Get up on your HIGH HORSE!

[Bekka Horror]

mint m&m's?

[zap]

ever notice how "everything" bagels are not actually EVERYTHING? Where are the raisins amidst all that salt and garlic? How about blueberries, and cheese? I mean, everything, ought to be....you know, everything..........anyway, Im just saying........

[Alexxia]

Originally posted by Bekka Horror
mint m&m's?
Yep! They're only sold around Christmas time here. My mum makes mint M&M brownies...yummy! I just wish they were sold all year.

[T'railmixx]

Ok saddle up Bonghead (high horse).

Whose brilliant idea was it to call the tenth month OCTober?
Why is it a pair of panties yet only one bra?
I could go on but Bonghead threw a rock.

[BlackThorn]

It was named October back when it was the eighth month, as were September (7th), November (9th), and December (10th.) Then the calendar was changed when two new months were added, July and August, displacing the final four months.

[T'railmixx]

Ok BlackThorn Smartypants.:D My horse is lower than yours.
But why didn't they add the new month at the end and call them unidecimber and duodecimber? and that still doesn't explain why we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway.

[BlackThorn]

Been a while since I looked at that end of history, but I think it had something to do with July and August being Summer months. Time of plenty and harvest. More of an honor to name months after rulers in times of plenty than in times of famine. I could very well be wrong on that, though. Been a while.


Hell if I know why we drive on parkways and park on driveways, but that has always annoyed the dren out of me.

[T'railmixx]

I'm impressed, or is that depressed. You are a wealth of knowledge.

How about:
Why does Hawaii have interstate roads?
Why do they call them TV sets and a pair of scissors, when there is only one of them?
Why isn't palindrome spelled the same backward.

[BlackThorn]

Originally posted by T'railmixx
I'm impressed, or is that depressed. You are a wealth of knowledge.

Am not. Just random junk in my head from a misspent youth. :D


How about:
Why does Hawaii have interstate roads?
Why do they call them TV sets and a pair of scissors, when there is only one of them?
Why isn't palindrome spelled the same backward.

How about:

Because they do.
Because they are.
Because it isn't. :ewink:

[T'railmixx]

Sounds like the answers I give my kids.

I know what you mean about useless junk; I know that the Devil's Hole pupfish lives only in a little pool in the Nevada desert, but I have my name written on my underware.

[BlackThorn]

:lol: Sounds like me. I can rattle off all sorts of useless things like titles of television show episodes (other than Farscape) in order, but I have to look at the datemark of my computer to know day of the week it is. Frelling Skiffy. I never had a problem knowing what day of the week it was when Farscape was on. Farscape Friday, all other days are sorted by how many days until the next new episode.

[T'railmixx]

:rollin: yep, five more days till Farscape, Frell gotta go to work:whip: exactly

[zap]

I want to save this thread! I think it serves a purpose, so, Im givin' it a little BUMP!

[BlackThorn]

Thanks, zapgun.

On that note, I'm breaking out my horse again.

I took my great dane to PetCo today for her her last training session. After the session was over, I was just walking her around the aisles, checking out goodies and toys for Christmas. An employee, a big adult man, walked around the corner pretty fast and startled my dog. She started barking at him, all the while wagging her tail furiously. She wasn't lunging at him or showing any sign of aggression. She was just being loud and enthusiastic from a safe distance. This guy slides to a stop and screams at me, "Keep your dog away from me!!!" Mind you, we were about eight feet away from him, and there was plenty of room for both of us to move around each other. And this guy wasn't yelling to be heard over the barking; he was screaming in anger and fear.

My horse says: If people are that intimidated by large, friendly dogs and are too blind to see such obvious signs of happiness, they should NOT be working at a place like PetCo!!!

[who45]

Originally posted by BlackThorn
Thanks, zapgun.

On that note, I'm breaking out my horse again.

I took my great dane to PetCo today for her her last training session. After the session was over, I was just walking her around the aisles, checking out goodies and toys for Christmas. An employee, a big adult man, walked around the corner pretty fast and startled my dog. She started barking at him, all the while wagging her tail furiously. She wasn't lunging at him or showing any sign of aggression. She was just being loud and enthusiastic from a safe distance. This guy slides to a stop and screams at me, "Keep your dog away from me!!!" Mind you, we were about eight feet away from him, and there was plenty of room for both of us to move around each other. And this guy wasn't yelling to be heard over the barking; he was screaming in anger and fear.

My horse says: If people are that intimidated by large, friendly dogs and are too blind to see such obvious signs of happiness, they should NOT be working at a place like PetCo!!!


Yeah, I agree.

[stellar]

Why I hate Pete Carroll
Rant by Stellar

First things first. Oklahoma should not be allowed to play for the National Championship because they didn’t win their conference. That said there’s a loophole in the system that allows them to do so. It happened in 2001. The BCS should have closed the loophole then, but they didn’t (I suspect it had something to do with Notre Dame not wanting to join a conference, but I could be wrong).

You live by the sword, you die by the sword.:fencing:

I felt for Pete Carroll, but I’m an LSU fan so I still root for the Tigers whoever they play. But I though Pete Carroll took it well… he didn’t complain at all… until the BCS announcement show and every waking second there after.:poke:

What does Pete Carroll do? He denies it’s happening. He says that the Sugar Bowl isn’t the real national championship because USC isn’t in it. This year he has declared the Rose Bowl to be the national championship game. :loser:

What does he not do? He gives NO respect to LSU or to Michigan. Apparently Michigan is just going to stand still during the Rose Bowl so USC can destroy them and claim their birthright and LSU is just some random team that the BCS formula came up with to cheat the Trojans out of a championship.:boom:

Imagine this: If Oklahoma beat Kansas State then LSU would STILL be playing them in the national championship because Notre Dame and Hawaii both lost. AP and Coach’s Polls would put Oklahoma at 1, USC at 2, and LSU at 3. BCS would put Oklahoma at 1, LSU at 2, and USC at 3. USC would still, no doubt complain, but they wouldn’t be able to claim the Rose Bowl as the national championship. Because it wouldn’t matter who won the Oklahoma-LSU game, whichever team won would be 1 in all three polls. Oklahoma would stay 1 in AP and BCS and Coach’s. If LSU won, they would jump to number 1 in the BCS, jump automatically in Coach’s because of the BCS contract and jump to 1 in the AP because a win over an undefeated Oklahoma would give them more than enough votes to jump USC.

But Oklahoma didn’t win, they lost and they lost big. Oklahoma dropped to 3 in the AP and Coach’s polls. But since they were so ridiculously far ahead of every other team in the BCS, they stay at 1 and LSU moves to 2 based on strength of schedule (amongst other things). Now there is one (and only one) possibility that on January 5 there could be a split championship. That scenario is USC beats Michigan in the Rose Bowl and Oklahoma beats LSU in the national championship Sugar Bowl; USC would get one-third of the national championship and Oklahoma would get two-thirds. If USC loses, it’s over… whoever wins in the Sugar Bowl is 1 in all three polls. If USC and LSU both win then LSU will jump USC in the AP because the two teams are only separated by 15 points on a thousand-point scale.

The long and short of it are this: Pete Carroll is suffering from some manner of psychosis that causes him to deny the truth: USC is the third best team in the country. He’d better be careful not to take the number 4 team, Michigan, too lightly or they’ll do to his Trojans what number 13 did to Oklahoma… and what number 2, LSU, is going to do to them Come January.

Geaux Tigers. :aok:

[samati75]

Originally posted by fermicat
I don't like the trend I see in the workplace of people turning nouns into verbs. Example: "task" being corrupted into "tasked" as in "I tasked him with that job last week." Friggin manager-speak. Awful.

The worst word? UTILIZE. Ugh! I had an HR nazi at my last job who used to throw that damn word around 3-1,000 times a day. Utilize the paper, utilize the phone... If I hear it now I will utilize a gun!

[samati75]

Originally posted by fermicat
I say yes, but a "private chick" may be referring to an older occupation....

Like a "private dancer"?

[fermicat]

Originally posted by samati75
Like a "private dancer"?

Something like that......

[samati75]

Originally posted by trinamick
I happen to have a monkey who also rides my trusty steed Kitty (that way when I summon him I can say, "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty"). Mogan David the monkey is cute, fuzzy & carries a pretty yellow banana in his right hand at all times. He is very offended by the monkey attacks going on and he doesn't know why monkeys have gotten such a bad rap. You're just jealous because you don't have a tail!

On a separate rant, all people who drive slow in the fast lane should have their licenses revoked and be forced to ride the bus indefinitely. Fast food ranks very high on my list of must-haves because it reigns supreme. If you want to eat those crappy sprouts, so be it. Leave me in peace with my chalupa so I can hear my arteries hardening!

Wherever we go, we bring the Monkey with us!" -Beastie Boys

[trinamick]

Originally posted by samati75
Wherever we go, we bring the Monkey with us!" -Beastie Boys

Amen to that! Mogan David & the Funky Monkey! :D

[stellar]

Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel.

[samati75]

lol Monkey word association game? Oh no.... don't even think of starting! I was musing aloud.

[trinamick]

Monkey See, Monkey Do

[fermicat]

sock monkeys!!!!!!!

(I just like 'em)

[trinamick]

chilled monkey brains

[stellar]

You have to cook the monkey's brains and then chill them. They don't tell you that, but it's important.

[fermicat]

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

[stellar]

If that phrase included "do no evil" I might lend it some credance. They suspiciously leave that one out though, don't they?

[fermicat]

Hhhhmmmmmmmm. Maybe the monkeys are smarter than they seem?

[trinamick]

Stellar, are you implying that monkeys do evil? You're treadin' on thin ice again, my friend! Mogan David's going to get angry - and you won't like him when he's angry!

[stellar]

They couldn't very well be dumber than they seem.

It is a well established fact that monkeys are inherently evil.

[trinamick]

:gasp: Bite your tongue, infidel!

See what you've done? Mogan David's gone ape-sh*t! You just bring out the bad in monkeys!

[stellar]

Don't you mean "mokey-sh*t"?

The bad in monkeys isn't difficult to find or bring out.

:D

[trinamick]

Spoken like a true monkey bigot! :ppbb:

[fermicat]

First frogs, now monkeys. Well, everyone's got an opinion.

[trinamick]

Yeah, but Stellar's just wrong.

Monkeys only hate him because he spanks them. :banana:

[stellar]

:rollin:

Then why don't chickens like me?

[NYPinTA]

Because you refuse to cross the road? :huh:

[trinamick]

Originally posted by stellar
:rollin:

Then why don't chickens like me?

:spew: :roflmao:

That is just wrong on SO many levels!

[stellar]

If that's wrong... I don't want to be right.

[samati75]

COMPLAINT: Air-conditioning in my office in December! I can't make the fingers do the typing. Gah!

[NYPinTA]

Ok- You know is really wrong: At busy intersections when TPTB finally decide to widen the road to allow for another lane and they turn it into A RIGHT TURN ONLY lane! What the F***!?!?
Right turns are the easiest thing to do at an intersection and not what holds up traffic. Know what does? LEFT TURNS!! So, why don't these (SWEAR WORD HERE) put in a left turn only lane? I do not understand. Instead, when I want to go straigt I have to wait for the guy in front of me who needs to turn left while people who are just pulling up to the intersection to turn right go on their merry way. Its annoying to say the least. (Especially if there are two lanes on the other side as well. Because then the person making the left has no chance in hell that it will clear so he can go until the light starts to turn and hopefully no one on the other side runs it, so he can go!)
ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG.

Edit: So stellar could tell I was swearing. ;)

[stellar]

I think there's something wrong with your keyboard... your letters are coming out as asterisks, and-symbols, etc.

I'd check that out.

[samati75]

lol turn only lanes that don't inform you of the fact until you are on top of the corner with no chance of getting over! There are tons of those here. They are also widening I-4 and instead of making four lanes, you guessed it, they are all exit only lanes!

[samati75]

New day, same g.d. airconditioner! It's 57 frelling degrees outside! Crack a damn window! [/rant]

[VBKatLou]

Originally posted by samati75
New day, same g.d. airconditioner! It's 57 frelling degrees outside! Crack a damn window! [/rant]

samati75 - you call that a rant? It has to be at least 3 paragraphs to be considered a rant. And I don't care how cold you're fingers are. :rollin:

It's 27 degrees in Ohio today. 57 would be a heat wave. :cool:

[trinamick]

57 degrees is shorts weather in NE. It's snowing again here, and has been since last night. I ran out to the car without a coat, but beyond there, forget it! I think it's about 14 degrees right now.

On a separate gripe, my boss has a teakettle that he heats up water for his gross instant coffee in. It plugs in, but takes awhile to heat up, so he gets on the phone while he's waiting. Then I get to sit and listen to the sucker chirp, squeal, whistle, screech for 20 minutes as the water boils away before he ever gets back to it! I already have a headache from this stupid flu crap that won't go away, and that sound is burrowing into my skull! AAAAAUUUGGGHHHH!

Ok, well, his secretary just went and unplugged it. So much for my rant - easy come, easy go.

[zap]

bump

[fermicat]

Sigh.

I just spent about 30 minutes writing up a BIG HUGE HONKIN' rant about trying to buy an airline ticket and something happened when I tried to post it and it was lost. And now, even though I am still stewing about how the airlines are just a bunch of lowlife BASTARDS, I just don't have the energy to write another vent about it. I'm spent. Maybe tomorrow ('cause I will probably still be mad when I check ticket prices again for about the 20th day in a row).

Darn it. This was completely unsatisfying (and I still don't have a ticket).

[Lord Loser]

If it makes you feel any better, when I write a thome in response, I always "ctrl-c" it before I submit my reply. I too have learned this the hard way...

[KellEy.. "red"]

i'm sure my high horse and i will be riding in later on tonight to voice a few complaints... err.... well, yeah, complaints...

stay tuned... ( i just KNOW you're all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting..)

[Frellster]

Boy, does it look cold outside. Stopped snowing though. My office was cold, but I lost my job last week (not fired, they just finished up the account I was working on and didn't get the new one), so I've heated my apartment to 75 degrees. Ahhhhhhh luxury.

[RustySlinky]

I originally had a huge *Walmart Bashing* post here, but I decided to delete it because I need to stay away from this site, so I can sleep more to perform better at work, so I won't get fired.

[fermicat]

Yesterday I had to go to Rochester for the day on a business trip. So I spent a lot of time sitting around in airports. Unfortunately, I also had to use the airport bathrooms most of the day. This was unfortunate not because of the state of cleanliness (which was generally good), but because of the idiotic design of the bathrooms, and especially because of the dang automatic flush function of said toilets.

Automatic flush should be a good thing. No touching anything required, and no one should be confronted with an unflushed mess in the bowl. In practice, however, at least in the women's bathrooms, automatic flush drives me frelling crazy. Why? Because it always flushes when I don't want it to, and hardly ever flushes when it would be appropriate.

For those of us who can't pee standing up without soiling ourselves and our clothing, there are basically two options. One can hover in a semi-squatting position over the toilet to do one's business, or one can clean the seat, line it, and sit on the lining. Actually there is the third option - just sit on it regardless of its condition - but that one is too gross to even thing about. I'm not a big fan of the hover position, although I will do it if the toilet is really awful and even a paper lining would not be enough protection. So that means wiping, lining, and sitting. This activity apparently confounds the automatic flushing mechanism so that it tends to flush just after you've completed your preparation and are ready to sit. The flushing process usually results in a few drops of splash water on the seat, forcing you to redo the seat prep - which generally causes another flush to happen. This can go on for several cycles. Maybe even indefinitely. But if you are lucky enough to get through the prep stage and sit down, you are not out of the woods yet. No. If you are really lucky (and luck seems to be with me frequently) the toilet will decide it is time to initiate a flush while you are sitting on the clean, lined seat doing your business. So you have to jump up suddenly to avoid getting splashed. And if you've already started to pee, you must stop and redo the preparations, or continue in the hover mode. It is just damn annoying, either way.

And then, when the comedy of errors is over and you have relieved yourself, when you have stood up are ready for the toilet to flush, inexplicably the toilet will not flush. No reaction to your having removed yourself from the proximity of the motion detector. Nothing. So you wave your hand in front of the detector. And then do it again. And again. No flush. Nada. So then you have to find the manual flush and do it yourself, thus negating the advantage of having had an automatic flush function.

Now, when you are using an airport toilet stall, generally you will have some small baggage with you. When traveling alone, you have no one you can leave it with on the outside, and you can't leave your stuff unattended because it could either be stolen or removed by the security team as a threat. So a lot of us have to schlep it all in the stall with us. And the stall doors (except for handicapped stalls) invariably open inward, making it nearly impossible to maneuver you luggage in there and get the door closed. Once you are in, there is only about a 50% chance that there will be a place for you to hang your small bag(s). That's right - you are left with a choice of holding them while you pee or placing them on the yucky, germy, dirty floor.

It's enough to make one want to give up liquids.

[stellar]

You're an optical engineer. Put a sheet of toilet paper over the infra-red emmiter on the toilet... or is it built in to the wall?

[fermicat]

Originally posted by stellar
You're an optical engineer. Put a sheet of toilet paper over the infra-red emmiter on the toilet... or is it built in to the wall?

The designs vary. I've seen both varieties.

[stellar]

OK... TP should block the emmiter. You could also carry duct tape with you in your purse, but that's likely to get you a full-body cavity search. :lech:

[fermicat]

It shouldn't take an engineer's tinkering to get the desired functionality though. Do the designers of such devices really think women just plop down on a dirty public toilet seat? Ewwww!

[La Bomba]

Originally posted by fermicat
Yesterday I had to go to Rochester for the day on a business trip.

Rochester, NY? If so, sorry I missed ya. And sorry aboout the snow.:D

[stellar]

Originally posted by fermicat
Do the designers of such devices really think women just plop down on a dirty public toilet seat? Ewwww!

No... but the lean-to-flush has to be built in to the design for the courtesy flush parameter.

[NYPinTA]

Could be the flux capacitator.

[fermicat]

I've got your flux capacitor right here!

[trinamick]

So, yesterday was a bee-you-tee-full day in my part of NE (the part closest to hell). The sun was shining, just a light breeze, birds were chirping in the trees, etc. It was 72 degrees! So I was getting a bit of spring fever and was antsy all day, wishing I was outside instead of being stuck at a desk. No such luck.

Now this morning, I expected more of the same, since our weatherman had sworn on his mother's grave that it would continue. I put on sandals and stepped out without a coat only to find that it was 34 FRELLING DEGREES! The wind is blowing at about 30 mi/hr, and the sky is totally black. Of course, I have to make several trips outside today, and I have a wonderful 4 block trek to the courthouse in the freezing cold!

Every time weathermen make a bad prediction, they should be stripped naked and locked outdoors...

[fermicat]

72!?!?! I hope that little piece of heavenly weather is headed east to us!

[RustySlinky]

I got my first day off of work in two months, so I'm finally gonna let it rip today. :banana::banana::banana:

==============================================
Having worked minimum wage type jobs for years, I think of Walmart as a banshee that exists to suck the youth and life out of many of their employees, then cast them away when they are too broken or sick to work anymore for near minimum wage. I do not believe that a legal wage, a market wage, an ethical wage, and a retirement wage are necessarily the same thing.

I'm still actually all over the ballpark on this Walmart issue. I think the answers to this problem are going to have to come from many different areas, and there is no easy solution.

-----

I don't know if this is still true or not, but around 10 years ago, some of us learned in school that the modernized world had a minority of the world's population, but consumed the lion's share of the world's resources.

Based on this idea, I would have to ask myself questions like, well for instance:

"What would the average american lifestyle be truly like if all the world's resources WERE distributed evenly across the Earth's entire population?"

"Is the classic *american dream* a one time phenomenon that was never really meant to last, like the high tech internet bubble?"

"Sure, americans back in the 1900's did not have modern electronics, fast cars, etc. but were they any less happier than we are today?"

"What gives me the right to drink soda every day while most of the Earth's population drinks just water?" Are there any other facets of my life that are more like "wants" than actual "needs"?

-----

But to analyze this from another perspective altogether, what makes a market-driven economy work, I think, are well-educated savvy consumers who know enough about what is good for them.

For example, take the issue of fast food. Now, the fast food industry will never go away, and it is a legal industry too. But there are enough people out there who understand that eating too much of that stuff is very bad for them healthwise. And because of that, healthier alternatives like *Fresh Choice* and *Boston Market* manage to flourish.

So I think that some form of education is necessary, and I believe that Government can play a powerful role in this, just like they did with the environment and with smoking. The middle-class people most likely to shop at Walmart are actually among the ones most likely to suffer in the future. And they need to be able to understand and visualize the future consequences of their collective market actions. We can't stop everyone from shopping at Walmart, but an impact can still be made.

I think voters need to understand that one way or another, the american people are literally "paying" in some way to subsidize Walmart's behavior - either in the form of higher taxes --> more government assistance for the poor -

- or more importantly, in the opportunity-cost of wasted human potential, which is really hard to quantify with money. -


-----

Instead of leveeing tariffs on Walmart or hiking the minimum wage (both actions that I do support) Walmart could be required to contribute to the community in other ways, like offer scholarships, or be required to purchase inventory from local businesses maybe. (Just trying to throw some ideas out. If you have anything better, please feel free to chime in.)

I don't think that some workers understand that their lives may be on a slow path to nowhere when they persist with Walmart. Maybe the Government should require Walmart to print a "Surgeon General's Warning against Prolonged Exposure" on every job-application that Walmart hands out.

-----

Yet another perspective:

I have heard that the Chinese and the Indian wages, standards of living, etc. are creeping upwards now, though mostly in the big cities.

Both cultures have also historically been well able to look after themselves. The Chinese in particular will be very able competitors in the marketplace, once they achieve parity.

Right now, Walmart can supply China with badly needed jobs, But I think that the one thing that the Autocratic Chinese Government is really serious about, is economic growth, and raising the overall standard of living. I have a hunch that Walmart (if it doesn't change it's greedy ways) is going to find itself no longer welcome, once the Chinese no longer need them, or have better *home-grown* alternatives for stimulating growth.

--------

http://www.farscapefantasy.com/video/music_videos8/farscapeweb.mov

[fermicat]

Need to rant. :irate:

Why is it that you make a doctor's appointment for a specific time, but you almost always have to sit in the waiting room for at least 15 minutes? I HATE that. What purpose does it serve to have everyone show up a half hour before they can be seen? Why can't they get the schedule right?

Two recent examples --

Today I had a 10:30 appointment for a vaccination shot. At 11:05, I finally got in and got my shot, which took all of about 90 seconds total. Why didn't they just tell me to come in at 11:00????? I realize emergencies happen and yada yada yada, but the wait is long EVERY dang time. About 5 people who came in after me got in ahead of me (probably for different providers, but STILL...).

A few weeks ago I had a 9:30 appointment for a blood test. They didn't call my name until 10:20! Again, lots of wasted time sitting in the germ pool of a waiting room. Grrrrr. The blood test took less than 5 minutes.

[Jeff O'Connor]

Try being on medicaid with those things. Usually a 10:00 appointment or checkup makes it about 12:30. And then there's the cab on the way there and back. And those things take forever if they know it's Medicaid because down here, Medicaid pick-ups mean the company gives them like half of what they'd get from an actual paying passenger.

[Madre Farbot]

Looks like you've had two raw deals in quick succession. Sorry to read about that fermicat. I think one of the worst things about hanging around and staring into space is not catching the other guy trying to stare into your space!

I've been quite fortunate while waiting around for blood tests. Normally, you would hang around for a bit, if there are plenty of staff around, get your blood test done, and then hang around for at least an hour for the results. But, having stated that, a little while ago I had ten blood samples taken from me arm and was told I'd have to wait between 4 - 6 weeks! :rollin:

[zap]

I just gotta climb up on Chesty and say..................it gripes my ass when mods of bboards I participate on have fouler mouths than mine! I'll have yall know, in RL I have a filthy mouth, worse even than a truck driving sailor, but lately, the mods here (how I love yall) have really shown me what a potty-mouth is all about. Frickifrack shilling pooflop flappinbsmakdad moogoabooga frellBOT! There!

And another thing.........John Kerry DOES look like Herman Munstaer, and GWBush DOES look like a chimp! They both suck.

[RustySlinky]

While watching *Star Trek* yesterday, I finally figured out that the name "red-shirts" referred to how the crewmen that die in every episode usually wore the red shirts.

I also figured out that I hadn't realized this before, because I had been watching TV on an old black and white TV set until 1993.

I can't help but think that some things (like Star Trek) looked more *Science-Fiction-ey* in black and white, and are better left that way.

(Er, WAS *Star Trek* originally in black and white ???)

I know that the movie "The Exorcist" wasn't filmed in black and white, but seeing it on a black and white TV, uninterrupted by commercials, late at night, all alone in an isolated house out in the country, with the sound turned way up, and sitting close enough to where the TV screen fills up your entire field of vision, was still quite a "thrill". :eek:

[zap]

(Er, WAS *Star Trek* originally in black and white ???)

Yes, it was filmed in glorious technicolor!!!! Supersaturated, bordering on psychadelic, full color goodness!

[AgentSun]

YES! and everything had the wonderful psychadelic shade of mustard yellow, deep orange, and burgundy! i was surprised there wasn't any shag carpeting, though i think kirk would have had his own secret love pad with shag carpeting, a disco ball, and some 8 tracks. all museum items of course.

[zap]

and oneof those egg chairs with the speakers inside.....and a purple lava lamp, those were cool........the shag carpet would have to be lime green though

edited to add PANELLING! It would have to have panelling to be truly psychadelic bachelor pad in the cosmos man, like far out!

[AgentSun]

yes, the paneling. it's got to be very mod.

[Stunner McFleap]

Our Own Country

THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO
by The Editors of The Stranger

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country.

And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are hate-mongers. Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples. Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. Dumb? The Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money on building new roads rather than public transit.

If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming majority of the American popuation chooses to live in cities. And John
Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic majority.


*

In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class, race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be.

*

To all those progressives, liberals, and Democrats who live in cities, we say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to and build on its base.

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas. Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.

When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams, thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for those politicians, it no longer matters to us.

Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages, offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible, out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal- Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.

We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will, however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.

We officially no longer care when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.

We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and the states we control.

*

The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid. And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by
their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.

Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid (behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about $2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for
which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount, or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way, not come to cities begging for handouts.

*

You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill.
__________________________________________________ ______________

Break Away

If at first you don't secede

Feeling they've lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals are turning to an unfamiliar philosophy: States' rights.

By Michelle Goldberg

In the days after the election, fantasies of blue-state secession ricocheted around the Internet. Liberals indulged themselves in maps showing Canada gathering the blue states into its social democratic embrace, leaving the red states to form their own "Jesusland." They passed around the scathing rant from the Web site Fuck the South, which lacerated the chauvinism of the "heartland" and pointed out that the coasts, far from destroying marriage, actually have lower divorce rates than the interior.

These sentiments were so pronounced that they migrated into the mainstream. Speaking on "The McLaughlin Group" the weekend after George W. Bush's victory, panelist Lawrence O'Donnell, a former Democratic Senate staffer, noted that blue states subsidize the red ones with their tax dollars, and said, "The big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government."

A shocked Tony Blankley asked him, "Are you calling for civil war?" To which O'Donnell replied, "You can secede without firing a shot."

http://www.freewillastrology.com/

[Shipscat]

Our Own Country? Not a good idea..the country needs to come together, rather than farther apart, and there are MORE OF THEM than there are of us...the rural areas do encompass more people altogether, if spread farther out.

[RustySlinky]

It could have been a usual day, skating to the bus stop on the way to work.

But it wasn't meant to be, cuz' of a sudden my skateboard flies one way and I go flying the other.

And the cause? A tiny palm tree seed. Of course, a long-board with 70-mm poly-urethane wheels would of handled it, but see, that's for another thread -

-----

But ok, to count-up all the ways in which Palm Trees SUCK:

1. Boy are these things butt-ugly: A masculine protuberance jutting straight out of the ground, with that feminine tufty-wisp at the very top.

2. Totally ancient these Palms are, on the evolutionary scheme of things, definitely not as advanced as the shapely Oak or the majestic Elm - definitely not this year's model.

3. Useless are palms, providing little shade in the hot summer, when compared with Maples: And providing little cover in the winter rain, when compared with California Redwoods.

4. A safety hazard in the winter wind Palms are. One must keep an eye out for those massive falling leaves, lest they get hit by one on a stormy day.

5. Their leaves are always brown and half dead out here in the dry California sun. Like there's not enough rain in the summer to keep them green or something.

6. Even the native wildlife shun the Palms: The robins, squirrels, coons, and possums. Only the turd-bombing Pigeons seem to like hanging-out in the giant palms here.

7. Palms are very expensive when compared with native saplings.. Instead of wheelbarrows and shovels, Trucks and Cranes often must be used to move and plant them.

8. Compared with the local drought-resistant Scrub Oaks and Digger Pines, Palms guzzle water.

-----

Yet despite all the evidence against palm trees, why must Cities keep insisting on planting these monoliths of tax-payer funded waste?

Ooh, Lookie!!! An *emminent-domained* new shopping center with all new Palm Trees!!! . . . ::eek:

Er. . . Must . . . Shop . . . There. . . Now. . .