Gee Whillickers

I'm of the opinion it's authentic. If not, he's one hell of an actor. This video was posted in August. Before school started. Read through the comments on the youtube video page. He seems to have support, and has gathered a bit of a support group around him, at least a virtual one. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, not all the comments are positive. Some of them are just continuing the bullying, calling him a crybaby, etc.

Oh, crap! Did I forget the tea and crumpets scene? That should've been wedged in there in the middle somewhere. Oh well, maybe next chapter. We can't keep the Queen waiting, you know. After all, she'd be, what, 160 years old by then?

My grocery store is falling into the same nefarious and questionable marketing practices. While the razor blades are still on a regular shelf, accessible to the public, they are on the hooks with the lock thingy on them so you can't actually get the package off the hook without employee help. I refuse. When I need them, I pull out my knife, cut the plastic packaging from the hole to the top, and take what I need. I will not go through the trouble of finding an employee, wait for them to find the key or whatever gizmo they use, come back to the razor blade area, and finally give me my little pack of blades. That's way too much effort for a mundane item. If they make it any more difficult, I will simply refuse to buy them. At least at that store. As to the difficulty in opening packages, yes. I recently read an article about how emergency room visits from serious deep cuts due to people attempting to open hard plastic blister-packs has increased several orders of magnitude in the past few years. Due to the increased use of this packaging. It's cheap and displays the product nicely, so manufacturers like it. But consumers hate it. A store here often advertises this item: http://www.valmg.com...package-opener/ as a way to deal with this problem. A handy-dandy blister pack opener. The ultimate irony is that the product comes in a plastic blister-pack. You need the product to open the product.

Saw this last week, just as it was becoming popular. I laughed. Glad to hear it's going viral, that can only increase awareness of the issue. And yes, teens seem to use, "that's gay," the way kids used to use the phrase, "that's stupid," or "that's gross," so this is good.

I understand the need to limit loss through shoplifting, but it seems these days every time I shop in a Wal Mart or a big box electronics store it's assumed I'm a criminal first, and only secondarily a customer. Try and find a clerk to help you with an item and you're wandering around forlornly with nary a employee in sight. But look even slightly suspicious and you feel like Truman from "The Truman Show": Everybody's watching. Then there's the stupid receipt checking on the way out, where they stop you, after paying, at the door and ask to see your receipt. Umm. no. This stuff is mine. I paid for it, and I don't really have time or inclination to let you folks paw through my stuff, treating me like an escaped serial murderer. So I usually breezily walk by pretending not to hear them. If they yell or chase me I can do a real good job of looking befuddled and confused (which is, after all, my usual demeanor) and leave them looking awkward for harassing the poor, confused customer.

I'm doing it wrong? That might explain a few things...

Some cultures eat dogs, and treat them as food animals. We do not. Are we right and they wrong? Because we see our beloved pets as family members? Or is this merely cultural differences. I see the idea of eating horse meat much the same way. Many (most) of us eat beef. And pork. And chicken. How some of these animals are treated before and during slaughter is highly suspect in some facilities. Pigs are more intelligent than both dogs and horses, so is seeing them as food when we don't consider dogs and horses the same way hypocritical? As to the wild horses issue, remember, all wild horses in North America are released (or escaped) domestic horses. Some decades or centuries ago. Horses are not native to North America, but rather domesticated from a wild version from somewhere around Mongolia. These ancestors of today's domesticated horse is believed extinct. Therefore, there are no truly wild horses, but just feral horses.

Yay!! Cooler heads have prevailed as a legion of angry parents and interested parties have convinced the school of the value of playing with balls! While the ban isn't completely lifted, once again the school will see balls in the playground. Here's a link to the story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/11/29/toronto-balls-banned-school.html It sounds like the school was slammed with quite the volume of attention. Reporters from countries all over the world were phoning, blogs and forums having anything to do with fitness and sports were abuzz, etc. I'll bet that school didn't know what hit 'em.

I hadn't seen that. Thanks, Des.

Remember, territory acquisition in any conflict is usually less about politics and more about resources. For the secessionist states to survive, even in the future, they need certain things. Think rare earth metals, natural gas, agriculture in the warmer climate of this future, etc. Kentucky has mining, lots of natural gas (clean energy) and agriculture, adjusted for global warming. Another reader asked, "Why Washington DC?" It has resources of a different kind, but important resources, some of them symbolic, nonetheless. As for vote tampering, well, yeah. :-) Thanks for all the comments, everyone.

From my understanding, most illiterate people are not 100% illiterate. They learn to recognize certain key words, especially important ones like at their job. They can't necessarily "read" them, but they recognize them, at least in certain contexts. Thus, they can learn to function in the modern world. Plus, pictograms are everywhere. Take a look around you, especially in public places like airports, train stations, your car's controls. Most are labelled with pictograms instead of words. Hilariously, even your computer keyboard probably has a few pictograms on it.

Khan Academy is an absolutely wonderful site. An amazing resource, especially if you're home schooling kids, or just want to brush up on something yourself. As Camy said, it's really one of the things the internet was invented for.

This is now the second complaint I've received about this. Hmm, I may just have to work something out...

Wow. I wanted to leave a long and heart-rending reply here to this touching story, but I just couldn't figure out what to say. Nothing was coming to me.

I can't claim to have 234 starts that I haven't finished, but I have a few, that's for sure. I'd agree with Chris. Sometimes time and random connections can make things work. I have one story that I'm working on right now. I began writing it well over a year ago, and then stopped. It just wasn't working, and I thought it was awful. Recently, while going through my documents folder, I came across it. Or, more accurately, I saw the working title of it, couldn't for the life of me remember what the heck it was, so loaded it up and read it. Turns out, it's actually quite good. Needs work, but good enough that I don't know why I ever thought it was awful. Then I realized exactly where it needed to go, and began writing that very moment. Finished a couple of pages before I realized it. So that's proof of what Cole and Chris are saying, writing begets ideas sometimes, rather than the reverse. So write! Just start typing. If you're truly stuck, don't try and expand your focus, instead, narrow it. If you can't think of an idea, narrow things down as much as possible. Look around you and start writing about an object you see in the room, or some trivial event at the checkout counter of the grocery store yesterday. You'll be surprised where that can lead.

When I was younger I loved the Dragonriders of Pern series. I remember being amazed at the details of the world she so adeptly created. Though later books in the series didn't have quite the same "oomph" as the first few, it was always a fun read. Anne McCaffrey died yesterday of a stroke. She was 85. A real loss for the world. And not just science fiction. Link: http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/8787/dragonriders-of-pern-author-anne-mccaffrey-dies.html

I too would encourage everyone who has ever thought of taking pen to paper - errr, fingers to keyboard - to sit down and give it a shot. You won't have anything to improve, to work on, to think about, to explore, to anguish over, until you actually have words in front of you. That's the first step. Then, post what you have and invite people to comment. Who knows? Maybe the next Ernest Hemingway or Stephen King is reading this right now. I know how difficult this is though. Both to start writing and to comment on others. I still feel rather inadequate when others ask me to comment on what they've written. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but at least internally I always think, "Me?! What the hell do I know? Ask a real writer." I know this has been discussed before in these forums, but there's a fine line indeed between honest self-criticism (leading to improvement) and being overly critical of ourselves. Take the risk. Every one of the writers on this board and others did that. One day, for as many differing reasons as there are writers, each one of us sat down as decided to see what they could do. See what would happen if they gave it a shot. Some came out with a real gem right off the bat. Most of us though, like myself, wrote something they didn't particularly like at first. Things that maybe never will see the light of day on any forum. That's okay. That's how it starts, that's how we learn. The important part is to be honest with yourself and look at what you've written with a critical (but not overly critical) eye. Let others take a look. Make improvements. Then, when you think you're maybe almost but not quite good enough, shut your eyes, tense up in fear, and hit that submit button. Even though you'll immediately think, "Oh no. What did I do? It's awful! Maybe I can send an email and just say, 'forget it,'" don't do that. Let it get read. You just may be surprised. Many of us, no matter how many stories we've submitted or what kind of reception they've got, still have that feeling every single time we hit the "send" button. It's all part of the fun.

Actually, Jeff and Dillon get invited to Buckingham Palace for tea and crumpets with the Queen. The End. No need to bother posting the rest of the chapters, Dude. Really, that's about it.

Being an apparent disciple of the "Bigger is Better" camp, I ended up buying a new tank. Of course, I didn't just get a replacement identical tank, I bought one about twice as big. That necessitated some considerable tank stand modifications to support the extra girth, so I spent my day yesterday at the lumber yard and in my garage with power tools in my hand (insert Tim Taylor grunting noise here). Fortunately I had enough of everything else (adequate filter, heater, substrate) that I didn't have spend yet more money on all that. Anyway, it's all up and running, and it's a beauty. And yup, the carpet shampooer killed the fish smell.

Holy crap what a beautiful Packard! And it looks like it's in almost perfect condition too. Though I'd hate to try and find parts for it.

I remember reading on article on this topic a year or so ago. In North America at least, the problem with recycled paper being used in the manufacture of toilet paper is that, on the open market, people won't buy it. It turns out that TP made from recycled materials doesn't have that thick, soft, fluffy feel that consumers demand. When there was recycled paper TP available, it didn't sell. So supermarkets et al stopped carrying it. I guess we're all a bunch of spoiled butts here. Not to mention, when the hell will we see bidets installed as S.O.P.?

It could have been worse. The fish tanks are downstairs in the finished basement. So the floor underneath the carpet is concrete. (Which is precisely why they're there.) I moved the unhappy fish into the other tank where they're overcrowded but at least immersed, and drained and moved the rebellious tank. Luckily, I also own a carpet shampooer so was able to use that to suck up the excess water and then quickly give the carpet in the area a shampoo to kill the lovely fish-water smell. Now I need to either fix the leaky tank (razor off the old silicone, find a tube of aquarium safe stuff, re-caulk, and let it cure for a couple days) or buy another tank. One costs money, the other time and effort, time that I'm not sure my overcrowded fish will have. So I guess either way my afternoon is all booked up.

A word to the wise: If you're planning on having your aquarium start to leak all over your carpet, try and schedule it for sometime other than 11:00 PM when you want to sleep and had a few drinks prior. It could have been worse. I could have been out of town for a few days or something I suppose.

I was more with blue than Cole on this one. I too was a geeky, bespectacled, non-athletic kid in junior high. I generally hated gym because of what it did for my psyche, for my self-esteem, and for my social standing. Such as it was. Not to mention the wrath of one particular gym coach. He and I never did see eye to eye, especially after one particular day, but that's another story. However. I liked dodgeball. I don't know why. But I did. It was one of the few games we engaged in that I felt like I could actually enjoy, and hold my own, and getting to throw balls as hard as I could at some of the other teams' bully types was just a bonus. As a result, it was one of the few times in gym where, when team captains were choosing players, I wasn't picked last. I didn't mind getting hit with the balls, they really didn't hurt all that much. And the fact I could catch them more often than have them bounce off of me was a small measure of revenge. The look in a bully's eye when he launched a missile at me, fully sanctioned by the coach, the administration, and the school board, and when instead of me cowering in fear I'd run towards it, catch it, and launch it right back at him was worth a thousand pathetic baseball games or volleyball games. Another sport I didn't mind so much was wrestling. Aside from the obvious opportunities, I actually got to be able to hold my own in it, and so was able to enjoy it. That was one that changed from hate to semi-enjoyment though. Originally, I felt about wrestling pretty much the same as I felt about most other gym activities. One particular day went a bit of the way to changing that. We had learned a bunch of theory that day, holds and counters and such, then were being asked to put them to the test. Unfortunately, in front of the whole class. The coach would pick two victims..errr...students, have them square off on the mats with the rest of the class watching, and then be asked to demonstrate the skills that were just taught. Naturally, I was picked and was squared off against a boy who was probably near the bottom of the list for boys who I'd want to face. At least the coach made sure he was roughly my size. Aside from that, he was, quite simply, an asshole. So as we stood there looking at each other, his buddies began "encouraging" him. Telling him to essentially turn me into a pile of quivering entrails on the mat. As usual, the coach let this go, because they were careful to keep the statements more or less in line with the activity, and were smart enough to not actually swear. I remember looking into his narrowed dark brown eyes, seeing him look me up and down, evaluate just how he was going to squeeze my internal organs out through my nostrils. And I remember feeling fear and panic turn into righteous anger and determination. And yeah, it did happen just like that. Like a story. One minute I was, "Oh, crap!" and the next I was, "Screw this, just try it you sonofabitch." Of course, if this was a story, I would've beaten him soundly, the cute boy I'd had an eye on would have come up to me in the locker room afterwards and by the next day we'd be boyfriends and all the bullies would have left me alone out of respect. In real life, that's not quite what happened. We wrestled, and struggled, and ignored all the moves were were supposed to be working on and instead just went at it, though both being careful to keep more or less within the rules. The coach, for whatever reason, just let us go. And it took some time, as such things go. But, he eventually pinned me, after a considerable struggle, and that was the end of it and the coach moved on to two other kids. But, though not much changed externally, it did change how I thought about wrestling. I realized maybe I cold hold my own. And yes, that particular kid didn't bully me much anymore, though it didn't change anything about his buddies. So there was that.