CritterKeeper

Poor Sarah's going to be wondering what's wrong with her, that all the guys she has the hots for or she thinks like-like her, are either gay or just want to be good friends.

Sunday was the second anniversary of my father's death. I was able to go home for the weekend to visit my mom, and we did stop by the columberia where his ashes are, but it wasn't the focus of the visit. I wasn't really sure if my mom would remember what day it was, as it was usually my dad who was best at remembering that sort of thing, but she did too. We talked a bit about their travels together, as well as family trips taken with all four of us. So, sad, but not in a bad way, if that makes sense to you.

More like frienemies. But enough is as good as a feast. Mary Poppins said it, and she's practically perfect, so it must be true!

No, no. T-shirts come after bumper stickers! Then buttons, and then hats are tied with posters, although certain political hats are endangering that ranking.

Both within two days? Ouch! I hope it wasn't something bad that took out both of them, although I guess I don't even know if that would be any worse or better. May you find comfort all the happy memories the three of you shared!

Hard to comment without seeing more of the conversation than just the last word of it....

Or extra-strong polymer heads, for players of Extreme Croquet. I first heard about it from Donna Andrews's marvelous Meg Langston mysteries, in this case No Nest For the Wicket. Each book's title has some sort of play on bird names, and each book also features a new event or hobby or obsession, such as weddings, revolutionary war reenactment, a computer gaming company, a giant yard sale gone out of control, and yes, Extreme Croquet. She's a great author and every book is a fun read. :-)

Check around for any prominent graffiti that translates to "Hello, Sweetie!" What many people don't understand, or don't want to believe, is that the Founding Fathers were afraid of too much democracy. It's the old saw about three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. The Tyrrany of the Majority. The Electoral College was meant to make the choice one step removed from the popular vote. Instead of voting directly for a candidate, we are supposed to vote for someone we admire and trust and think will make a good choice, and then let them decide who to actually vote for. The whole idea of a delegate promising to vote for one specific candidate and no one else is bringing the system back to the popular vote pretty much electing the winner directly, with a little bit of a slant in a couple of ways. Far too much power in the hands of the uneducated masses. I'm not sure how they would want things done if they were magically transported to the modern age, with its near-instant communication and fairly accurate polls, its sound-bite advertising and short attention spans. The current literacy rate is so close to 100% that they probably would consider it universal, and television, radio, and internet enable everyone to have access to vast amounts of information, but also exposes everyone to vast amounts of misinformation, with very little education in how to judge which of it is accurate, whose arguments are full of fallacies and whose are to the point and logical, how to tell if claims are backed up by truth or were pulled from someone's nether regions. There are plenty of books and videos out there about such things, but they get lost in the sea of crap. Maybe they would think there should be no pledged delegates, and candidates should be forbidden from promising to vote for someone in particular. Or maybe they would say, get rid of the Electoral College, the masses are smart enough and educated enough to make a much better decision than our masses would have been. Maybe they'd think that low voter turn-out was a good thing, people who didn't care enough or feel they knew enough to vote selecting themselves out of the process (quite likely with the mindset and attitudes of their day and age), or maybe they'd say the countries with mandatory voting have the right idea and everyone should vote in every election (which would also require everyone having the chance to vote, with either guaranteed time off of work, or a wide variety of ways to vote available over a long enough period of time that everyone really would be guaranteed a chance. It's an interesting intellectual exercise, but there's no real way to know, as scholars who have spent their whole careers studying the writings of the Founding Fathers disagree about what they would have thought or intended. I'm now picturing a Scandinavia and the World comic with UK having a bunch of foster/adopted kids running around, some of them teenagers wanting their own car and telling England "You're not my real father!!!"

Hooray for promise of the return of Q&A! I wonder how the Q&A Crew have been since we last saw them?

Maybe this is part of the test of the cave. Will the one who has always wanted a better figure be willing to give back the luscious curves, or will she keep a little extra for herself when the time comes to rebalance back to normal?

I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to find a woman badly in need of a breast reduction, but unable to afford it or too afraid of surgery. Only question is, can you make an exchange and then un-link without undoung the exchange? Or would you have to pick one person, and then carefully stash the scales somewhere they won't ever get jostled or knocked over?

So every post on this message board has a little bent-over butt in its lower right corner, and if you like what you see you express your approval by tapping that?

Ah, see, I knew for Norton I to be Emperor, there would have to be at least one or two other monarchs for him to rule over! Was the later U2 version really shut down too, or was that just a tribute to the Beatles? I'm thinking tribute but it's been a while and the memories haven't been reinforced in a while. And at least a couple of commedians quipped that it was a good thing he hadn't been an Underwear Bomber....little did they know! What a Scandal! Ah, yes, the dictionary that added "dalek" when I was a kid, providing more ammunition to my argument that Doctor Who is to England/UK what Superman is to America. Everyone has a general idea what you mean if you say the word "kryptonite" don't they? It says you're human -- believe me, there were some pretty awful jokes going around after Challenger and Columbia both, just whispered and guiltily snickered at while groaning and wincing. This was, of course, pre-social media; I shudder to think what posts and memes will result from the next tragedy. They say we're young, and we don't know; we won't find out until we grow. On February 2 in History...

D'awww, what a cute pair they make! Glad Baker is improving. He looks happy and sassy in the picture.

Years ago, the hometown gaming convention did a Dungeon Masters' Workshop every year, and the guys who ran it always had the best stories to illustrate their points, One guy told about how he'd taken a bunch of players who tended not to roleplay in favor of roll-playing, and he had each of them create a charscter who was a teenager, just leaving their family for the first time, be it to seek their fortune, escape a villain, search for enough gold or power to save their family, it varied. But he had each of them do a one-on-one session with him before the actual game, in which they roleplayed saying goodbye to all their friends and family. It really got them into character, and they followed those same characters through years of gaming and many levels. An example of the DM's sense of humor -- to keep them from roll-playing, the DM kept their character sheets himself, so they didn't even know their stats at first. One of the youngsters was a budding fighter, especially young and innocent. During his prep session, at one point he nobly declared, "I have the strength of ten, because my heart is pure!" The GM duly noted down the kid's STR as 10. (He was an untrained kid, he grew and trained, so it didn't stay 10.) The other thing your comment reminds me of is the current Team TARDIS, and most of the other Companions of the Doctor, who generally are completely unprepared when they have their first adventures. Some of them become much more prepared over time, some less so. Graham complained in an early episode about their having to leave a restaurant without lunch, with no plans of finding any anywhere else, which seemed to happen far too often. A few episodes later, he offers a hungry girl a sandwich, as he's taken to carrying a couple around, knowing he'll inevitably need one. :-)

Sarah, on the other hand, seems to feel that becoming a bisexual boy frequently has moved her further along the Kinsey Scale. And I'm not so sure that Elliot hasn't evolved in his gender and orientation thanks to his frequent transformations. Maybe everyone is really bi and fluid, and transforming helps them to realize this, but I hate absolutes and applying generalizations broadly. Or, maybe they were both very different from their initial self-image all along, and transforming just helped them realize it....although come to think of it I'm not sure how different those two positions are. I don't think Edward thinks anything about Tedd's being genderfluid, because I doubt Edward has ever heard of that term. Tedd only learned it a couple of weeks ago, and the younger generation tends to be much more savvy and accepting about gender and orientation issues and diversity than their parents. Edward says he's worried that frequent transformations aren't good for Tedd, and I think that's all Edward sees -- his son playing around with transformations, far more frequently than any non-Uryuom has before, maybe even more frequently than many Uryuom! Agreed. I could easily believe a storyline where Mamase has to save her daughter(s) from danger by using some sort of magic. It would make for a great reveal, and I can almost see the look on Nanase's face!

There's one big difference, the ignorant can learn. The transphobic think they already know, and thus have to unlearn a lot before they can learn.

Yeah, I'd much rather see politicians attacked for their policies and prejudices, rather than for silly mistakes like believing a card handed to him by a teacher must have the correct spelling on it. Their actual policies, mind you, not sound-bite strawmen.

Here's The Straight Dope on that idea....

Because the vast majority of scientists think nothing of the kind. The current warming is much faster than normal cycles. TOH already linked to the image I was going to suggest, perhaps more politely, that you look at to see what sort of difference we're talking about. If you look at the really long-term patterns, we should actually have started entering another ice age by now, so maybe it's not all bad that human activity put that off for a bit, but if we overshoot the mark and get too warm, then changes in ocean currents are actually likely to tip us into that ice age. We're on a knife's edge, trying to balance in the narrow band that will keep us in a livable climate. If you look at all of the changes humanity has made to things like the albedo (how reflective the surface of the planet is), by turning vast areas into farmland, redirecting the flow of most of the water on or near the surface, and paving over huge areas with buildings and roads, as well as altering the makeup of the very atmosphere, it would be pretty silly to think we wouldn't be having some sort of impact on climate.

It was probably in someone's cupholder in their car. I know I've forgotten drinks there. But pointing that out kinda steps on the joke in an unfriendly way.

Indeed. From the time women started having to wear skirts and cook over fires, to the time women no longer had to wear skirts around fireplaces, candles, wood-burning ovens, gas lamps, etc., burning to death was in a close race with childbirth for number one cause of death for women -- and given that it continued to be a hazard both before and after childbearing years, I think I believe the source that gave it the number one spot. Thank you for your discretion. I remember getting the news, during Language Arts (English) class in the South Attic classroom. Our desks were in a circle, only maybe a dozen subfreshmen in the class. Everyone not teaching or being taught had been in the library watching the launch of the much-hyped first teacher in space. One of those teachers came up to our class to tell us what had happened. I whispered "Oh my God" about a second before our teacher said the exact same thing, so that we overlapped. Everything else was silence. In hindsight, I feel for that poor teacher, having to spread such tragic news. Our parents knew exactly where they were when they heard Kennedy had been assassinated. This is what we remembered, indelibly burned into our brains. Think 9/11 if you're too young to remember the Challenger. And if you're too young to remember 9/11, I hope sincerely that you get to go a good long while before fate gives you a similar memory. Well, what a cheery Day In History....hope only happy things happened on 1/29!

Certainly not their usual behaviors, but also not outside of what's possible while still being themselves. I like it.

But the cake does!

A sticky wick, at that? Is the candle using something other than parafin?