Dealing with Difficult People

Can you recall the last time you had to deal with a negative or difficult person? Or the last time someone said something with the intention of hurting you? How did you handle it? What was the result? What can you do in the future to get through these situations with peace and grace?

No matter where we go, we will face people who are negative, people who oppose our ideas, people who piss us off or people who simply do not like us. There are 6.4 billion people out there and conflict is a fact of life. This fact isn’t the cause of conflict but it is the trigger to our emotions and our emotions are what drive us back to our most basic survival instinct; react and attack back to defend ourselves.

In these instinctual moments, we may lose track of our higher selves and become the human animal with an urge to protect ourselves when attacked. This too is natural. However, we are the only animal blessed with intelligence and having the ability to control our responses. So how can we do that?

I regularly get asked “How do you deal with the negative comments about your articles? They are brutal. I don’t think I could handle them.” My answer is simple, “I don’t let it bother me to begin with.” It wasn’t always this simple, and took me some time before overcoming this natural urgency to protect myself and attack back.

I know it’s not easy, if it was easy, there wouldn’t be difficult or negative people to begin with.

15 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People

While I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with negativity, it is something I find myself having to actively work on. When I’m caught off guard and end up resorting to a defensive position, the result rarely turns out well.

The point is, we are humans after all, and we have emotions and egos. However, by keeping our egos in-check and inserting emotional intelligence, we’ll not only be doing a favor for our health and mental space, but we’ll also have intercepted a situation that would have gone bad, unnecessarily.

Here are some tips for dealing with a difficult person or negative message:

1. Forgive - What would the Dali Lama do if he was in the situation? He would most likely forgive. Remember that at our very core, we are good, but our judgment becomes clouded and we may say hurtful things. Ask yourself, “What is it about this situation or person that I can seek to understand and forgive?“

2. Wait it Out - Sometimes I feel compelled to instantly send an email defending myself. I’ve learned that emotionally charged emails never get us the result we want; they only add oil to the fire. What is helpful is inserting time to allow ourselves to cool off. You can write the emotionally charged email to the person, just don’t send it off. Wait until you’ve cooled off before responding, if you choose to respond at all.

3. “Does it really matter if I am right?” - Sometimes we respond with the intention of defending the side we took a position on. If you find yourself arguing for the sake of being right, ask “Does it matter if I am right?” If yes, then ask “Why do I need to be right? What will I gain?“

4. Don’t Respond - Many times when a person initiates a negative message or difficult attitude, they are trying to trigger a response from you. When we react, we are actually giving them what they want. Let’s stop the cycle of negative snowballing and sell them short on what they’re looking for; don’t bother responding.

5. Stop Talking About It - When you have a problem or a conflict in your life, don’t you find that people just love talking about it? We end up repeating the story to anyone who’ll listen. We express how much we hate the situation or person. What we fail to recognize in these moments is that the more we talk about something, the more of that thing we’ll notice. Example, the more we talk about how much we dislike a person, the more hate we will feel towards them and the more we’ll notice things about them that we dislike. Stop giving it energy, stop thinking about it, and stop talking about it. Do your best to not repeat the story to others.

6. Be In Their Shoes - As cliché as this may sound, we tend to forget that we become blind sighted in the situation. Try putting yourself in their position and consider how you may have hurt their feelings. This understanding will give you a new perspective on becoming rational again, and may help you develop compassion for the other person.

7. Look for the Lessons - No situation is ever lost if we can take away from it some lessons that will help us grow and become a better person. Regardless of how negative a scenario may appear, there is always a hidden gift in the form of a lesson. Find the lesson(s).

8. Choose to Eliminate Negative People In Your Life - Negative people can be a source of energy drain. And deeply unhappy people will want to bring you down emotionally, so that they are not down there alone. Be aware of this. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands and do not mind the energy drain, I recommend that you cut them off from your life. Cut them out by avoiding interactions with them as much as possible. Remember that you have the choice to commit to being surrounded by people who have the qualities you admire: optimistic, positive, peaceful and encouraging people. As Kathy Sierra said, “Be around the change you want to see in the world.”

9. Become the Observer - When we practice becoming the observer of our feelings, our thoughts and the situation, we separate ourselves away from the emotions. Instead of identifying with the emotions and letting them consume us, we observe them with clarity and detachment. When you find yourself identifying with emotions and thoughts, bring your focus on your breathe.

10. Go for a Run … or a swim, or some other workout. Physical exercise can help to release the negative and excess energy in us. Use exercise as a tool to clear your mind and release built up negative energy.

11. Worst Case Scenario - Ask yourself two questions, “If I do not respond, what is the worst thing that can result from it?“, “If I do respond, what is the worst thing that can result from it?” Answering these questions often adds perspectives to the situation, and you’ll realize that nothing good will come out of reacting. Your energy will be wasted, and your inner space disturbed.

12. Avoid Heated Discussions - When we’re emotionally charged, we are so much in our heads that we argue out of an impulse to be right, to defend ourselves, for the sake of our egos. Rationality and resolution can rarely arise out of these discussions. If a discussion is necessary, wait until everyone has cooled off before diving into one.

13. Most Important - List out things in your life most important to you. Then ask yourself, “Will a reaction to this person contribute to the things that matter most to me?“

14. Pour Honey - This doesn’t always work, but sometimes catches people off guard when they’re trying to “Pour Poison” on you. Compliment the other person for something they did well, tell them you’ve learned something new through interacting with them, and maybe offer to become friends. Remember to be genuine. You might have to dig deep to find something that you appreciate about this person.

15. Express It - Take out some scrap paper and dump all the random and negative thoughts out of you by writing freely without editing. Continue to do so until you have nothing else to say. Now, roll the paper up into a ball, close your eyes and visualize that all the negative energy is now inside that paper ball. Toss the paper ball in the trash. Let it go!

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Carbon Offsets: More Harm Than Good?

By MELISSA CHECKER

From Coldplay to Leonardo diCaprio to Al Gore, influential environmentalists are increasingly modeling green behavior by neutralizing their carbon emissions through carbon offsets. Briefly, offsets are based on the notion that consumers can balance out carbon intensive activities, like travel, by contributing to projects that reduce greenhouse gases. Between 2005 and 2007 the market for carbon offsets grew 175%, reaching $110 million (Faris 2007). But just as buying indulgences in the Middle Ages never really erased your sins, carbon offsets rarely counteract your carbon use. Moreover, in some cases, carbon offset projects actually hurt local people. Many experts now believe that well-intentioned consumers are not just wasting their money on offsets, but that purchasing them actually does more harm than good.

How it Works

Suppose you buy airplane tickets for your family’s summer vacation on a website like Travelocity, Orbitz or Expedia. Somewhere in the process of taking your credit card information, the website will ask whether you would like to offset your trip’s carbon emissions for a nominal fee (e.g., a roundtrip flight from NYC to San Francisco = 5,142 miles = 2,455 lbs CO2 = $17.85). Or, you can offset your car rental, hotel stay and flight (a seven day cross-country trip can be offset for $5.44/day/person). You can also offset your wedding, and, if you’re feeling guilty on a daily basis, you can offset energy usage in your home, or your dorm room.

At this point, your original travel search engine will have linked you to a carbon offset company. These for-profit organizations act as brokers, channeling consumer contributions to projects that either replace atmospheric carbon (i.e., by planting trees) or promote renewable energy. Sounds promising, but is it really so easy to “zero-out” the carbon that leads global warming? The answer, unfortunately, is no.

The Trouble with Trees

Take, for example, carbon sequestration programs, which account for approximately 20% of the carbon offset market. Based on the idea that trees absorb carbon, these programs sponsor the planting of large forests designed to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For over a decade, governments and non-profit foundations in the developing world have been offering large sums of money to developing countries in exchange for tree plantations, also known as “carbon sinks”.

However scientists point out that there is a major difference between the kind of carbon emitted from the burning of fossil fuels and the kind of carbon stored by trees. “Carbon emissions from burned oil, gas or coal cannot be considered as equal to the same amount of biological carbon in a tree,” write scientists at the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN 2005). Whereas in nature, carbon moves freely between forests, oceans and air, the fossil carbon pool is inert. Once out of the ground and into the air via cars, coal extraction, etc., fossil carbon joins the active carbon pool. It will not return to the fossil carbon pool for millennia. So, the carbon absorbed by trees does not zero out the carbon emitted by airplanes.

Even if the carbon were equivalent, trees are not necessarily reliable carbon storehouses. First, scientists point out that when trees burn, rot, or are chopped down, they release any carbon they have stored (Kill 2003). Second, according to ecologist Ram Oren, principal investigator on Duke University’s ongoing Free Air Carbon Enrichment project, if trees do not receive enough water or nutrients, any extra carbon they store very quickly goes back into the atmosphere (Cropping 2007). For instance, in 2002, the band Coldplay announced it would offset the environmental impact caused by the release of its second album by planting 10,000 mango trees in southern India. More precisely, Coldplay worked with CarbonNeutral, an offset company, which in turn contracted with Women for Sustainable Development, an NGO. Eventually funds went to local farmers who were supposed to plant and care for the trees. However, four years after the album's release, many of the trees had died – a drought dried the soil, and many villagers never received funding to help them maintain their trees (Dhillon and Harnden 2006).

Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Violations

The Coldplay/Carbon Neutral project left behind more than just dead mango trees. Indian villagers, who are economically marginalized to begin with, invested time and energy that could have been directed at other, more secure income-generating projects. In fact, one of the biggest problems with Carbon offset schemes, particularly forests, is their lack of attention to the lives of local people. Frequently, carbon sinks displace local populations, generating poverty, inequality, and food and water scarcity. They also drastically reduce biological diversity. In turn, the erosion of resources at every level exacerbates local conflicts (McAfee 2003). Even more seriously, some carbon offset tree plantations have become an excuse for human rights violations.

One well-known case exemplifies the violence created by offset forests. In the early 1990s, the Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Face Foundation, a nonprofit corporation established by Dutch power companies, launched an initiative to plant scores of trees in Mount Elgon National Park. In order to implement the project, the Ugandan government evicted thousands of local farmers. Most have been fighting to regain their land ever since.

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Cranberry juice creates energy barrier that keeps bacteria away from cells

For generations, people have consumed cranberry juice, convinced of its power to ward off urinary tract infections, though the exact mechanism of its action has not been well understood. A new study by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) reveals that the juice changes the thermodynamic properties of bacteria in the urinary tract, creating an energy barrier that prevents the microorganisms from getting close enough to latch onto cells and initiate an infection.

The study, published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces: B, was conducted by Terri Camesano, associate professor of chemical engineering at WPI, and a team of graduate students, including PhD candidate Yatao Liu. They exposed two varieties of E. coli bacteria, one with hair-like projections known as fimbriae and one without, to different concentrations of cranberry juice. Fimbriae are present on a number of virulent bacteria, including those that cause urinary tract infections, and are believed to be used by bacteria to form strong bonds with cells.

For the fimbriaed bacteria, they found that even at low concentrations, cranberry juice altered two properties that serve as indicators of the ability of bacteria to attach to cells. The first factor is called Gibbs free energy of attachment, which is a measure of the amount of energy that must be expended before a bacterium can attach to a cell. Without cranberry juice, this value was a negative number, indicating that energy would be released and attachment was highly likely. With cranberry juice the number was positive and it grew steadily as the concentration of juice increased, making attachment to urinary tract cells increasingly unlikely.

Surface free energy also rose, suggesting that the presence of cranberry juice creates an energy barrier that repels the bacteria. The researchers also placed the bacteria and urinary tract cells together in solution. Without cranberry juice, the fimbriaed bacteria attached readily to the cells. As increasing concentrations of cranberry juice were added to the solution, fewer and fewer attachments were observed.

Cranberry juice had no discernible effect on E. coli bacteria without fimbriae, suggesting that compounds in the juice may act directly on the molecular structure of the fimbriae themselves. This reinforces previous work by the WPI team that showed that exposure to cranberry juice alters the shape of the fimbriae, causing them to become compressed. Using an atomic force microscope as a minute strain gauge, the team also showed that the adhesive force exerted by bacteria on urinary tract cells declined in direct proportion to the concentration of cranberry juice in the solution.

“Our results show that, at least for urinary tract infections, cranberry juice targets the right bacteria—those that cause disease—but has no effect on non-pathogenic organisms, suggesting that cranberry juice will not disrupt bacteria that are part of the normal flora in the gut,” Camesano says. “We have also shown that this effect occurs at concentrations of cranberry juice that are comparable to levels we would expect to find in the urinary tract.”

Camesano notes that unpublished work has shown that while cranberry juice has potent effects on disease-causing bacteria, those effects are transitory. “When we takes E. coli. bacteria that have been treated with cranberry juice and place them in normal growth media, they regain the ability to adhere to urinary tract cells,” she says. “This suggests that to realize the antibacterial benefits of cranberry, one must consume cranberry juice regularly—perhaps daily.”

For those watching calories, Camesano says other recent work in her lab has shown that the effects of regular cranberry juice cocktail and diet (sugar-free) cranberry juice are identical. “That’s good news for people who do not like to consume a lot of sugary juice,” she says.

Source: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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When Good Lizards Go Bad: Komodo Dragons Take Violent Turn

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
August 25, 2008; Page A1

KAMPUNG KOMODO, Indonesia -- At least once a week, an unwelcome intruder crawls under a clapboard wall and, forked tongue darting, lumbers its way into Syarif Maulana's classroom.

"Then, everyone screams, there is no more school, and we all run away very fast," says the 10-year-old boy. "We are very afraid."

The intruder, a Komodo dragon, is the world's largest lizard, an ancient, fierce carnivore found only on a handful of remote islands in eastern Indonesia. Reaching 10 feet in length, the dragons feed on buffaloes, deer and an occasional human. Just a year ago, a boy about Syarif's age died in a dragon's jaws, his bones smashed against rocks to facilitate reptilian digestion.

That killing, and a spate of other close encounters, has fanned a panic in the dragons' main habitat, the Komodo National Park. Touted by Indonesia as its "Jurassic Park," this rocky, barren archipelago is home to some 2,500 dragons and nearly 4,000 people, clustered in four fishing villages of wooden stilt houses.

These locals have long viewed the dragons as a reincarnation of fellow kinsfolk, to be treated with reverence. But now, villagers say, the once-friendly dragons have turned into vicious man-eaters. And they blame policies drafted by American-funded environmentalists for this frightening turn of events.

"When I was growing up, I felt the dragons were my family," says 55-year-old Hajji Faisal. "But today the dragons are angry with us, and see us as enemies." The reason, he and many other villagers believe, is that environmentalists, in the name of preserving nature, have destroyed Komodo's age-old symbiosis between dragon and man.

For centuries, local tradition required feeding the dragons -- which live more than 50 years, can recognize individual humans and usually stick to fairly small areas. Locals say they always left deer parts for the dragons after a hunt, and often tied goats to a post as sacrifice. Island taboos strictly prohibited hurting the giant reptiles, a possible reason why the dragons have survived in the Komodo area despite becoming extinct everywhere else.

'Sacred Duty'

"For us, giving food to the dragons is an obligation, our sacred duty," says Hajji Adam, headman of the park's biggest village, Kampung Komodo.

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More Than Enough: The First 11 Minutes of Uwe Boll’s Postal

Waffle Bike

Waffle Bike is a fully weaponized waffle making device complete with call to prayer public address system.

Best Billboard. Ever.

AC/DC new album Black Ice is revealed

By Kathy McCabe

August 18, 2008 04:05pm

THE Rock'n'Roll Train will soon be pulling into a station near you, driven by none other than the world's biggest rock band, AC/DC.

The legendary Australian rockers, who have made their reputation by staying true to their chosen genre's signatures, announced their new single Rock'N'Roll Train will hit the airwaves on August 28.

It introduces their first new album in eight years, Black Ice, which is guaranteed to be one of the biggest selling records of the year when it drops on October 18.

The band finished the record with repsected rock producer Brendan O'Brien in Vancouver in just eight weeks and recently filmed a video for Rock'n'Roll Train, which will premiere next month.

Black Ice will feature 15 tracks including She Likes Rock'n'Roll and War Machine.

You gotta love a band who don't mess around with their song titles.

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Introducing Fortune Cookies to China

Are fortune cookies Chinese?

Clearly not. They are arguably more American (by way of Japan), judging by the way that people in China react to fortune cookies — with a mixture of confusion and amusement. As part of research for my book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, I went around China handing out fortune cookies to random people (my bellhop, people on the street, vendors) and recorded their reactions.

Often times, they would put the cookies in their mouth, and then be surprised when they found a piece of paper either in their mouth or in a cookie.



Fortune cookies are not intuitive. This was confirmed when I discovered a woman named Nana Shi who was making fortune cookies in China. But she too put instructions on the red wrapper telling people to break the cookie before eating them because they were necessary.

Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies, looking to them for winning lottery numbers and becoming upset when the fortunes inside are unfortunate. The Chinese, on the other hand, would often tell me after trying the curved vanilla-flavored wafers, “Americans are so strange, why are they putting pieces of paper in their cookies?”

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TELUS Forcing Customers Off Unlimited Plans

"Canadian telco TELUS sold a bunch of (expensive) Unlimited EV-DO aircard accounts last winter and are now summarily canceling them or forcing people to switch to much less valuable plans. TELUS is citing 'Violations,' but their Terms Of Service (see #5) are utterly vague and self-contradictory. The TELUS plans were marketed as being unlimited, without the soft/hard caps that the other providers had at the time. They were purchased by a lot of rural Canadians who had no other choice except dialup. Now TELUS is forcing everyone to switch from a $75 Unlimited plan to a $65 1GB plan, and canceling those who won't switch. Have a look at the thread at Howardforums, a discussion of the TELUS ToS (in red at the bottom), an EV-DO blogger who's been a victim, a post at Electronista, and of course Verizon getting fined for doing the same thing! Michael Geist has taken an interest as well."

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"Nothing like giving the customer what they don't want!"

Canada remains happily mediocre

Bruce Dowbiggin, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Was I the only one wondering why Donovan Bailey, perhaps the greatest Summer Olympian ever in this country, was mentoring Jamaican athletes in Beijing? Why was he hugging Usain Bolt, not Canadians Gary Reed or Priscilla Lopes-Schliep? Oh, right . . . he was frozen out by Canadian officials despite a medal dry spell going back to 1996 for Canadian track.

Am I the only one who wonders why this is going on in a country that supposedly needs all the help it can get?

Our athletes won 18 medals. A lot better than the 12 in Athens. Better than the 14 in Sydney. A lot more than anyone believed in the futile first week in Beijing. The nation finished in the top 14 nations, slightly ahead of its own predictions. Tied with Spain! And we had another nine near-misses for fourth (can we get the IOC to cast a copper medal?)

Eighty per cent of Canadians think the team did a swell job. So let's celebrate as Canada exceeds expectations at the Summer Olympics.

Or not. There was something hollow in much of Canada's self-satisfied Olympic machinery in Beijing. Call it the triumph of low expectations. Like the faux-Beatles commercials for Little Mosque On The Prairie flogged by CBC during the Games, (turns out that virtually none of Little Mosque's actors are even Islamic), there was a smug satisfaction with our cleverness in grabbing a whole three gold medals in China.

Hey, look at us, overcoming the odds. Underdogs defying gravity.

As one reader has pointed out, much of that medal production came in low-hanging fruit, sports such as trampoline, rowing, diving and wrestling, with smaller participant bases. In the major team sports that enjoy worldwide attention, there had not been a Canadian squad that has won a medal in a summer Games since 1936. Soccer. Basketball. Field hockey. Baseball. Volleyball. Kaput.

Canada has (for the past three Olympics) virtually disappeared in the swimming pool. The track team that kicked butt in Athens in 1996 is now a hope here and a prospect there. After Kyle Shewfelt's 2004 revelation in gymnastics, Canada once more disappeared in the sport in Beijing. Boxing? Zilch. Cycling: Nada.

This is not to knock the athletes who dedicate themselves with their hearts and soul. They try, they sacrifice. But there are still too many in this country consoled by a nanny culture that celebrates 17th place with a trophy. CBC and other Canadian media compliantly promote the plucky Canuck scenario, but it obscures the reality of what can truly be achieved in Canada.

Let's reflect on this wonderful country a moment. Blessed with great prosperity, immense talent and guaranteed health care for all, we still can't win more than three gold medals in each of the past three Olympics? Spain's a cool place to visit, but with our resources we should school them (and much of the world) on a quadrennial basis.

Some will say that, unlike the Australias and Spains, we must split our focus between Summer and Winter games, diminishing our resources. Vancouver 2010 is the big dog that must eat first. That our corporate community is too branch-plant to mount the funding effort needed to push Canada to the top. Government has other priorities for the money.

All good excuses. Excuses that many in the sports community and media readily grab to explain failure. Reliable, clutch performers such as Alex Despatie or Karen Cockburn are the exception, not the rule in Canada's Olympic firmament. There are legions who believe that, when the going gets tough, it's time to go home.

There is reportedly a new spirit in our sports culture -- Own The Podium -- that seems to be working on the Winter Games side. Our hockey teams now possess a newfound mental toughness. The ski team is headed in the right direction, etc. Vancouver could be the showcase for mental toughness that Summer Games are not.

Now, former swim hero Alex Baumann has been repatriated from Australia to spread this gospel to Canada's summer athletes. Maybe we'll see the rewards of that by London in 2012. But why not also bring Bailey and Bruny Surin back as well to help the track team? There are still too many stories out there about bureaucrats who refuse to rethink the paradigm of carded athletes and mediocre coaches in their sports.

In women's field hockey, for instance, a group of parents and supporters came forth with four proposals to make sure the team gets to the Games in 2012 after failing to reach Beijing. They were turned down each time by the governing body. This is not an aberration in Canadian sport.

Look, if we want to be the world's 14th-place team, that's fine by me. But let's not pretend that riding in the fumes of other nations is the natural state of our potential, either. We can do better. We just choose not to and then create a myth of inferiority to excuse the results. (We do this is in business, too.) Canada has the best -- we just need to tell them it's OK to be so.

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A Beautiful Place to Die

THE SIGNS ARE SUPPOSED TO remind hikers of their vulnerability. Especially those who, emboldened by cellphones and global positioning systems, set off into the Presidential Range in New Hampshire's White Mountains carrying little else besides day packs stocked with PowerBars. The message, in black lettering on yellow, is blunt: "STOP. The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad." And each year, many people do stop, long enough to pose for a picture. Some photographs are uploaded to Flickr and other websites - including one of a pink-faced man gleefully acknowledging the warning with upraised middle fingers. A caption reads, "Tom showing the White Mountain National Forest what he thinks of their sign."

Todd Bogardus, the search and rescue leader with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, is accustomed to such cavalier attitudes. For a new breed of hikers, he says, high-tech gadgets have replaced common sense, even though cellphone service is spotty in the mountains, and many people do not know how to operate their GPS devices. "Technology is good when it's used with proper basics and education, but it also gives a false sense of security," says Bogardus. "They figure, 'This is the weekend I took off , and, by God, I'm going to climb that mountain.'"

He is talking about hikers like Tom, who probably returned home unscathed. Most of the 5 million visitors to the 800,000-acre national forest each year do, even if they have spent less time preparing to navigate its wilderness trails than they would their local supermarket. "People don't start the day thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to get hurt,' " says Rebecca Oreskes, spokeswoman for the national forest. "They might not have the proper equipment, and they underestimate how difficult the White Mountains can be. They're starting from the valley, where it's 80 degrees. They're in shorts and T-shirts, and they get up high, and there's sleet. It's a really different world."

ABOUT TWO HOURS NORTH OF BOSTON, INTERSTATE 93 CURVES SOFTLY to reveal the indent of Franconia Notch, etched by Cannon Cliff on one side and Franconia Ridge on the other. It is so seemingly benign, so accessible. Seventy million people live within a day's drive.

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Death Star Over San Francisco

"Can Vader Really Be Worse Than Bush?!?"

The class of 2012 Mindset List

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
19. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
21. Students have always been "Rocking the Vote.”
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
23. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
24. We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
25. There have always been gay rabbis.
26. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
27. College grads have always been able to Teach for America.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
29. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
30. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
31. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
35. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.
36. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
37. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
38. Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.
39. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
40. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
41. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
42. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
43. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
45. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
46. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
47. They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
48. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
49. Soft drink refills have always been free.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
52. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
53. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
54. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
55. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
56. Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
57. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
58. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
59. There have always been charter schools.
60. Students always had Goosebumps.

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The Great Consumer Crash of 2009

“It is easy to ignore the storm if you look at the opposite horizon. When the storm reaches your location there can be no more ignorance.”

I hate to tell you, but the storm has reached your location and it is a Category 5 hurricane. The levees are leaking. Ignore it at your own peril. The 6,000 sq ft McMansion buying, BMW leasing, $5 Starbucks latte drinking, granite countertop upgrading, home equity borrowing days are coming to an end. The American consumer will not go without a fight.

For the last seven years the American consumer has carried the weight of the world on its shoulders. This has been a heavy burden, but when you take steroids it doesn’t seem so heavy. The steroid of choice for the American consumer has been debt. We have utilized home equity loans, cash out refinancing, credit card debt, and auto loans to live above our means. It has been a fun ride, but the ride is over. We can’t get steroids from our dealer (banks) anymore.

After examining these charts, it is clear to me that the tremendous prosperity that began during the Reagan years of the early 1980’s has been a false prosperity built upon easy credit. Household debt reached $13.8 trillion in 2007, with $10.5 trillion of that mortgage debt. The leading edge of the baby boomers turned 30 years of age in the late 1970’s, just as the usage of debt began to accelerate. Debt took off like a rocket ship after 9/11 with the President urging Americans to spend and Alan Greenspan lowering interest rates to 1%. Only in the bizzaro world of America in the last 7 years, while in the midst of 2 foreign wars, would a President urge his citizens to show their patriotism by buying cars and TVs. When did our priorities become so warped?

How Did I Get Here

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

-Talking Heads, David Byrne lyrics to Once in a Lifetime

By 2005 practically everyone had a large automobile and a beautiful house. By 2010 many of these people will be asking where is that large automobile and will realize as the sheriff escorts them out of their house that this is not my beautiful house. There is plenty of blame to go round for this predicament. According to Northern Trust economist Paul Kasriel, “We’re a what’s my monthly payment nation. The idea is to have my monthly payments as high as I can take. If you cut interest rates, I’ll get a bigger car.” Major banks offer credit cards using your home equity as a way to pay everyday expenses like groceries, gas and clothes. Eating your house was never so easy.

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Should Theaters Offer Kid-free Screenings?

Mark Oakley at Den of Geek says, in no uncertain terms, that it's high time for theaters to start catering to their adult customers by offering no-kids-allowed shows. What do you think? Until recently, I'd have said it wasn't necessary. After all, go to a late enough screening, and kids generally aren't a problem, right?

Wrong.

My brother and I hit the local multiplex recently to catch the 8:15 Dark Knight show. Should be a no-brainer on the kid front -- late-ish show that lets out well past bedtime on a Monday night, creepy, malevolent villain, loud, blam-heavy soundtrack, PG-13 rating, plus a slew of reviews noting how not-kid-friendly the film is. There's also Nolan's previous go, Batman Begins. Anyone who's seen it should be aware that his take on the Caped Crusader isn't going to be appropriate for youngsters. Yet we saw one couple walk in leading a preschooler by the hand. The kid couldn't have been over three, and the ticket-taker said that this is quite common.

Few things ruin a movie for me more quickly than a theater full of talking, thrashing, hollering, seat-kicking, popcorn-pitching kids. But is that enough to justify kids-banned shows? As a parent, I want to say "No!" I'm capable of deciding what movies are appropriate for my kids, and what times are appropriate for them to see them. But as a theater patron who's had more than one show ruined by kids, and who's seen kids taken into movies where the plainly had no business, I want to say "Of course!"

Clearly, the preferable solution would be for parents to (a) be smarter about what movies are okay for kids, and (b) teach their kids to behave properly in public. Short of miraculous improvement in parenting competence, banning kids at later shows, say anything past 8 or 9pm, might be a workable solution. Still, that forces adults to pick between staying out late or suffering with someone else's ill-behaved offspring Another choice especially with multiplexes, might be simply designate one screen for child-free shows. Surely there are other possibilities as well.

What say the GeekDad readers (and the other GeekDads, for that matter)? Is there a good, workable solution to reach detente between cranky adults and poorly-controlled children? Is it inappropriate to even consider no-kids shows? Or is Mark Oakley spot-on in calling for theaters to designate some screens exclusively for the 18+ crowd?

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"I for one, would welcome this - there should be adults-only theatre times - I can remember when we have had movies ruined by yappy kids and crying babies - weget babysitter when we go to the late show - I see no reason why others should bring young children and ruin the viewing for other people."

The Aethiest's View To Christianity Explained Finally

The Grass Is Always Greener.....

Bartering sex for stuff or services

LifeWire) -- While she was studying in Brazil during college, the one thing Stephanie Gerson longed to do before leaving was spend time in the thick of the Amazon rain forest. Unfortunately, she couldn't find a tour that would take her past the forest's edge.
So, when a college-aged busboy at a resort she was visiting began flirting with her, she asked him if he thought a tourist could survive alone in the jungle.

"He laughed and told me I was nuts," says Gerson, 27, who works part-time in online marketing for a chocolate company in San Francisco.

Then he told her that he'd grown up in the jungle in a nearby indigenous community. That was all Gerson needed to hear. Although she wasn't attracted to the guy, Gerson flirted right back in the hopes that he would be her jungle tour guide. It worked. The busboy wormed his way out of work, and the two headed into the rain forest.

"It was amazing," Gerson says of her adventure in 2000. "We built our homes out of palm leaves, I saw animals I'd never seen before, he taught me the medicinal properties of all the plants, we picked fruit off the trees, we swam with and ate piranhas. And, of course, we had sex ... for almost two weeks."

Body currency system

Gerson never felt sleazy or uncomfortable with her unspoken arrangement with the busboy.

"It was a good barter both ways," she says. "I got to stay in the jungle, and he got to have sex with a cute, young American girl."

Such trades aren't so unusual. Throughout history, humans have used their bodies to get what they want -- from ancient Egyptian ruler Cleopatra, who cemented her power through liaisons with Roman rulers Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, to the man and woman who were arrested at a Fort Wright, Kentucky, motel in late June for allegedly swapping sex for gasoline. Regardless of our motivation, scientists say we're hardwired to use our bodies as a bargaining chip.

A recent study of 475 University of Michigan undergraduates ages 17 to 26 found that 27 percent of the men and 14 percent of the women who weren't in a committed relationship had offered someone favors or gifts -- help prepping for a test, laundry washing, tickets to a college football game -- in exchange for sex. On the flip side, 5 percent of the men surveyed and 9 percent of the women said they'd attempted to trade sex for such freebies.

And although they weren't hard up for resources, the students surveyed "recognized the value of this socioeconomic currency system," says Daniel Kruger, research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, who published his findings in the April issue of "Evolutionary Psychology."

"It's more about getting what you want than getting what you need," he says. "Unless you think everyone needs a $200 Louis Vuitton bag."

The handyman hookup

But unattached coeds aren't the only ones who barter with their bodies. Some professionals will attest that their skills are, well, sexy.

"Women are turned on just by the simple idea of their guy getting off his ass and doing something for them," says Rocky Fino, author of "Will Cook for Sex: A Guy's Guide to Cooking."

It works both ways, he adds.

"Give it to me first thing in the morning, and I'll play [handyman] all day," says Fino, a 39-year-old father of two and part-time construction worker.

Ben Corbett, a 39-year-old contractor from Boulder, Colorado, credits his tool belt with prompting the barrage of come-ons he fields from female clients -- most of them married -- on a regular basis.

"It starts with the flirting, and it just progresses," says Corbett, who has run a construction and remodeling business for 20 years. "They'll touch my hand, and there's all this physical contact. Or they'll run around in their pajamas."

"Once," he says, "I was painting the hallway right outside a client's bedroom, and she was lying on her bed like a girl at a slumber party with her legs up and her arms crossed and her head resting on them, asking me if I had a girlfriend.

"It's all about the fantasy of being taken by the rough-hewn construction guy," muses Corbett, who, despite the temptation, has avoided getting sexually involved with his clientele for fear of jeopardizing his business.

It's the biology, stupid

Call it crass, sexist or gender stereotyping all you want, but there are thousands of years of biological programming at work here, says Dr. Chris Fariello, director of the Institute for Sex Therapy at the Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group based in Philadelphia.

Plain and simple, a partner who provides more resources -- wealth, shelter, home repairs -- is seen as more attractive and stands to reap more sexual rewards.

Or, as Fariello puts it, "I don't get anybody in my office who says, 'My husband sits on the couch all day and eats bonbons, and I want to have sex with him all the time.'"
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If Vietnam Were Now, What Would You See?

New Stargate series announced for summer 2009

SCI FI Channel and MGM Television Entertainment have reached an agreement to extend MGM’s Stargate brand with a new series for the Channel. Production on the first season of Stargate Universe, a weekly series based on the popular Stargate franchise, will begin in early 2009, with the show targeted to premiere that Summer.

Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, co-creators of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and who both currently serve as executive producers on Atlantis, will serve as executive producers and writers on the new series.

“SCI FI has enjoyed tremendous success with Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis and we’re proud to be the home of the new Stargate Universe,” said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President, Original Programming for SCI FI & Co-Head Original Content, Universal Cable Productions. “Universe will continue the Stargate legacy of vibrant storylines and compelling adventures, but will re-invent the format in a whole new way.”

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Star Wars: Clone Wars… better than expected

Okay, I did the unthinkable. I actually went and saw STAR WARS: CLONE WARS. My eight and a half year old step-son wanted to see it, and I guess I wasn’t as vehemently opposed as many others were. There has been a lot of negative press and discussion around this movie. Last week it was even a topic of discussion over on THE UNIQUE GEEK. Going into the movie I was curious as to whether it was really that awful, or had just gotten a bad rap thanks to all the Lucas hatred out there.

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Everything is For Crazy People!

Blame Canada? Hell, let's declare war!

It's a vile, cold, wooded wasteland populated with propaganda-spewing lumberjacks and their irritating ilk. Who needs it?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Lance Gould

March 23, 2000 | Over the summer of 1997, about 170 angry (and presumably not very pleasant smelling) Canadian fishermen formed an impromptu naval blockade, preventing the Malaspina, an Alaskan passenger ferry, from leaving port in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The Canadians were apparently peeved that Americans from Alaska had overfished sockeye salmon in the Pacific, and they effectively took the Malaspina's 150 or so passengers hostage. They relented after a two-day siege, but President Clinton warned ominously that if and when an American ship was held against its will again, the United States would take stern countermeasures. And he wasn't just threatening to cut Canadians off from must-see TV.

Had it come to this? The United States and Canada, the two nations that share the world's longest unprotected border, on the verge of becoming another Bosnia -- all because of a bunch of fish? Not exactly. But there is plenty of empirical evidence to point to a serious worsening of U.S.-Canadian relations.

In fact, ever since the Toronto Blue Jays won baseball's World Series for two consecutive years in 1992 and 1993 (during which a U.S. Marine color guard accidentally carried a Canadian flag upside-down at a pre-game ceremony), Americans' tolerance for cute and cuddly Canada has fallen considerably, the relationship now having chilled to a temperature slightly frostier than a March midnight in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Consider the following:

1. Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act -- sponsored by America's No. 1 loon, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. -- not only gives Americans the right to sue foreign companies that own property in Cuba seized from Americans during Fidel Castro's revolution but also prevents executives of such companies and their family members from entering the United States. (This law has kept many Canadians from gaining entry to the States, and Canada officially complained that the law violated the North American Free Trade Agreement.)

2. An additional piece of legislation, a 1996 bill known as "IRA IRA" (a nickname for the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act), contains a hotly disputed passage, Section 110, that would subject all foreigners -- including Canadians -- to odious border checks before entering the United States. Presently, most Canadians are simply waved through, but if Section 110 passes, officials in both countries are predicting up to 20-hour traffic tie-ups at border crossings, which could cause irreparable damage to the $1 billion worth of business we do with our No. 1 trading partner, Canada, every day. (The act was to go into effect in 1998 but has been postponed until the end of 2001.)

3. In 1997, a concerned shopper in a Winnipeg, Manitoba, Wal-Mart noticed that some of the pajamas on the shelves were made in (gasp!) Cuba. Amazingly, tensions between Washington and Ottawa rose over this incident, and anti-Canadian sentiments on this side of the border stirred as Wal-Mart vowed to continue selling the pj's in its 136 Canadian stores. The pajamas were actually on the agenda when Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien visited the White House that year. Thumbing his nose at Washington, Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy later paid a state visit to Cuba, in further bold defiance of the American-led boycott and isolation policy.

4. The Malaspina incident also strained U.S.-Canadian relations over the summer of 1997, and things got even worse in December of that year, when Canada attempted to take center stage in the international political arena by hosting a landmark convention intent on banning land mines the world over.

The United States snubbed the Ottawa Treaty, denying Canada its moment in the sun and embarrassing the Chr�tien government. (More than 120 countries signed the treaty, while the United States joined Yugoslavia, Libya, Iran and Albania among the 30 or so countries that did not.)

5. As recently as this January, Washington became concerned with seemingly lax Canadian border patrols, after a couple of Algerian terrorists managed to enter the United States via Canada.

"We have excellent relations with Canada," argued a U.S. State Department official who requested anonymity. "Yes, the things you pointed out have happened, but they're by no means any indicators of the state of relations between the U.S. and Canada. The fact of the matter is that Canada is our largest trading partner, millions of people cross the border freely every day and we continue to work together on any number of bilateral and multilateral issues. These are minor bumps in an overall excellent relationship."

Sure, Canada may be our most important neighbor to the north -- indeed, it's our only neighbor to the north -- but it seems that even American media outlets are feuding with the Canadian government. The New York Times' Canada correspondent, James Brooke, actually covers Canada from the quite un-Canuck bureau in Denver.

Meanwhile, in some sort of reverse geographical gamesmanship, the Los Angeles Times' Canada correspondent apparently covers the country from its New York bureau. (The Boston Globe has a bureau in Montreal, though its bureau chief lives in Vermont.)

The reason few American newspapers operate a Canadian bureau, or let their reporters live in Canada, has to do with a dispute between the newspapers and the Canadian government over taxable income for journalists. (To make up for the extra amount that a Canadian-based American journalist would have to pay in Canadian taxes, the newspapers would give them more money, which in turn would also be taxed.)

And then suddenly, last summer, those two fart-happy vulgarians Terrance and Phillip "warped the fragile little minds" of (fictional) American kids in South Park, Colo. It turns out these anti-intellectual anti-heroes are from -- you guessed it -- Canada, leading one angry and animated mother in the "South Park" movie to "Blame Canada!" in a highly memorable musical number, during which American troops pound Canadian cities with artillery fire. Amusingly, the song was nominated for an Oscar. But was it the humor of the lyrics that garnered the song a nomination?

This might be a stretch, but the song may also have been nominated as a message from the movie industry to Ottawa, hinting at underlying tensions between, believe it or not, Canada and Hollywood.

Dozens of film and television projects are being lured north of the border because of cheaper production costs in Canada, which is putting the hurt on Hollywood. Plus, if a movie is deemed a "Canadian production" by the powers that be in Ottawa, it can qualify for direct financial subsidies from the Canadian government.

Hollywood guilds and trade papers have angrily labeled these film and TV operations "runaway productions," in that they are fleeing Hollywood for cheaper costs elsewhere. "The Canadian government has adopted an array of policies to promote Canadian culture, some of which American media and entertainment companies claim are protectionist in restricting access to the market," said a Canadian diplomat who requested anonymity. "We say that film is a global industry and that these are films that would never have been made because of what they would cost in California."

Perhaps these sentiments were present when recent films such as Michael Moore's "Canadian Bacon" and Trey Parker's "South Park" -- both of which contain a scenario in which the United States and Canada go to war -- received green lights from U.S. studio executives.

The American government also believes that the Canadian entertainment market is restricted -- for magazines, newspapers and radio, for example. "Americans cannot establish or create magazines with more than 49 percent ownership," said the Canadian diplomat. "And we have quotas on radio airplay in Canada -- 35 percent of the programming has to be Canadian in origin." There is even a point system for determining what is "Canadian": Two of the three main entities involved in each song -- the artist, writer and producer -- have to be Canadian for the song to qualify.

Meanwhile, Canadian women dominated the Grammy Awards earlier this month, as Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Diana Krall and Sarah McLachlan all were nominated, three of them taking home trophies for their mantels.

Perhaps to alleviate the escalating tensions, the Canadians are sponsoring a couple of lighthearted cultural events in New York. Monday was the kickoff of Canadian Restaurant Week, in which a few Canadian chefs are visiting Gotham restaurants, bringing with them their recipes for peppered strip loin of arctic caribou with merlot-blueberry reduction, Prince Edward Island oysters with sunchoke cream and sevruga caviar, and pea-meal-wrapped buffalo fillet. And on April 14, the Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater will present, with the Canadian Consulate's approval, a mini-film festival cheekily titled "Blame Canada!"

"For many supposedly sophisticated New Yorkers," reads the program of the festival, which will feature Canadian-made films by directors such as Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg, "the image of Canada remains a stereotype: a land filled with lumberjacks in ear muffs, trudging around the frozen tundra on their snowshoes, humming Gordon Lightfoot songs. But if you take a close look at the steady output of fine movies being made north of the border, the view changes."

What kind of insidious propaganda is this? First the Oscar ballots are mysteriously "misplaced" before turning up again. Then the Oscar statues themselves go missing.

Everybody has his or her own theories, but I smell a maple thief.

For Henson!

"Your training is Now Complete, my young apprentice."

Isn't that the truth?

"I totally agree!"

From one of the presidential candidates

"If this wasn't taken out of context, McCain is truly a dumbass."

The Best Eye Chart ever....for men!

"20/20 vision - no, yah need 20/40 vision!"

7 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be a Male Porn Star

By a Male Porn Star

Hello, I’m a male porn star and it sucks! Now, I know what you might be thinking: “F**k you a**hole – you have a big dick and you get paid to get laid.” True, but being a “pro” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I’ve been “in the biz” for almost two years now and my experiences, while sexy and fun at times, for the most part have been awful. Below I’ve listed my Top 7 Reasons why being a male porn star sucks but let me say first that, yes, the overall ”kink” of what I do is pretty hot but the nuts ‘n bolts, day-to-day hassles of the porn business can really wear a guy down. (And “being down” can cost you money in this business, trust me – see Reason #2). So why do I do it? The money is okay, but not great, and then there’s the sex. But mostly I do it because I can – not everyone can “perform” with the lights on, and camera crews, and an insistent director yelling “f**k her harder!” And honestly, it beats working at Dunkin’ Donuts (which is what I used to do). Sooner or later I’m going to move on to more “legit” lines of work. But, for now, I guess I’ll struggle through even though it sucks. Here’s why:

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Cola Mob Killing

Not just men who compare...

"Both look wonderful to me!"

This Weeks Tasteless Humour

"I wouldn't hit it..."

Ways To Die For Men In The USA in 2008

"Hmmm....."

The 50 best jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe

Compiled by John Elmes

"I told the ambulance men the wrong blood type for my ex, so he knows what rejection feels like" – Pippa Evans

"The Olympics are for everyone, not just someone who happens to own a dancing horse" – Glenn Wool, on dressage

"I like Jesus, but he loves me, so it's awkward" – Tom Stade

"I love being touched sexually by an ecologist" – Jo Neary, in character as a dolphin

"Glasgow has its own version of Monopoly – just one big square that reads: Go To Jail" – Des Clarke

"A problem shared is attention gained" – Pippa Evans

"Never say to an autistic person, you do the maths" – Wilson Dixon

"I'm glad they invented emoticons, otherwise I wouldn't know what my dad was thinking" – Kerry Godliman

On having sex with men in their thirties: "Generally much better, but you've got to rub their legs afterwards for cramp" – Sarah Millican

"I love paying tax so much, the sight of a gritter lorry gives me an erection" – Jon Richardson

"No seriously, I am a feminist, just a lusty, ogling feminist. I'm a lesbian, in fact" – Rob Deering

"Looking at my face is like reading in the car. It's all right for 10 minutes, then you start to feel sick" – Andrew Lawrence, on his ginger appearance

"One-armed butlers, they can take it but they can't dish it out" – Tim Vine

"If it's gone abroad, it must be fraud" – Tom Wrigglesworth, on the mindset of the high-street banks

"Victoria Beckham? Does this tampon make me look fat?" – Joan Rivers, on celebrities

"What do you say to your adopted African child if you want them to eat up their dinner? 'There are people starving in Africa right now, like your parents'" – Tom Stade

"Politicians are like God. No one believes in them, they haven't done anything for ages, and they give jobs to their immediate family" – Andy Zaltzman

"Channel 4 just cuts out bits from 'heat' magazine and throws them on the floor" – Wendy Wason, on C4 scheduling

"I'm dating now, because I ran out of hooker money" – Rick Shapiro

"The Scots invented hypnosis, chloroform and the hypodermic syringe. Wouldn't it just be easier to talk to a woman?" – Stephen Brown

"Whenever I see a man with a beard, moustache and glasses, I think, 'There's a man who has taken every precaution to avoid people doodling on photographs of him" – Carey Marx

"I love making love on a bed of nails, but can I go on top?" – Ginger and Black

"The definition of bipolar? A sexually curious bear" – Marcus Birdman

"One of my friends had twins with IVF. Two old ladies that she knew came up to her, and one got the term wrong. In a very sweet voice, she said, 'Oh, would you look at those beautiful twins! Did you get those on the HIV?'" – Craig Hill

"Old people don't like swearing, because a lot of the words weren't invented in their day, so they feel left out" – Zoe Gardner

"The anti-aging advert that I would like to see is a baby covered in cream saying, 'Aah, I've used too much'" – Andrew Bird

"I don't hate the Germans, I just miss my grandparents" – Ian Stone

"'What's a couple?' I asked my mum. She said, 'Two or three'. Which probably explains why her marriage collapsed" – Josie Long

"My friend said she was giving up drinking from Monday to Friday. I'm just worried she's going to dehydrate" – Kerri Godliman

"Ken Dodd is one of my favourite comics, and one of the richest in showbusiness – he has Swiss money in Irish banks" – Roy Walker

"I wonder what would happen if Franz Ferdinand were assassinated?" – Glenn Wool

"My uncle Cleetus is illiterate and ambidextrous. Which is a double tragedy. He is unable to write, with both hands" – Wilson Dixon

"I like David Beckham. Most of us have skeletons in our closet. But he takes his out in public" – Andrew Lawrence

"If Britons were left to tax themselves, there would be no schools, no hospitals, just a 500-mile-high statue of Diana, Princess of Wales" – Andy Zaltzman

"Surgery is just stabbing in a courteous environment" – A L Kennedy

"I know someone whose dream is to be an actor but they're not that good – they got mugged, and had to audition for the part of themselves on 'Crimewatch'. They got Passer-by No 2" – Isy Suttie

"My boyfriend likes role play. He likes to pretend we're married. He waits until I go to bed, then he looks at porn and has a wank" – Joanna Neary

"I was talking to my friend from New York yesterday, and I used the expression, 'You can't polish a turd'. He looked at me, disgusted, and said, 'No, you can't, but you can roll it in glitter'. He's a lovely guy but I wouldn't want to go to a craft fair with him" – Steve Williams

"My Nan had a plastic hip put in, but I thought she should have replaced it with a Slinky, 'cause if she fell down the stairs again..." – Steve Williams

"A headline last year, after the death of Saddam Hussein, read: 'Tyrant is hanged'. My auntie looked at the newspaper and sobbed, 'Who's going to present "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"' " – Steve Williams

"I used to go out with Christopher Reeve, but I just had to keep standing him up" – Steve Hall

"I despise cliquishness, for reasons only my four closest friends will ever properly understand" – Steve Hall

"Where I'm from, people aren't quick. A girl once asked her mum, 'Can I have a Cadbury's Creme Egg?' The mum said, 'No, you can't Danielle, I've already told you, darling – bird flu!'" – Tom Deacon

"I once buggered a man unconscious. I'm lying, he was already unconscious when I found him" – Tom Deacon

"I never know the right thing to say, especially during sex. After my first time, I said to the girl, 'That's it, I'm afraid'" – Tom Deacon

"I'm the eldest of five children. My parents aren't Catholic, just reckless" – Danielle Ward

"I was in Halifax one Friday night in July, and I thought they were having an 'idiots and whores' theme party, but no – that's just Halifax on a Friday night" – Rob Deering

"I do love Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. He always looks so... clean. But if you went out dressed like that round our way, you'd get the MDF kicked out of you" – Domestic Goddi Rosie Wilkinson & Helen O'Brien

"I've got nothing against disabled people, I've even got one of their stickers on my car" – Damian Callinan

"My granny was recently beaten to death by my granddad. Not as in, with a stick – he just died first" – Alex Horne

The Catholic Perversion of the Christian Faith

Or the many things we have Catholicism to thank for.


• CE 300: “Baptism” by immersion changed to affusion (sprinkling).
• CE 300: Prayers for the dead. (Against Deut. 18:11 & Is. 8:19).
• CE 325 Anathema (death) decreed to anyone who adds or changes the creed of faith of Nice (see years 1545 & 1560)
• CE 375: Veneration of angles and dead saints
• CE 431: the worship of Mary.
• CE 431 Mary “Queen of Heaven” (against Is. 7:17, 44:17, 44:25
• CE 593: Doctrine of “purgatory” –by Gregory (against John 5:24, 1 John 1:7-9, 2:1,2, Rom. 8:1)
• CE 600: Latin language only language permitted for prayer (against 1 Cor. 14:9)
• CE 709: Kissing the feet of the pope is ordered (against Acts 10:25,26 Rev. 19:10, 22:8,9)
• CE 850: Fabrication and use of “holy water.”
• CE 995: Canonization of dead saints (against Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 10:25, 1 Tim. 4:1-8).
• CE:998: Fasting on “Fri-days” & during “Lent.” (Against Mt. 15:11, 1 Cor., 10:25, 1 Tim 4:1-8).
• CE 1079: Celibacy of priesthood declared.
• CE 1190: Sale of Indulgences (against Eph. 2:8-10)
• CE 1215: Confession of sins to priest ordered. (Against Ps. 51:1-10, Luke 7:48, & 15:21, 1 John 1:8,9)
• CE 1229: Scripture forbidden to “laymen.” (against John 5:39, 8:31, 2 Tim. 3:15-17).
• CE 1545: Church tradition equal to Scripture. (Against Mt. 15:6, Mk. 7:7-13, Col. 2:8)
• CE 1854: Immaculate Conception of Virgin Mary. (Against, Rom. 3:23 & 5:12, Ps. 51:5, Is. 19:9)
• Papal infallibility decreed. (Against 2 Thess. 2:2-12, Rev. 17:1-9, 13:5-8, 18)
• CE 1950: The dogma of “trans-substantiation.”

For more information, see Fossilized Customs, by Lew White.

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Opinion: Can Google be bested? Not anytime soon

By Don Reisinger | Published: August 03, 2008 - 09:01PM CT

Google may be the de facto leader in search today, but will its lead last forever? With services like Mahalo and Cuil gaining attention and Microsoft willing to pour continued billions into its quest for online dominance, Google's rivals are legion, and they're hungry, but that doesn't mean the Big G needs to elevate its corporate blood pressure; Google's dominance is assured far into the future.

According to comScore's latest figures, Google commanded 61.5 percent of the US search market, while Yahoo owned 20.9 percent and Microsoft trailed with 9.2 percent. Both Ask.com and AOL follow far behind the big three. And where are the hot startups? Smaller search engines like Mahalo, Powerset, and Quintura didn't even make the list.
Making room

A search engine can be an extremely lucrative endeavor when it's popular. But with Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft commanding more than 90 percent of the market, is it even possible anymore for a small company to be anything more than the nichest of niche players?

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"When the term 'google-it' is a common phrase, it's hard for others to even enter the search engine market."

Chinese restaurant takes the cake for naming error

The internet has been filled with hilarious mistranslations of sign names, restaurant menus and street signs for many years - but at LIVENEWS.com.au we don't think we have seen one quite as outstanding as this.

Off The Wall says: We're not sure what kind of dishes they serve up at "Translate Server Error" - but we have no doubt it would be a smorgasboard of "404 page not found" fried rice, and "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer" with Honey Soy Chicken.

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"I'll take the '404 Chicken Chow Mein" & the 'Blue Screen of Death Spring Rolls' , please!

Snake attack

26 Important Comic Books

Sure, it may seem silly, but, comic books mean something. Soldiers used dog-eared copies of Captain America to keep their spirits up in WWII. The Green Lantern and Green Arrow made kids actually think about issues like racism and heroin. And millions gasped when they heard the news that Superman died. In fact, the vibrant medium is so often pegged as children’s pulp, or fun for the feeble-minded, that people tend to forget that comics have actually grown with and continued to reflect the spirit of our times.

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"There's a definetely more than a few I'd like to check out!"

Last year I killed a man

At 9.45am on Saturday, June 23 2007, I killed a man. A perfectly ordinary man, on a perfectly ordinary summer's day. CCTV pictures show him entering the station, unremarkable among all the passengers going to the West End. He waited at the front of the platform until he could hear my train approaching, then he calmly stepped down on to the tracks and looked directly at me as he waited for the impact.

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"A very sobering read - but excellent nonetheless."

I Am So Starving VS. I am So Starving

I Am So Starving

By Brittany Birnbaum

Oh, my God, I am so starving. I swear, if I don't get something to eat in like two minutes, I am going to die.

I cannot believe how completely famished I am. Why do we have to wait for Tyler to get home from soccer practice? I want to eat now. It's almost 6:15.

I didn't even get to eat lunch today. Erica and I had to sign up for kickline tryouts at noon. We got to the cafeteria way late, and we weren't about to stand in line with the sophomores. All I had was a Twix and half a bag of Fritos. Plus, the stupid machine was out of Diet Coke.

No, I did not still have those carrot sticks left at lunch. I ate them all after second period. Duh.

Did you hear that? I can totally hear my stomach making these weird growling noises. I think I'm going to faint.

Please, please, please let me eat now so I can go up to my room--I have a ton of people to call tonight. It's so lame how you make us all wait to eat dinner together. Erica always gets to eat by herself in the living room with the TV on.

If we're going to wait this long for Tyler, he has to load the dishwasher. I did it last night, and it was totally nasty because you made that lasagna, and I had to scrape all the gunky cheese off the pan.

I am so totally starving. You know, it's against the law to treat your kids like this. You could get thrown in jail by the social-services people for this kind of abuse.

Oh my God, what are you taking out of the oven? Is that, like, salisbury steak? I could seriously puke just looking at that. You actually expect me to eat that? Yeah, right. Like I'm really gonna put that in my mouth. I'll be in my room if I get any phone calls.

Ugh. I swear, I could just die.



Counterpoint
I Am So Starving

By Kitum Asosa

My God, I am starving. If I do not find something to eat soon, I will surely die.

Hunger consumes my life. My young body is hunched and weak, as if I were an old man. Some days, I pass the time by counting my bones.

I would walk 100 miles through the desert to reach a handful of millet. The sight of a sparrow carcass would make my mouth water, if only I were not too dehydrated to salivate. I have not eaten a full meal since the last rain, which caused a few precious patches of field grass to sprout. Soon, there will be none of us left.

I am so very, very hungry. I grow thinner and thinner, as my body starts to digest its very self. The last thing I ate was a small lizard. This was nine days ago. I gave half of it to my only remaining brother. I did this to return a favor: Last month, he discovered a piece of tree bark and shared his bounty with me. Unfortunately, my body was so unaccustomed to food, I was soon doubled over in pain, as a flood of liquid shot from my bowels. Ever since then, my rectum has protruded from my anus. My lower intestines have begun to push their way out, as well.

They say it is almost the new year, but I do not know if I will live to see it. My stomach is swollen as if I were pregnant. I joked with my brother about this yesterday, rubbing my bloated belly and calling it "my little one." My brother did not laugh. He lowered his head and cried.

My legs are like sticks and my eyes nearly sightless. I am careful not to allow myself to daydream about the harvest feasts of my youth, for my weak heart might race and burst in my chest. Those who are still alive have taken to swallowing dirt and rocks in an attempt to stop the hunger pains. Oh, God, why are we made to suffer so?

My only distraction from the constant, gnawing hunger is the chill that runs through my bones. Even in the sweltering heat, I am cold. Perhaps I will soon die of pneumonia. This would finally quell the pangs of hunger. I long to live, but, even more, I long to die.


"Puts things so very perfectly into the real perspective, doesn't it?"