Cole Parker

Yes, I know, but I was thinking of wanting that in preference to the other wonders on the list, so in that sense, it was wanting it. Besides, it was more amusing writing it that way. The thing that makes his explosive malady so delightful is the addition of the word 'unpredictable.' That just conjures up the most beguiling images in you head involving where you could be struck by the urgency of the dissease, who could be there with you, what sort of social embarrassments could result. Hand it to the Wibster, he's a master at this. C

It's quite possible Des' post is as revolting as anything I've ever read. Incredible. Talking about explosive, uncontrollable fecal splatter, then inserting something into same, then comparing it to sticking something into your mouth. I'm still shuddering, and don't think I'll be able to eat today. I begin to see the point in censorship. C

All right, Camy. You're excused from the diatribe. I expected it to be apparent I was only scolding those who needed it, not everyone. But if you felt the sting of my wrath, slight as it was, then you may flay me at your will the next time we meet. And as for Des, dear Des, I wish I had half his wit. He actually could stand to lose half his wit, because he has twice what he needs and others of us could use more. What I'm saying, I guess, is that I'd still appreciate a half-witted Des. Wait. Did that come out right? C

Hey, come on, guys. You're in the middle of a story, are picking out a detail, and then censuring the writing becasue of that detail before he's had a chance to explain it. That's not fair. Let the story move foreward, and then, if you can't buy the explanation, that's the time to gripe. + + + + + + Spoiler alert for those yet to read chapter 17 + + + + + + He goes on to talk about having told a prospective kidnapper that 100 million was chicken feed to them. So that becomes a less outrageous demand. We don' t know the sophistication of the kidnappers at this point; if they're stupid, they might not realize that amount of money isn't avaialbe at a moment's notice, that rich people don't have their money in cash. I think yoiu have to let this play out a little before saying it's unreasonable. I thought it was a crazy about to ask for too, on first reading it, and then learned they have 3 billion bucks. 100 million becomes less amazing if you have 3 billion. It's possible after this all comes together, you'll still have objections, but Driver has proven to be a very good, grounded writier in the past. I for one am not going to say this is silly without knowing more, seeing where it's going. This story needed some conflict, and here it is. I'm really itching for the next installment. C

Hey, ease up, Trab! I think that's all he was capable of today.Mabye tomorrow we'll get two coherent sentences!<g>C

I would very much like to know the reason everyone wants explosive diarrhea. Sounds like we have a very shitty crew visiting this thread. I know why I voted for it. I figured I could get a pill to find relief from that a lot easier than I'd have luck curing any of the others. Only a very sick mind would spend the time coming up with these ailments. C

I hate to disagree with my good and wise freind Trab, but when he's wrong, he's wrong. TP should unroll from the top, and that's an indisputable fact. If it comes off the bottom of the roll and you tear it, the new end will invariably stick to the roll and now be underneath, hiding, much like Des, and be very difficult to find, and you will need to find it unless you're a one-wipe-is-enough sort of guy, which means I don't want to know you. Tearing the paper off an over-the-top roll leaves the new end quite visible and easy to access simply by puffing a gentle stream of air on it.As for eggs, in a cold refrigerator they last a long time. I don't know about the rest of the country, but in CA they stamp a date on the end of the carton. I don't know if that's a sell-by date or a use-by date; it doesn't say. But look at the date the next time you're in the store and you'll probably see it's still a long time away.Trab's right in that a bad egg will give off a sulfurous odor that's unmistakable. If an egg when you break the shell doesn't look right or smell right or feel right, dump it. But they do last a long time.C

And yet again, Des manages to get a zinger in there. Getting head indeed. Of course, his poor, long-suffering and under-appreciated partner is being saddled with all this. I hope the saddle is comfortable. Tell me, which bothers him most, putting up with your witticisms, or you incessant horniness? Or is it none of my business? C<g>

Trab, is that what's meant by underwriting?C

Des, your body may be approaching 69, but your mind is about 19, frisky and perky and ready for the next dare that comes your way.69 in a hot tub sounds like the step right before you call the emergency people and tell them to come quick, you think you drowned someone.Unless you take quick turns not being downunder.C

Good point, Trab. Roll with it.C

Actually, nothing. There's no reason other than design style why the lever would be on the right or the left. Why they became rather standard on the left side of the tank has become lost in antiquity. Tanks used to be situated on the wall behind the toilets and well above them, so the force of the water entering the toilet was greater than it is today. It was commonly activated by a chain that was pulled. So there wasn't a flush lever per se like we have now.When the tank was attached to the bowl, the lever was commonly situated on the left side of the tank for no special reason. At that time, it became standard for flushing to use 7 gallons of water, and not too many years ago, that was cut in half as a water saving method, and the new standard of 3.5 gallons per flush was adopted. Those toilets were called, of all things, water savers.Today, with clean water becoming more and more precious, the standards have again been lowered. Flushing water usage on newer toilets is much less than ever before, and air-assisted systems have been designed to lower water used in flushing down around the 1 gallon per flush level, or lower.And all this has nothing to do with where the flush lever is located, but as there's nothing more to say about that, this will have to suffice.C

And Trab, don't forget, get them hot enough, you start seeing white stuff.But let's review the question: how long can eggs stay in the refrigerator before they are bad?I don't think it's reasonable to ascribe being incarcerated in the refrigerator as the causative factor to them going bad. No more than you can say prison makes a boy into a hardened criminal, can you say the time spent in a refrigerator is the cause for an egg's badness. But hard time spent on the rock pile does make a boy go bad, I can hear you shouting, your anger coming so obviously from your misplaced liberal guilt. You see a boy lifting and swinging a sledgehammer that weights half his own weight, swinging it repeatedly in the hot sun, his thin muscles stretching and aching and near to tearing, sweat pouring from his face and the guard, swigging from his canteen and letting the water run down his face, sneering at him. “Can I have a drink, please sir,” gasps the boy, imploringly, weak from dehydration, weary from work.“What’s it worth to you?” leers the guard. Then he reaches for his zipper.Now as this scene plays out in prison camps daily, we should not worry about the boy, but pity the guard because he has to be in the sun, too. The boy, he was a bad ‘un, and that’s why he’s breaking rocks and giving lip service for water. He was a bad ‘un going in, and he’ll be a bad ‘un when he gets out, and time spent for his crimes was time spent off the streets and away from us God-fearing good people.And the same can be said for those eggs. If they’re bad in the refrigerator, then they damn well were bad before they went in there, and they deserve what they get, and you can leave them in that refrigerator till hell freezes over for all that. Serves ‘em right.Next question?C

I don't know about wisdom. I've been fresh out of that for years, which I guess means it wouldn't be fresh anyway, but I do have some knowledge. I said I had some knowledge about toilets, and I do.If anyone is curious, here's a link: http://www.us.kohler.com/onlinecatalog/pro...ault&page=1That takes you to a catalogue page for Kohler, a major sanitaryware supplier headquartered in Wisconsin, in Kohler, Wisconsin to be more informative. Why I looked at their catalogue is because I already knew they made toilets with the flush handle on the side opposite to the normal one (all right, so I'm being a little fussy. The most common way I use a tolilet is to stand in front of it. The only way I flush it is by stading in front of it. Some people flush while sitting on it, but that runs the risk of parts of you getting wet with contaminated water if your nether parts are really... well, you get the idea. [some people say if you've got it flaunt it. I'm not saying I've got it. I'm simply saying I don't like to have to take a shower after flushing.] Anyway...to me, the usual handle location is to the left, the unusual one to the right, and I'll continue with that definition.)I checked through the catalogue and found over a dozen toilets with right-handed flush levers. So they wouldn't be special orders, except for at an outlet that only carries left-hand lever-location toilets.Kohler is a top-end producer, like American-Standard. Their products tend to be higher priced than most you'd find in a place like Home Depot.I don't think the location has much to do with whether a person is left or right handed. Even the most uncoordinated and awkward of us should be able to flush a toilet with either hand. Isn't that the true definition of ambidexterity?Well, it should be.C

Rad: You seem to be making the assumption that it's one religion per country. I'm as far from an expert on religions as there is, and would even refuse to join Camy's expect for the one redeeming quality he didn't list -- if you get tired of it, you can roast the big bird and have it for lunch -- but I'd really think that in most countries where the populace is free to worship as it wants, there are several or many religions to choose from. Now most probably have one, or one or two, major religions, but you didn't ask the question that way. I doubt there are many countries at all that only have one religion practiced it them. But again, I don't know anything about religions, other than I don't believe in them. C

Yes, omitting sour-apple-squirts was a definite oversight, and the list is much improved with it. C

I don't know it either, but I have heard of Buffy, so I'm at least half with it.And no, Wib, I didn't say half-witted.C

AJ: Amazing. I'm doing the same thing, and because I had the same thought exactly. C

When I was in England about 15 years ago and hired a car to drive out to visit the countryside (driving in London was an experience I'm still trying to forget), I found you had to drive in the middle of the road, most places. There only was a middle. The country roads were so narrow, and had high hedges on one side and buidlings whose occupants risked being imbedded on the font bumper of a passing lorry as they stepped out their front doors on the other as their dwellings fronted directly on the roads. If one tried to drive on his side of the road, he'd either be in the bushes or scraping walls. Meeting oncoming traffic, which luckily didn't occur very frequently, was a nightmare of its own. So driving down the middle of the road should be a concept well understood there. Incidentally, I loved that visit. What a wonderful country! C

Why pixilated and not pixy? That sounds like sheer caprice to me, or else rampant discrimination against fairies.I love the word pixy.C

Because it's the insult de jour. You know better than I do that kids copy other kids. Monkey see, monkey do. That's what they say to each other to put each other down these days, and it has little or nothing to do with actually being gay. I was trying to counsel a kid a couple of years ago and he kept telling me he was being called that, and it took me much more time than it should have to realize he wasn't complaining that his sexuality was being questioned, or that the other kids were actually doing that; he was simply being insulted. I hope your school has an anti-discrimination policy that's supported by the administration and enforced. I know there are schools in Texas that have gone that route. In most schools where such policies are in place, improvements have been dramatic. C

Why is no one asking why the list started with an h word?C

I didn't read Bruin's post that way, Trab. I read it to mean he'd like to write the chapter after the next chapter. But then, I frequently miss the point, so maybe he didn't mean that at all. But the timing would be better if someone else jumped in before next weekend. And I can say this with great assurance it won't come back to bite me in the ass as I'm way too busy editing J,E to write anything right now! <g> C

Long stories on the Internet can be the outcome of different stimuli. They can do as told here, run on purposelessly, peter out, lose their focus. However, there are some good ones, too, that keep their interest to the end, and that you wish could be even longer; you can even feel disappointed when they finish. I can easily think of two of these, both of which are at Crvboy. David's Initiation by Draginacht is one. He writes that it began as an idea for a short story, he wrote it, and then extended it. I imagine he realized he had a lot more to say about the character, and so continued on. But the story never seems to lose focus, is entertaining throughout it's lengthy run, and is thoroughly satisfying to read. Another is the Brew Maxwell Foley/Mashburn series. It too seems to go on forever, but you have no problem at all staying with it. I understand from experience how it can feel to have written a very short piece, and then realize the character or the situation you've created has much better legs than you first realized, and that you can and should think about extending it. If I've felt this, I'm sure others here have had the same experience, the same feeling. I guess with me, extending something to one hunderd chapters or so would be an absurd idea, but I have had the urge to make something longer than originally intended, which is also what Draginacht did so very successfullly. C

WHAT SORT OF INSERTIONS WERE YOU SPEAKING OF?OR DID YOU MEAN ASSERTIONS? SOME PEOPLE HERE HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO MAKE WILD AND UNINHIBITED ASSERTIONS. YES, YOU WERE PROBABLY TALKING ABOUT ASSERTIONS.SUBSTITUTING AN IN FOR AN AS IS AS INAPPROPRIATE AS INSERTING AN IMPROPER ASSERTION.c