What? You were expecting more like last time's finale? Sorry, that was a one time offer that's now expired.

those magazines still available...

I love talk shows. Not Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer is not a talk show. It's Pay Per View Boxing, surely.

Laura's porn name
Mine would be Katie Carriage!!
Aaah. Shame it's not Katie Cartridge, coz then she might get a newsreporter's credit on weaver.radio...

And you romance novelists name is your middle name and your mom's maiden name.... Catherine Sobota!!
James Rae.

Naah. Makes me sound like an artist.

Roy postulates
Of course one cat has one more tail than no cat.
A Manx cat writes: I have no tail. That's a bit of a counter- example for your theory, isn't it?

This quote just in from the President of the USA
"Serious crime has now fallen for six years in a row."
Hmm. Would that include such serious crimes as, to pick one at random, perjury?

Angela
No man (excuse me- pc here- no PERSON) is an island
Unless his name is Lewis, of course. Or Sheppy, or Long...

ACutler's fave movies
Circle of Friends. I want to be like Benny:)
But does the tape work now, or is there a different ribbon of plastic in the box?

I know that i'm better looking than I was at 17 if thats a worry.
What she's not saying is that there was scarcely room for betterment from that point. How it's managed is a mystery, but it's happened.

Cheeky Wombat
I never liked the non-compulsory voting thing...
To be frank, I've never been impressed by compulsory voting. Stinks too much of the state forcing itself into another aspect of its citizens' lives. What's your take?

Emily
how can they force you to vote?
By fining people who don't go to the polling station. Technically, they can fine people who spoil their papers, but that's not worth the legwork. Even so, not fining those who never turn up might be even cheaper...

Tracee
Do we still discuss MSCL?
Indeed we do. And welcome back.

Sasha again
"I'm so hungry I could eat the crotch out of a dead leper's undies!"
"Would you pass the caviare please, mater, as I am slightly in need of a little tiffin."

On wearing sunhats
I do not consider this in the least bit nannyish. It is not controversial - no parents object. It is common sense.
Common sense, yes. A sensible move, yes. But to make it mandatory, even by the back door, is worrying.

what other ways do you think the Australian government has been nannyish?
The compulsory voting, as noted above. And the denial of voting rights for prisoners - innocent prisoners - on remand. The insistance that anyone riding anything must wear a helmet - be it a horse, a moped, a bike, or a scooter. In general, there seems to be a lot of treating grown-up people as though they're incapable of making sensible decisions for themselves.

Sara
fathers can't really get annoyed with the mothers,
They do, though, don't they.

and they might treat their children a little better
Equally, they might resent their children, and be more prone to take out their frustrations on them.

Besides, the State forcing their views onto other people is just treating grown-up people as though they're incapable of making sensible decisions for themselves.

Dogs are my worst fear, it's true;

a sportis is a small, portable ticket machine, that can print a ticket to any station in the uk, so long as someone knows the three letter code for it. ticket issuers rarely know anything other than what's pre-programmed in.

Andrea
To everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving, have a good one.
For those who don't, have a nice weekend.
Thanks for the wishes. I think it could be a good weekend.

Jill
I am one of the few girls at my school with nasty red hair
This is a contradiction in terms. Red hair cannot be nasty. Anyone who says otherwise will be invited to try and pull a fast one over Shaggy and Scooby.

#Pikestreet is a place for all of us to chat on IRC. not a real club.
Mmm, well, maybe it is real. Depends on whether you're prepared to count a hyperspace construct such as #pikestreet as a real club, or a virtual club, or just a loose congregation of people.

~Laura
My entire collection is probably 90% female artists
Maybe not the case for me, but I have one Doc Martens box of womyn CDs, another of various artist compilations, a box nearly full of ambient and dance tracks, and a box of male rock and film and tv soundtracks. So, I'll be about 60% female, 38% male, 2% teletubby.

Gopher
I put on ELO's Mr Blue Sky
For ten pop points: what is the distorted message at the end of the song? Answer at the end of the post.

OK, if you're passing on a message saying that we "have" to see this, do we have to see all the other people who have seen it as well? 16 screensful of heritage guff, all for one URL.

The new Billboard charts are out, and they make rather interesting reading. If you're into that kind of thing. Look for "Iris", new at #9, "Thank You" debuting at 17, some "Hands" come on at 24. And, set for a massive run with an entry at #47, it's Natalie Imbruglia with the most-played record into my ears this year, "Torn".

The answer to the quiz: "Please turn me over".

See you tomorrow in real life, later if not.

Brum: showers & 12 * burn baby burn

Sasha
All dentists are evil. Nothing will convince me otherwise,
Especially that well-known top dentist, Mr Rinsanzpit. [gargle-gargle-gargle-phut!]

Strewth! Sasha is a fair-dinkum bonza shelia
My word! Natasha is, indeed, a distinctly attractive young lady.

Angela
For a short time the drinking age was 18 but this proved so disastrous in increased teenaged drunk driving deaths that the age was quickly put back up to 21.
Let me just get this straight. Teens drink, teens drive, teens get involved in smashes. But rather than educate against the problem, or make it more difficult for teens to drive, the Powers That Be just up the age. So that they can make add another crime to the charge sheet? This is not a logical way to tackle the problem. Try: education, education, education.

Eric adds the comment
Generally the problem is cause by some small percentage of people who screw everything up for the others.
Indeed, they're generally known as pressure groups. Small-minded, obsessed individuals who want to stop other people from enjoying themselves, or otherwise enjoying their liberty.

My name is Lisbeth, I'm 23 and from Denmark
Greetings, Lisbeth, this is Iain from the UK.

what do you think about Dawson's Creek? Do you think the show would have ever been created if it wasn't for MSCL
To answer this, we really need to figure out if the current crop of media events targeting the teen girl market would have taken place in a world without MSCL. My take is that it would, as a logical step on from the cinematic successes of such movies as "Waiting to Exhale" and "How to Make an American Quilt". MSCL's contribution was to really show that the market existed and could be tapped.

Right now, we have "Party of Five" dying on its feet, "Dawson's Creek" moving out of its honeymoon phase, "Buffy" still going strong, "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" performing respectably and "Felicity" off to a good start. I think the US market is near saturation for this tv market.

Jill
I love Jewel too!!! I should be getting the CD for christmas.
Well, I suppose I'll be #35 (or so) on that list. Only, the album isn't released in the UK till next year. A quick kick in the direction of an online music store has allowed me to beat the rush, just as it did for Faith Hill's album some months back.

ACutler (welcome back)
Yes I am happy. Finally.
Jolly good.

I don't think its true that theives, cheats and liers find a way to make themselves happy - otherwise more people would be happy.
Mmm, you've managed it rather well, though.

The only cheat that I know has professed that hes not happy
Isn't there a little need for confering with the person in the mirror before making such a statement? Anyway, this is what comes of not following a thread from the beginning. Leafing back through the archives, we see the original post on this topic.
now i'm quite happy with my life

And sometimes [..] cheating comes from a need for something - love, friendship, a way out of the life they are in.
Yet cheating remains wrong, wrong, wrong. There's no other way to resolve it.

Sasha
The only item that is compulsory in every primary school in the country is a hat - Aussie sunlovers coping with the trouble of a rather large hole in the ozone layer.
Nope, it's another example of the nannyish mentality of the Aussie government. It's even more molly-coddling and cotton-wool than Nu Labour Nu Regulations.

do i have to spell everything out? it's always cloudy here!

Boys' hair may not touch their collar.
So short pony-tails are OK, then.

Mark draws a conclusion
I actually found that story offensive.
Looking through my archives for another angry post from Mark. And, er, I've not found one on the mail-list archives. Make of that what you will.

And now, a word from E. Scrooge:
Christmas. Isn't that, like, over a month away? Haven't we got far more important things to get through yet, like National Snigger At Dallas Day (26 November). National Punch A Bus Driver Day (2 December). National Zippedydoodahzippedy Day (11 December) National Cucumber Day (15 December) The Winter Solstice (22 December). National Buy A Lot Of Videos Coz The Telly's Crap Day (1 January - 31 December). [That's Quite Enough 4-2 Day - ed]

Seriously, though, Christmas starts way too soon. Come back in around a month's time, maybe I'll be a little more festive then. No promises, mind.

However, with a gleam in my eye, Angela
Here are my fave Christmas tips!
If one wishes to bake
One really should think about getting out more. I mean, think of all the time you could be doing something constructive, like feeding a garden fence, or whitewashing the neighbour's cat.

Chinese on Christmas?
Certainly beats turkey, any day. Or you may wish to go veggie; Sainsbury's spinach lasagne comes highly recommended.

I love using candles all over the house but have always hated digging wax out of those little candle cups. Solution?
Put a torch in their place. No chance of roaming toddlers or favoured pets setting fire to themselves.

It's fun to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
It's even more fun to sing it on his real birthday, Sept 15.

lots of carols
Carol Thatcher, Carol King, Carole Channing, Carol Chell, Dina Carrol...

stock up on Kleenex
You never know when drunk Uncle Bert might start doing his karaoke version of "My Way", and something to stick in his gob will always be useful.

remember what Christmas is for.
Taking the rise out of people who commercialise it.

one such narrow christian informed me that my future posts were now going to /dev/null. coincidence? i think not.

~Laura
They have put up decorations at the mall across from my office
Shouldn't they be playing Thanksgiving muzak at this time, and leaving the tinsel and baubles till next month?

Sara, on Wisconsin's imposition into people's lives
the mother really has no choice about it.
weaver makes mental note that Wisconsin really is an obnoxious place, and will never cross into its territory. Failure to allow people to enter into their own arrangements is so wrong as to be off my scale.

Jenny JOnes came on instead of Chris Evans radio show..so I just naturally assumed that it was taken off the air.
If only! If only! Why don't they show something interesting, like Vintage Pages From Ceefax.

they have released some kind of video that shows Bill and MOnica have sex on it.
"They" being Fake Videos Inc, I expect.

Thats'a ll I know, since they were talking about it on tv the other day..and i only came in for the last part of the show.
When I see footage on BBC News 24, and not on WOK1, I'll give it some credence.

On hunting,
I don't like the thought, and I would never do it myself.
Ah, now that's your choice, and you're free to exercise it. What gets me worked up is the imposition of that world view on other people, who disagree with it.

The porn name thing. I'd be Goldie Palmers, which might say something. Top Radio 2 DJ Paul Gambiccinni, under slightly different rules, came up with the most memorable porn name: Pixie Kubrick.

Speaking of Top Radio 2 DJs, congrats to Kate Winsomemore and (er) Mr Kate Winsomemore on their happy day. The bride looked like someone wearing a slightly dodgy white dress, and the groom looked totally anonymous. And they all went off to the pub and had bangers an' mash afterwards. I like their style!

yes, this is messy. no, i'm not going to remove it, because i stand by every single word.

"attachment" here means that he will profess his undying love for her and umm with other people.

After I broke up with Iain
Something Alison briefly tried, didn't follow through and has now abandoned without a response to the rebuttal.

I told him I was suddenly afraid of men and he equated it with his fear of dogs.
Utter balderdash. Dogs are my worst fear, it's true; but that was only to show how puny and insignificant mine was, and how much weight I attach to a fear of half of humanity. Any other interpretation is totally wrong.

I became more serious about it when I broched some of the problems I was having int he relationship and was told that he'll change when he moves to another country.
The problems being related to being British. Now, I have no intention of being one of those expats who insists on the best Darjeeling and cream scones for afternoon tea. Change my surroundings, and see my actions change a lot. There will be some impact on the internal me, as well.

Now, I've been trying to negotiate a settlement without getting the lawyers involved. But, as it appears I'm talking to a brick wall, I may be left with no other viable option.

why hes being unfair in his comments.
Unpopular, perhaps. Unfair, no.

so he's only had one serious relationship. big deal.

please don't judge him or myself on what Iain has said
No, don't judge people solely on my say-so. Take their own words and actions into account. Form a rounded picture before judging. Seriously, there are multiple sides to every story, and one shouldn't believe one side alone.

it would bring to much emotional garbage
Well, I didn't start all this. Besides, how can emotions be garbage? If they're genuinely felt, surely they're valid? To suggest otherwise, to repress emotions, leads to further harm.

something that is really not needed.
Let the rest of us be the judge of that.

And finally, another brief clear-up moment from Sara.
Brem is an old listie..he went by the name Bremstrahlung (did I spell that right?)
I think so.

Bremstrahlung X Jones, although his real name is Kieran something..I can't remember.
No, no, no! His real name was Brem X Jones. He just used the pseudonym Keiron something-beginning-with-G for official stuff.

Incidentally, Brem's killed Keiron and replaced it with another nick. There's a drop-quote from him on weaver.radio's Modern Classical edition...

Brum: damp & 8 * keeper of Brian's dodgy calendar
Dipsy of another place, and Alistair Lloyd of a different shire

my word processor spell-checks "hussein" to "hussies".

the money spent on teen pregnancies is a LOT less than everyone thinks.
Even so, if half of not very much can be saved, that's still a significant amount of money. And the less that needs to be spent is more for everyone to spend as they feel fit.

On condoms,
there's a stigma from purchasing them?
Over here, there was a stigma until they were made weapon #1 in the AIDS awareness campaigns ten years ago. Nowadays, they're available in almost every pub toilet, every chemist, and there's no real stigma attached. Indeed, some teens see possession of condoms as a sign of masculinity or similar.

We had this pie chart, about the differnet things that governement spends its money on, and welfare was 3% of the chart. it was the least amount of money that they spent on anything
Over here, social security accounts for almost 25% of government spending. More than defence. More than the government itself. More than farming. That does, naturally, include money to the jobless, and the elderly, and other groups.

guy has to pay child support whether he wants to or not..the state goes after him if he doesn't.
Does The State go after him even if the mother doesn't want them to?

Johnathan
I want that child to at least consider that she might not be old enough.
I think this is something that a lot of real parents should think about. Are they capable of looking after their offspring? Are they able and willing to make the sacrifices? So many parents aren't. And the result is a lot of children that don't have an accurate sense of their self worth. Not just the regular problems of youth, but gross, extended egotism or total self-loathing. Or both.

Personally, I know damn well that I'm not able to make the kind of committment demanded. So I choose not to use my fertility.

Johnathan
Where is the abortion time limit?
In the UK, no later than 24 weeks of pregnancy, which puts an effective cap around five months after the last period. There's an exemption for heavily handicapped foetuses, which can be terminated at any time before birth, and raises more moral questions than it answers. All terminations must be approved on the grounds of severe physical or mental distress to the mother or child by two doctors.

granada plus is available on digital, cable and satellite

what is S/N?
Screen name. It's an AOHell concept.

obslate

I hope that he come to his sense, and simply resigns, but otherwise, I hope he is impeached.
The impeachment hearings are under way: Thursday saw Ken Starr talk for twelve hours about his findings. At the very slow pace of one hundred words a minute. Can .. you .. bear .. to .. listen .. to .. someone .. talking .. like this .. for .. twelve .. hours?

A quick and abbreviated version of the Corruption Test
1) Are you the president of the USA (Yes: score 250. No: go to Q5)
2) Have you ever had oral sex (Yes: +5 for each person. No: +500 for blatant fibs)
3) Have you ever tried illegal substances (Yes: +10 for each one. +20 if you've ever claimed you didn't inhale)
4) Have you ever ummed with someone who isn't your wife (Yes: score 100 points per person, but take off the age of each person. No: +50000 for lying)
5) Have you ever picked up a parking violation (+5 for each)
6) Been caught speeding? (+10 each time)
7) Not been caught speeding (Yes: +5 No: +500 unless you don't drive) Score 0 - 245: You're a fine, upstanding member of the public.
250+: Just resign right now.

Roy
at 1:30am on Wednesday morning I was lying flat on my back in the middle of Hyde Park
Erm, isn't that a job for me an' Lisa? And Eli, Nick, and everyone else who has ever been to the Traditional London Meet Point.

I was watching the Leonid meteor shower.
Darling, you were one night too late. The peak was at 6am Tuesday morning. Had it been clear, I'd have had a brilliant view going into work. Ne'er mind, we'll do it all again next year. Then it's back into abeyance till 2030.

Johnathan
the school has marked all geocities sites as "extreme worthless".
So, my listing of radio stations audible from here is extremely worthless? Extremely pointless, perhaps, but it has intrinsic worth. My research into the failings and successes of the privatised rail system? Egotistic, certainly; worthless, no.

Sara
I@m in a good mood (how could i not be, I'm listening to Reo Speedwagon!!)
Ah, Sara can't fight that feeling any longer...

what is a cardigan?
Ooh. A 100% moment! Is it
A: A member of a Swedish pop group?
B: kida like a sweater, with buttons in teh middle?
C: A town in south west Wales, which gives its name to the big bay in the middle of the principality's west coast?

there seems to be a lot of new england people
No, I think Chessie's in that category by her own. Oh, you mean new people from Britain.

This guy said that all abortions are wrong, and that people having abortions are just shrugging off responsibility.
Arrant nonsense, and he knows it. To argue any further would lend support to his position; something I'm not prepared to do in the slightest.

And someone else...
someone brought god into it, and said that she would never have an abortion.
Now, I may not have a personal hotline to God (it's the long distance rates to Jerusalem that rule that one out), but I wouldn't care to speak for what She would do. Or not. Heck, if God needs to have a termination, that's Her choice. Just as it is for the rest of us.

Sara also adds something to my Grand Unified Theory of A********o (sp). Which, as he refuses to be around to defend himself, I'll not bore the list silly with. But it doesn't reference kippers.

I'm against any type of hunting...what about everyone else???
I vaguely recall warning the whole list a year or so ago not to get me started on this one. But, since you asked about it...

It may surprise some, but I do favour the continuation of hunting. With certain strings: where it can be shown to be as effective as any other method of reducing the population of a species; where that reduction is desirable on economic or conservational grounds; and where the feelings of those who oppose hunting are respected.

From those axioms, I have no qualms in supporting fox-hunting. It may be an upper-class, horns out for the toffs display, but it does fulfil a need in the countryside, and it is the most effective means of fox control around. Ditto for stag hunting; if I had a membership of the National Trust to resign, I would have done following their refusal to allow this to happen on their land, based only on flawed and discredited "scientific" evidence.

And it's the same for the seal culls on the North Atlantic coast. There's no argument that seals reduce fish stocks, and so long as they're taken out in as humane a manner as possible, I will not oppose it.

"Oh!" I hear you cry. "But this is cruelty in the extreme!" Now, stop to consider what you're eating tonight. Cows that have never seen sunlight. Pigs that are kept in titchy confines. Turkeys that don't have room to flap their wings. These animals will never have the chance to live as Nature intended; a hunt will only be able to catch a slower, less healthy member of the species, leaving the rest to survive another year in their natural habitat.

the kind of "all people are equal, so long as they share my views" narrow liberals

Still in Grouch Central, this from Sara
You can't go back and change things, the only thing you can do is apologize for your mistakes.
True, but sometimes apologies aren't forthcoming. At all. It's clear that the chap who started this thread owes apologies to a number of listies. And he's just not giving them.

once you have done that, whether or not the person has accepted the apology, you should move on with your life.
You've missed the bit about making reasonable reparations for your error. You goof up against someone and they want you to make it right again, then you do that. Before moving on.

I am happy that he is happy. This does not mean that I am happy that you are unhappy though. I wish you both could be happy.
That would be a perfectly satisfactory situation. However, it appears that is not going to be allowed to happen. Furthermore, as his happiness is predicated exactly on my lack of happiness, to encourage one is to encourage both. And I'd rather that didn't happen, like.

Which leads me to suggest to Matt that, maybe, moving on is somewhat over-rated. The past may not be a better place, but it is one that everyone understands.

And ~Laura
The best thing for you to do is to forgive yourself, learn, and let go of it.
But an apology to the person you've wronged is always going to be welcome. So, thank you for informing us of your error, and welcome back to us.

Sara

[Weaver covers himself from the stampeding dolphins]

I was going to say neat, but I guess thats not really the right word for it. I guess its more like everytime I hear about someone who has had one, and is fine, I feel a lot better.
Jolly good. It's not held me back in the slightest.

Jill
it is now 2:53 here. and where are YOU? hehe
Given that that's @870, Friday, I'd have been watching the denoument of "Fort Boyard", waiting to switch over for "Friends".

Britt
what exactly a pub crawl is?? Is it like bar hopping??
Yes. It's exactly the same.

Skeie!! Which one is you on the cover of the VSun? I can't quite figure it out. Maybe I'm just being dumb.

The answer to the 100% question: it's A, B and C. Score a point! And the word missing from the opening statement: bug-gobbler.

Codsall: cloudy & 7 * keeper of Brian's incancarante calendar
That ain't working. That's the way to do it.

Sara asks
has anyone ever heard of North and South?
You mean the band off the slightly tacky kids' tv show from 18 months ago? The ones that had the rather catchy "Tarantino's New Star" and some others, and have now gone completely down the dumper? No? Shocker!

What has proved God?
By definition, a God, Goddess or Other Supreme Being cannot be scientifically proven. Proof of existance would deny faith, and without faith, deities cease to exist. It's, like, the logical paradox here.

Angela
Sharpen 2 #2 pencils
What's one of them when they're at home? Me non comprendis.

1) What is your favorite element?
Aluminium. Or argon, at a pinch.

(I have a fondness for boron myself- call me a sentimentalist!)
You're a sentimentalist.

2) Guys, does this dress make our butts look too big?
No. [hugs]

3) In a boxing match, who would win? Donald Duck or Daffy Duck
Daffy. Donald starts strongly, but is badly held back when Huey, Dewy and Louis wade into the contest and trip up their uncle who falls flat on his bill and is counted out.

4) Do you think the other dinosaurs used to laugh behind the back of T-Rex about his teeny weeny silly looking little hands?
Not really. Most of them had a brain the size of a pea, and didn't really understand the concept of humour. See also...

5) What is the most revolting thing you've ever eaten
Liver. Great reasons for becoming veggie #1...

6) Guys- WHY won't you ask for directions?
Because I don't really care whether I get there or not. If I want to get there, I make enquiries.

7) Can you make the light stop flashing on your VCR?
Yes. And I can programme my ONdigital box (I got one! Yes!!)

8) Guys- tell us the truth- what do you think about:
a) our hair
Long, luscious and utterly wonderful to stroke and brush.
b) our make up
You look so wonderful anyway that I can barely tell if you are wearing any.
c) our nails
The longer, the better to scratch me with
d) nacho cheese scented douche concentrate
Ooh, matron!

9) If you had a choice of us smelling like ONE of these things
b) cinnamon

10) Score bonus points if anyone except myself knows the words to the song "Last Kiss".
It appears my "Last Kiss" song, the one sung by David Cassidy on his comeback in 1985, isn't the one Ms Dibble was thinking of.

12) Who put the bop in the bop-she-bop-she-bop
Tom, the Baker's son.

who put the ram in the ramma-lamma-ding-dong.
Noddy Holder out of Slade.

14) Look at your parents and tell me how many times they've Gotten Freaky.
At least three; once for me, once for weaver.sister, once for a botched attempt before both. At most a hundred. And not for 15 years.

16) Guys, describe a PERFECT date.
April 27 last year.

17) Bonus question: Chocolate chips or chocolate chunks?
Yes please.

18) Almonds/peanuts/or cashews?
Cashews, I suppose.

19) Guys: Is it better if a woman screams her head off during an orgasm or is it better if she doesn't?
The louder the better, with the distinct caveat of not if it's going to wake the parents.

Deca puts in
Just my two Pfennigs.
While he still can. Before it's dropped for the EuroDollar.

Edwards enquires
do you think you're a happy person... as in you're happy more times than you're not?
Not any more.

i remember when i was very unhappy... and well, it sucked... but now i'm quite happy with my life..
Yes, liars, cheats and thieves tend to make themselves happy, and never consider anyone else. Such a shame.

anyways... i was just wondering if other people consider themselves happy people?
Or even if anyone is able to be happy and guilt-free?

Sara
I'm so happy for you that you're happy now ;-)
Gee. Thanks a bundle.

In a long post of mushy mush, Angela claims
Nothing is permanent.
By its own logic, that would include that statement, which must then be demonstrably false under certain circumstances. Which leads to the conclusion that something is permanent, Pepsi kicks Coke's ass (or not) and the cow did jump over the moon.

Some of the greatest minds are foxed by simple linguistic teasers such as Benjamin's
she (the teacher) says, that the following sentence is correct: "Are they going to go to school?"
It's a valid question, of course. "Will they be going to school?" asked of the very near future (unless there's a quantifier).

I would write this sentence like this: "Are they going to school?"
Again, a perfectly accurate question. It means something slightly different: "Are they engaged in the act of travelling to school at this very moment?"

I think that this "going to go to" is like superfluous
Not at all. It puts the question firmly in the future; without it, the question reverts to the present. We lose little markers such as that and lose part of the meaning, clarity and beauty of the English language.

On a point of Atlantic difference, JSRS's response
"Are they going to school?" becomes "Are they currently attending academic programs this year?"
is accurate usage of American English, not British English. As Benjamin is attending a Swiss institute, he may be learning the British standard, or the American standard, or something between the two extremes. (Canadian English, anyone?)

Well, Shana, it's a crying shame that we won't be meeting next month. But enjoy shimcity anyway.

Leaving the toilet seat up. Two reasons why I don't.
1) The WC was designed by a bloke. He designed it primarily for his own convenience. So it's a bit upright, and made of something hard. (W'dya mean, phallic symbol?) If it's designed by T. Crapper, it'll not be the best of things for womyn, coz men don't design for womyn. To redress the balance a little, the seat goes down.
2) So does the lid. It looks a lot better aesthetically, stops any smells from leaking out, and Miss Manners likes it that way.

Sarah K: those are really, really annoying errors. They do have a purpose, in telling the Barely Literate apart from those who might be able to Cut It as Professional Writers. Aaagh! I'm turning into Ms Dibble!!

I used to be petrified of dead birds!!
I got over this phobia--Ask me how!
How did you get over that phobia, Sarah?

Andrea
I'm a huge sports fan, and I always thought that guys would like that because they could talk to me about sports and stuff like that. Some of my boyfriends have been cool about it, but some hated it, espeically if I knew something going on in a sport that they didn't know about.
Strange people. A common bond is a common bond. Whether it's the arcane rules of cricket, the arcane rules of baseball, or the very simple rules of the CFL. When it turns into one-upmanship, it's sad.

why do some guys have such a problem with that?
Jealousy, I expect. Where's Freud when we need him?

Sara on her old school chums
virtually everyone had sex, and well...a whole bunch of people got pregnant, five just in my grade
In my year, I think maybe a third were at it by 16, perhaps 60% by 18. There wasn't one pregnancy, though - ours was the first cohort to be able to claim that for three years. This out of a group of 300 or so.

And a meme
Pass this on to as many parents you know........
Beware this reproduction engine! It is always a dead giveaway. In this case, an apology to the fast food chain concerned would be appreciated. But that would presuppose they deserved one.

Sasha wonders
What the heckle gives people the right to treat Monica Lewinsky the way the entire world is doing?
Let me take you back through the mists of time. On January 29, Hillary Roddupisass Clintern appears on every talk show she can, to say that if Bill had lied about his relationship with Monica, it would be very serious indeed. She also wittered on about a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy out to get her husband. That's a complete load of nonsense, naturally.

But, since then, the Left Wingers who rule much of the media have done everything they can to downplay and spin away the facts. They have stopped at nothing; not even the most basic standard of etiquette, that a person's appearance is inviolate.

Monica is being attacked simply because she dared to tell the truth about what went on between herself and a womanizing slut in the White Stains House.

She sounds "girly". Gee, anyone would think she was one.
Monica was 20 or 21 when the tapes were made. She sounds like a girl because that's what she was. A relatively immature youngster, roundly abused by someone who Should Have Known Better.

She shops. Sometimes at designer stores.
As would any intern in Washington, I expect.

They always show the same piece of footage.
I don't do television news - well, not until I got my digibox and could see BBC News 24, the rolling cockup channel.

The word binge is always used. The image of an out-of-control and unstable person intensifies.
Let me come back to this...

She has put on weight.
Gawsh. Who cares!

I cannot remember the last time I have read and heard such utterly cruel unnecessary personal remarks about someone's weight.
Um, Kate Kinked-Eyebrows Winslet circa "Titanic"?

Does everyone think she doesn't have feelings?
Do they even care?
Monica has signed to produce her book with British tabloid hack Andrew Morton. She's a young, immature girl who got into an unequal relationship with an older, very powerful man. She's been forced into the public eye, concentrating on her appearance and her lack of self-control. Does anyone else hear bells ringing, reminding them of the Dead Trollope of Wales?

Betsy
I think you made an illegal move.
Looking back on it, so do I. Still, you spotted it, and that's something. Two brains being better than one, and all that...

I think I just corrected Iain Weaver. Give me a second. Now I think I'll treat myself to an ice cream cone.
Linear optimisation is my specialist subject. So, give me a number of ice-cream shops, and the distances between them, and I'll give you the optimal circuit, or minimal spanning tree.

On the Corruption Test, I claim 65 points. Up just 8 on last year.

that's the "purple" episode of teletubbies, in which kids mix purple paint and po sees a purple cloud.

Laurel, welcome on board
how old is this list (not you personally, but the mailing list itself)?
Under its various guises (this is the 5th address I've used in three years around), the so-called list has been using bandwidth for a little over four years.

Also, do you ever actually discuss MSCL stuff, or has this transformed into a community where you talk about more personal stuff?
ON topic posts are perfectly acceptable; however, with only 15 hours of drama to discuss, most threads have not so much been beaten into the ground as been beaten right the way through the planet and come out the other end.

Sara
he has a heart murmur :(
[Weaver covers himself from the stampeding dolphins]
Me too.
[peeks head back above trench, sees it's safe, and continues]

Angela, Sarah. Ouch! Um, best wishes, hope everything goes well, and we'll think about you lots.

Britt suggests that a man should never say
that he's too tired for sex (when they don't do that much anyway)
He would only not do that much if he were pretty darned rubbish to begin with. If he's good, it will be a tiring half-hour or so.

And Britt's Confessional File
I was a fan of NKOTB when I was in 7th grade.
I am obsessed with the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
These are not things to be ashamed of. Not in the slightest.

Leo diLaine in "Celebrity": "DiCaprio's performance reminds you why movie stars sometimes deserve to be worshipped," according to SLATE's David Edelstein. Remember, this is the same reviewer who first called "Titanic" for the load of duff it was.

Mrs Officer Dibble
Let's list the funniest punch lines from jokes without posting the jokes and let everyone wonder what the actual jokes are.
And the third bloke says, "Well, I was in this refrigerator..."

Until next time...

Brum: cloudy & 7 * alistair lloyd of somewhere else

There is more evidence that Jesus existed than that Julius Ceaser did.
There's masses of documentary evidence supporting Jules, not least contemporary reports of his oratory in Horare. Mr Christ's speeches were not recorded for many years after his retirement from public life, thus casting doubt on the veracity of the records.

Sara posits a minor chronological error
how about Sat. Jan 3, then?
January the 3rd 1999 is a Sunday. The Saturday (shockingly!) is the 2nd, and Failtrack, the company responsible for fleecing the travelling public - er - looking after Britain's railways, has scheduled a lot of engineering work for that period. It's also Third Round Of The Cup Day, so we don't know where the footy teams will be till next month.

Chessie. Hello, there.
Omigosh! How might I obtain the soundtracks [Unofficial]???
The soundtrack [unofficial] was compiled by the list in 1995, and circulates by means of copies of tapes. My copy is a particularly poor 2nd generation one, and I wouldn't care to inflict it on anyone else. Let me throw this to the list: anyone able to run a copy off?

weaver.radio

Jennifer (sorry about this bit last time, btw)
Would you, or anyone reading this who's familiar with London, know how easy it is to get a hotel room on only a few days' notice?
At the worst of times, it can be a little tricky. During the dead fortnight over Christmas and New Year, it'll be child's play.

Catherine
Since I've been learning english (for six years, I think)
That little? You're sounding like a natural speaker already (:

everybody told us to use a capital letter for I.
Interesting topic. Maybe it shows the egotism in the Anglo-Saxon psyche. I seem to recall that German capitalises their word for "You" in a similay way, and relegates "me" to a lower case start. It may be inaccurate, but may also be an interesting thought.

Chelle, wind-up Cartmans. I found one in HMV Oxford Street, London, when I was down there last week. It's not there any more - I snaffled him.

Sara
thats on tv over here (sky premier, foranyone who has sky)
Or, now, anyone who has an OnDigital digibox, and is prepared to pay 30 quid a month, and lives in an area that can receive Transmission Set F. I only fit into the first category, and then not till tomorrow. But, yes, you can now get Sky movies. Without the dish.

Andrea
every time the Leafs scored we stood up and cheered.
Reminds me of a kids song... "Stand up, sit down, keep moving..."

But anyway, when the Leafs scored their ninth goal,
Or was it their 19th. Whatever...

this guy in the next section stood up and started slamming Canada,
Oops.

referring to all the Canadian Leafs fans "wannabe Americans".
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. When the Great Canadian Takeover of the World is complete, he will see the error of his ways. IIRC, Chicago will be a large city in the province of Pearson. Then he'll be a wannabe Canadian.

They all yelled at him, and he had no argument back
You don't say!

I was surprised because Hawks fans can be viscious sometimes. But maybe it was because there were so many of us seated in one area.
Or they were racking their collective brains to remember the last time the Black Eyed Peas had conceded ten.

Since they aren't in the same conference anymore, the Leafs don't come to Chicago as often.
Aye. I forget if it's once or twice a season, but it's dead rare. Shame: that would be lots of points in the bag easily.

in fact, the wolves are top of their league. now, if the wolverhampton footy team would take notes...

Enough Chicago bashing, I think.

Nichole
if there happen to be any Meat Loaf fans in the Europe - his new album is already out over there, but not here until the 24th :(
Tee hee hee. Selling pretty well, too.

It's a greatest hits thing, but has 3 new songs on it...
Indeed. I'm not sure if it's included on the album, or will be a B- side, or something, but he has done the most stormin' cover of a Lord Loud-Webby "song". The chief Lord of Crap Musicals has kinda surpassed himself with "Whistle Down the Wind", a musical with no semblance of a plot, and just one memorable tune. That's "No Matter What", performed by Boyzone and is challenging Celine for the year's #1 single. It's co-written by some Jim Steinmann chap, and he's produced Mr Loaf's version. And it rocks.

That's all that matters now, no matter what.

Brum: sunny & 5 * keeper of Brian's calendar, now showing Dec 44
Melanie Startup Is Thanked * Sunday: go see the sea

Being the hugely trained team of investigative journalists, we called the hotline number, and this is what we heard.

"So, you've eaten arsenic? Now let me tell you about the day the pig fell in the well."

Thanks to Benjamin Cheever for owning up to writing that gaffe.

Back to kids seeing (or not) movies. Sara
do kids try and sneak movies?
Over here, they used to. The U-PG-15-18 system came in in the early 80s (replacing the similar U-A-AA-X), and any rude words or slightly naughty bits would get a 15. Heck, this list would have been a 15. When "Batman" came out, the censors faced an impending riot and legal action, over having to deny a big part of the audience because of a few moments. The cop-out was to introduce the 12 certificate.

when he went to see a 15 cert with his mother (whoever she was)

A defence of the system? Really, the difference stems from the culture. Kids will tend to go to the cinema under their own steam, and Brits tend to be more prudish about these things, and take their censorship a little more seriously than other nations.

Four weddings? wsn't that rated pg-13 though?
?? It was a 12 at the cinema, 15 for home video, and Not To Be Aired Before 9 on TV. Owing to the opening sequence, mainly.

ooh..Toby just talked to me
Dammit. Someone else with more sparkling conversation than mine.

the original definition of @time uses 0000cet=@000. this is clearly non-standard, but a utc-based one will work.

On the far less thorny issue of geography, here's (er) Sara
I live in Wisconsin..kinda
Yes, Wisconsin's eastern seaboard limb, Essex.

'If you were another person, would you like to be a friend of yours?'
Yeah. Give hugs, make me laugh and smile, and generally be batty. Of course, if my pet theory that a few other people I meet are just other parts of a larger being that I'm also a part of, then I've already met another me.

Roy
It may seem cuddly and carry associations with your childhood spent watching Rainbow
Ooh! Zippy! Do be qwiet! Geffwy! Wod, Jane and Fweddy!

No, I'm not going to explain this one. Just make sure the full Rainbow theme makes it onto weaver.radio on the Looming Kids TV Show.

93.7 the coast

Shana
I am not cute
Oi! Shana! Stop lying and carry on being uber-cute right now.

Sara
I remember Ali and I meeting last year (she's an old listie)(I mean..she's not old
XXII years by the clock now...

you guys play bingo differntly over here...I haven't played it yet
I'll take your word on that. The main difference, it appears, is that you don't have to have your hair in a net to play it in the USA.

Back to them cheerleaders
people are lazy...including me
That is their problem. If people can't be bothered to get off their backsides and find out the time for themselves, that's their lookout.

advertising? yes. promotion? no.
You were there to raise awareness of the existence of a match that night. You were suggesting that it would be an interesting event to attend. In short, you were promoting the match.

Our school also always did well when compared to other schools in the US
OK, let me clear this up. I'm not talking about this kind of comparison. I'm on about the USA, as a whole, taken on average, against other nations.

I'm not saying that US is that high, because I know that we are way behind some countries...but that doesn't mean that we are doing all that badly.
You're way behind other countries, but not worried.

these tests didn't test IQ, or intellect (though I don't really believe in tests like that anyway), what they did test was your knowledge.
The tests I'm referring to tested things like literacy (how well one can read and write) and numeracy (the ability to compute). Skills that are an integral part of life. Nothing esoteric, like the capital of Mongolia, or the meaning of "esoteric".

either the mother or the father can claim BUT the mother does have to sign to say that she doesn't want to get it herself.
My point exactly. The mother has to specifically relinquish her entitlement to allow someone else to claim. If it were a gender- neutral benefit, either parent would be able to claim without the approval of the other.

Angela hits the nub of my problems with an enforced silence
The fact remains that wars happened and men were forced to participate and suffered and are still suffering the consequences.
This is, indeed, regrettably, true.

They need to know that their very often less than voluntary sacrifice is at least understood.
Again, I have no quibble with this. My gripe is with the means by which this understanding is demonstrated. A spontaneous gesture of empathy, or sympathy, or whatever, is so much more powerful than one dragged out by social engineering. The criticism levelled at football managers last weekend for (gasp!) daring not to wear a poppy on after-match interviews stinks to high heaven.

Enough people have suffered in these wars. There's no excuse to continue to do people down so many the years afterwards.

Brooks
such observances have a sound cultural basis, but I suppose if you don't like the culture then you are really up shit creak. I hate to say it but sometimes you just have to deal.
The man is, of course, correct in what he says. A silence on Rememberance Sunday has been marked annually since about 1950. A second silence on 11/11 has only been attempted since 1995. I wouldn't call three years a sound cultural basis.

Nor would I call the perverse insistance that an 80 year old event was Wednesday's main news, as the BBC Radio News thought. Relegating the rising prospect of the same thing happening in the Middle East to the second story. This is blatant hypocracy from the government, and from all those people supporting both the silence and Gulf War III.

No, I don't like the culture. That's why I'm trying to change it. One person can only do so much, but I am going to do that little bit.

Iain, I apolagise.
Accepted with gratitude.

Sara on KC
it seems like everyone is going to this get-together in December..soooooo who isn't going?
Owing to the possibility that I'll need to relocate sometime around then, I'll be staying in the UK between Christmas and New Year. Which means no shimcity ii for me ):

And on other Christmas plans
do you want me to contact a bunchh of other england people? (the people that normally go to get-togethers?)
Mmm, if I've not changed jobs, I've arranged to work 29-30-31 Dec. So, I guess I'll not be in there, unless I'm changing jobs at the time. Complex stuff.

Longtrip
i can't stand it when teachers flirt with students. it's really disgusting.
It is, a bit. In a previous existance, when I was a trainee teacher, this was something we were totally not trained to cope with. Well, we weren't instructed in anything, which is pretty much the problem with that course. But there was this one pupil who had the hugest crush on me, and didn't attempt to hide it in the slightest. More than a little embarrassing. And a little awkward.

Mark
can we please, PLEASE put spoilers on things that have to relate to TV programs or films which others on the list may not yet have seen?!?

cnn's cold war site

But sensible spoilers are polite. Putting them on for one week after the episode airs, or maybe a month after the film premiers, would be a happy medium for those who tape or don't go out to see it, and having to spoiler absolutely everything.

Now, Andrea, do you stand by this comment
I'm going to the hockey game tonight!! Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Chicago Blackhawks (2 sucky teams, oh well).
Sucky? The top-of-the-league Big Leafs? Shome mishtake shurely!

I'm going to cheer for the Leafs tonight. So in the middle of all these Hawks fans will be me and my friend wearing our Leafs jerseys.
Oh dear. I hope you got out of the arena without too many scratch marks. Fancy being in the home fans, cheering on the opposition when they're busily having their worst defeat in ten years. It all went downhill in the last three periods, it did. Final score: Chicago Hawk Black Eyes 3, Toronto Maple Leafs 10 (TEN)

the st john's leafs, who had gone 0-7 in their recent homestand.

The playoffs are the worst when they play each other because then I don't know who to cheer for at all because I want both to advance.
Of course, with this year's realignment, that won't happen now Toronto are in the East. They could meet in the Stanley Cup Final, it says here.

Oh well, the Hawks will be lucky to make the playoffs this year.
The Hawks are currently trailing the Nashville Newcomers. Eeek!

Right. Rude words ahoy!
Sara
crap over here is swearing.
Indeed it is. The Broadcasting Standards Commission recently did a survey of the Most Offensive Swear Words in the Language. "Crap" came in at position 12, two behind "bollock(s)". Personally, I won't use the word at number 6, "tw*t" without putting at least one * in. The F-Word comes in at number 1, the one that could be "chuffing", just ahead of the C-word, "Henry Kelly". [/mary_ whitehouse_experience]

I'm married at the moment
Anyone would think you were intending on changing that in the near future.

Jennifer
I'm not exactly sure right now where Derby is, but I think it's somewhere in the middle of the country.
Derby is exactly 42 miles down the A5-A38 from Codsall. Codsall is exactly 127 miles and 44 chains from London Euston. You do the math here.

Shana
be there tonight at 6pm pacific
10:30 NST, @083. See, told you it was quick.

Hmm, an anagram of Iain Weaver. Haven't we been here before?

Good books: "Innumeracy" - Jon Allen Paulos. "The Handmaiden's Tale" - Margaret Attwood. "Namedropper" - Emma Forrest. "The Flying Toast" - Teletubbies. "A Night To Remember" - Titanic section.

You know, it's absolutely amazing that anyone can tell exactly which account was used to post from. Most of us can only get to the originating domain. Unless there's a secret chess club way. Like, faking headers...

And the meaning of life. If any of us knew the meaning of life, we would, like, let you know. But I don't think any of us do. It's a long struggle to make sense of all of this, and sometimes it seems that it can't happen. Maybe that's coz there is no plan to all this. Maybe there is, and we're just not properly aware of it. I don't think any religion will provide the answer to you on a silver platter, but if some codified belief system helps you to make sense of the world, go ahead and use it. Just, like, don't get too obnoxious when other people choose to dissent. Cheers.

Until next time's post.

Codsall: showers & 7 * Alistair outside the vets
HTML mailers are a wonderful invention

bloke behind the list's very unofficial soundtrack. Poster of long, encyclopaedic posts and digester in extremis.

2) The Unofficial Soundtrack. The tape that the list compiled in early 1995, contains "The Hand-Hold Song" and "Blister In The Sun". Not believed to be currently available on MC only.

the very unofficial soundtrack

Sara
lets go play bingo.
Heck, I knew that dropping sprogs changed you, but I never knew it aged you 40 years overnight.

the one annoying part though was that we had to go to a PG movie. can you believe that? I mean... a baby???
Well, the law is the law. I can see reasons why a six-week old baby might be able to be an exemption, but.....

here the parents don't get to decide, the government does.
Well, it's not so much the government as the Bored of Censors. And, yes, the rules are such that parents can't take kids under the stated age. However, the censorship for cinema is fairly lax: much less rigorous than video. And it saves the embarrassment of a 12 year old having to take Mumsey with them to see "Pratman" or "Four Weddings".

I still can't understand why the government over here thinks they have the right to decide what OUR kids see
The government doesn't take that decision. It's done by the film classification board, a QUANGO [quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation] independent of (but appointed by) the government.

the following week, "angel" scored more airplay points than "adia", and the single was listed as "angel/adia". exactly as jewel had done...

Sara
Do you think if you are stealing something for a baby, or someone who can't do things for themselves, that its okay, or that its still completley wrong?
Two different issues here. One: stealing is stealing is stealing is wrong. No questions asked. Two: the gravity of the offence. If someone genuinely cannot support themselves and the other(s) on their income, then that would be a case for a less severe punishment. However, there are many occasions when people are frittering money away; in that case, treat them like anyone else. And let the court be a fair arbitrator of these cases; if disclosing your financial status pays off with a reduced sentence then I would not mind the intrusion into privacy.

Jill
what is everyone's favorite episode?
"The Substitute" At last, a new take on the old, old plot.

keyoneohthree

'Chivalry is a man's inclination to defend a woman against every man but himself.'

Angela
it doesn't hurt to remind us all that a lot of people gave up their youth and sometimes their lives in a cause they felt was greater than self
Now we seem to be re-writing history. People were forced to give up their liberty, their freedom of action and association, in order to preserve (er) their liberty. Something slightly fails to add up there. If people wish to do that of their own volition, I won't stand in their way. But you can't tell me that there weren't people who disagreed with this warmongering. The treatment meted out to them was nothing short of criminal.

Brooks
This is more of an awareness type of thing.
No it's not. This is an attempt by a group of people to force the adoption of their ideas by other people. And, quite frankly, I'm not standing for it.

Sara
two minutes though? what could it possibly hurt? two minutes isn't a big deal...
You're right in that, but it's the symbolism behind it that gets my goat. Apparently, people fought for the freedom to act from their own volition. Not to be bounced into doing anything they don't want to.

you don't sweat during the day
At the risk of getting kinda gross, everyone sweats. All the time. It's, like, natural.

If the game is entertaining, it will succeed on its own merits.

people relied on us, the cheerleaders and the players to tell them when the game was.
Whatever happened to announcements at registration? Or notices pinned around the school? Gym class? Word of mouth?

No matter how many tacky promotional tricks the promoters try to put on.

as for america, in a few of the tests that we took at my school, comparing us internationally, we usually came in either 2,3, or 4.
Out of how many? Coming in 4th of 4 is no achievement. Coming in 2nd of 25 is. It is a fact that in many international surveys, the USA does come near the bottom of the pile for literacy and numeracy. Not that Britain does much better, mind.

Why is there an insistence on that spark being there.

Not true, not at all. In fact, I cannot claim Child Benefit.
OK, fair cop. However, in the majority of cases, where both sides are UK citizens, and treated as married for benefits purposes, the child support is payable only to the mother.

also, they don't give you much money at all. We'll be getting 11 pounds a week
That 11 pounds is the remnants of a 15.47 pound take from the basic-rate taxpayer's packet. The government swallows almost 30% of the "allowance". They could give a tax break of 800 pounds per child per year; it would have the same effect. And it's that extra payment to the government's inefficiency that really winds me up.

Doing a Cartman,

Brum: sunny & 11 * Alistair outside Borsets
HTML mailers are really great

First: today is Rememberance Sunday in the UK. A day to remember those who were killed and injured in past wars. Personally, I find the whole event more than a little creepy. There's a lot of pressure to "donate" to ex-servicemen's charities, and prove you've donated by sporting a paper flower. Surely real charity needs no reward, still less proof of donation?

And now there's a movement to impose a two-minute shutdown on the nation both at 11 this morning and at 11 on the 11th: next Weds. Again, this smacks of the sort of social engineering that we're supposed to have been fighting against in all the recent wars.

Sara invites the UK to Thanksgiving celebrations. One question: when are you thinking of doing this? The Thursday, or the weekend some side? Enquiring minds...

SO I was watching Sesame street...sue me ;-)
What, expanding your mind, and getting Toby into good habits, watching Educational programmes? Why should we want to sue you?

From the heart...
if you have SKY, Nickelodeon is having a Sister Sister Sunday this weekend.
Offer also valid on all quality cable systems. Offer will be valid on DTTV from 2001. Though quite why one would want gavel-to-gavel Sister Sister is another matter. I'll settle for the annual Christmas Day Rugrats.

its called Claires Accesories, instead of Claire's boutique.
There are a number of Claire's boutiques around the country, and the US chain could have faced problems if they'd started confusing people. Hence a new name.

And Sara's confuzzled by simple English.
cop off
To tell a policeman where to go. Either that, or to attempt to chat someone up in a manner suggesting umming that evening.

you're smooching on the dance floor with a geezer you wnat to get to grips with.
You are dancing with some real hunk of male who you would like to grope. (Hey, I'm not the Porn Prince here! This is Deca's job.)

either that, or said comic is totally undressed and shivering with the lack of heat

when we were little, we always used to yell, liar, liar, pants on fire. now.. England calls underwear pants, is that what that is supposed to mean when you say that?
To coin a phrase, it's just a saying. It sounds good, and that's what counts when you're five.

On over-dressed athletes
they do have to wear their jerseys to school on game days.
Yick! Playing a game in the same clothes you've been sweating in all day? You've been working hard in, taxing your brain... Ah. That would be the flaw in my logic.

all athletics are entertainment anyway. But the whole point of cheerleading IS to entertain.
So, by your argument, is the rest of the sporting pantheon. If people didn't find it entertaining, then they wouldn't watch it. Personally, I reckon the recent NBA action is the most entertaining season yet, but that's mainly from the extreme silliness of Yet Another Pointless Strike.

Part of doing that, is having the cheerleaders wear their uniforms to school, and the football (or basketball, whichever) team where their jerseys to school on game days.
Don't see that at all. If the game is entertaining, it will succeed on its own merits. If it's not, then it won't. No matter how many tacky promotional tricks the promoters (here, the school) try to put on. It won't alter the fact that a number of the school members don't give a monkey's about the game. And more will resent the attention lavished on the Entertainment crew at the expense of Academia.

And then people wonder why high school is such a cliquey place. And why Americans perform so poorly in international comparisons of literacy and numeracy.

I actually liked wearing them to school..it was kinda like, taking pride in our squad, and what we had accomplished, and showing that pride off to everyone.
Ah, cut to the chase. You liked showing off. Can't blame you for that...

it sounds like you would just stay with someone, for security. do you think that you would?
Good question. I'd probably need to cross that bridge in the highly unlikely event that it's ever on my path, but in theory, yeah.

Not because the people couldn't get along, or that they didn't love each other, but just because that certain spark would be gone.
Why is there an insistence on that spark being there. It doesn't last forever. Enjoy it while it's around, and bask in its glow afterwards. Just because the spark goes the way of all mortal things is no reason to ditch a perfectly good relationship.

next: why a one in a million chance will probably happen to you every 25 years.

Britt
I actually like that This Kiss song by Faith Hill, though.
Yay you! That is probably going to be my single of the month. If it ever gets released over here.

I swear, Joshua's parent's house looks a lot like Monica's rich guy's house from last year. [/friends]

Sara blows the UK tax and benefits system open. Bad move.
everyone in the country gets something called Child Benefit as well, its for everyone with children, but its money for us that can go toward buying milk.
Child Benefit is a Transferred Tax Allowance. HMG does not give a tax allowance to parents with children. Instead, it collects the taxes, wastes a lot processing the dough through the heavily inefficient government system, and gives the residue back to the mother. Not the parents, but the mother and only the mother. It would, clearly, make much more sense to leave the money in the household's income packet to start with. And I wouldn't have to go round subsidising both other people flaunting their fertility (which I can see an argument for, even though I may disagree with it) and the government's inefficiency (for which there is no excuse.)

Sara
some people are just chronically late.
You can tell them a mile off. They're the ones that work for British Rail.

GipsyFrog on "pick a sentence..."
Boy I wonder how long the PO5 writers were dyeing to use that.
Given that most of the first half of Po5 season 2 was a direct rip- off of MSCL, I'd say roughly since it first aired. I'm waiting for the line to crop up on the BBC's Grange Hill, which has started showing a distinct tendency to echo MSCL in recent series. Re-runs of this years' crop are Sunday mornings on BBC2.

Jill
do people on this list write about anything and everything?
Almost. I don't recall a discussion of thermonuclear physics with particular reference to the "Duck and Cover" theory, but I may have missed that...

Codsall: sunny & 14 * keeper of Brian's calendar, showing 13/24

Sara's pondering.
something about a leased line
Ouch. Glad you can afford it. You'll be looking at a bill of around 500 pounds a month.

we want to start up our own server.
Press the "on" switch, then (;

can someone please help me? what exactly do I need to look up?
You'll need a high-spec computer; 10Gb disc space, two or three processors. An operating system: NT, LINUX... Some service programs - a web server, a list processor... It's not easy - which I think you'll be able to deal with. It's not cheap, either - that spec would set you back a couple of grand, and that's just your starter.

Sara asked
why are people prejudiced against catholics?
And Sarah K responded
These are reasons for me to dislike Catholicism.
Yet surely prejuduice is the irrational dislike of some group based solely on their difference from (or similarity to) oneself. Ms K has put forward reasoned objections to Catholic dogma. Vive la difference.

Mark
whose brother tried to kill himself on Monday
Sh*t! He OK?

Flix
ALANIS MORISSETTE (i just brought the new album home today and i LOVE it)
So, all the list songs don't do it down? Personally, I've opted for the U2 greatest hits, with added B-side disc for first-week purchasers. Alanis will follow... later...

Carathay on divorce courts
What I meant was that they have abandoned blame.
A bad call. It is a denial of natural justice, and just adds to the sense of complete unfairness about the whole deal.

Now, many courts refuse to even hear arguements about blame and simply split things 50-50.
A result that either rewards the cheater, giving them a greater share of the spoils than they merit; or fails to adequately compensate the cheated for the pain and suffering they've had inflicted on them.

Of course, once you involve kids, it gets complex.
It would, I suggest, be less complex were the courts to get the hell off the moral high ground and start adjudicating in these disputes. Simple reforms, like considering who is to blame, and dividing the settlement in that way, would help. Taking into account that the cheater can be expected to have someone else to support them financially would do a lot to redress the perceived iniquity in the system. And that would reduce the amount owed by defaulters within the system.

Of course, this is a reform that is calculated to support the nuclear family. No liberal western government will even consider it, for risk of alienating the vocal protest movement.

especially in places like the uk, where $1 seems to equate to 1 pound, not .6 pounds as the moneymen would have us believe.

And I reckon that it's going to be easier to fine-tune the Super Floppy technology than to re-invent the CD yet again. The winning technology will look like a floppy disk, probably be a little bigger in each dimension than a floppy, but hold tens of gigabytes of data. I just can't see DVD making that leap before the clunky Super Floppy.

I made over $200,000 off this list last week. My beach front house in the Bahamas is under construction as we speak....
Sh*t! $200,000 in a week. Heck, carry on at this rate and I'll be able to buy PEI in about ten minutes time.

From the heart
Toby is sleeping!!!
Someone's been listening to NewsDirect, 97.3 in the middle of your FM dial. Valid only in range of London transmitters.

Parts of Ireland are very against catholics, but why are they?
Very briefly, there was a mass immigration - aided and abetted by the Establishment - from Protestant Scotland to Catholic Ireland in the mid 1600s. That created a lot of unrest, culminating in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 (Win for the Protestants, skippered by William of Orange). And that consolidated the Protestant position; as the English mainland was also primarily Proddie, and ruled Ireland after that, they were able to keep Catholics down- trodden. It wasn't until early this century that Ireland was able to release itself from English rule, but had to leave the six counties of the North behind. They had the Protestant majority at the time of the split, and tried to keep the Catholics down as if nothing had happened. Now, the Catholics didn't like that, and started dropping bombs and shooting people to get out; more moderate Catholics preferred to negotiate for equality. And that's pretty much what they got with the Good Friday Agreement this year.

Next question?

On Ross
he was SO drunk that he accidentaly put the cigarette in backwards, and burnt his mouth.
Bwah-ha-ha! That is so not a sensible thing to do!!

sky box office sells one-time viewing rights to a movie for 3 pounds. advantage over video store: you can tape it (not valid for sky digital). disadvatage over video store: don't get served by kris.

and well, I felt in love with Ross again.
OK, so it was worth it.

test
What's she gonna look like with a chimney on her?

Mark!
I was made to feel guilty about what I did, and well, I guess I felt a little guilty about it because I kinda went back on my word for the sake of my own personal happiness.
It's always gratifying to see someone with such high moral standards. However, given that circumstances had totally changed in the interim, such a transgression could be forgiven.

And then there's the whole selfishness aspect of doing what I did for the sake of my own happiness.
Is it just you who has gained happiness out of this? What about shimelle? Your relatives, friends, colleagues, all the people at Waterloo? Similarly, who has been let down by this whole episode?

But was it wrong? Was it morally reprehensible?
Had they both given up on each other? If they had, then that makes them free agents. Both of them. If only one had given up, then that makes matters a whole lot more complex.

Did I deserve to be treated the way I was by some people?
From the framing of the question, I suspect that treatment was kinda negative. In which case, no.

Alysa (is that al-ee-sa, or al-ish-ya, or ..?)
if you pple don't mind could you please tell me a little about yourselsves
Me is Iain T Weaver, 20-something computer bod, web page designer, and bloke behind the list's very unofficial soundtrack. Poster of long, encyclopaedic posts and digester in extremis.

and what's going on in this room
I'm watching the Third Rock in which Dick and Mary get locked in a library. I can see why it went for an Emmy.

byron
Okay, those of you who laughed at the previous paragraph: you're geeks
While there are parts of byron's costume that confuse, it was enough to raise a smile. [sigh] Welcome to geekdom.

Now, bra sizes. It appears that the number is an indication of the torsal measurement, and the letter an indication of the difference betwixt minimal and maximal torsal measurements.

Or something.

icq 14441391 * Alistair ex Borsts * Brum: blowy & 11
Keeper of Brian's calendar, currently showing Dec 36

Sara
Firday night Ross's mom and dad watched Toby (oh, and Ross's grandmother as well) and me and Ross went out.
This poses the question: what were Mr and Mrs Ross'sparents watching, exactly? Toby? His great-grandma? Both??

there's a Claire's there now!!
Like, wow. There's been one in Telford since the dawn of time, and one in Wolverhampton for a good eight months. Still, these Puddlesiders never know what's going on in the real world...

In Vowel-Consonant-Vowel-land (Pres: Carola Voderuman) Betsy adds
How about Alexi Lalas?
Yep, he plays on the Socer IX - their disciplinary record is so bad that two members never start a game. Another member is over from Russian. He has this nasty habit of scratching himself in public, Ivan Aginic. Then there are all the embryologists debating at the "Zygote Me No Zygote" conference, and spending time at the golf course - presided over by the Irish star who has slightly lost his touch, For O'vapar.

Sara's forward
Gay genocide outlined by Christian Broadcast Network programming utilizing Boy Enyart Show.
This is a great one! A wonderful parody. Someone, somewhere has spent a long time putting together a skit based on right-wing rantings.

And some Original Sara, from the heart
I guess my favorite language is american, as without that, who knows how I would communicate with everyone.
Don't know. Maybe you'd try try using English (;

people who are insultings others, usually don't realize how much it is hurtng that person. either that, or they don't think about it.
And those that deliberately set out to hurt and injure..?

Here's a prediction for the far, far, dim and distant future. By the year 2000, data traffic around the world will outstrip voice traffic by 5 times. 80 million emails are sent daily. Both are growing at an annual rate of 35%. [Source: Datacast]

you know how cheerleaders have to wear their skirts to school on game days?
Eeeeew! Yick! Fancy having to perform an athletic event in the same outfit that you've had on all day. Icky, yicky. You wouldn't ask a footballer to wander around lessons wearing all the padding. You certainly wouldn't ask a hockey player to cut up the floor by walking in their skates. So why different rules for cheerleaders? Seeing as how it may be a genuine Olympic sport 'ere long, maybe Some People should start treating it as athletics, not entertainment.

Sara
you know..not all americans sue!! :)
What would Senator McCarthy have said (;

for one thing, you can't sue them for that kind of stuff.
Oh, I'm sure you can. If they've failed to exercise due care and attention - in other words, acted with neglegence - then you can sue their ass off. And if they try to say you can't, you can sue other bodily parts off them.

why are people prejudiced against catholics?
It wasn't so much anti-Catholic prejudice as a protest against people who tried to upset the royal family and the Establishment. Whipped up, let's not forget, by that same Establishment.

These days, the whole Guy Fawkes thing has mutated somewhat. Fireworks are let off the weekends around November 5, and they're becoming available in mid-October to mark a Hindu religious festival. It's become less a celebration of a failed terrorist plot, and more of a celebration of the primeval power of fire.

What if someone cheats, and their partner finds out about it, but still wants them. Well..then they aren't getting pushed out. and its still their decision.
True, absolutely. But this tends to be a relatively unusual event, and even when it does happen, there can be no way of being certain it will before hand. You can have a very good idea, but never know for sure.

security isn't everything.
Again, I don't disagree; however, I'd seen nothing pointing out the risks involved in this area.

what about the saying, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Is anything gained, though? The cheater may get a lift out of it, the person they're cheating on will be hurt. There are other people who rely on the relationship - children, parents, siblings - whose security is being jeopardised for a selfish end. And there are yet other people - neighbours, friends, workers - who might support the new couple, or might not. This might all add up to a positive for the cheater, but it might not. If you don't venture, you have a certain outcome of zero. If you do cheat, you may win, you may think you win but lose, you may appear to lose but win, or it may be a total disaster.

Iain, it sounds like you would just stay with someone, for security.
I wouldn't know. I've not had the chance to find out.

what if you're not happy with them?
Open some lines of communication. There are very few things that can't be sorted out with enough effort. There are many more differences that people refuse to sort out. There's a whole world of difference between the two.

relationships have a lot more to do with them than just security.
I don't disagree. To downplay security is merely misleading yourself.

Becky
Does anybody know howto draw an emoticon that looks like a fish?
O<

Shana (Sun, though I don't think I need to specify any more)
so that makes it 28 hours without sleep. wow. and I'm still wide wake.
Need sleep? Need something very boring? Here's a couple of Very Boring Things To Listen To:

newsdirect
weaver.radio

• 97.3 News Direct - London's news in 20 minutes, every 20 minutes. Featuring Tailbacks on the Tolgarth Roundabout on the 1s.
• Weaver.radio - 20 minutes of boring music, every 20 minutes. Featuring the voice of me

Tara
let me wish you all happiness, health, and togetherness for this upcoming holiday season!
Why, thank you. I hope you have a wonderful Armistice Day too.

I need a screensaver with the extension .set!
Does such a program exist? I've never heard of one that doesn't end .scr

I dunno. All this talk about bra sizes kinda leaves me cold. Any ideas why? Also, anyone got any good man-bashing jokes. The bog- standard womin-bashing jokes are doing the rounds at work, and I'd like something going the other way...

(read the whole thing at the annotated copy - it's about 150k...)

Now, we could argue that point till the cows come home. However, let me bring it back to this here list. I know that there are a lot of us putting a lot of effort into this list - and that's why uninformed criticism rankles so badly. It sets me wondering: why do we do this? Is it to get some ego-satisfaction out of the process? Is it because we enjoy posting, reading and corresponding? Is it to make a pile of money and retire to a friendly island off the coast somewhere? Sure, I hope to do all three of those things, but I'm only on this list for the middle reason.

Furthermore, can we not be said to be contributing to a product out of all this - our own lives. We could wait ages and ages for the usual routes to provide some moral sustenance, or we can go help ourselves. Someone posts an observation about themselves, someone else spots a problem there, someone else posts a bug fix - or a work-round, or words of comfort - to ease it.

Brum: cloudy & 8 * keeper of Brian's calendar
Alistair ex Borsets * There's something happening here...

Steve
if me, living in the UK with a normal UK video player could play the videos?
Probably not. However, there seem to be a lot of videos around in the UK that do play NTSC tapes. Check your manual for further details!

if you type a happy face :-), as sad face :-( or a neutral face :-=A6 in WORD 95, it replaces it with a face!!!!
Yeah, but whose mouth looks like =A6? Also, this trick only works for you right-handed people. Those of us who prefer the left handed smilie, that actually smiles at the funny bit, are just left with a morass of punctuation):

Mae adds
I believe the UK has the PAL-Secam (sp?) system,
Not quite true: the UK uses PAL (Phase Alternate Line), as does almost all of Western Europe. France and the Eastern Block use SECAM. The two systems are quite incompatible; SECAM scans 729 lines 10 times a second (one-third each pass), PAL scans 625 lines 12.5 times a second (half the lines change each pass).

the meldrum home page

Further discussion of television standards can be found on mhp-chat, accessed through http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/

Sara
that'd be my perfect day right now :)
Which reminds me, did you ever get to hear and see the BBC's "Perfect Day" trailer from late last year? The one with all the singing stars performing a line or two from Lou Reed's song. I'm still looking out for something to complete the next show on weaver.radio...

From: "Nic."
Blinkin' 'eck! I thought you'd left yonks ago!!

Rick asks
What are you doing this very SECOND!? ((9:32 PM ET))
That's 16:32 Anchorage, 18:32 Vancouver, 20:02 South Park, 23:02 Signal Hill, +01:32 Rejkavik, +04:32 Athens, +08:02 Calcutta, +11:02 Tokyo.

Sleeping, of course. What else would I be doing at 02:32 UTC?

My apologies to those of you offended by my insinuation that drivers' training was always state funded. However, it appears that it is paid for by taxpayers in some cases, but not all. Quite frankly, that makes it worse, not better. What's more, am I right in assuming that this is arranged by and through the schools? That takes time away from the business of education, and into the business of profit. It's not consistent with the US Government's stated policy of reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. Basically, it stinks.

As does Stef's observation
Public transportation is a *joke*.
Heck, that's what happens when private use of roads is treated in a more leniant manner (read: lower taxes) than rail or public transport. Remove the government's subsidies to road, and let all means of transport compete on an equal footing. You'll see railways become economic again. There will be fewer lorries. Non-perishable goods might be moved by water, rather than road. And the earner will pay lower taxes to fund the roads, more than enough to offset the slightly raised cost of goods.

Huey
i don't think that we need an identity. we are a VERY heterogeneous list, merely bounded by mscl, so a corporation analogy is a bit redundant.
Fair call, but merely by being in existence, we have an identity. We're all acquainted with MSCL. I think it's fair to say that we all respect each other, and each other's opinions. What's more, I don't know of any other place where it's possible to discuss anything to do with life, living and everything, in a climate that's warm and accepting. I guess that would be this list's Unique Selling Point.

you should talk less on shit American sports and more on football, sorry, soccer.
Well, if you say so... But first, this report on Monster Truck Racing from Iowa:
[that's enough monster truck racing already - Ed]

anyone who thinks that someone else should be referred to as the king of pop can come back when their candidate has had 40 years of hits.

Actually, the guy's name is Cliff Evans (I think)

there is nothing that i can do to disprove it, no one ele was in the car with us. and well...we dont have an appeals thing, so yeah...
You're Americans, right? Why don't you sue his ass off? I mean, a nice little civil suit, claiming for the time you spent taking the test, and for additional lessons to keep practicing. He could call character witnesses, but from what you've said, he has no character to support. Ah well...

celebrating (what was it, was he blown up? hanged?)
Hung by the neck till he was quite dead, then chopped into little bits.

but celebrating it???
Yeah. You have to remember that at the time, the Anglican church positively encouraged ill-feeling towards the Catholic church. They only stopped doing so within the last century, and there are still blatantly anti-Catholic parades in Lewes, Sussex.

I know it has probably evolved, and most people don't think of it as celebrating that, but thats how it started out.
I would respond with a riposte, pointing out some American tradition with a grisly beginning. Only, there isn't one. How most annoying.

me and Ross are going to have Thanksgiving here. And we want to invite anyone and everyone on this list who would like to come.
It's tempting. Hmm, maybe we could do something that weekend...

Carathay postulates
Some people use the outside relations as a catalyst to leave a relationship they didn't have the courage to leave on their own.
Yet do they actually leave, or are they pushed out? Isn't this just handing the decision from one other person to another other person?

Others have discovered in an outside relationship some of the things that were missing in their lives, things that they had long ago written off as fantasy or fairy tales.
But how long is the fantasy sustained? The reason it's been dismissed as fantasy is because it cannot last. And it doesn't last.

Some have found self worth and self respect that they didn't believe they could possibly deserve.
I don't deny that. However, was it impossible to find that within their existing relationship? Was the other party grinding them down so totally that they could not respect themself? Or did they not let themselves see themselves in a good light?

What is better? Forever giving up your happiness in a dead marriage, or an outside relationship that teaches someone that happiness isn't just in the movies?
This isn't a genuine question, is it. You're not open for debate on the value of one over the other. Yet that is exactly the debate that needs to happen.

The choice isn't between boredom and happiness. It's between different kinds of happiness. The security of knowing that there's someone who will stand by you no matter what happens, who is prepared to make sacrifices for you, and not totally from a sense of duty. That security pitted against the brief excitement of a new fling, the novelty of the chase, and bringing back emotions that haven't been stirred in a very long time. Yet security and excitement cannot comfotably live together. They combine to force a choice between themselves.

People want caring, love, and nurturing out of their marriage.
That's not unreasonable.

They want to be with someone who excites them.
Neither is that. Yet, as I've just implied, both security and excitement need to be present for a successful relationship. An excess of either will blow it all apart.

My gut feeling is to choose a lot of security; if that's at the expense of excitement, so be it.

And, people are starting to decide that if their marriage doesn't provide that, they have a right to seek out and find it.
Oops, he used the R-word. What is the responsibility that goes with that right?

In this whole debate, I've not seen much about the person cheated on. Surprising as it may seem, they aren't an immobile block, cast in stone. They have feelings and emotions as well. What appears to be happening is that their feelings are trampled straight into the ground. Totally ignored, for someone else's selfish pursuit of false happiness. In attempting a metric of whether cheating is A Good Thing or not, the jilted party - or parties - need to be factored in. Their lives can be ruined by such desertion.

Courts have created "No-Fault" divorces, abandoning the arguement of who did what to whom in favor of simply dissolving the civil connection.
But that's all courts do. They cannot dissolve an emotional tie. They choose not to dissolve financial ties. That forces a bond of security on someone who may have been totally wronged by the other's actions. That isn't a recipe for happy people. Indeed, it forces a further emotional tie onto the couple, whether they want it or not.

People married 20 years ago with simple expectations are now told to expect more. Movies, television, music; all of these pound into our heads that true love and romance are possible.
Let me state my experience: genuine attachment to one other is perfectly possible. But, is it desirable? Do we see the ending of excellent relationships, or are they always frozen at a set- piece occasion?

Of course, there can never be moral absolutes. Sara poses a particularly sticky one.
If you break up with someone, but they don't believe you about breaking up, and they dont' consider you broken up, is that still cheating, if you have sex with someone else?
The short answer: it depends. If the "cheat" doesn't genuinely believe that it's irretrivably over, then yes. Beyond that, we would have to look at the reasons for both sides thinking the way they do: clearly, the two will have differences beyond the status of their relationship. If, for instance, one person was taking into account something that the other was unaware of, or did not wish to evaluate, that would change the field markedly from a straightforward position of clinging on just to be awkward, or leaving for the hell of it.

Ultimately, though, it depends on which side of the line you stand. If you think it's over, you won't view it as cheating; if you think there's life, you will. And it's impossible for either side to form a fair judgement.

There's one final point. If you elect to leave a relationship, you're effectively risking all your security. Your existing partner may not wish to have you back, and your new paramour may follow your example and leave. By staying inside the relationship, dull as it may be, you're assured of security. Nothing ventured, nothing lost.

keyoneohthree
DVD-ROM is fast becoming the new standard on new computers. hell, i thought it was going to be CD-R or CD-RW first but DVD is just kicking too much ass here in US.
Erm, that's totally not the case here. CD-ROM is standard, CD writers are knocking on the 100 pound door. DVD is still the best part of 1000 pounds, with blank media over 20 times as expensive as CDs. That's not endearing it to IT professionals, and puts it totally out of reach for the domestic market.

maybe it isn't doing too well in europe, but it will happen
I don't think it will. As I've said before, the main push here is digital tv and radio. Hi-fi buffs faced with the choice between spending 500 quid on a state-of-the-art DVD box that's little more than a glorified CD player, and a digital radio box that's miles better than FM, are finding there's no choice at all.

There is a market for a replacement for VHS, but this would need to be a multiple read-write system that can be produced at very low unit costs. DVD's not that under either criterion just at the mo.

Carathay adds
The only question is whether the DVD producers can do that before another standard comes in to try to take DVD's place.
I don't think they can. It requires some fundamental changes to the system.

My punt is for one of the Super-Floppies (zip drive and similar technologies) that can already hold 1Gb of data to become smaller and hold more data. 1Gb can hold something over 1.5 hours of CD-quality stereo music, or about 16 minutes of full- screen, full quality digital tv. Nearer 30 minutes with "acceptable" digital artifacts that viewers almost certainly won't see. If the makers can increase the storage capacity sixfold, and perhaps physically shrink the unit a little, while keeping it fully re-recordable, they'll be away.

Becky, quoting me

Yip. The Clash, with UK Number One #660 (91.03.01, 2 wks)

And the answer to the quiz: Goran Ivenisevic, and Kimiko Date.

Codsall: sunshine & showers & 10 * weaver is 25 today
The Alistair Lloyd of the list and keeper of Brian's calendar