ChasUFarley

Ditto that Rick - miss seeing you there!

Twinky... When you said you'd recently found a book, I suddenly remembered... "Fascinating Womanhood" - anyone have to suffer reading that one? It's how to be the perfect wife, 50's style. A quote: “Femininity is a gentle, tender quality found in a woman's appearance, manner, and nature. A feminine woman gives the impression of softness, and delicateness. She has a spirit of sweet submission, and a dependency upon men for their care and protection. Nothing about her appears masculine – no male aggressiveness, competence, efficiency, fearlessness, strength, or the ability to kill her own snakes.” That wouldn't fly in my household. My husband is terrified of snakes and I love picking them up to show them to our oldest - and they chasing Hubby into the carport with them - it's great summer sport! Another quote: (What to say to your husband if he upsets you...) “Ill never speak to you again” “I won't do anything for you anymore“ ”I'll tell your mother on you” (I swear I'm not making this up), or if he insults you in public “Wait until I get you home alone” or “I'll get even with you” I can't imagine how my husband would act if I said this to him... and telling my mother-in-law would be fruitless - she doesn't speak ENGLISH!

You know you're in TWI if... You try to discern the devil spirits in the movie you're watching....

WordWolf - Excellent points - as always! My favorite was when people would discern a movie... Geez, take all the fun outta it, why don't 'cha? It was a pain in the butt to watch a movie with some people because they just wouldn't let anything go - they had to run a constant commentary on the whole thing and just ruined it... The height of it for me was when my LC's wife got on a rant about how devilish Barney was... GIMME A BREAK!

His handle was PJRoberge - since his name is used all over the net by his own domain even, then I feel safe about disclosing this here... PJ was in the NH area (Manch-Vegas) until about 3 or 4 years ago, when he and his wife moved to VT. He was WC, and had left TWI in the mid-80's. He passed away very recently.

Why not... not a bad idea... After all, there's a statue of his master in the WOW Auditorium (I REFUSE to call it the "vpw prevailing word auditorium" ewwwww!) And then there was the little living room editions of it for something like $250.... and put it in your grotto...

I haven't tried it yet - I'm still working on the CD collection... I've got a huge project I'm working on now for a client that's as boring as listening to RFR reading a telephone book. So, to make it more interesting, I'm ripping the CD's while I'm working. It helps move things along... I read up more on the guitar/bagpipes sound - it was a lot of effects - couplers, reverb, echo, etc. - neat effects. Been thinking about getting an effects pedal for my bass... really need to change the strings but I'm afraid to because I love the size and feel of them now... According to hubby I can do with a less-industrial strength string than what's on there now. But I've had no problems playing and the strings aren't too worn yet... (Can't remember the gage of them right now... that's more his department than mine...) By the way, hubby's band is up to 6 gigs for this summer - yippee! Anyone gigging or anything of the sort this summer?

(I love Anime... old Robotech fan here....) But I HATE that poster - ewwwwwwwwwwww!

cdonkers - WELCOME! I was at that ROA that year, as a returning WOW.... Sounds like you were smarter than a lot of us... :) (I mean that sincerely... not snidely...)

JavaJane - Yeah, that's quite a rant and I second that... But they *know* what they're doing with that - it's an age old trick called "divide and conquer" They play one against the other, sometimes twist some things that happened or were said for some high drama and... Vola! Instant Misery! (Frustrated Incorporated!) Bolshevik - re: #1 - His last name almost rhymes with your handle... it begins and end with the same letters as your handle, too.

He was #2 on my list... Appropriate, no?

Good lord... didn't they ordain all the ones who caused chaos... your post made me think of at least four people right away!

We just finished watching Criss Angel's show, Mindfreak, on Bravo - anyone here seen it? He's an illusionist, very Goth, and has a rock-star/street cred persona thing going on... Anyhow, tonight's show was about how some of the great tricks of magicians, charlatans and psychic surgeons were performed. Now... Anyone here remember VPW's PFAL Adv. Class and the film clips of psychic surgery being performed? Angel showed how it was done and some of the basic props - very simple. He performed a dramatization of the surgery - and DANG, if it didn't look JUST LIKE what was shown in that Advanced Class... It would have been as sharp as discerning a pea under a walnut shell - a BFD thing, spiritually. It was nothing - slight of hand and some fake blood and some chicken livers - whoop-dee-doo... but according to VPW & Co. there were 5 star general devil spirits there, you know! Spiritual sharpness of a tennis ball... Anyone experience something like that - something that was thought to be something BIG that was really... nothing? (Didn't LCM try to heal someone he thought was having a heartattack on stage... but it was a leg cramp or something??)

Interesting post, Bolshevic.... I never thought of this before, but when we were on staff and confronted, Hubby had been confronted several times BY HIMSELF. He knew we were getting pulled into Br@d Th0rpe's office that morning long before I knew about it. During the confrontation I wasn't allowed to speak - I was told to SIT and LISTEN (and that's not SIT = Speak In Tongues). I was allowed input at the end - after it was over and by that time our whole world - everything - was shattered.... I never thought about how that came down that day until now... and that was part of the homo purge... interesting... Bolshevik - Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought there was some scripture about how if someone has an issue with your wife, they're supposed to go to YOU, the head, FIRST. I remember being taught that protocol when I was TC and needed to call someone out for something - if it was a wife, I was supposed to speak with her keeper... er, I mean... Husband...

Eagle - I agree with you 100% although I don't like how it's turned out. That should be Melinda in that top slot. Socks - I can relate with what Elliott went thru... I used to speak with my hands near my face for fear someone would LOOK at my teeth - they were so crooked - and I always smiled with my lips closed.... and had a couple of years of adult orthodontics to correct it (braces - big, ugly, metal mouth - Ugly Betty braces). It was worth every penny! I cried the day the braces came off and I went home and hubby said, "You've got a beautiful smile! Look at you!" because no one had ever said that to me before - ever!

I did the same thing... It will change = It can't get any worse Then... there would be a new decree from King Rainbow Leotard and yep... it would get worse... ...and you'd think... It will change = It can't get any worse Then, you realize that... "It will change = It can't get any worse" Is synonymous with "status quo" And you know you're frucked... THEN you will find the door and the air will be fresh but with a slight smell of grease... Greasespot Cafe!

Holy crap... Where to start on this one... I had just turned 21 when I got married. I'd been in TWI for about 4 years and wanted to climb the corporate ladder. But the man I married not only suddenly thought it was his position to MAKE a bazillion stupid decisions for me each day (i.e. thaw the meat on the kitchen counter vs. thaw the meat in the microwave), but he came to a point where he wouldn't do SQUAT without checking with leadership first - ON EVERYTHING. Seriously. He became so unsure of himself and everything he did because he was always getting a ration from leadership, that he probably would have called the BC to ask if he should use Regular Unleaded or Super Unleaded when he filled up the car. THANK GOD we didn't have a cell phone back then! I was raised to be an independent woman - my current husband will tell you that when we dated, I offered to split the tab because I was raised that men do not OWE you anything simply because you're a woman. So, this crap of being micromanaged really bothered me... Oh yeah... they'd have tattooed Ephesians 5 inside my eyelids if they thought it would have made a difference. We got the "he doesn't know how to lead" and "you don't know how to submit" talk many, many times. He couldn't lead because he was treated like he could NEVER do ANYTHING right... and I couldn't submit because, well... a lot of it was... well... it was STOOPID. It took me years to decompress from that. Hubby will tell you that I now no longer call him before I spend $5 on myself (althought he probably wishes I would... I no longer write out a detailed menu for the week and shopping list.... and other such drivel that he could give a rodent's anus about. Life is too short for that crap! We even have separate hobbies - GASP! - and support each other's silly pasttimes (see the guitar thread for what I support for him - see my dog and computer threads for what he supports of mine...) But you know what? I didn't realize how much of myself I gave up to please my first husband until several years after our separation and divorce. I also didn't realize how much of myself I gave up to be in TWI until just a couple of years ago - I've been out for 7 years. It's a robbery of who you are and what makes you YOU. It was gone - you were stripped of it and had to be this Stepford Way Wife who wore big earrings and got excited about hanging the new ministry poster on the wall for the new ministry year. whoo-hoo.

That's a poster? I thought it was the cover of a Way Mag, at best... YIKES... That ALONE makes me glad I'm OUT!

Hammeroni... Did you, like, put an extra scoop or maybe TWELVE extra scoops of coffee over yesterday's coffeegrounds this morning?

www.apple.com Great products, excellent OS's, and very good software.

If you look at the cached Google of the site, you'll see where they really just changed some pics... And the whole thing was down for THAT? Geez... The "Contact Us" page has a mailing address you can write to - not an email addy... impressive. So state of the art.... 20 years ago! (Don't get me started about the year in review that is only up to January 2007 - it's now May - (chas knocks on monitor glass) HELL-LOO!)

The meta description is interesting.... Practicality?? NO major pets.... no debt (including owning a home)... no allowing children to be children... meetings every other day... abundant sharing... ...and I could go on, but would need more coffee this morning... you get the idea... And they call that "practical"? Practically IMPOSSIBLE!

** bump ** I was just listening to Big Country - if you're a product of the 80's you'll know what I'm talking about... I loved how they were able to give their guitars a "bagpipes" sound - which was very appropriate considering they were from Scotland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTqwaTXdPPQ...ted&search= By the way - anyone tried ripping a whole CD collection to thier computer? I've got over 4 gigs (3 days) worth of music ripped to iTunes so far and I'm only about a third of the way done... After that, I'm going to try ripping my record collection - that should be interesting taking analog to digital...