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A number of years ago, my dad agreed to be the designated driver for the owners of the Ready-Mix concrete company he worked for and drove them to Toronto to see the Molson Indy, they didn't give him a ticket to sit by the track so he was just milling about outside waiting. At one point he got chatting with one of the security guys and the subject of why my dad was there came up and next thing he knew, he was being given a tour of the pits, got to see where the racers trailers were and such, basically a complete behind the scenes look. He figured he had a much better time that his bosses were.

I had a similar experience with a group of friends from an online message board about the TV show The Invisible Man back in 2001. We talked about the show, but also about other things, much like this board, and decided it would be fun to get together in real life. The show was filmed in San Diego, and the entire cast was thus available for Comic-Con, so we decided to all go to the convention and try to get into their panel together. Well, after arriving a couple of days before the Con so we could hang out together, one of the group who actually lived in San Diego revealed that she'd found a whole bunch of locations from the show, and planned out a walking tour of them. We had a blast. Thanks to the help of a then-minor character's actor, who had occasionally visited us online, we soon learned we were going to get to visit the actual studio, and tour sets that weren't in use and see some of the props. The crew we met were amazing, very friendly, and did little things like get out the rubber stamp they used to create the monitor tattoo the main character had on his wrist, and stamp all of our wrists with it! We were so happy just to get that close to the show we loved. We even got to see a couple of sets that gave away big spoilers for upcoming episodes. As we were finishing the tour, ready to go home happy, we then found ourselves coinciding with a break in filming, and suddenly we were talking with the stars themselves, just outside the stage they'd been filming in (any fellow fans may be amused to know it was Stage Five). It was only for five or ten minutes, but just imagine a small group of Trekkies getting to hang around with the actors playing Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov! ....and then imagine them getting to hang out on the bridge of the Enterprise set while they set up the next bit, and then watch them film it! In our case, it was the Keeper's lab. We took each others' pictures in the equivalent of Kirk's command chair, and I personally got the bonus of discovering that the binders sitting on a shelf weren't just empty props, they contained scripts. For episodes we hadn't seen yet. And I quietly read through one of them, not daring to attract attention by showing anyone else. And to top it all off, when they broke for lunch, they invited us to join them at Craft Services too! This time we were hanging out with them, actually sitting down to a meal with them, for more like half an hour. I don't think the Nerdgasm Happiness Meter can go much higher. They did everything short of putting us in the show itself, and I get the feeling the only reason they didn't was that the episode they were working on didn't call for anyone outside main cast. When we went to the show's panel later that weekend, the star mentioned our group, and we all held up our wrists with the tattoo, most of them colored in with Sharpies, in thanks. When they did what was supposed to be an hour-long autograph session, it was still going strong at the four hour mark. And a personal favorite, I got to meet the writer of some of my favorite episodes, and he said when he signed a script for me that it was his very first autograph! As you might be able to tell, even after all these years, it still makes me very happy just remembering that weekend. :-D

Pandora was angry with Edward because she thought he cut Adrian out of Tedd's life. But I don't believe Pandora has ever brought up Noriko. I may be channeling Agent Wolf now, but why is Noriko not dead now? A mother who deserts her own child? I think it's a reasonable conjecture that if Noriko didn't have another child, Noriko would be dead.

I've reached my like quota for the day, somehow. Consider this post liked.

Oh I Remember Private Snafu I think he was the first of Mel Blanc's characters to attempt playing "Those Endearing Young Charms".

Good luck! If Loudmouth urinates on the bed again, I'd take him in for bloodwork and a urinalysis, just in case. Better to find out early if it's actually a medical problem and not just behavioral. If he's got idiopathic cystitis, stress can trigger episodes, but anti-anxiety meds and/or pain meds can help a lot! Young cats, it's almost always not a bladder infection, but as they get older the odds of it actually being an infection go up. As for the Jackson Galaxy stuff, I find highly suspect any product line that boasts of how a product "helps release toxins and stuck energies in respiratory system." If a cat has parasites, I'd rather give them a dewormer I know will actually kill the parasites, rather than something that "helps clear energy imbalances that allow parasites to colonize the physical body." If my cat were declawed, I'd rather give them pain meds as they recover than spend my money on something that "helps "rebuild" energetic balance in the paws." If they're upset introducing a new pet, anti-anxiety meds are proven to have an effect -- you have to prove both safety and efficacy to get FDA approval, something none of these "flower essence" products has been able to achieve. I'll believe they work when I see the double-blinded clinical trial in a peer-reviewed journal! Hmm, maybe I'll have to redirect any further discussion to the Politics thread, although homeopathy and the like seem much more akin to religion....

You should consider driving a Cnadillac instead of a Fnord. It has a much better AC.

Your coffee maker is a self-aware AI. It passed the Keurig test...

You mean these?