist.
 

"Atheists don't believe there is a god, which is different than believing there is no god."

But those statements are logically identical.

Let's break it down.

Condition 1: there is a god
Condition 2: there is no god

Conditions 1 and 2 cannot be simultaneously true or false.

Athiests believe condition 2 is true. Theists believe condition 1 is true. Agnostics refuse to answer the question.
 

quote:

---

Agnostics refuse to answer the question.

---

Not entirely...at least, from my vantage point. Many agnostics would very much like to know the answer to the 'god' question, including me (making the uncertain assumption that I will still be classified as 'agnostic' in the mind of those who read this essay).

I grew up in an environment where people regularly spouted: "There is a God because the Bible says so!", and was later subjected to an environment replete with "There isn't a God because (fill in the blank)" diatribe. Blame it on the scientist in me, but I got fed up with both sides' insistency of proclaiming the rest of the world was wrong, despite the fact that they couldn't prove themselves right.

Allow me to add this: Those who simply believe the way that is most comfortable for them are OK with me; blind faith, as much as I might inherently recoil from it, is still more tolerable---and a heluva lot more workable---than blind assumptive dogma.

I've since come to the conclusion that I'm wise enough to know that I am not nearly intelligent enough (nor is the rest of the human species) to completely understand how the Universe operates (regardless of whether it's God, or Fate, or some other 'entity,' behind the wheel). But that doesn't stop me from wanting to figure it out.

S!
S!...C!

(i feel doubly foolish now... maybe I should stop posting on this subject...)
 

S!
S!...C!

Writing is what happens when he can't get any more coffee and needs money to buy some.

(I'm crediting Theodore Sturgeon with this one, though I've adapted it for modern times.)

I don't drink coffee...keeps me awake...
 

but that was a long time ago. back in the Survivor era. we now live in the IB era.)
 

lets keep up the posting! break the record!

maybe we should have a specific forum for records... (longest post, most helpfull critiquer, person with the most topics posted... stuff like that.)

but who would regulate it? and what would the rules be?

my random thought.
 

death is the end, or a new beginning. it is horrible and beautiful, all at once. so strange, that we have no difference in the long run. only great men become immortal. Hitler, neapolion, alexander, ceaser, washington. they earned the title of immortals, somehting we can never hope to do.

100 years from now, you are either great or dead.

and so conscious makes cowards of us all.

Hamlets screwed, isn't he? After all hes done, god won't except him, and mankind will slander him.

now im depressed...
 

quote:

---

Hey, doesn't the guy in the Issue 11 IGMS banner look like Mike Huckabee?

---

damn right i hear that the goverment is going to legalise it. YEEEAA

i finly figured out how to set the time on the microwave. it took me 6 months to do so but i got it.

RFW2nd
 

quote:

---

i finly figured out how to set the time on the microwave. it took me 6 months to do so but i got it.

---

Egads! Aren't you stationed at a missile range, RF? Six months, huh? Sounds like the time change fixed it for you.

anyone feel free to drop in i live at 411 zuni dr. just dont show up after 2100 on week days i will already be in bed. and any time on week ends is goood. just dont kick my room door in i sleep with 2 swords and a 1911a1

RFW2nd
 

even though your names all over it.
 

... when one hundred thousand words adds twenty pounds on your scale.
 

RFW2nd
 

Two-edged sword....
 

And seriously, this is lame. new topic!
 

Can't be bothered hauling a laptop along...one more piece of luggage to worry about, and an expensive one at that.
 

...you scrape the top layer of skin off your hand but get distracted wondering how you might scrape any other layer of skin...
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 13, 2009).]
 

someone else already got the good ones.

OR I found mine empty in the trash.
 

when I have writers block I procrastinate by...
 

googling interesting words I learn from wikepedia

It's amazing how I can spend hours researching something that's only going to get 30 words in a story
 

How about: what's the one element (plot, character, creature or otherwise) that you just can't get away from?
 

*****

quote:

---

nice one Robert

---

Serious extra points if anyone can remember where I got it from.
 

quote:

---

I can't get away from my characters falling in love with each other. I'm almost to the point where I'm OK with that, but just once I'd like to create a character who wasn't determined to fall in love with someone else before the story was told.

---

Maybe it's just a reflection of your personality. Are you easy?
 

It was satirising Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 14, 2009).]
 

quote:

---

Maybe it's just a reflection of your personality. Are you easy?

---

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited March 14, 2009).]
 

On the other hand, love and being easy are mutually exclusive categories, wouldn't you think?

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited March 14, 2009).]
 

quote:

---

On the other hand, love and being easy are mutually exclusive categories, wouldn't you think?

---

Not necessarily.

Love has the ability to come in all shapes and forms. But I wouldn't invest in a ring just because I was grinning wide on the second morning.
 

The word "to" can be written three ways.
The word "too" can be written three ways.
The word "two" can be written three ways.

Maybe it is like this:

The word (to, too, two) can be written three ways.
 

*****

Down-down-down-dummy-doowah...ooh-yeah-yeah-yea-ah...wo-wo-wo-woao-wah...only the lonely.
 

quote:

---

...when you can make up dialogue for the animals at the zoo, and it fits what's going on in the cages.

---

Anthropomorphism

Darwin rolls over in his grave anytime someone does.
 

who would the money go to?

whos face goes on the back?

or, you could just have an essay, see whos is the best, argue over who is the best, and end up giving the rights to charity.

I should stop thinking. its just too much.
 

And Melanie, nope it's not got2be gel, I use the cheap stuff that's blue and glocky and does in fact smell of cedar.

~Sheena
 

quote:

---

How about: what's the one element (plot, character, creature or otherwise) that you just can't get away from?

---

That's an obvious attempt to remove the randomness from our musings, IB!

Ah, well. Mine is racial conflict. Also, my characters often devote themselves to unappreciative people. Oh, and I shouldn't forget that new technology usually complicates my characters' lives.
 

I have a problem with my protagonists being too passive. I guess they are usually more explorers than warriors--with the exception of Pantroth, of course.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 17, 2009).]
 

it wouldnt be a problem, except im running out of ideas to make them stronger.
 

Ive resorted to needless chapters on his tutorship, which is boring and doesnt make good reading, even to me.

it gets annoying.
 

It could be that the problem isn't finding ways to make him stronger, but that you already made him way too strong. Is there a reason he needs to be this godlike so early in the book (or even at all)?
 

I think that Ill lengthen it into a trilogy, with the first two books detailing his learning and the third book applying what he has learned. (with limitations.) I also think that I might give him some trouble CONTROLLING what he learned.
 

quote:

---

An Ubermensch villain

---

A character can have inner conflicts as well as outer conflicts.

If you can't do anything to the character, do something to someone or something the character cares about.

 

antagonist kidnaps love interest, and threatens her life if protagonist keeps fighting, all the while brainwashing the love interest...

it has merit...

thx!
 

I didn't say they had to be you as you are now. They can be based on extrapolations--you as you would be if thus and such had happened or if you'd made this or that choice.

So if there is part of you that could even think of scummy things, that is the part your scummy characters come from. Just as no one is perfect, no one is free from the possibility of being nasty.

And writers deal in possibilities, right?
 

quote:

---

I didn't say they had to be you as you are now. They can be based on extrapolations--you as you would be if thus and such had happened or if you'd made this or that choice.

---

This is exactly how I approach creating the majority of my main characters.

My YA MC is based on me, had I chosen to go extreme in my pursuits of my musical goals.

One of my SF MCs is based on what I might be like if my very mild case of autism was instead full blown.

And, in fitting with this topic (such as it is in a thread entitled "Random Musings"), one of my favorite characters is based on what I would be like had I ever decided to treat "The Godfather" as my Golden Rule.

Frightening, no doubt, at how scummy I could be. The cool part about all this is that, as long as I keep everything on the page, I can do anything I want to anyone I want---for whatever reason happens to make sense to me at the time---and I don't have to worry about being on the 11 O'Clock news.

S!
S!...C!

It's not good when opposing counsel says "aha" after a witness's testimony.
 

It's also not good when your hairdresser says, "ooops."
 

I think being a mom is awesome and a friggen powerful and important job, and that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.

but not everyone can see that.
~Sheena
 

My first clues came from reading the correspondence of our founding fathers. Ben Franklin invented bifocals because he was annoyed by having to switch between his reading glasses and his myopic-vision correcting set. At least one anecdote I encountered in the correspondence remarked that at times Mr. Franklin looked like he had four eyes. I found no further clues on that front.

A few years back when I returned to college after a long intermission, I needed reading glasses to read textbooks. One day I was studying with a classmate. My myopic-vision correcting set was perched on my brow, and I was reading with the reading glasses set on my nose. She remarked, "When you wear your glasses like that you look like you have four eyes." Aha! wearing two sets of glasses at once, one above the other, makes a person look like they have four eyes.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 20, 2009).]
 

I had this off duty cop come up to me one day in walmart when my kid was having a fit, and flash his ID at me and tell me that my child was being disruptive and I had to leave the store. Immediately. Sad thing was, he didn't know he was dealing with a jail cop from the neighboring county. I knew he had no authority. So I messed with him and acted all scared and got him to admit that I wasn't doing anything illegal, that, well, the kid's just making a scene and it looks really bad....at which point I told him that he should know better than to try to be badge heavy, cause the sherrif I work for doesn't tolerate that stuff. He apologized and left.

The crazy world of mommyhood!!
 

Now that I've been hit by praesbyopia, if that's how it's spelled, I have to take my glasses off just to read. My current pair are technically bifocals, but that hasn't helped.
 

[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited March 21, 2009).]
 

When I was about 35 I got a new pair that I just couldn't wear so I quit wearing glasses. A few years later I had 20/20 vision.

Now I'm much older and starting to think I am again going to need glasses so I can read the book less than 20 inches away.

TL

[This message has been edited by TLBailey (edited March 21, 2009).]
 

(Last time I was there, a little stand out back appeared to have the hot dogs on the menu...but I didn't have the nerve to order one.)
 

(one more post closer to the longest thread)
 

(one post closer to the longest word)
 

....write at work when things get slow, because with him around things are never slow.

Anyone else who wants to use my sentence fragment as a jumping off point is welcome to it.
 

1) I realllllllllllllllly like butter, steak, ham (including SPAM), bologna, potato chips (and corn chips), Mexican food, Italian food, Chinese food and pizza.

and

2) If I can eat it, chances are it's bland, I'm not too fond of it, it's nothing resembling snack food, it's a type of fish or fowl (not including duck) or I hate it.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 25, 2009).]
 

I miss popcorn.
 

Now that I'm in my late 30s (just barely though!) chocolate gives me a migraine at least half of the times I eat it. That doesn't stop me from thinking that this time it might be different.

(edited to put a halt to rampant overusage of the smilies legend.)

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited March 25, 2009).]
 

Dehydration is also a common cause of chronic kidney stones. I've passed my share and then some. Chocolate doesn't help. Oxalate compounds in chocolate are a source of minerals that form into calcium oxalate stones in the kidneys and gall bladder. Same with tree nuts and spinach.
 

I believe it. I had an ecoli infection that sent me to the emergancy room, and that pain was much worse than the pains of labor.

Not that labor is easy. It aint.
~Sheena
 

I'm not a diabetic, but by all rights I should be. I crave sugar like it's going out of style and get terribly sick every time I eat it. Eating sugar that's not covered in chocolate does seem to decrease my symptoms though, although it could be a placebo effect.
 

In most situations effect is valence neutral and affect is negatively charged, except perhaps for alternative definitions, like, affect a smile, affect an air of confidence, affection for, but not affectation. Chocolate, though I love it and won't live without it, affects my health and effects my happiness.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 25, 2009).]
 

Maybe: perhaps
May be: might be

Maybe I'll go.
I may be right.

Anymore: any longer or any further
Any more: any additional

I don't want to wait anymore.
I don't have any more.

Anyway: regardless
Any way: any manner

I went anyway.
I went any way the trail did.
 

extrinsic - Ever heard of ESWL (shock wave) therapy?

Unwritten - consider other forms of the words
affect - usually a verb (emotional connotation) - affection
effect - usually a noun (factual connotation) - efficient
 

Also, I had e coli and I had something this last month that lasted for week and put me in the ER on morphine and it was way worse than my C-section pains.
 

quote:

---

extrinsic - Ever heard of ESWL (shock wave) therapy?

---

Yeah, the local urologists call it lithotripsy for short. There's a lithotripsy trailer that runs a weekly circuit to regional hospitals around here to perform the procedure. It's ten grand a pop. Money I don't have, no insurance, and it's not covered under any indigent's assistance program available to me. Other more invasive procedures for acute stones are even more expensive. My alternative to passing on my own was having a life-threatening emergency needing surgical intervention that would be partially covered by indigent assitance programs. My stones have cost me eight grand I didn't have as it is. Unneeded MRIs and CT scans, X-rays, radiologists, urologists, emergency room doctors, ambulance fees. Still paying off those debts. The big stone came out with pieces of flesh stuck to it.

Get your red hots here!
One apocryphal legend I've run across on red-hot hot dogs was that the casings are dyed red to indicate that they're extra spicy, cayenne pepper spicy. I've had them spicy hot, but most are just imitators. The red dyed ones were to differentiate from milder frankfurters.
 

I'll never forget the day I saw my sister in law at the store and she was letting my nephew eat a raw red hot dog as he was sitting in that filthy shopping cart. Blech.

 

[edited 'cause of an awkward last sentence...not that the next one is much of an improvement.]

[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited March 26, 2009).]
 

Whatever happened to inches?
 

who ever said the army was hard work was realy wrong. 99% of our time is BSing and 1% real work.

Working hard at hardly workin

RFW2nd
 

How does it feel to have started such a long thread? Mine rarely get past the first page, unless they get sidetracked by parties who shall remain nameless. But for some reason, no one has sidetracked this particular thread. Wow.

Melanie
 

quote:

---

I've been in the hospital as a patient just twice in my life

---

Lucky you. I have spent two hundrend and forty three nights in a hospital bed...and I'm only thirty-one.
 

Just a stray thought.
 

my new faverit lyrics of ANY song. my buddy introduced me to Afroman.

9 months and 5 days left in the Army.

RFW2nd

Note from Kathleen:

Sorry RFWII, no quoting of song lyrics without permission.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 28, 2009).]
 

A curse so wrought
Upon my soul
By demons of the East

My days are dark
And slow to start
Before the rising sun

I raise my fist
To evil spawn
Who steal away my time

And when those beasts
Deign to return my hour
I’ll feel the curse again

-Burma Shave

rights to reproduce freely given by Owasm

 

Both Buckeye fans and Wolverine fans chant 'Go OSU!'.
 

I am going to use that poem by the way. You a fan of the Marx Brothers?
 

quote:

---

Both Buckeye fans and Wolverine fans chant 'Go OSU!'

---

This is true only if the Buckeyes are playing Notre Dame.
 

As for that nonsense about helping the farmers...don't they get up with the sun and go down with it as well?
 

Sighs.
 

quote:

---

Both Buckeye fans and Wolverine fans chant 'Go OSU!'.

---

Also Cowboys...Oklahoma State
 

DST has long since been of little exclusive impact to agricultural practices. Anymore, tourism and recreation industries, and consequently the overall economy, benefit most from DST.
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 30, 2009).]
 

1) On days when he had to do a lot of walking, Jesus would turn water into gel for his sandal inserts.

2) Because there is no word for "boss" in China, crowds at Bruce Springsteen concerts shout, "Supervisor!"

3) When he died on March 7, 1999, director Stanley Kubrick was making plans to begin shooting his next film, MEATBALLS 5.

4) In 1964, meteorologists were baffled when March came in like a lion and went out like a hedgehog.

5) An AMERICAN IDOL contestant was recently disqualified from the competition after testing positive for dignity.

6) In China, John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH is translated as ANGRY BERRIES.

7) PEOPLE magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" is seventh in line to the presidency.

8) In the early drafts of the POLTERGEIST script, the little girl got sucked into the toaster.

9) Walt Whitman's dying words were, "Kiss my ass."

10) Today is International Women's Day! Now shut the hell up and go make me a sandwich.

11) The Vatican currently employs six stunt-popes.

12) In 2004, the FBI foiled an Al Qaeda plot to disrupt the cattle judging at the Illinois state fair.

13) When he's not working, Satan enjoys golf, jazz, Victorian novels, and spending time with his family.

14) A Freedom of Information Act request was recently filed asking the government to reveal the location of the Hidden Valley Ranch.

15) Regis Philbin and Charles Manson were college roommates.

16) After years of research, scientists have discovered that, in spite of their remarkable intelligence, dolphins are incapable of sarcasm.

17) In the early drafts of CARRIE, Stephen King's first novel, Carrie White's paranormal power was the ability to make people talk like Daffy Duck.

18) Apple has spent nearly 200 million dollars trying to develop a wooden iPod for the Amish.

19) Until 1926, the president and vice president were required to sleep in the same bed.

20) The National Weather Service has four employees who do nothing but watch for clouds that are shaped like animals.

21) Moses's last name was Weintraub.

22) The National Weather Service has four employees who do nothing but watch for clouds that are shaped like animals.

23) In the early drafts of William Styron's novel SOPHIE'S CHOICE, Sophie was forced to choose between paper and plastic.

24) "You're not clean until you're Zestfully clean" is an old Arapaho proverb.

25) The first entry ever to be searched on Google was "nude hot oil wrestling."

26) Gerald Ford's first job after leaving the White House was providing the voice of Carlton the Doorman on RHODA.

27) The Wright brothers' cousin Duane invented the luggage carousel.

28) No one named Gary has ever been pope.

29) Shortly before the end of his life, Elvis was planning to star in a movie called VIVA PIE.

30) The term "No sh*t, Sherlock," first appeared in the book of Leviticus.

31) According to a poll in FILM COMMENT magazine, fans' least favorite James Bond was Randy Quaid.

32) In 1988, several HOLLYWOOD SQUARES panelists were seriously injured when Dom DeLuise, Louie Anderson, and Roseanne Barr were all seated in the top row.

33) When among friends, Jesus always referred to his 12 disciples as "my posse."

34): In his will, kitchen-gadget inventor Ron Popeil has asked that his remains be julienned.

35) Eva Braun's parents felt she could do much better than Hitler.

36) According to documents recently uncovered by historians, Mary Todd Lincoln was into leather.

37) Phil Donahue is under the impression his show has been on hiatus waiting for new carpeting.

38) In parts of Wyoming, it's legal to hunt the elderly.

39) Although he never received credit, Thomas Edison invented the flat-front chino.

40) A panel of experts concluded that there are no jokes about the Jonestown massacre because the punch line is too long.

41) To create a nurturing, nonjudgmental atmosphere, many math teachers now tell children that no numbers are truly negative.

42) When she died, speed-reading pioneer Evelyn Wood was working on a way to watch television more quickly.

43) The classic 1968 movie PLANET OF THE APES was based on a true story.

44) During his term with the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan lost 2.8 billion dollars in taxpayer money betting on keno.

45) In addition to its versatile knives, the Swiss Army is known for its multifunctional pants.

46) During the advertising campaign for its quick-rising breadsticks, Pillsbury briefly made its Doughboy anatomically correct.

47) Chinese restaurants require Peking duck to be ordered 24 hours in advance so the duck may enjoy one last day with its family.

48) Burt Bacharach ends every concert by flipping over the piano and biting the head off a rat.

49) Biblical historians now believe that, although he could walk on water, Jesus was a lousy swimmer.

50) Milton Bradley invented Twister as an excuse to touch women at parties.

51) Because of his name, Alexander the Great believed he would grow up to be a magician.

52) Mitt Romney has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a blackmailer who has photos of him with his tie askew.

53) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent millions of dollars trying to cross a bridge before they come to it.

54) Wanted criminals can elude law-enforcement jurisdictions by seeking refuge in an International House of Pancakes. (That falls under the jurisdiction of the UN.)

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 30, 2009).]
 

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ever hear the story about how schools let kids out in the summer "to help on the farm?" Who among us has actually done that during the summer, and not as a lark or learning experience but as part of the family business?

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I did. For a couple years, my family owned a hay farm. Before that, I worked in a fruit shed owned by family friends. Sorting pears is fun, apples is boring, and peaches is a bit icky. Have you ever picked up a 49er to discover your thumb is in brown rot? Imagine that happening a dozen times in a day. Carrying hay bales and wooden boxes full of fruit certainly contributed to my upper body strength, though. I laugh whenever someone thinks I'm weak just because I'm skinny. More people should work on a farm, even as a lark or learning experience.
 

Allowed :-- Aloud
 

SO VERY TRUE...

were do i get the permission to quote the lyrics then???

RFW2nd
 

Warning: permission to quote lyrics usually costs piles of money.
 

quote:

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Warning: permission to quote lyrics usually costs piles of money.

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Well, if it's an issue of volume I can offer plenty of pennies
 

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited April 01, 2009).]
 

Somebody once told me the shellacking that goes on a violin absolutely ruins the sound they make.

On the other hand, I once read that the secret of the Stradavarius violin is in the wood---the wood Stradavari (?) made them out of was already aged couple of centuries when he made them. (What kind of wood? I don't remember.) How serious to take that one, I don't know...I don't know if anybody's submitted the wood to carbon dating.

*****

It's all a moot point to me...I can't play the violin. I can play the guitar, any regular brass instrument but French horn, the harmonica, the recorder, the kazoo...but not the violin.
 

Maybe, maybe not. But whatever the secret is it blows my mind that we can create nanotechnology-kind-of-stuff and not figure out how to make a violin like these.
 

something about breaking them in...
 

Like for other violin makers, modern as well, a violin top is made from spruce, the back from maple, the inner parts from willow. Stradivarius violins were made from especially consistent-grained spruce and maple. Present-day violin makers select spruce and maple with similar properties. Of the master violin craftsmen I've known, they reported that they like the woods to age at least 40 years before rough cutting into blanks and age for several years after before shaping. Reportedly, the Stradivari family used chemicals to treat the woods, which may contribute favorably to the sound quality. However, the same compounds occured in varnishes at the time of Stradivari's work.

What finishes were applied by Stradivari are a matter of conjecture. Limited samples available for testing. However, it's known that he didn't use shellac. Stradivari may have been as equally discriminating in selecting the best finish for violins as he was with all of his choices. He did finish with an unknown proprietary varnish recipe, though.

As a compromise to an oil finish, a violin varnish is used for finishes. The woods do need enduring protection from oxidation and sunlight. A good quality violin varnish is brittle, though, because the harder it is the less it deadens sound. Basically, the least plastic natural-wood varnishes are what the violin makers I've known use. Basic ingredients are gum rosin and linseed oil.

Aging a musical instrument is all about the grain and variant woods species and finish stresses settling into their environment. They move in different dimensions and directions with changes in humidity, atmospheric pressure, and temperature. What sounds great in the craftshop or store needs time to adapt to its new setting. And time to adapt from being made into an instrument to begin with. Hide glues traditionally used in instrument making have high moisture content that the woods absorb. They also absorb solvents from the finish that take time time to fully evaporate through the cured surface finish. Plus a finely crafted violin is a precious commodity. Storage of one probably results in a reduced moisture content in the woods from what would normally be found in a piece of furniture in a modern home.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited April 02, 2009).]
 

1) The exclusive Butters episode.

2) The manbla episode.

3) The Michael Jackson episode.
 

Make Love not World of Warcraft.

what convensted me to never get addicted to WOW. i did play for 4 hours once and got too adicted that i had to call my shrink for help. Thanks WOW

RFW2nd
 

It's like the inclination a person might have to yell "Fire!" in a burnt down theatre.

It's too late to warn people. The theatre has burnt down. We are in fact, geeks.

By the way, check out thinkgeek.com. Awesome.
~Sheena
 

*****

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.
 

The flouride the dentist put on my teeth today tasted like the glue from envelopes, which was never a taste I hated, although tasting it all day long has been kind of nasty. The flouride feels like they wrapped my teeth in mesh. Ick.
Melanie
 

Federal excise tax on roll your own cigarette tobacco increased 2252 percent from $1.10 to $24.78 a pound. What costs a tobacco farmer $2 to produce is now costing a consumer at least $45, up from an average $18 per pound last year. State tobacco excise taxes are responsible for another average $10 in cost per pound of bulk tobacco. Many state legislatures are considering increasing state tobacco excise taxes to equate to the federal level.

Supporters of the sin-tax increase claim it was necessary to achieve product parity taxation in order to prevent a flood of roll your own consumers abadoning ready-made products. Regardless, bulk cigarette tobacco suppliers have been overwhelmed with orders.

Small cigar taxes went up even more than bulk cigarette tobacco. Ready-made cigarette and snuff excise taxes also went up 250%.

This does not bode well for the 20% of the US population that smokes. Nor does it bode well for freedom to choose lifestyle. This is most certainly taxation misrepresentation placing an inequitable burden on smokers. Are we underclass citizens? Because we smoke are we servants to the majority? A dark day in American history.

What's next, a health excise tax on high blood pressure?
 

I don't smoke myself, and to be honest I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, but this kind of abuse is just ridiculous. It's one thing for businesses and residences to say whether or not they allow smoking, and another for the government to step in and say it's not allowed anywhere. Or even within 20 feet of any entrance (just try to find anywhere 20 feet from an entrance in your average desk job office building!).

Unfortunately tobacco isn't alone here. Alcohol has been banned, restricted, and tightly controlled for a long time now. In some states like Utah they even ban wine coolers, for the love. And you know that since the government controls the only supply of alcohol there's nothing keeping them from jacking the prices up if they want. Why should cigarettes be any different?

And don't get me started about the abuse of prescription drugs that are just slightly moderated versions of heroin. It's a crazy world we live in.
 

What scorches me is that a product that has a real-market cost of $10 a pound has gone up to $45, $35 of which is taxes.

Beer currently has a Federal excise tax of roughly $0.30 per six-pack. Applying the same FET increase as bulk cigarette tobacco would add $6.75 to the retail price. Wine and sparkling wine FET per fifth (750ml) currently $0.21 to $0.67 and spirits FET $2.14 per fifth. But no, no alcohol FET increases, yet. When tobacco tax revenues don't meet expectations . . .

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited April 08, 2009).]
 

I'm not afraid of spiders, I just like them to be where I can see them.

Ohhh, gives me the willies just thinking about it.
~Sheena
 

There is a difference between need and strong want. People think they need to smoke because addiction exists, but they don't <i>really</i> need it. There are alternatives that can ween them off their addiction and, ultimately, if deprived of tobacco they're not going to die. So to pretend that tobacco is a need equal to food is inane.

As per the agenda to reduce the number of smokers it is more targetted at discouraging the creation of new smokers than it is taking down existing ones. But if it somehow diminishes the number of smokers that's a good thing. People are healthier and live longer without the tobacco.

Atlas can shrug all he wants.

Also I'm a little confused how you can half something to 10%. 50% I get, but 10% makes no sense to me. Are you saying that 20% of people smoke and they want to half that to 10% of all people? That's my best guess.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited April 08, 2009).]
 

I'm not a "very jaded smoker." Shame on you for making such a thoughtless remark. I am a jaded taxpayer citizen, part of a small minority that's been unlawfully singled out for punitive taxation. Expect dissastisfaction to grow when the tax doesn't cover the program and they raise taxes on alcohol and other "sinful" pasttimes.
 

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited April 08, 2009).]
 

You are spending your time creating stories, creating a legacy.

That is not nothing.
~Sheena
 

oh, man. Good to get that off my chest.
 

Nope, that didn't help.
 

My greatest fear is that I will somehow mess everything up, or make a huge mistake without meaning too. Like turning the steering wheel too hard and taking my whole family to their deaths at the bottom of a mountain.
 

And one time I put on my shoe only to discover a mouse had moved in. I didn't kill it, I'm too much of a softy, but I did evict it to the back field.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited April 09, 2009).]
 

Promises, promises...
 

I remember my university's fees office sending me letters about owing them 20 dollars for like a year and a half...I mean it had to have been at least 50 letters in all, you'd think they spent more than the 20 on just sending them out.
 

quote:

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I am a jaded taxpayer citizen, part of a small minority that's been unlawfully singled out for punitive taxation. Expect dissastisfaction to grow when the tax doesn't cover the program and they raise taxes on alcohol and other "sinful" pasttimes.

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I am sure the angry disenfranchised taxpayer would vote the bums out if they allowed smoking while waiting to vote.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited April 11, 2009).]
 

And would that technically mean their victims died of a heart attack?

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited April 11, 2009).]
 

Supposedly, some people never find out it even happened; the eggs don't hurt and the spiders leave the body while the person sleeps.

Ah, the things I've learned at the doctor's office... Anyway, the point: it's not a rational fear.
 

And, even if they didn't try and consume her face (which they did), I could see a rational fear (even arachnophobia)developing out of it.

I think I was 9 or 10 when I went on a double-ferris-wheel with my mother and my cousin, who was my age. I sat on one side, they the other, as we slowly rose to the top. At the top, the wheel stopped so people could board the other ferris-wheel, and one of the bolts to our car snapped. The swinging arm flew loose--on the side I happened to be leaning on--and I was suspended in mid air, nothing to grab on but the slick plastic seat or the arm which was attached to nothing. It was better than twenty years before my wife convinced me to get on another one.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited April 11, 2009).]
 

When I was younger I loved cats and hated dogs. Then I was attacked by a rottweiler and spent a few years afraid of even small dogs.

Now I really love dogs, and seem to get along pretty well with them.
 

Two-fifths of the way to a grand.

May 26th will be the date. That is my prediction.
 

it hurts my brain to try and remember whats been said before.

any way...

i think i almost asended last night as i lay in bed awake.

it came to me this way, i thought if the WHOLE KNOWN universe was compressed to the size of a football stadioum what would we be? how big would that make us? what would our whole existance be but a insiginigant minute nothingness with size less than that than the spaces between subatomic particals.

and at that moment i looked i was floting above my body and was asending through my sealing. needless to say i freeked out and fell back into my body and jumped out of my bed gripping my .45 Colt drenched in sweet.

and no i was not on ANY mind alutering subestences including my sleeping ade and pain pills, or my anti depresents (its the weekend so i dont take them)

just thought i would shair my interisting experiance with you all and maybe one of you can asend your human body and know everything, just think of us here from time to time

RFW2nd
 

"Astounding, Holmes, however did you deduce that?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson, you have forgotten to put on your trousers."
 

If you view the universe as a constant now which is always changing, then time becomes a function of determining the state of the universe at any point of its change.

Example: If a ball is rolling and you were looking at a clock, you would see a different time at every position of the ball, but the only true position is at the time you're observing, the constant now.

This means there is no past, except the evidence left behind by the constant change. For the universe as a whole with stars moving away from each other, that evidence is that light from billions of light-years away shows us an image of stars as they were billions of years ago. For humankind in general, there is only the now, and history is simply collective memory of the universe at some earlier state.

I got to thinking that that meant our view of the past was probably an evolved mechanism for recording fatal change (ie anything that kills us), which branched complex animals away from living in the constant now (with no recollection of a nonexistent past or the changes that may take place in the future).

It's a bit hard to put into words, but the practical gist of it is that if someone wanted to go forward or backward in time, they would have to change the universe around them to the way it was at that moment in the constant now. Which would mean having the type of power to move unimaginable numbers of elements back to the positions and states they were in that past time, as well as having the recording equipment required to know each position and state. Highly improbable.

And since quantum theory proves that you cannot view things on a subatomic scale without changing their position or speed, this makes time travel also technically impossible.

I don't know, maybe this is even weirder than an OBE (out of body experience) >.<.
 

At anycase, the answer to those questions are beyond our grasp, at the moment, but they are fun to write about.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited April 13, 2009).]
 

Humans have an ability to indirectly observe time linearly, past time and future time. Memory and history perceive the past, indirect observation. Predictive projections perceive the future through indirect observation. Immediate future perception is crucial to existence. Thought of moving across a space becomes real deed usually more or less as perceived, though largely taken for granted. Without the ability to perceive a bracket of time, humans would live solely in the moment and not be able to track the linearity of time, in other words, not able to exist in the three observable spatial dimensions. Imagine driving a car and not being able to orient it in three dimensions because only the now of three dimensions is directly observable, for example, no stopping because stopping depends on perceiving the immediate future. Pressing a brake pedal results in a car stopping. Lifting a brake pedal results in a car moving. They're not coinciding events.

Pencil a thin line on a piece of paper, it's perceived as a line on a two-dimensional plane, though both have at least three observable dimensions. Like the paper, the graphite has observable depth, otherwise it wouldn't leave a visible mark.

Tardyon or Bradyon space, the realm of the observed universe, falls between two asymptotes, the boundaries of the velocity of light and theoretical zero velocity of Absolute Zero. The special relativity derived theoretical tachyon realm occurs beyond light speed and has theoretical properties. The less imaginary mass and real energy a tachyon instance has the higher its velocity, approaching infinity as mass and energy approach zero.

No one has even suggested let alone explored the theoretical possibilities at the opposite end of the velocity spectrum. Experiments have pushed the technological limits of reaching Absolute Zero, but it appears to be an asymptote. Twice as much effort is needed to halve the temperature from previous efforts; therefore, theoretically, an infinite quantity of effort is needed to achieve Absolute Zero. At Absolute Zero, no known or theoretical instance with dimension or velocity or matter-energy properties, but what if? Say a luton (absoluton) has somewhat similar propeties to a luxon (photon), except it is an imaginary absolute rest instance. Then assuming that the space-time continuum continues beyond absolute zero toward minus infinity instance velocity, there's a whole other realm, say the fractyon realm where minus velocity equals fractal dimensions. |N^(N-1)| when graphed shows interesting possibilities. That's an equation I invented for determining the complexity of a scientific model, where N equals the number of discernible discrete parts. 0 for N = undefined, 1 for N = 1, -1 for N = -1, 2 = 2, 3 = 9, 4 = 64 . . . 25 = 3.552713679^33. There's a continuous infinite nonparabolic curve on the plus side of the Zero asymptote, but fractal points along an inclined slope on the minus side.

All these dimensional possibilities might coexist as a divisible but as yet unobserved space-time continuum. If they were at one time in homogenous solution and then precipitated, might there be a big bang? Say a thought caused the precipitation. Let there be light.

Fractyon, luton, and absoluton are terms I've coined and claim exclusive rights to.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited April 14, 2009).]
 

Natej11, going into the observable future is easy. Every time an astronaut journeys into space, he/she is time traveling. It has been proven. If you put an atomic clock on board the space shuttle and have an atomic clock here on Earth both set precisely the same, there will be a time difference between them when the shuttle returns. Time is relative - Einstein. One minute always feels like one minute no matter how fast you're traveling. However, as one approaches the speed of light, what passes as a minute for the traveler, appears much longer to the observer.
Light travels at around 186,000 miles a second. If you got into a ship traveling half that speed (93,000 miles a second) and you circled the Earth, you could circle the Earth around 450 times in one minute according to the observer on Earth. However, the 450 trips would take less time for the person on the ship. If this continued for any length of time, and the orbit was just right, the constellations would appear to change much quicker to the astronaut while in the ship than they would normally back on Earth.

Traveling back in time would be more tricky, and I question whether there would be anything there. If you could move anywhere in the universe in a second and had a powerful enough telescope, you could see the Earth anytime in its past. Getting there may be a problem with relativity. Even though you can see it, that still means it happened a long time ago. I believe quantum mechanics solves this problem, but I'm not sure how.
 

Another headscratcher. How about imaginary numbers? Only math could prove the existence of an impossibility.

One subject that I was fascinated with was Geometry. Proofs, Theorems, Hypothesis; contemplating shapes without the cumbersome manipulation of numbers was an enlightening experience. I hated the mountain of homework but loved going over those proofs. It was like walking among the Greek scholars of yestermillenia working over those theorems.
 

Actually, it kept me from applying to dental school. I became an accountant instead. Go figure.
 

One of the identifying characteristics of Neroidia is a distinctive double row of wide scales on the underside of its tail. They are often confused with cottonmouths and copperheads because they have similar markings elsewhere. Also over the years, people have brought me Neroidias they've killed because they wanted to show me what they were convinced were cottonmouths or copperheads. Neroidia is a nonpoisonous snake, and a beneficial one. I don't have a mice problem, though I live nearby a field mice haven.

Neroidia do bite and have an anticoagulant in their saliva, which makes a bite wound bleed liberally. I've not been bitten by one, but have been bitten by a boa constrictor. The eight-foot boa lost a fang. I got a small bruise on one of my knuckles. A small misunderstanding between a housemate--owner of the boa--the boa, and me. Snakes and I have natural enmities that are apparent to us, but not to others. The boa and I had another encounter involving a third party that's too grisly to relate here.

I've also caught rattlers, cottonmouths, and copperheads, but never a coral snake, though I've seen a few in the wild. I don't seek out snakes. For some reason they seek me. My earliest experience with a snake was with a rattler in the mountains of Southern California when I was a young lad of seven years. Grandma was about to take a squat on the snake when I pointed it out to her. We shared a common bond in the way snakes seek us out. The rattler and I had a staring contest while grandma hysterically ran off screaming. The rattler flinched first and slithered off.

Snake tastes like gamey catfish.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited April 16, 2009).]
 

At the risk of being psychoanalyzed and declared a total nut, here's my dream:
My 4 year old son and I were at my sister's house, which was this humungous mansion type thing with bamboo walkways that kept going gradually up to different levels (in the dream, not in real life). My son was scared, and he wanted to go home, and I told him we could, but instead of leaving I turned on the TV. My sister was watching the same show upstairs and we kept calling to each other. It was a show we watched all the time, and it was about this man with superpowers. He had a wife that he loved very much, but in this episode he is getting out of bed with his ex-wife, and it quickly becomes apparent that he has forgotten all about his current wife through some magical spell. My sister and I were calling back and forth to each
other about how it wasn't very realistic and how they'd made him forget about his wife too many times, and if he loved her as much as he acted like he did, no magic spell would be able to make him forget about her like that.

Suddenly I WAS the man, and the whole mansion, including my son, just vanished. I was driving down the road (and it gets
complicated here, so I'm going to start using third person instead of first), and suddenly this overhead compartment pops open, and there is his wife, shoved inside with her mouth open in a scream--but the woman was really ME. Suddenly the man remembers everything, and he pulls his dead wife (who is me, except that I'm still the man in my dream) out of the compartment and flies up in the air with her, and the car goes plunging off the road into the ocean. The woman who is me is obviously dead, but somehow the man thinks he can save her if he can just fly high enough. So he's flying with his dead wife and suddenly her arm breaks off and the rest of her body falls into the ocean. He is afraid he'll never find her now,
but he holds onto the arm and plunges straight down into the water and finds his wife--the plunge into the ocean has brought her back to life, and he scoops her up before she can drown and flies back to my sister's house, although the woman is screaming and saying that she doesn't want to go there. Then they are trapped in this endless loop of looking for my sister and my son--who is gone.
It was AWFUL and so vivid.

Melanie
 

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When I got divorced, my wife said she would fight for custody of the kids.

Took her out with one f#cking punch.

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Statistically... 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape.

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A woman brings eight-year-old Johnny home and tells his mother that he was caught playing doctors and nurses with Mary, her eight-year-old daughter.

Johnny's mother says, "Let's not be too harsh on them.... they are bound to be curious about sex at that age."

"Curious about sex?" replies Mary's mother. "He's taken her f#cking appendix out!"

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A family are driving behind a garbage truck when a dildo flies out and thumps against the windshield. Embarrassed, and to spare her young son's innocence, the mother turns around and says, "Don't worry; that was an insect."

To which, her son replies, "Really? I'm surprised it could get off the ground with a ***k like that."

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I met a 14 year old girl on the internet. She was clever, funny, flirty and sexy, so I suggested we meet up.

She turned out to be an undercover detective. How cool is that, at her age?!

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I was reading in the paper today about this dwarf that got pickpocketed.

How could anyone stoop so low?

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I was at a cash machine when an old lady walked up and asked me to help her check her balance.

So I pushed her over.

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I was walking down the road when I saw an Afghani guy standing on a fifth floor balcony shaking a carpet.

I shouted up to him, "What's up, Abdul? Won't the b#stard start?"

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Old Father O'Malley was strolling through the church grounds one sunny summer evening, when he came upon a little frog sitting by a tree. "My Lord," he said, picking it up: "You're the saddest, most forlorn-looking frog I've ever seen. I only wish you could speak, so that you might tell me your troubles."

The frog replied, "Actually, I can. You see, I was once a choirboy in this very parish. One day I offended a passing Gypsy, and she put a curse on me that turned me into a talking frog."

"Incredible!" said Father O'Malley. "Is there anything I might do to help you?"

"Actually yes, there is. The Gypsy said that if I can find somebody to take me home and let me sleep in their bed, the curse will be lifted and I'll be back to normal."

"Well," said Father O'Malley, "the good Lord teaches us to be charitable. I think I can manage that."

So Father O'Malley picked up the little frog and put it in his pocket. That night he placed it gently on the pillow beside him and drifted off into a long, dreamy sleep. When he awoke the next morning, the frog had turned back into a choirboy, just as it had said it would.

And that, Your Honor, is the case for the defense...

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[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited April 16, 2009).]
 

We need a Smily for the look that Drabble's father gives him (something like Z( maybe?) In absence of that, perhaps this will do:

Other than that, they run the gamut. Characters from whatever I'm watching or reading wander through...I revisit (a) old familiar places, or (b) places I'm familiar with but have never seen before...dreams where I'm wallowing in a familiar word that begins with "S"...dreams of being frustrated by this or that, usually at work (but I get enough of that in real life).

Not much in the way of nightmares. The last disturbing dream I had---I'd say it was sub-nightmare, though it did wake me up---I was swimming underwater and I had to get to the surface to breathe...only when I reached the surface, instead of bursting through, I found it was a pane of unbreakable glass and I was trapped.
 

Often, I have the same dream several times in a night, only each time I have the dream, I'm a different character in the dream. In these dreams, though, I'm never in them as myself.
 

Rules of the Inn

NO THIEVES, FAKIRS, ROGUES
or TINKERS
NO SKULKING LOAFERS or
FLEA-BITTEN TRAMPS

NO 'SLAP an'TICKLE o'THE WENCHES
NO BANGING o'TANKARDS on the TABLES
NO DOGS ALLOWED IN THE KITCHEN
NO COCKFIGHTING

FLINTLOCKS, CUDGELS,
DAGGERS and SWORDS
to be handed to the INNKEEPER
for safe-keeping

Bed for the Night 1 Shilling
Stabling for Horse 4 pence

1786

[This message has been edited by Kitti (edited April 20, 2009).]
 

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Whatever happened to the Archies?

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Archie's freckles faded as did his red hair. It started thining to the point where he was bald at thirty. He realized his first big mistake of signing up To be all you can be the first morning when the drill sergent banged metal garbage can lids together. He did his four years and now hangs out near the VA over by the freeway off ramp with a dirty rag and a free offer to clean your windshield.

Jughead learned that a youths metabolism slows down dramatically in your twenties. The thin stick figure double, than tripled his size in ten years. He can be seen on sunny days waddling down the street in a effort to exersize. He walks to the donut shop and back home everyday.

Betty took her good looks to hollywood where she became very aggresive at trying to get noticed. You could see her in the background of some of the paparazzi's photos of the secondary stars of the day. Boomhauser of King of the Hill, Moe of The Simpson's, and Mr Garrett of South Park; too name a few. The last time she made the news was the infamous 911 call that Dilbert made in which she ended up in jail. She was last seen waiting tables at a Denny's in Long Beach.

Reggie ended up on top and married Veronica (the real reason why Archie enlisted). Veronica was used to a life of letting other people do things for her and let her husband managed her family's vast fortune. Reggie proceeded to invest all the money in a can't miss fortune 500 company: Enron. Things got really touchy in the mansion after that. Matters didn't improve when the Mr and Mrs found their counterparts profile on Asheley Madison.

Moose got a scholarship to Nebraska as the football teams left tackle. Prospects were looking up until a NCAA offical happen to peak into his open locker and saw all those vials of steroids. He is currently working in the World Wrestling Alliance as the Masked Maniac.

 

(My freckles and red hair are still with me, though the latter is thinner and gray at the edges. I'm told I have a bald spot, though I can't see it from here.)
 

So they totally broke the rules when Sylar got stabbed in the head and then survived it. The rules said that is how you kill him, he killed him, and then he healed.

That said, I'm glad. Sylar is the best thing on that show.

But still. You can't break the rules without an explanation.
~Sheena
 

*****

Ever feel you're having your nose rubbed in some aspect of popular culture you're completely unfamiliar with? I don't mean anything with computers or the Internet or cell phones or whatever...they're always coming up with something new that (sometimes) I fail to catch up with.

I mean something that seems to be all over the place but you have no idea what it is. For example: I keep seeing these little white oval stickers on cars...they'll have two or three letters in them...but what are they there for, and what do they mean? That, so far, has eluded me completely...

(Sometimes I find it in others. A couple of months ago, my mother denied any knowledge of "rock, paper, scissors," which others in my family found hard to believe...)
 

*Edit* Oops... realized after I got home that I hadn't seen the latest episode... you are totally right. Really left me scratching my head.

[This message has been edited by CABaize (edited April 21, 2009).]
 

And before that, I managed to go several months before finally asking someone what a Blog was.

The little round stickers have abbreviations of place names in them. OBX is Outer Banks, that's the only one I know for sure. It might even be the origin of them, for all I know It's declaring the location of your beach house...
 

I think Spongebob is hilarious and sometimes really well done. Hahahahahaha, I must be going crazy.
 

But they often don't seem to have anything to do with the actual name or nearby place. JFK in New York is JFK, while LaGuardia is LGA, but Newark is EWR---unless I'm misremembering, which is possible because for the past dozen years I've dealt with incoming mail, and the letters are for outgoing mail.

Some of the little round stickers don't seem to match up with anything I'm familiar with. I wouldn't have picked "OBX" for Outer Banks, for instance...

*****

"Spongebob" seemed to me to be one of those "we know we're in a cartoon so we don't have to behave like real people" cartoons. I don't mind breaking the fourth wall but I do mind cartoons with characters that behave in this way.
 

quote:

---

Really? Sylar drives me crazy sometimes. I was esp. annoyed about how the thing with him and Elle ended.

---

After publically declaring that I hated the way they were trying to turn Sylar into a good guy, I went and totally bought into it, and I'm still upset at how they pulled the carpet out underneath me. I don't think an author could get away with something like that. And I'm still not sure they did get away with it--at least with me.
Melanie

 

God made cartoons so we would have kids so we can have a good excuse to watch them in are 30's and 40's.

After I realized this I went back and did some major editing. For example, the above paragraph reads much better as four words:

Keep it simple, stupid.

(seriously though, this is one of my major problems >.< )
 

On Nickelodeon, for me, it's "Spongebob" no, "Hey, Arnold!" yes. On the Cartoon Network, it's "Powerpuff Girls," no, "Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy" yes. (Search my name for the depth of my devotion to one other cartoon show in particular.)

(A lot of ones I like don't last very long. I miss "Mike, Lu, and Og" to this day.)
 

Nowadays cartoons are just not quite as cool, though it could be just I'm not as cool as I was when I was younger.

Man, I feel like an old person.
~Sheena
 

I don't think the cartoons are ever - quite - as cool as we remember them. I spent last summer transferring all my old VHS tapes to DVD and there were some cringe-worthy episodes! That said, I miss (the original) My Little Ponies, because the characters were always bursting into song. THAT was awesome.
 

On the other hand, sampling "The Flinstones" around the same time...they seemed to have lessened. I found the drawing and writing couldn't match either the Warner cartoons, or most of the new TV stuff that was starting to come out.
 

quote:

---

Cartoon wise there are a lot of shows I miss.

---

I hear you:

• Angry Beavers
• Ren & Stimpy
• Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle
• Thundarr the Barbarian
• The Hurculoids
• Bravestarr (Much as I hate to admit it, I liked 30/30)
• Go-Go Gophers
• Scooby Doo, Were are You?
• Quick Draw McGraw
• Wally Gator
• The Jetsons
• Punkin' Puss and Mushmouse
• Ricochet Rabbit and Droop Along
• Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey
• The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show
• Shazzam
• Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines
• Johnny Quest (with the real lips dubbed in...hehe)
• Speed Buggy
• The Superfriends
• Valley of the Dinosaurs
• Jabber Jaws
• Pinky and the Brain
• Mighty Mouse
• Heckle and Jeckle
• Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
• Blackstar
  

How many do you remember?
 

Hmm, and I can think of loads of other programs you didn't list. Maybe I rotted my brain with too much TV when I was a kid...
 

Of late I've been drawn to three on "Discovery Kids"..."Tutenstein," "Growing Up Creepie," and "The Future is Wild"...though it's been a long time since any of 'em ran a new episode, despite claiming they will practically every day.

*****

How long between new episodes of a cartoon? There are several steps: [STEP 1] Run the first two episodes as a special. [STEP 2] Repeat both episodes at least twice within a week. [STEP 3] Run the third new episode. [STEP 4] Repeat all three episodes. [STEP 4] Run the fourth new episode. [STEP 5 AND BEYOND] Repeat this cycle until at least thirteen new episodes have been used up.
 

Do these date me?
 

My favorite cartoons that are on right now are Little Bear and Phineas and Ferb. I like Spongebob on some days.

Edited to add: I forgot X-men and Batman.

[This message has been edited by satate (edited April 23, 2009).]
 

1.Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies (Chuck Jones, especially)
2.Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain (Spielberg and Warner Brothers - genius and insane)
3.Droopy (kind of a cartoon-slut - has shown up in all major cartoon companies, except - I think - Disney)
4.Hanna-Barbera
- The Flintstones (pre- teen Bam-Bam and Pebbles)
- The Jetsons (Flintstones in the future)
- Scooby-Doo (before Scrappy or Scooby-Dum)
- Tom and Jerry (The Road Runner and Cayote, but funnier)
- The Yogi Bear Show (said Hey, Hey, Hey before Fat Albert)
- Speed Buggy (Scooby-Doo as a car)
- Hong Kong Phooey (Scatman Crothers - the black guy from The Shining - as a wannabe superdog with a clever cat)
- Super Friends (pre- Wonder Twins)
- Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (Scooby-Doo as a caveman with super powers)
5.Sid and Marty Kroft -
- H.R. Pufnstuff (inspired 70's McDonald's commercials - inspired by Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - kind of)
- Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (Caspar as a giant blob of seaweed)
- Far Out Space Nuts (Gillagan's Island in space - literally - with Bob Denver)
- Dr. Shrinker (kind of like Land of the Giants - another classic)
- Wonderbug (Speed Buggy in real life)
- Land of the Lost (Jurassic Park befor CGI)
6.Deputy Dawg (picture a smart Rosco P. Coltrane as a dog - pre-Dukes)
7.ThunderCats (the best cartoon in the 80's - forget Transformers)
8.Bobby's World (Howie Mandel created this when he still had hair)
9.SpongeBob SquarePants (I resisted as long as I could - resistence is futile)
10.Phineas and Ferb (the best new cartoon - and the best soundtrack too)
Honorable Mention:
- The New Adventures of Flash Gordon (animated Star Wars version of Flash Gordon)

(These are partially in order of preference and partially chronological - there's your "randomness", shimiqua.

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited April 23, 2009).]
 

Hong Kong Phooey was a karate-dog and an accidental hero.

What's the matter with the wonder twins? Except one always a form water. Boy what trouble I could get into with those powers: Form of a g-string...

*Blaskstar was a cross between Planet of the Apes's crashed spaceman and He-man's "Sword of Power" (before He-Man).
 

This failed to catch on, on the utter refusal of everybody then working in the place to actually say it...
 

Captain Caveman had actually been out a few years before he appeared on an updated and inferior version of The Flintstones.
 

1930's and 40's Popeye

Excessively violent and racist to the point of you won't see it on TV anymore but to listen to the mumbling dialog is the best. Some of the funniest things you could ever hear.

Johnny Quest

A family life that would be highly suspicious in today's world but the intro music and storylines were the funnest to watch in the 70's. The Venture brothers on Adult swim is a pretty good spoof on it (they even showed a 50 year old Raji with Johnny in the background on one episode). For an old cartoon, it was kicka**.

Underdog

Okay, it was a very lame take off on Superman. The superdrug/pep pill is definitely not the message you want youngsters to hear these days but it had the greatest intro song ever.

quote:

---

When criminals in this world appear,
And break the laws and place you fear,
And frighten all you see and hear,
A cry goes out both far and near for
Under-dog!
Underdog!
Under-dog
Underdog!
Speed of lightening,
Roar of thunder,
Fight-ing all who rob or blunder,
Under-dog!
Underdog, Underdog!

---

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited April 26, 2009).]
 

I broke a tooth. And it's raining. Today is not off to a very good start.
 

Later I missed
Tomorrow People
Blake's Seven
Dr Who
Fawlty Towers
Not the Nine O'Clock news

BTW many of these shows were watched in 'Gasp' Black and White because Mum couldn't afford the colour TV or the colour TV license. And my Grandpa had the biggest Meccano collection I've ever seen.

More will come to me all day

[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited April 27, 2009).]
 

quote:

---

Johnny Quest

A family life that would be highly suspicious in today's world but the intro music and storylines were the funnest to watch in the 70's. The Venture brothers on Adult swim is a pretty good spoof on it (they even showed a 50 year old Raji with Johnny in the background on one episode). For an old cartoon, it was kicka**.

---

snapper... you did read my list, right? Not only did I have Johnny Quest, I mentioned the "real lips" that they dubbed over the cartoon ones in the original show! LoL

Go-Go Gophers was part of the Underdog show--I figured those who recognized it would know. Kind of like Wally Gator being a part of the (unmentioned) Woody Woodpecker show.

But, you're right, the original Popeye, Looney Tunes, and Flintstones I didn't think needed mentioning, since they're so well known.<shrug>

There are a lot I didn't mention:

• G-Force
• Inspector Gadget
• Hulk Hogan's Rocking Wrestling
• Spiderman (Where they just rotated the camera and spun the picture to make him swing.)original 60s cartoon.
• The Hulk (Doc Bruce Banner, pelted by gamma rays, turned into the hulk<--theme song)60s cartoon.
• Godzilla
• Voltron
• Dragon's Lair
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Danger Mouse
• Dino Riders
• Drak Pack
• Dinosaucers
• Count Duckula
• Challenge of the GoBots
• The Ewoks
• Fangface and Fangpuss
• Flash Gordon
• Galtar and the Golden Lance
• Inhumanoids
• Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
• The Heathcliff and Marmaduke Show
• Garfield and Friends
• Frogger
• Pac Man
• The Legend of Zelda
• The Littles
• M.A.S.K.
• The Mighty Orbots
• Mr.T
• Mysterious Cities of Gold
• Q*Bert
• Robotech
• Sectaurs
• Silverhawks
• Space Ace
• Space Ghost
• Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea
• Tigersharks
• Tranzor-Z
• Vytor, the Starfire Champion
• Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light
• The World of David the Gnome
  

I still love the cartoon movies (some of these are NOT for children):

• Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice
• Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn
• Pete's Dragon
• The Man Called Flintstone
• Coonskin (Intended to offend everyone.)
• Rock and Rule
• Romey-O and Julie-8
• Bebe's Kids
• The Iron Giant
• Heavy Metal
• Fantasia
• Cool World
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
  

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited April 27, 2009).]
 

Will you ever write that many books?
 

I could start a whole new thread on Quest. What was that quartet about anyway. Two guys traveling the world together (never remembered seeing or hearing about Johnny's mom) and they somehow got a third world young boy to travel with them. Funny they were never in the states. You think Dr. Quest was avoiding the law?
 

How's that for randomness? Nobody's mentioned hockey yet!

S!
S!...C!

Even when someone shows them on TV, it's almost always the color ones...or these absolutely dreadful so-called "colorized" versions...but they're not colorized, they've actually been redrawn in color...and extremely poorly drawn as well...

*****

I remembered another cartoon series from the early 1990s (I think) that I liked but that has disappeared without a trace. "Taz-Mania," another chronicling of the adventures of a Warner Bros. player.
 

I agree Robert. Those later Popeyes were awful.
 

"Song of the South" was released on tape and laserdisc (but not DVD) in Japan at some point, maybe Europe, too...but never in the USA. Another variety of problem with "colorization," actually. (I gather some editing was done to later releases of "Fantasia" (and the home version) for this same reason.)

Has "The Reluctant Dragon" ever been released to the home market?
 

Random Thought:
Don't believe what they tell you... acupuncture does hurt. But in a good way.

*****

I'm having cable television trouble, where I seem to get the channels on my digital tier only at certain times of the day. I've replaced the cable box. I think it might be a problem somewhere between the wall and the box...but today I tried to get some three-foot cable at two different places, neither of which had what I needed.
 

*****

The "vast wasteland" FCC chairman was named Newton Minnow...and the "Minnow," the wrecked ship on "Gilligan's Island," was named after him 'cause the producer / creator Sherwood Schwartz blamed Minnow for ruining the quality of TV of its day.
 

The third season of Heroes, including the finale, completely blew chunks, and Lost is having one of its best seasons ever (actually two good seasons in a row). Oh, and Battlestar ended by saying "God did it", which I found to be a bit of a cop-out. Not that God couldn't have done it, but it was definitely a "soap-operahish" conclusion.
 

That's gonna change.

I love to watch people singing along alone in their cars, it makes my day. Why should I deny the world the pleasure of watching someone make a fool of themselves? Even if that fool is me.

~Sheena
 

S!
S!...C!

 

Here's my brilliant solution: If I happen to be stuck at a light, and I'm feeling self-conscious, I'll put my mp3 player next to my ear and pretend like I'm talking on the phone.

If I'm not feeling self-conscious, I'll start dancing in my seat too. Either way, I'm sure I'm entertaining someone!
 

(I also took my old copy of "Abbey Road" and made Side Two into one big track---something I never could figure out how to do with "Abbey Road" on CD...)
 

Can anyone explain to me why, when you ask for "just a little bit" of sauce on something, the people serving you are just as likely to dump gobs and gobs of sauce on as to listen to you?
 

“A smidgen is just a teeeenie, little bit…

3 smidgens make one pinch

4 pinches equals one little bit

4 little bits equal one midlin’ amount

3 midlin’ amounts equal one right smart and it takes 5 right smarts to make a whole heap.”

*****

Yes, I copied it off some website.
 

cherries
chocolate
prosciutto
cashews
strawberries
toast. with jam.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited May 04, 2009).]
 

• Low Salt Lays Potato Chips and Ranch Dip
• Hand-cut wedges of Block Cheese (Muenster, Colby-Jack, Sharp Cheddar, Habanero or Jalapeño)
• Peanut Butter and Whole Grain Ritz
• Rice Crispies
  

It wasn't always like this...though it's never been easy to prepare a decent meal while also sitting at my typewriter / word processor / computer.
 

I once made the mistake of eating a bagel with spreadable cheese on it. The cat, in her attempt to steal my breakfast, smacked my bagel with her paw, then walked all over the keyboard, getting cheese EVERYWHERE.
 

Did I say I've gained weight while writing?
 

Katie Couric , Charlie Gibson , Brian Williams and a tough old U.S. Marine Sergeant were captured by terrorists in Iraq.

The leader of the terrorists told them he'd grant each of them one last request before they were beheaded and dragged naked through the streets.

Katie Couric said, 'Well, I'm a Southerner, so I'd like one last plate of fried chicken.'

The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chicken.

Couric ate it all and said, 'Now I can die content.'

Charlie Gibson said, 'I'm living in New York, so I'd like to hear the song, The Moon and Me, one last time.'

The terrorist leader nodded to another terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag musicians and played the song.

Gibson was satisfied.

Brian Williams said, 'I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe, someday, someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end.'

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Williams dictated his comments.

He then said, 'Now I can die happy.'

The leader turned and said, 'And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?

'Kick me in the a**,' said the Marine.

'What?' asked the leader, 'Will you mock us in your last hour?'

'No, I'm NOT kidding. I want you to kick me in the a**,' insisted the Marine.

So the leader shoved him into the yard and kicked him in the a**.

The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from inside his cammies and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he emptied his sidearm on six terrorists, then with his knife he slashed the throat of one, and with an AK-47, which he took, sprayed the rest of the terrorists killing another 11. In a flash, all of them were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Marine was untying Couric, Gibson, and Williams, they asked him, 'Why didn't you just shoot them all in the first place? Why did you ask him to kick you in the a**?'

'What?' replied the Marine, 'and have you three a**hole's report that I was the aggressor....?

May the Fourth be with you.
 

Soft drink drinking, that is. My mainstay is Mountain Dew, which is substituted with Orange Crush and Minute Maid Lemonade, all in cans. Occasionally I throw in a Coke or Pepsi.

PepsiCo has recently introduced something called "Throwback" drinks. I only know about Pepsi and Mountain Dew; maybe there are others. Also I've only seen them in cans.

Ostensibly they're made with "natural sugar"---I don't know just what that is, where they're getting it or how it's processed, but I know they usually use corn syrup rather than refined sugar 'cause of the expense of the latter.

Either way, I tried both the Pepsi and the Mountain Dew---I can't say much different about the Pepsi but the Mountain Dew does have a better taste in my mouth, at least.
 

Ha! Knew that trip to the Coca-Cola factory in Georgia would come in handy one day :-)
 

Initial thought: infinitely better than the HFCS-infested Coke Classics I've been drinking...there's no sense of a heavy syrup-y aftertaste.

Pepsi says the Throwback version will be for a limited time. As long as that 'limited' timeframe is set for sometime after the apocalypse, I'll be happy.

BTW...I drink way too much of this stuff while I write.

S!
S!...C!

 

I get glass bottles of "regular" Coke all the time...they're for my mother, who won't drink it any other way unless she has to.

I've seen an ad on TV for Pepsi Throwback...didn't say much about it (these things never do), just that it's out there.
 

They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.

The teacher asked the president if he would like to lead the discussion

on the word 'tragedy'.

So our illustrious president asked the class for an example of a 'tragedy.'

One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is

playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy."

"No," said Obama, "that would be an accident."

A little girl raised her hand: 'If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff,

killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy...'

"I'm afraid not," explained Obama."That's what we would call great loss."

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Obama searched the room.

"Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?"

Finally at the back of the room, Little Johnny raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said:

"If the plane carrying you and Mrs. Obama was struck by a friendly fire missile and

blown to smithereens that would be a tragedy."

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Obama."That's right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?'

"Well," says the boy, "It has to be a tragedy, because it certainly

wouldn't be a great loss... And it probably wouldn't be an accident either."

 

Random musings is the most popular thread in the history of hatrack. Why? Ask some of the members. Here are some interesting facts that do not include the 17 post behind this one.

Statistics on the first 500 post

Number of members that posted in RM: 36

Who posted the most: Robert Nowall 93 times

(Next closest was IB at 38)

Number of members that posted only once: 6

Number of members that posted at least ten times: 19

Number of members that posted at least twenty times: 10

Number of times KDW posted: 10

Last one to join the thread: Jeff M at post 487

Number of post deleted: 2

Longest post: Inarticulate Babbler (fitting, ain't it?) 910 words on 03/30/09

Keep it up. A thousand is on the way.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 06, 2009).]
 

Edited to add - I didn't see your previous post. Still got in after 500

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 06, 2009).]
 

By the way, the last time I heard InarticulateBabbler's joke, the leader in question was "Comrade Stalin," not "Barack Obama."
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 07, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 07, 2009).]
 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I saw a friend with two black eyes and asked him what happened. He explained that a woman at the mall was walking in front of him with her dress caught in her crack. Trying to be helpful, he reached over and pulled the dress free. The woman turned around and smacked him.

"That's awful," I said. "But how'd you get the other black eye?"

He said, "Well, when I saw how mad she got, I tried to stuff the dress back in there again."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A ninety-year-old man is sitting on a park bench, sobbing. A young man walks by, and seeing the old man's misery, he stops and asks him what's wrong.

Through his tears the old man answers, "I'm in love with a twenty-five-year-old woman."

"What's wrong with that?" asks the young man.

Between the sobs and sniffles, he answers, "You wouldn't understand. Every morning before she goes to work, we make love. At lunchtime she comes home and we make love again, and then she makes my favorite meal. In the afternoon when she gets a break, she rushes home and gives me oral sex, the best an old man could ever want. And then at suppertime, and all night long, we make love some more."

He breaks down crying again, no longer able to speak.

The young man puts his arm around him. "You're right, I don't understand. It sounds like you have a perfect relationship. Why are you crying?"

Through his tears, the old man answers, "I forget where I live."

 

This scenario was repeated each time they made love, for more than 30 years, with him thinking that it was a cute way for her to afford new clothes and other incidentals that she needed.

Arriving home around noon one day, she was surprised to find her husband in a very drunken state. During the next few minutes, he explained that his employer was going through a process of corporate downsizing, and he had
been let go. It was unlikely that, at the age of 59, he'd be able to find
another position that paid anywhere near what he'd been earning, and
therefore, they were financially ruined.

Calmly, his wife handed him a bank book which showed more than thirty
years of steady deposits and interest totaling nearly$1 million. Then she
showed him certificates of deposits issued by the bank which were worth over $2 million, and informed him that they were one of the largest depositors in the bank.

She explained that for the more than three decades she had "charged" him for sex, these holdings had multiplied and these were the results of her savings and investments.

Faced with evidence of cash and investments worth over $3 million, her husband was so astounded he could barely speak, but finally he found his voice and blurted out, "If I'd had any idea what you were doing, I would have given you all my business!"

That's when she shot him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What did the blonde call her pet zebra?

Spot.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What's green and slimy and hangs around in trees??

Giraffe snot!!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is smoking a cigarette, a satisfied smile on its face. The egg is frowning and looking a bit pissed off.

The egg mutters to no one in particular, "Well, I guess we answered THAT question."
 

So back on random topics, um....

Dwa?

Fwebulp!
 

quote:

---

Oh, IB. Are you trying to kill the record?

---

Nope. Just catch up with Robert.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 08, 2009).]
 

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, IB. Are you trying to kill the record?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nope. Just catch up with Robert.

---

We may need to petition KDW to rename this thread Robert Nowell's/Inarticulate Babbler's Random Musings

I haul cars for a living. I am heading to Toronto this weakend for a show at the convention center. My safety director and dispatcher got in a small arguement with me in the middle.

Ontario instituted a law that all trucks must be governed to go no faster than 65 miles an hour. For those that do not no, that means your engine is set so it cannot go any faster. Now most trucks are governed but are done so at a higher speed (mine is set at 72). According to law, my truck shouldn't even be allowed into the country. My dispatcher claims the Canadian authorities are not enforcing that law UNLESS you get caught going over 65. My safety director thinks otherwise.

These cars MUST be there on time. It is my responsibilty that it is done. Now I know what some of you are saying Why not refuse to take it?
Because work is getting slim. I get paid per load. If I refuse this than they may not consider me for the next. You know, scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Anyway. Don't know what to do about it. Thanks for letting me to vent.
 

Ok, this is Jackanory. I grew up watching this show after school everyday and listened to a new story.

Tracy
 

And found out that I'm definitely not claustrophobic.
 

Tracy
 

No, I had the MRI to see if there is something in my brain causing the hearing loss in my left ear that has been happening over the last several years.

I had heard from several people that they had to have valium and other such medication in order to help them deal with their claustrophobia while in the MRI equipment.

I found that I had no problem with it, so I must not be claustrophobic.
 

quote:

---

Random musing: Why is dirt brown?

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Because it's really worm poop.

 

quote:

---

Random musing: Why is dirt brown?

---

quote:

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Because it's really worm poop.

---

Then why is melange orange?

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 08, 2009).]
 

Probably I'll be back---I'm only going, weekend to weekend, and should be back a week from Monday, or maybe Sunday night.

So keep it interesting until then...
 

Although... I'm having a complete mind blank as to what kind of crazy, trash-the-thread party we could have. Suggestions?
 

Snapper, to make it there on time would you have to go over 65?

 

Not sure it's possible to trash a random musing thread, anyway. Unless "trash" means something specific in high-tech internet-savvy lingo??
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw&feature=channel

There you go, you're worst fears confirmed.
 

"Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3,4,5, and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will transferred to the mother ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, no one will answer.

If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key until someone comes on the line.

If you are dyslexic, press 6969696969.

If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, and your mother's maiden name.

If you have post-traumatic-stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.

If you have bipolar disorder, please leave a message after the beep, or before the beep, or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9. If you have short term memory loss, press 9.

If you have low self esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you."
 

Here's a true story:
Once when I was selling cars, a buddy of mine had a very interesting experience with a sales call. The man on the phone was desperate to purchase a car. Typically these calls, referred to in the business as "lay-downs" (you can infer the double-meaning), are a little challenging on the saleperson's part to get approved. My buddy asked him for some information in order to submit a credit application. The man gave all the information required - name, address, income (his was from disability), etc. My buddy thanked the guy and told him it might take a couple of days, but not to submit any more credit apps (multiple inquiries tend to lessen one's chances of getting approved).

With a little work, the finance office got the guy approved. However, when my buddy went to call him back to let him know the good news, someone else answered the phone with these words - "Psych Ward"...

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited May 11, 2009).]
 

Ever since then we have recieved about 3-5 phone calls a day for an Ortin Christensen all from robots. Several robots had fake accents. (My favorite is the southern.)

The message goes on for about five minutes, saying if you are Ortin Christensen please press one now, if you are not Ortin Christensen, and you need a moment to retrieve him, please press two now, if... blah blah blah.... five minutes later...If there is no one by that name at this number, please press seven now and an operator will be right with you. This is very important information, please stay on the line.

So I press seven, and the phone rings and rings and rings, never going to a machine, or somewhere I can talk with a real person, and tell them, Ortin Christensen does not in fact live at this address, and is not availible at this number. Please stop calling, EXPECIALLY AFTER TEN P.M.!!

I tell you though, if I ever meet this Ortin fellow, I'm gonna punch him in the head.

(*No offense meant to any Ortin Christensens, living or deceased)
~Sheena
 

Other odd phone calls: I used to get calls from this older woman who didn't speak English. I'm not sure what language she spoke. Maybe some Indian language. At any rate, she'd leave these extended messages on my answering machine, sounding quite upset. I once picked up the phone when she called and she yelled at me for almost a minute before I could get a word in edgewise. Still not sure if she ever understood me, but at least she stopped calling.
 

"Can I speak to ___?"
"I'm sorry, there's no one in this office by that name. Are you sure you have the right number?"
"Office?"
"Yes, sir. This is a business number."
"Are you in Guatemala?"
"No, sir, this is Louisville, Kentucky."
"Oh." Embarassed chuckle. "I'm sorry." Hangs up.

I have no idea how you confuse calling Guatemala with Kentucky, but it was the most entertaining thirty seconds of my day so far.
 

The ultimate was when my wife was helping her dad butcher deer during hunting season. A Bill collector called, and she said, "I can't talk right now, I've got some bloody corpses on the floor!"

Is there any question why I love her? LOL.
 

The strangest twist on this story is that I adored the phone when I was in college--racking up enormous phone bills--but now I can't think of anything I hate more. I've got an actual phobia of it, I think.

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited May 12, 2009).]
 

"Hello."

*voice is of an unfamiliar middle-aged man. I assume it is my friends Dad*

"Hi. Is Eric there? Could you tell him Frank called and I was won..."

"Hello?"

*I raise my voice a bit*

"Uh, yeah. I was saying this is Eric's friend Frank. We were supposed to get together to..."

"HELL-LO-OH!"

*I am now shouting*

"I'm Sorry. Is Eric there? I think the line must be bad. Could you tell him Frank..."

"Listen. I can barely hear you. Why don't you leave a message at the beep."

BEEP
 

About twelve years ago, I was living in a stereotypical, southern, working-class neighborhood within the city. As I was getting in my car one morning, I looked directly across the street to see the bloody (skinless) carcass of some large beast hanging by a rope from a tree in front of my neighbor's house.

I got out and went to my backyard to make sure my dog was OK. He was. I went up to the street and stood there and debated what I should do. The movies Predator,The Serpent and the Rainbow, and The Godfather flashed across my mind. I ruled out 7 foot aliens, so I figured either someone was practicing voodoo against my neighbor or they were sending him "an offer he couldn't refuse".

I decided my best choice was not to get involved. That evening, when I returned home, I happened to see another neighbor, so I asked him about what I had seen. He got a good laugh!

Apparently, when hunters (which I obviously am not) return with their prey, they must drain the blood from the animal. They do this by somehow hanging the creature above the ground and letting the blood drip from it.

I don't know what surprised me more - that someone would actually choose to do this in the front yard of a crowded neighborhood in the city, or that this had more to do with the movie about the 7 foot alien than it did with my other two choices.

(edited to add "skinless")

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited May 13, 2009).]
 

I usually only drink milk, orange juice, or water. My husband makes the same lunch for me every day: P&J sandwich, milk, OJ, carrots, walnuts, spinach.

I used to give Origami animals instead of birthday cards.

My five year old son has moved on from chess and Monolopy, and is now mastering the game of Life. The last time I asked him what he wants to do when he grows up, he asked how he can make the most money. Sigh. So much for train diver and astronaut.

Currently I'm reading Honor's Reward, about how God commands us to honor (respect and value) all people in both attitude and action. Quite thought-provoking. If everyone was on-board, we'd have a perfect world...

My co-worker has no Send button on his email.

[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited May 13, 2009).]
 

Did you read the entire thread? Even the stuff about cartoons and IB's jokes and Roberts evryday activities?
 

He got his Send button back.

[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited May 14, 2009).]
 

If I didn't know better I would think that you must work with IB, and you took away his send button because of his jokes, but then you decided they weren't TOO bad, so you gave it back. Interesting.

Whenever I get on Wikepedia, I am told only gospel fact. Never seen a mistake in my life--at least that I'm aware of.
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 15, 2009).]
 

Several years ago when my daughter was still a quick moving four-year old, I would head to the local blockbuster to pick up a couple of movies for the evening. Well the little one thought it would be a fun time to start running through the aisles and hiding from me. I would snatch her arm, she would promise to be good, and then run off giggling away for another round of irritate daddy. I caught her for the last time and pulled her into line with me for the register. That is when she went limp in my grip and started to shout 'Help! Help! You're a stranger. A stranger.'

Now I know more than a few people saw how hard of a time she was giving me in the store but not everyone did. Part of me wished that someone would have errored on the side of caution and called the police. It would have served her right. Unfortunetly for me, I was left in a difficult position. I so wanted to come unglued but she had me effectively in check. I fumed all the way home and told my wife what our angel did. Man did she have a laugh.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 14, 2009).]
 

The embarassing memory I had was:

I was doing a guest spot in Tilton, New Hampshire, and this guy wanted to fill a thin strip on his shin, but didn't know what with. I--being a smart ass--suggested a flame shooting up his leg into an explosion cloud and a blue eye on either side. He looked at me dumbfounded, so I went further, "You know the joke about what color Christa McAuliffe's eyes are: Blue, one blew this way and one blew that way." Everybody in the tattoo shop went dead-silent.

That's when my wife leaned over and--in a whisper--asked me, "You did see the statue of her when we came into town...right?"

*I'd totally missed it.*
 

Do you want to edit the top four embarrasing moments post, or shall I?

This is supposed to be a family forum.
 

They were so sweet, but a little risque for the kids.

[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited May 15, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 17, 2009).]
 

To get you started, here is Jane’s tip:
“If you are able, donate blood to the Blood Bank. Blood donations help save lives.”

And here is Brenda’s advice:
“Where possible, walk instead of driving. The benefits are two-fold as you reduce your carbon footprint and get fit at the same time.”

So, since Jane's tip didn't really specify *human* blood, and Brenda's tip didn't really take into account that if you live 45km from work it's going to take you 11 hours to walk to work, a colleague decided to pitch his own 'tips'. Here's what he sent around...

1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic! Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto, the blockage will be almost instantly removed.

2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.

3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.

4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.

5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then you will be afraid to cough.

7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.
 

It's not that I am a chicken, I just have really small viens that tend to roll, or just expire when poaked. The viens in my husbands arms are huge, he can fill a bag in seven minutes.

Weirdo. But yeah, once you are on their list they call you all the time to force you to save a life.
~Sheena
 

I'd donate more often if they didn't have to prick your finger. By all means stab a needle into my arm, I don't care about that. (Really I don't.) But pricking my finger sucks.
 

I don't actually know what type my blood is...I have an assumption that since my parents were both type O, I am, too...but that's not an absolute certainty, from what I've read...

Negative or positive? [shrugs] I dunno...
 

And no the bear wasn't type O. He was AB negative and they sent him away because his blood was useless.
 

Sorry, but since this thread was the one who got the song stuck in my head, I decided to share. If you don't know it, it's to the tune of "Sipping Cider." Now you can have it stuck in your head too!

Know any other good (obnoxious) songs that get stuck in people's heads?
 

No, I refuse to contribute to the spread of annoying ditties.
I've had more than enough of Little Rabbit Foo-Foo, I don't wanna see you...
 

It was only a few lines in the book, but, man! the image is just one that stays with you.
 

No joke - my mom has AB- and my dad has O+. And I actually look very much like my dad - very similar height (or lack thereof), build, and facial features (a baby switch is near impossible).

My college biology professor told me that I must either have a hidden A or B or I could have a mutant gene. I had a blood transfusion back in 2003, so I'm guessing I must be a mutant.

Unfortunately, the mutant blood type didn't come with any cool powers.
 

(*I know, I know. Bad grammar, but it sounds funnier that way.)

Speaking of bad grammar, There is a national commercial about mouthwash, that has a glaring grammar error. How dumb do they think we are?
~Sheena
 

"Save up to fifty percent---and more!"

"Someday all our people will have above average incomes."
 

That said, I woke up at 3am this morning with an agonizing neck ache that actually turned out to be quite productive... I couldn't sleep, so I wrote for a while as I waited for pain meds to kick in. After reading what I wrote, I have decided that writing after taking pain medication is perhaps not the wisest method. Now that stuff was random.
 

On the bright side, not being able to internet surf meant I got to work half an hour early and had time for a second cup of tea beforehand
 

Now if there was no internet, no TV and no video gaming, what kind of world would there be????

[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited May 20, 2009).]
 

I am horrible at remembering what I need to buy at the store, and I can never find my shopping list when I get there.
 

Now the mosquitos are back.
 

Kinda defeats what I'm paying for, huh?
 

quote:

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I hate blackflies. You can't even blink in peace with them around.

---

That was just so true that it had to be printed twice. My house is surrounded, and I can't even go outside without being dive bombed. a million times.
 

quote:

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I hate blackflies. You can't even blink in peace with them around.

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Racist! No one ever complains about whiteflies!

And before people start throwing spears (or pikes) at me this is a joke.
 

Number of members that posted in RM: 39

Who posted the most: Robert Nowall 103 times

Who's next: Inarticulate Babbler 59 (thats over 25% combined)

Next closest: Snapper 40

Number of members that posted only once: 7

Number of members that posted at least ten times: 19

Number of members that posted at least twenty times: 11

Number of members that posted at least thirty times: 7

Number of times KDW posted: 18

Last one to join the thread: BenM at post 585

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 21, 2009).]
 

Are whiteflies a real thing or were you kidding?
 

quote:

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Is there some magic way you're seeing the post numbers or are you counting.

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Nope. Just counted. It took me a few days to do the first 500. I just counted the next 100 for this one.

This is my way of procrastinating. I always thought I would be a great satistical analysit. I have no idea on how to get such a job or if it pays well, however.

quote:

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Well, I'll defer to you, snapper. You'll probably eclipse me soon, anyway.

---

Unlikely. I had a good stretch of time off because of the economy but back to work now. I'm probably not even in third anymore. Unwritten was a couple behind me at 600 and may have passed me by now.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited May 22, 2009).]
 

Speaking of AF1 - my home town airport in Roanoke, Virginia is a training site for AF1 pilots. They are trained to fly below RADAR. If everyone thought the fly-overs in NYC were eerie, they should watch one of these things fly below radar and make 90 degree turns!
 

I got to get to work. Got 12 days today and tomorrow. Yuck.
 

I almost ran over a snake today. I swerved to avoid it. Why? It looked like a copperhead...
 

Speaking of very large birds the other day there was giant, deadly, violent, ostrich cousin running loose in my city. The news decided to tell me this after the entertainment news! "There's a dangerous creature running loose in a certain county, we'll tell you which one and what people can do to survive an attack from such an animal which regularly kills people in Africa after a commercial for Zoloft and a story about a certain actor cussing out a member of his crew a year ago, everyone knows about this but we thought we'd remind you since the movie is opening this weekend, and we want to see if us talking about it can lower ticket sales, because we are power hungry journalists who want to rule the world Mwahahahahahahah. Sorry guys I kinda let that get away from me, but you went to commercial, right . . . RIGHT!?"

[This message has been edited by Pyre Dynasty (edited May 24, 2009).]
 

(gets some points for 1) living and 2) style but docked for 1) nearly getting hit in the first place and 2) losing his fish...)
 

It didn't scare any birds away, but it did attract an owl, the biggest owl I've ever seen outside of a zoo. It sat on the neighbor's roof for about three days, hooting constantanly, then went away...disappointed.
 

On a related (but random) note - has anyone ever purchased something and either the total cost or change comes up as 666 in some form?

I find those moments to be very awkward...not that this happens to me a lot.
 

666 always makes me think of 1666 and what all those poor Londoners must have thought as their entire city burnt down around them...
 

1066 Battle of Hastings.
 

So from that poll, the information is reliable. Everyone always gets orange chicken.

My husband is the exception to that rule, but he always eats some of mine, so that still counts.
 

---------

A Rush fanatic friend of mine recently posted a photo of a store receipt from a recent purchase she made. Didn't seem that big of a deal, except that her total came to $21.12.

(NOTE: this blog was originally written on a music board, so they knew that 2112 was one of Rush's most renowned albums)

I find it intriguing how often we find friendly and familiar numbers seemingly wherever we look. Back when I first decided to take the number 46 for football, softball, and street hockey, it crossed my sight on a regular basis. I originally started this essay to share my thoughts on how our subconscious strives to bring the friendly and the familiar into our daily life, but I got derailed by the unfortunate reverse side to this concept.

There are those who feel it is their duty in life to point out how your way of living or your belief system does not equate to theirs, and therefore must be exposed as evil. Yep, I'm talking about those whose subconscious allows them to see and hear things that they fear and hate, thus taking the concept of: "If you want to see something strongly enough, you'll see it" to an extreme is really shouldn't be taken. Same goes for hearing what you want to hear; if you ever find yourself in a debate, and your opponent bases his or her justifications on something you didn't say, chances are you really didn't say it, but he/she certainly heard it.

I've got plenty of examples to draw from. One of my personal favorites comes from my cashiering days. My home store (located a mile from the U of Maryland campus) would occasionally send me to a particular D.C. store on Sundays to help out. I got paid double-time for Sunday work, so I didn't mind in the least. This particular store just happened to be a block away from a Baptist church. Having grown up in a Baptist church-going house, I'm all too familiar with how charged up the congregation gets after Sunday church service, so it was not unusual for me to be preached to by these customers during my shift.

One of my favorite customer exchanges of all time came from one such gentleman:

Steve: "How are you doing today, sir?"

Customer: "Fantastic! And, you?"

Steve: "Doing good."

Customer: "How can you say that you're having a great life when you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?"

To this day, you can still see the scar on the bottom of my chin where my jaw dropped to the floor. How far beyond left field did that comment come from?

Oh, yeah...now I remember...our subconscious allows us to hear what we want to hear. Whether it was actually said or not. This guy was living proof of that concept.

Some people really need to stop doing that.

My mind dove head-first into flashback mode, and it took some doing to get my concentration back to the intended topic.

My friend's receipt experience.

Seeing the friendly and the familiar.

People seeing things they fear.

The unfriendly and the way too familiar.

Uh-oh.

Let's try this again.

My friend's receipt experience.

Hey, wait...I have my own receipt story!

And it happened at the same store as my "great life" story.

What a surprise.

One guy, having come to the store straight from church, went through my line. I rang up his order, took his money, then announced that his change was---and, folks, I could not have made this up on the fly in a million years---$6.66.

He recoiled his hand and retreated out of the store in record time.

I've got a better idea. Some people shouldn't be allowed to have a subconscious.

---------

 

There's an eclectic Chinese buffet we like; it has pizza, sushi, American, & Chinese. I've seen squid, baby octopii, giant crayfish, whole fish staring up at me, you name it, they've tried it. But not me. I stick to the American in that place.
 

I always look at the clock at 12:34 p.m. It's in my scheduale now, everyday after lunch I look up at the clock and say, what time is it?, and presto every day it is 12:34. (and no the clock is working) I also notice 9:11, though not as much as 12:34.
~Sheena
 

I wonder if there is anyone here old enough to have a problem with 12:07.
 

quote:

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When you said "Rush fan" I thought you were talking about Rush Limbaugh. I'd forgotten all about the band...

---

And if you're really lucky, soon you'll have forgotten all about the man too.
 

It's funny how we can get wrapped up in anniversaries of significant events from our pasts. 4/16, 4/20, 7/7 (betraying my relative youth here) also come to mind, though the event doesn't always have to be universally important. I once read a trial record where this guy swore something happened on a certain date - he knew for sure, because it was the day after his favorite horse died!
 

quote:

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I wonder if there is anyone here old enough to have a problem with 12:07.

---

Yeah. You needn't have lived through it, to remember it, and have a problem with it. Even Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had a problem with it.

I have a lingering distaste for 8:04--one of my best friends was blown away two weeks (to the day) before my birthday; almost another week and he would have made another year older.
 

(as to 9:11 and 12:07, why can't bad things ever happen on the 31st so we can be free to enjoy our digital clocks!)

I've never experienced it. But I've often wondered about it.
 

I have other reasons for not being fond of 12/8...

*****

They tell me "A113" was the number of the classroom in Cal Arts where a lot of these animation guys first met up.

*****

Forty-eight.
 

I recently bought a "warm" flourescent. It still turned my yellow walls green.
 

At home we have almost all flourescent bulbs; my hubby wanted to go green. At least our house has lots of windows.

How do you decorate your workspace? I have little 3D cardboard dinosaurs, and a towel that says "May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight on you." Family photos and art/writing by my little boy. A Jesus fish, and a painting of fishes (where a window should be). And a hilarious one-pager about project miscommunication and mismanagement. The papers are piling higher every day... Back to work.
 

*as always, the voice of dissent*
 

I memorized which ones carry West Nile, just in case anyone asked. No one has. Guess now that Swine Flu is all the rage, no one cares about West Nile anymore. Sigh.
 

All those animals are out to get us.
 

Could people predict how serious you are at your writing on any given day based on which threads you frequent on Hatrack? Or is it just me?

quote:

---

Imagine if 9:11 were your birthday. How do you suppose it would feel when that day rolls around and instead of celebration you find the whole world is in mourning?

---

True story: I may have already told this story but here it goes...

I wanted to do something special for our 10th anniversity. I started putting a little bit of money away, every chance I got, for a couple of years. Finally I had enough for a trip to Hawaii and planned on giving it to her on her birthday. And what day would that be, you may ask.

September 11th 2001

What a day to get plane tickets for a present.

The main personal decoration in my work space is a bunch of postcards (all sent by me to my usual coworker) and a baseball-themed calendar (provided by said coworker). Other than that, everything is utilitarian, needed for the job, and so on.
 

PROOF TECHNIQUE #1 – ‘Proof By Induction’
Obtain a large power transformer.
Find someone who does not believe your theorems.
Get this person to hold the terminals on the HV side of the transformer.
Apply 25000 volts AC to the LV side of the transformer.
Repeat step (4) until they agree with the theorem.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #2 – ‘Proof By Contradiction’
State your theorem.
Wait for someone to disagree.
Contradict them.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #3 – Fire Proof
Summon all your inferiors for a departmental meeting.
Present your theorem.
Fire those who disagree.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #4 – The Famous Water Proof
State your theorem.
Wait for someone to disagree.
Drown them.
This is closely related to the ‘bullet’ proof, but is easier to make look like an accident.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #5 – Idiot Proof
State your theorem.
Write exhaustive documentation with glossy color pictures and arrows about which bit goes where.
Challenge anyone to not understand it.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #6 – Child Proof
State your theorem.
Encapsulate it in epoxy and shape it into an ellipsoid.
Put it in a jar with all the other proofs (one with one of those Press-to-Open lids).
Give it to a professor and challenge him to open it.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #7 – Rabbit Proof
Generate theorems at an altogether startling rate, much faster than anybody is able to refute them.
Use up everybody else’s paper.
Run away at the slightest sign of danger.

PROOF TECHNIQUE #8 – Fool Proof
State your theorem.
Invite colleagues to comment.
If they don’t agree, exclaim loudly, “You fools!”

 

Other than that, it's jam-packed with papers, books, magazines, disks, file folders, and whatnot. I try to clean it occasionally, but it usually gets back the way it was in a couple of weeks.

Actually I call it my "office," but it's really another bedroom (one of three). (The "other" other bedroom is my "library," and that's in nearly-as-bad a state as my "office.")
 

My most recent roommate and I had so many books at one point that we had six bookcases between the two of us, not counting the piles of our (combined total of) about 300 library books and the closet that we crammed full of boxes of books that we got from a retiring professor (we had to bring in the minivan to pick them all up from his office.) During our free time, we took to building book castles in our empty floor space :-)
 

Steel whiteboards. I can write things on the walls and magnet other things. It will be fantabulous. That is the true reason why I want to make a living as a writer, so I can justify such a thing.

Also the proof I use is the Demmuggledited one:
State your theorem
Then if anyone tries to argue against you start talking in a bizar way, act as if you are making sense
continue till you have your opponent questioning their own sanity.
(helps if you have others to agree with you're jabber)
 

quote:

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Could people predict how serious you are at your writing on any given day based on which threads you frequent on Hatrack?

---

I figure the total number of books / magazines in my house is approaching ten thousand. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
 

Do they have seasonal defective disorder for people who get too much sunlight?
 

Number of members that posted in RM: 43

Who posted the most: Robert Nowall 126 times

The next five:
Inarticulate Babbler 67
Unwritten 51
Snapper 46
Shimiqua 37
Zero 37

Number of members that posted only once: 9

Number of members that posted at least twenty times: 11

Number of members that posted at least thirty times: 8

Number of times KDW posted: 19

Last one to join the thread: Kendrlynne at post 698

The last time RFWII posted before he fell off the face of the earth: 404

Hatrackers you may be surprised to know that never posted in RM:
Talespinner, Crystal Stevens, Bored Crow, Merlion-Emrys, and debhoag.

Thanks for posting when we are at a new century mark. Makes my job easier.

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited June 02, 2009).]
 

I'm having a rotten day, and I am fishing for some sympathy. I lost the keys to a loaner car, and so I've been stuck at home all day long until my husband can get to the dealer and get another set of keys. Whether or not I have anywhere to go, I hate feeling trapped.

And I am on Day 3 of midsomer madness, and it's very obvious that all the great scenes I have planned out in my head are not the same thing as a plot.

What I need is to sit down with someone who will ask me the tough questions.

Tough questions: Who is God? What is the meaning of life? Are we more than just a bag full of chemicals and electrical impulses? (I know my answers, but many would not agree.)

Oh, wrong type of questions...

So, um, what does your character want? What will get in his way? How will he fail? How will he change? Who will stand against him? How will he fail again? What builds up to the grand climax? What will be his last big struggle, where he saves the day?

Yeah, if only it was that easy...
 

I had to take a break and vent that, thanks.
 

If you need tough questions, I'm your man. Of course, we'll have to arrange a time for them--I've got a busy day today (headed toward Brunswick to do some work), but tomorrow will be better.
 

Thanks alot for bringing up those traumatic memories.
 

And philocinemas, your "I hope it didn't have a microchip" was an exact quote from the salesman who had let me use the car in the first place.
 

My son lost his Nintendo DS for a couple of days recently in much the same way. I was not too happy with him at the time, but I certainly was relieved when he found it. My 2-day lecture to him while searching for it was worse punishment for him than the possibility of never seeing the game system again.

I think I've told my black widow story before, but for those who haven't heard it...

I was walking through my apartment about 11-12 years ago and thought I saw a piece of lent on the floor in a darkened hallway. I picked it up and walked to the bathroom to throw it in the trash. When it started moving, I dropped it in the sink. I saw that it was a spider, so I proceeded grab some tissue paper to smash it without examining it in detail first. After I lifted up the flattened arachnid, I saw that it had a red hour-glass on its underside. I called the emergency room at my local hospital and asked if I would have felt it if it had bitten me. They said I might not feel it and that I should probably come in. I spent an hour and a half in the emergency room, without admitting myself, to see if I showed any symptoms of being poisoned. I never did, so it apparently never bit me in the 20-30 seconds I carried it through my apartment.
 

philocinemas, I'm glad you escaped your ordeal with no bite. My mom was bitten by a black widow. She said she could feel the poison burning and it traveled up her veins. No fun at all. Plus, she said that wasn't even the worst part. It's a neurotoxin so it made her anxious for weeks, like, pace-around-the-house-turning-lights-on-and-off-semi-nuerotic anxious. Crazy stuff.

On another note, I just have to say that I love reading posts in this forum because everyone proofreads their comments.

Other forms you seesoooooo many psots that lookc more liake this adn nooone seems to careat all.

Drives me crazy though.
 

No idea where this first came from, but even after several years I'm still amazed I can read the thing.
 

Edited to add: come to think of it, the story he's in is in the public domain (I think), and writing a story from his point of view could be done. Whether I (or anyone else, for that matter)think it should be or not is another question, however.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited June 05, 2009).]
 

quote:

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Has skadder posted?

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Yep, three times. He was one of those prairie dog poster’s. Sticks his head up to see what is going on then disappear for a while. Other prairie dogs…

BentTree – 10
Aspirit – 12
Tnwilz – 14
Annepin – 6

Their posts are grouped in clumps. They participate then go away. Sometimes they return for another peek.

The curious thing I found about the other five names is that you see them everywhere else on hatrack. Full time members they greet, comment in F&F, and offer opinions in the Writing section. Just not here.

quote:

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Wow Snapper, are you an accountant at heart?

---

Ugh. I considered becoming one of those. I believe I have the patience and organizational talents that fit but when I got a brief look I came to the conclusion that it was a Stepford job. The kind that turns you into a perfect citizen but you lose the thing that makes you human. Like fun. My brother proved my point when he became one. He used to be such a happy and an alive guy. Now he’d make a nice cardboard cut out for a politician. He has this pasted on smile, is always guarded on what he says and is careful to not make a public spectacle. He doesn’t take anything that could ever be construed as a risk anymore. No more dancing with a lamp shades on his head these days.
His house is three times the size of mine though. Maybe he has it right and I don’t.

quote:

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Thanks to all of you who frequent Hatrack; what a wonderful forum!

---

And thank you, MrsBrown. We really enjoy your company. A late joiner that has dove right into the thread. Another is Kitti she first joined at post 324 but didn’t post her second until post 427. She posted 30 more of the posts between then and post 700. That made her responsible for 11.1 % of the posts in that space. That’s Robert Nowall territory!

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited June 05, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited June 06, 2009).]
 

quote:

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come to think of it, the story he's in is in the public domain (I think), and writing a story from his point of view could be done. Whether I (or anyone else, for that matter)think it should be or not is another question, however.

---

Dang it, that was my brilliant idea, I've been working on it for years. Now you go and share it with a bunch of writers, some of them are actually capable of carrying it off. (Just kidding, but I have been working on a Renfield novel.)
 

- Office Space

 

"Michael, we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements." -- Peter Gibbons
 

quote:

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I'm e-mailing you IB.

---

I can just imagine:

Dear Alice, nice to hear from you. Who's Alice? I'm glad your cat is feeling better. Cat? Where'd that come from? The books you asked about are on the way. Hope you like them. Can you explain how the books relate? I'll write more next time. I should think so!
Love,
Ruth

Yeah, I wouldn't want to print that one. Poor Alice!

[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited June 08, 2009).]
 

It's supposed to be implemented tonight---and it's my day off. From gossip among ourselves, we give it a week, tops.
 

quote:

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On another note, I just have to say that I love reading posts in this forum because everyone proofreads their comments.

---

And now, you can see why every one is so careful. One misplaced comma, and your authenticity as a writer is shot.

Mrs. Brown, that was so funny!
Melanie

Dear Alice, nice to hear from you. Too much backstory. Start when the action starts I'm glad your cat is feeling better. Cat? Where'd that come from? The books you asked about are on the way. Hope you like them. Can you explain how the books relate? I'll write more next time. POV!!!If you are writing in deep 3rd, how can she know if she'll write again?
Love,
Ruth
 

You know you are really a writer when you send your personal letters in for critique. You know you're on Hatrack when you actually get one.

~Sheena
 

[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited June 09, 2009).]
 

The first I heard of it was Joe Frazier's upset of Mohammed Ali.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited June 09, 2009).]
 

But none of the sites were helpful in answering the burning question of "who was the first person to say this?"
 

But anyway, I bet you ten to one the quote was in play before that, as others have suggested.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited June 09, 2009).]
 

quote:

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No, IB, satate meant the genie. Williams was just reading the script.

---

I hate to break it to you, Zero, but Robin Williams never just reads a script. You wouldn't believe how much he adlibs.

And, on the other side of that arguement, the genie didn't say anything...he's a drawing--Robin Williams did all the talking.
 

Long Live Frodo!
 

A lot of what he does is allusion to something someone else said, so I suspect that he was alluding to the Frazier/Ali upset remark. And those people who "get it" with each of the things he does like that have an extra little bit of enjoyment of his "schtick."
 

[added] Not just friends but former college roommates.

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited June 10, 2009).]
 

That reminds me of my theory of comics. There are three varieties (really four, but the fourth kinds isn't funny so I don't consider them comics) The first is the Alpha comic, when they are with other comics they beat them into submission. (Which means the other comics can't say their jokes because they are laughing too hard.) Robin Williams is an alpha comic, as is Rosie O'Donnell (which is why she had such a hard time on the view, she never let anyone else talk.) The Rocket Man guy is the most powerful I've seen. I'd like to see him face off with Williams.

Then there are Beta comics, Beta comics want to be Alpha comics but they aren't good enough. I feel for Beta comics because they are always so frustrated when in the presence of a true Alpha.

Gamma comics are secure with themselves and their position, they know they are going to get their joke in, they also know when to get their jokes in (like when Robin Williams takes a breath) They just sit back and wait for the opportunity. These make the best talk show hosts.
 

Then again, I've got the first four seasons of "SNL" on DVD...I watch their stuff, particularly the Weekend Update segments, and think: Did I really think this was funny back then?

*****

Saw an odd reference to Rosie O'Donnell the other day. I was reading a biography of Curtis LeMay. (You may have heard the stereotype, but, like all of them, the real story behind it is more complex and interesting.)

The relative quote is this: "Within days of the Japanese surrender, LeMay, Rosie O'Donnell, and Barney Giles were ordered to fly three B-29s back to the States." I read that, and said, "WHAT?"

A quick look in the index pointed me to an earlier reference I had missed, to one Wing Commander Emmett "Rosie" O'Donnell, "a native New Yorker with a thick Brooklyn accent." Mystery solved...though I wonder if that Rosie O'Donnell is related to the Rosie O'Donnell we all know, and, well, know.
 

Did you know that Harland Williams once glued his shoes to the Eiffel Tower?
 

I once forgot to bring my flute on a band trip to another state.
 

Or this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2F_3BS6QSY&feature=related

[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited June 12, 2009).]
 

One time my friend's older brother terrorized us with his shotgun, pointing it at us and threatening to fire it. It was unloaded, but what an idiot.

I used to be afraid there was a demon in the attic--down the hall from my bedroom. I had to pass its hiding place on my way to bed. And sometimes I imagined a group of them on the roof above my bed, sawing a circular hole so they could drop in (they were a smaller variety). What a pleasant childhood memory.

Enough randomness for one post...

[This message has been edited by MrsBrown (edited June 12, 2009).]
 

Or did I say that already in this thread?
 

Just making a reference point.
 

quote:

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play the piano by ear

---

I wonder if I should give the director's cut of Highlander II a chance? I found the theatrical version painful during the one and only time I ever watched it.
 

RFW2nd

 

(1) It took me twenty minutes to find my older one (which didn't work as well, and I occasionally cut myself on the ragged edge) and carry on opening the tunafish cans.

(2) When it broke, I got vegetable oil all over one of my good work shirts; I washed it right away but the stain didn't come out; I washed it again this morning, hoping for the best.

(3) I searched the online store of Brookstone, which is where I got the can opener in the first place. Near as I could tell, they don't carry that particular model (something I knew from going in their retail stores), but their online store doesn't carry any manual can openers. ('Tisn't the first time Brookstone stopped carrying something I wanted to buy: I had to get new Mindfolds direct from the manufacturer. But I have no idea who made these particular can openers.)

(4) I'll have to go out and buy a new, and maybe inadequate, substitute can opener right away.
 

I had a popcorn bowl that was perfect. It was dropped and a crack developed (it was made out of melamine), ruining it.

I didn't even buy it in the state I currently live.

Life can be a real trial.
 

*waits*

Maybe it won't take until I hit the submit reply button.
 

It's a pity when the things we love die, even though they didn't live in the first place. Like I remember when I invented the electric toaster . . . last Tuesday . . . and I came out of my workshop hungry for something buttery. So I went to the kitchen put some bread into the silver shiny thing that came with the house and turned on the tv. As I munched my victory lunch a program came on about inventors. Needles to say when it started talking about the electric toaster being invented in 1893 I started crying.

Tears of Joy! This meant that I would also, someday, invent a time machine. Nobel prize and caveman wife here I come.

On an unrelated note I once stuck my tongue to a spoon full of dry Ice. On a related note try pressing dry ice onto a piece of steel.
 

My other grandparents had a philosophy that I am currently clinging to: the easiest way to keep your home decluttered is to throw away everything that breaks during a move. <ommm... summoning the decluttered home...>
 

quote:

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They're not random, just uncomfortable.

---

They're random for me; it's not everyday my @$$ can communicate with Chewbacca--let alone make him cry. It surprises me every time.
 

(My mother uses a can opener, that, when I tried it, I always cut myself on the protruding lid.)

Meanwhile...my main TV blinks on and off for up to twenty minutes after I turn it on and the colors are all off when it settles down...my dishwasher seems not to be cleaning the dishes as well as I think it should...my cable TV signal seems to lose certain digital channels as the sun goes up and the cables and connections get warm...and my DVD recorder seems to be filling up the disks after only a couple of half-hour programs.

Ah, well...I'm actively shopping for a new TV, what with the old one being technologically obsolete besides the problems...my cable TV problems will wait until I get that new TV 'cause they may be connected to the old TV breakdown...I have another DVD recorder I can move to the other room...and I added some rinse agent to the dishwasher yesterday, which may improve the situation.
 

My daughter: I've got a good idea for dinner. Can I make my good idea? Can you make mashed potatoes? Could you look up a recipe for me? Oh yeah, I know, all I've got to do is peel mashed potatoes, put them in a pot, wait for them to boil then dump the water out and mash them.

Me: OK. If you go get the potatoes you can make them.

My daughter: Yes! You said I couldn't cook til I was 10. (She's 6)

Me: Well, I'm going to help you, of course.

My daughter: NO! It's not fair. *Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.* Can Grammy and Grampy eat with us tonight, cause tomorrow they're leaving.

Me: I think they're already gone.

My daughter: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You are so mean! 5 plus 2 equals 7 OR 4 plus 3. Or 1 plus.... I got them. Now I'm going to peel them. Mommy where's the peeler? I can't find the peeler. MOM! Ooh...what's this drink? Can I have a taste of it?

She's the only child who was supposed to be outside. Of course, she's the only one inside.
 

Only my father-in-law was home. From his old reclining chair in the family room, he smirked at my glee and gave me permission to use the kitchen.

I bolted to the stove. I opened a cabinet. I stared inside.

"Poppa, I use a pan to cook eggs, right?"

"Yes. Bottom left cabinet."

"Thanks. Umm... Do I use oil or butter?"

My father-in-law made me eggs that day.
 

quote:

---

Other prairie dogs…

BentTree – 10
Aspirit – 12
Tnwilz – 14
Annepin – 6

Their posts are grouped in clumps. They participate then go away. Sometimes they return for another peek.
The curious thing I found about the other five names is that you see them everywhere else on hatrack. Full time members they greet, comment in F&F, and offer opinions in the Writing section. Just not here.

---

Here's 14.

Do you really think I want to leave proof I'm not being productive?

Anyway, prairie dogs are cute. I wish to transform into one of the old, fat dogs that sits on a mound. That's after I finish a novel, of course. (2029?)
 

No guarantees on accuracy. It's a great example of what a dog might think is funny, though.

This is 15. I'm going to bed now.
 

quote:

---

Who wrote the song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"?

---

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.
 

(because you wanted to know. You just didn’t know you wanted to know)

Gabe Kaplan (Mr. Kotter): champion professional poker player and does stand-up comedy gigs.

John Travolta (Barbarino): Movie superstar

Robert Hegyes (Epstein): Teaches screenwriting and acting at colleges and high schools in California.

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (“Boom Boom” Washington): occasional movie/TV appearance, and writes movie/TV theme music. As a keyboardist, has released a couple of albums. (I would’ve thought he’d play bass, not piano...)

Ron Palillo (Horseshack): Illustrates children’s books and still gets the occasional acting gig.

Marcia Strassman (Julie Kotter): TV and film actress. Involved with numerous causes (AIDS, cancer, children’s).

John Sylvester White (Mr. Woodman): passed away in 1988 (cancer).

 

I was reading a newspaper and I heard some whispering--from my foot.

I am fairly certain that the cells of my body have had enough of 'working together as a community', as they said, and have decided to all go their seperate ways.

What's to become of me?

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited June 19, 2009).]
 

Secretly isn't just another adverb. It's a super adverb. It is in fact the greatest adverb ever invented. So..

Yeah....

It so totally counts.
~Sheena

P.S. I'm aware that totally is also an adverb. It is Secretly's super friend. Have you not heard of the secretly totally awesome group of super words, with their amazing super powered awesomeness? Frankly, I'm surprised.

 

quote:

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But does the internet love you????

---

If you go to the right websites it does....at least that's what I heard...
 

Ah, well, at least the add-a-word thread finally died...
 

Next Full Moon July 7th at 0921 UTC.

RFW2nd

 

haha, just kidding. Although your kids might think getting blown around is great fun....
 

*sigh*
 

No I don’t eat kids, I eat hippies, and babies, kids just taste bad.

Anyway

I have come to the conclusion that no matter how clean your house is, how clean your NCO’S say it is, the F*^@!#% Sergeant Major will always find something wrong with it.

RFW2nd

 

Quinoa.

It just tastes sooo much better when I reheat it for lunch the next day. What manner of witchcraft makes quinoa go from a bland (if somewhat bitter), fairly unappetizing grain to a tasty alternative to rice just by spending the night in my refrigerator???

*****

I did cut the lawn this morning. Weedwhacking too. Took from 7:20 AM to 9:30 AM...after which I was completely drained.

Meanwhile on other fronts, I bought a new TV this afternoon. Was this the thread I mentioned my blinking TV problems on? After eight hundred plus posts I forget...
 

Was it the whole band? I thought there was something a few years ago about Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman touring as "Bachman-Cummings" because they couldn't use the Guess Who name. Maybe all parties concerned have (figuratively) kissed and made up?

 

So here they are, in a hockey arena in small-ish town in Canada on a weekday night after doing who knows how many shows over the past month or two on this tour, not to mention having done this over and over again for the past 35 years... and they nailed it!

The music was flawless, they were funny and engaging, and there was such energy and electricity to their performance. As I was leaving, I thought, man these guys are professionals.

 

Testament. Hands down, the best live show I have ever seen--based on the band/crowd involvement, and being as tight as on the albums.

Great White, is second to Testament for frugal setups and winning the crowd vote.

KISS. For pushing the stunts and trademarks.

W.A.S.P. - Blackie Lawless once had pyrotechnics in a sports cup go awry, giving him burns--and a great scare that his goose (and its eggs) were cooked.

Iron Maiden. Internationally famous for their stage show, including a 3-D version of the album cover they're performing (and past albums). Huge.

Motley Crue. Again pushing the limits of stage show. They became famous for Tommy Lee's spinning drums (a stunt one-upped by Joey Jordison of Slipknot).

Rob Zombie usually has a multitude of pyrotechnics, accessories and dancing girls.

Pantera used to have a great show. (RIP Dimebag Darrel!)

And, the mother of all stage shows (not for the easily offended): GWAR. 'nuff said.

Last, but not least, a man who made his career on shocking antics (although he mostly does jumping jacks nowadays): Ozzy Osbourne.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited June 25, 2009).]
 

I miss the days of Dio and Bruce.
 

I keep missing a Fox News promo where some show or other is going to have a guest band Creedence. Do they mean whatever's left of Creedence Clearwater Revival? Or did I just mishear and did they really say Creed? Or is it some other band altogether? (And why is a rock band on a news channel in the first place?)
 

*****

My new TV came about two and a half hours ago. Picture looks good. I'll have to work with it some...have to arrange to pick up the HD channels...in a few weeks, maybe get some new DVD players...

But mainly I have to get the old one-hundred-fifty-pound TV off the cart I have it on...
 

RFW2nd

 

Yes was amazing in their heyday, and they can still nail it, for sure. Their best work, IMO, was on Close to the Edge, though the Relayer album was very underappreciated. Owner of a Lonely Heart and its containing album was only Yes by coincidence, so I don't include it.

Trivia Time: I once heard it said (no idea whether it's true or not) that Jon Anderson considered the lyrics to be part of the instrumentation. The meaning of the words was not as important as how each word sounded with the other instruments. He thus took "voicing" of the vocals to mean the same thing it means when one speaks of the "voicing" of an instrument. Very interesting. If you listen to their work with that in mind, you can hear the truth of it whether it was a conscious effort on his part or not.

[This message has been edited by DWD (edited June 25, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited June 25, 2009).]
 

Somehow I am more saddened by Fawcett and her positive attitude than M. Jackson and his addled attitude.
 

Thriller
 

I love his music, and although I am not one of those super fans. He was a legend, and it is kind of sad to me to hear a legend died, and from something so ordinary.

Do you know of a single person who is so famous, or infamous?

I have nothing but pity for that freaky talented manchild.
 

All this before the Michael Jackson media circus kicked in. Given his position in pop culture, I'm not surprised at the reaction...outside of political figures, expect this kind of treatment for Paul and Ringo...maybe for Elton...Jacko might've gotten it if he'd died a lingering death, like Farrah...for any other show biz figure, it'll need something more. "Sudden" is good as always.
 

Fortunately, I imagine he has alienated enough of the people who would typically be the ones to put his image on a velvet wallpiece.
 

[edited 'cause I just said "wall" when I should've said more.]

[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited June 27, 2009).]
 

[This message has been edited by Tani (edited June 27, 2009).]
 

As for the body - I haven't seen a body, have you?
 

also Billy Mays was found dead in his house yesterday. everyone seems to be dieing. Damn

RFW2nd
 

quote:

---

This thread is really long.

---

That was kind of the point, wasn't it?

*****

They're dropping like flies. I heard this morning that Gale Storm died...I heard this afternoon Fred Travalena died. Now a lot of you may not remember them, one being big in the, well, mostly the seventies, and the other being very big in the fifties. (I think if Gale Storm had died fifty years ago the equivalent media storm would've been about as big as the Michael Jackson thing today.)
 

Billy Mays. My heart stopped when I heard the news. I thought Willy Mays, the SF Giant. I am a Giants fan. Billy Mays drove (and will continue to drive) my wife crazy with his irritatingly loud barking. I'm sad to see anyone go, but give me a choice... he was only 49. A mere lad.
 

(This is only if they're easily identifiable in the commercial. When Phil Hartman was shot to death by his wife, I kept hearing his very recognizable voice in commercials for about six months or so after.)
 

quote:

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It is very, very hard to eat marshmallows through a ski mask.

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Elementary. Just sublimate the marshmallows and inhale the yummy marshmallow vapour through the ski mask.

Done and done.

 

I wonder who the next "King" will be It went from Nat Cole to Elvis to Micheal Jackson. Personally I think there is some fairy work going on there.
 

quote:

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Elementary. Just sublimate the marshmallows and inhale the yummy marshmallow vapour through the ski mask.

---

Anyone know the best way to clean gooey marshmallow vapours out of a ski mask?

 

*****

If you want to get marshmallow goo out of a ski mask, I'd recommend washing it.
 

quote:

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Anyone know the best way to clean gooey marshmallow vapours out of a ski mask?

---

Now that I think of it, if you look at all the industries put together, Harry Potter has been that iconic. Funny that the internet would bring readers together but split music apart.

However, Lady Gaga has that solved. You just have to hear Pokerface once and the tune will be seared into your brain and it will stay there forever.
Melanie

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited July 01, 2009).]
 

Winnie the Pooh meets Apocalypse Now (Apocalypse Pooh)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_YPJvia8A

RFW2nd
 

He was standing on the sidewalk talking to a hedge.

Now that's grist.

Any sane person would know that hedges are nocturnal.

Hope he didn't rouse it--there'd be hell to pay.
 

I wonder right now, and may wonder for some time, whether I should have gone with my feelings and said something to her.
 

What's black and white and comes in little cans?

Zombie Michael Jackson.
 

I've heard that the best thing to do is approach the woman as if she is the victim, not the kid. "Can I help you? Are you all right? It's hard doing any shopping with a kid. Would you like to sit down for a minute?" And so on, because that kind of response is less likely to put her on the defensive and lead her to really take it out on the kid later.
 

quote:

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Oh, and ready yourselves for all the conspiracy-theorists who are going to say he is not really dead and this has all been staged. (We're going to hear about this for the next 40 years)

---

Sounds like you know something I don't. Were you actually present at his 'death'?

Hey! *calls to everyone else*

Philocinemas was actually present at Michael Jackson's death and can confirm he didn't die!

(let the chinese whispers begin!)

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited July 02, 2009).]
 

I agree that saying something in the store might make things worse. Chances are the mother will feel a "see! you embarrassed me!" type of thing.

Dude I just saw a sheep on a ship shave a man hanging from from a cliff with a telescoping razor. You see the sheep had cotton in his ears and misheard "Save me!"

 

37 minutes and 6 seconds now....
Melanie
 

edited to say: But it was SO worth it that I get to be here on the top of page 20. Do I get a prize? Some tech support would be nice.
Melanie

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited July 02, 2009).]
 

I lost 17 minutes of my life Tuesday calling on a customer service call. I gave up and called sales. The lady got me right in to a customer service person. Didn't know how that happened, but I'm am highly likely to use that device again.

Random: I miss my kids (who are all grown up) getting excited about the 4th of July so they can light fireworks. When I was little we got excited about cap pistols. The days of kids playing cowboy with guns and vests and cowboy hats... are they long gone?
 

No, Skadder, I wasn't there, but I did hear that the L.A. Police department was suspecting foul play. They have decided to devote extra man-hours into finding a key piece of evidence. Apparently, one of Michael's gloves was missing.

The F.B.I. has even dispatched a young top-notch female agent to the case. She intends to visit O.J. Simpson in prison and devolop a psychological profile of the possible killer.

If the glove doesn't fit...

Speaking of rumors - did anyone hear how Brittney Spears and George Clooney were falsely rumored to have died this week?
 

What, did they dig up James Brown just so Michael Jackson could use his coffin?
 

The first place, the supermarket I shopped at, didn't have it. The second place, a convenience store, didn't have it. The third place had the paper from the day before.

Between the second and third places, it dawned on me...maybe they're not publishing because the July Fourth holiday was the next day, that they're kicking it back a day and taking time off. Sure enough, the "day before" paper confirmed it on the front page. I hadn't noticed, and it hadn't occurred to me before that...I'm used to them doing that on Monday holidays but not this.
 

Happy Canada Day to all you Canadians!

Happy American Rebellion Day to everyone in England!

For everyone else, enjoy the day, whether it's today or tomorrow where you live!
 

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Happy American Rebellion Day to everyone in England!

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I thought they called it Yankee Temper Tantrum Day over there?
 

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited July 05, 2009).]
 

There's a bug on your shoe!
 

Or were you talking about the grass?
 

Took me and my father (strictly speaking, mostly my father) about an hour and a half to get the wheel mechanism off, get one off an old lawnmower, and put that back on so I could carry on.

And it was thick. That's it for letting it go every two weeks---that's okay for weedwhacking but the grass is growing too much. Every week from now on, unless it's raining or the lawn is flooded...
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited July 08, 2009).]
 

Seems nobody really considered how much the MJ memorial would cost the city ($4M). One city councilwoman says--I'm not making this up--the event should be considered a "city emergency" and thus qualifies for funding from the city's emergency budget.

There's never a drummer around when you need a rim shot.
 

If they're that broke, I'd hate to think what they'd do if they had another earthquake...
 

Holla!
 

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Hey! Hey, you! There's nothing you can do, because the wolverine's are gonna stomp on you!

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Maize and blue fan or did you just watch Red Dawn?
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited July 10, 2009).]
 

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̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=(•̪● =ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿

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"He tole it wrong...and since when do Irishmen drop their aitches?"

 

“1300 Be at company, ACU’S, bring soft cap, close out formation 1600 motor pool. Don’t be late.”

Now I missed 3 hours of sleep. And cant get back asleep. Looks like I will be drinking all night to night.

RFW2nd

...being random with my clothes on.
 

Do you others feel violated?
 

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I'm the one thousandth poster. Good thing I stutter,eh?

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Not if I delete your duplicate posts.
 

Edited to add: sometimes just having the power is enough. It isn't necessary to do anything more.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited July 11, 2009).]
 

So, if you could all stop worrying about the fate of the internet and get back to being random, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
Melanie
 

On the other hand, it's easier to tolerate than the blare of passing trains.

 

Harder to take are his raucous New Year's parties...I've got a rare day off, and am trying to sleep at night for a refreshing change...they're yelling "Happy New Year!" at midnight and then singing on karaoke machines until four or five.
 

RFW2nd

 

The only real mission of a mortal is to reproduce and raise their young.

As for Immortals such as I we just do what we want and death matters not for we just come right back.

RFW2nd

 

You know being in a nut house is like being trapped in the movie One Flew Over The Cooko’s Nest. I was like god old Jack, I was the most sane one there. of cores that was a month ago. Man how time flies when one is chemically Lobotomized.

RFW2nd

 

I've got a huge stress related cold sore that just showed up today.
 

you all should try googling you screan names.

RFW2nd
 

http://g4tv.com/videos/39887/Behind-The-Pulse-Jet-Engine/

RFW2nd
 

Tentative maybe. I can't find age or date of birth yet (they must be around somewhere)...if the picture is any guide, it does look like the kid I remember.

Still searching for a definite maybe.

Vaguely pleased that somebody I went to school with became kinda prominent...kinda testy that it wasn't me.
 

Any suggestions? Maybe SSAD (summer seasonal affective disorder)?

I am feeling quite depressed by all the heat and sunshine we're having lately (guess there's no way I could live in Australia).

 

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited July 18, 2009).]
 

then ther is spring with all the pretty colors and pups are born in the spring and also pray is abundent and easer to catch.

then there is fall when the leaves are turning and the pups are old egnough to hunt.

the only seson i realy dont like is summer because its too damn hot. and i hate the heat. especialy here in WSMR NM.

it was 102 today.

RFW2nd
 

In a way, it's very depressing. Here he made something of his life, and now moves among and talks with the powerful and the rich and the intelligent...last night at work I got stuck with a partner who can't handle a simple job but yet can thoroughly disrupt my handling of my job.

(Actually, Doug Elmendorf was one smart cookie even back when I knew him. I'm not surprised he went on to the Ivy League and the Congressional Budget Office. And I don't think I could have done that if I'd'a gone to Harvard.)
 

Dunno.
 

Corky and others, it's often called summer-onset SAD, compared to winter-onset SAD. I thought I had it, before realizing the irritability and lethargy I feel in summer also occurs in other seasons if my body temperature is too high.
 

Anyway, it certainly is heat related. I don't want to do anything. I want to quit my job and everything else I'm supposed to be doing. I just want to curl up in the darkest part of my basement and hide. Yuck!
 

I used to think I was just naturally a night owl, but maybe I've just been avoiding the heat all this time.
 

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Maybe our poor thread has summer-onset SAD...

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I laughed so hard I think I scared my cat.
 

If you think you can get blue-bloods to bleed you've got another thing coming. But what does black-blood mean? I want green blood.
 

Thank goodness I'm out of that dump. Crossing my fingers the little buggers didn't tag along when I left.
 

Why? Because they eat crap.
 

No one is allowed to complain of heat if they live in Utah or anywhere where it acctually snows in the winter. When I open my door to go outside it feels the same as opening the oven door after it's been preheated. There was a two year old that fell on a metal grate while walking and got second degree burns. I wish I could just stay inside until the end of September.
 

It was 111 in St. George, Utah yesterday. I don't care where you live. That's hot.

It was only 80 here though. If it wasn't for the bugs, I might consider that heaven.
 

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It was 111 in St. George, Utah yesterday. I don't care where you live. That's hot.

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When it's 111 in St. George it's still only 75 in Michigan

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited July 21, 2009).]
 

But my idea of heaven has to be the Oregon Coast--I don't enjoy the sun much at all and prefer overcast skies and cool humidity.
 

RFW2nd

 

RFW2nd

 

So later that night I go tuck the rest of the kids in bed, and I come out and her dad is fixing her a big bowl of ice cream. And yes, he was here for the conversation, and yes, this is my house.

And yes--it is definately time for everyone to go home.
Melanie
 

S!
S!

 

But after I wrote that post, her dad and I had a nice long talk, and it reminded me that in the vast scheme of things, ice cream is not that big of a deal. She's a super troubled girl, and he's done wonders with her since he took over raising her. It's easier to remember that when she's asleep though.
 

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If your ship comes in but the cargo is all chewed on by rats, does that count as a good thing?

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What about if you see your ship coming in, but you can also see the rats jumping overboard?

S!
S!