Trab

Unfortunately, some of the chapters have been lost as well. You can go there and click on each one in turn, but the odd one will give a report of an indexing problem and leave you with a gap in the story. Also, all the " and ' marks are shown as ?, but a complete Replace ( ? to ") then again ("s to 's) seems to take care of most of that aspect. I think we are going to have to hope/pray that someone hosts the full stories somewhere.

Damn, that's good TR. It had me bawling.

Sadly, the fight isn't over in Canada either. The current government is made up of a lot of religious zealots/bigots and they've vowed to revisit the laws allowing same sex marriage. On the other hand, the vast majority of those polled indicate that they will be VERY displeased with them if they bring it up for another vote, and since they have a minority government, they could easily be defeated on this. For those who don't know, a minority government is one in which they have the greatest number of members of their party elected, but the other parties combined have a greater number, meaning the 'ruling' party is always on shaky ground and has to cater to the ideas of all the other parties, or at least enough of them to survive a vote.

I can certainly see the point, and it is valid, but how would you 'start the ball rolling' on this. There are so many people who have decades invested in marriage and the benefits therefrom, that it would likely be a nightmare to achieve this. On a vaguely similar note, I don't think young people and old people should get cheaper admission prices: they take the same room/seats as middle aged adults.

I think that you need to define 'marriage' before you decide what it means to you. Are you thinking of the ceremony? Or are you thinking of the committement to your partner? If you think total committement to your partner is marriage, then a ceremony is redundant, but if you think the ceremony itself is marriage, there may be a good reason for 'tying the knot' in that way. If you drive carefully and safely on the roads without considering 'the law', it is a wholly different way to drive than if you drive while only considering 'the law' and its consequences on you if you get caught breaking it. You may drive the same way, but the committement is totally different. I think the ceremony need is the same as needing traffic laws in order to keep you behaving 'correctly'.

I don't even want to THINK about it got IN your ass in the first place. Is it just me, or are all the blogs not available right now?

Very nice. Thank-you.

Does anyone have any idea if this site will ever be resurrected? According to Dewey, the site was hacked some time ago.

Good Des. I admire people who can "shake a poem out of their sleeve" like that. Your creation would have taken me 10+ years to make, and still be pale by comparison.

"And if I used brunette instead of brunet, that was an error." You didn't. Graeme just never knew about the difference before this, and was essentially thanking you for bringing it to his attention, without saying the words. (Am I right Graeme?)

BeatWrit, I must confess that I didn't read your story. Your overly wordy introduction, telling us what the first chapter was supposed to accomplish, was mind numbing to me. The chapter should stand on its own, and not need an introduction. Subsequently, I've read Graeme's and WBMS's comments, and noticed that your responses to each was wordier than their comments. I suspect that you are going to need to seriously address this as an 'issue' in your writings. I'm hoping to actually read your story soon, and apologize if my comments are unfair, since I recognize that the point of the bullpen is to comment on your writings, not your reaction to criticisms, or introduction of your work.

Fascinating story, and I'm anxiously waiting to read more. It is a very easy read, with only one jarring note (to me). Sadly, at times I get snared by sentence structure, or spelling; leaving me twitching frantically, trying to get lose to continue reading the story. The one that caught me was "the tears soaking my shirt and they slid off my face." Maybe 'sliding off my face' would be better, but that still wouln't get the image of a teflon slippery face, to which nothing sticks, not even tears, out of my mind. Please feel free to ignore my comment, as I couldn't write a story if my life depended on it. And I'm not just saying that. I have NO creativity whatsoever. Hell, I'm almost proud of it. (Talk about a coping strategy huh?)

I'm not a writer, so my opinion isn't particularly relevant, but when I read I prefer to read descriptions much like when I meet someone. Not all the of person is revealed all at once, except the most obvious physical characteristics. The process is one of discovery, and that makes it a good rule to follow in stories as well.

I thought this was kind of interesting. I hope someone else hasn't already posted it and I missed it. If so, my apologies. http://www.alternet.org/story/38904/

Interesting WBMS. Ho Hum. For what it's worth, I too have a Mac, but I opted for the Adesso ergonomic keyboard. It is much easier to type with it, since I can now keep my elbows to my sides and type away, without having to try to work around my more than ample paunch.

Ha ha ha. Very amusing. The ENTER key is the really hard one, since on MY keyboard it says, "return", just like on a typewriter.

You just go right ahead and laugh. After all, if you can't laugh at someone else, who can you laugh at?

I can't really believe what I just did. There is a section of the AD Forums that says: I actually tried Clicking on each of those rules to see what they are. Now really, who hasn't heard of the Golden Rule and needs to Click on it. Geez. But, even after that, Clicking on "Common Sense"? Good grief, I've turned into Charlie Brown.

Don't worry! A true intellectual would never have gotten to the general vicinity of the car in the first place. Mind you, your plan was brilliant in its concept and execution: truly a work of intellectual wonder.

You're a better man than I Blue, I wouldn't have touched that one with a 6 inch pole.

Phew. It's a relief to read that it was an oversight. I can certainly understand it happening, what with ALL the changes, which, by the way, are quite attractive and appealing to me. You guys are doing a great job on this, and I for one, appreciate it very much. :)

"You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this Blog system to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law." Oh boy. "knowingly false" - I guess that means no works of fiction "inaccurate" - 100% perfect research, make no mistake about it "obscene" - to whom? "profane" - to which religion? Any? Do we need to study all of them first? "sexually oriented" - Do I need to point out that this is predominantly a gay site? "violative of any law" - ANY LAW? In Quebec you aren't allow to use English for signs. Does that mean no titles in English? I don't even want to think about how many laws from Iran we may be violating right now. I think maybe I'm over-reacting, but as many of you know, I have AS, and RULES ARE RULES. I'm afraid these are just too much for me, and I'll have to pass on making a blog here.

We Canajuns use pissed both ways, as in "My mum was pissed that I was pissed." Without looking anything up as to derivations, I suspect that bollock or bollix may have something to do with bullock, which is related to bulls and balls and castration. Something in the line of "Don't ball it up" meaning "Don't do it incorrectly". This is used in Canada, eh. I just remembered one of my favorites, "Brilliant". I'd never heard of twee either. Should I even mention pronunciation? (eeether or iiiither)

""Parents know that it's our job to look out for their children and I think parents trust the Webster school district that we would always have their children's interests first in mind," said Ellen Agostinelli, Webster's assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. " Bull Sh_t! EDUCATION is supposed to be the prime thing in school, and banning books is not contributing to that. Furthermore, even is banning a book would do that, they are completely ignoring those kids who are gay, and need to have access to this type of reading material, although whether or not they need it more than the homophobes is anyone's guess. Petty bureaucrates who enjoy power way too much? How about senior elected officials who enjoy power way too much? The contempt is being condoned and encouraged from 'way on high'.

I just found this, and think it is interesting. I hope I'm not bringing up something already mentioned here and overlooked by me. http://www.scoutingforall.org/articles/2006080802.shtml