Zixar

AintMeBabe: I'll have my 10" Meade telescope on it... :)--> The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Yep. It's 100% true. Matter of fact, you don't even have to wait a month. Go outside about midnight and face south. Stick your left arm out in about the ten o'clock position and raise it until you see this BRIGHT orangeish-red "star". (You can't miss it, it's the brightest thing in the sky after the Moon.) That's Mars! If you have a pair of binoculars and some patience, you can also see (no jokes, please) Uranus, about two hands'-breadths away to the west. It shows up as a little green dot. Start at Mars and scan right. A recent issue of Sky & Telescope will help locating it. Neptune is around there too, an even smaller blue dot, but that takes very dark skies. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Ovr50: Get back on eBay and get an inexpensive mandolin, too. They're tuned exactly the same as a violin, and the frets make it much easier to hit the right notes. Getting good on one translates into getting good on the other. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

I'm quite happy with my mandolin. I find I can play it by ear more and more. (although I'm better when I use my hands--old joke) Still haven't gotten good at tremolo on it yet, but since that's found more in Italian music than bluegrass, it hasn't hindered me much. If I need a little more sustain, I just plug it up to my amp and turn up the reverb... Although some chords are very easy (lots are two-finger chords with the other strings open) the closed "bluegrass chop" chords are real finger-busters. Due to the way it's tuned, songs in the keys of D, G, and A (and their relative minors) are very easy to play, and you can cheat for E, B, and C with a capo. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Sigh. You've made this arrogant presumption that somehow I'm not healthy because I don't eat whatever weed is in vogue at the moment. Yet, my blood pressure was 117/78, my cholesterol was 170, my coronary arteries aren't occluded, blood glucose, lipids, liver enzymes, all right in the green. So, apparently, however "evil" modern medicine is supposed to be, it's working for someone. As for "Dr. Weil", remember that other "Dr. W"'s book? It sounded very convincing, very well-researched, very logical too. As long as you didn't look too closely, that is. Way too many ex-TWI people have just swapped one flavor of the lunatic fringe for another. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

The life expectancy tables do not justify chwester's claims. That's a classic example of a "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" fallacious argument. I could use the same tables to claim that the Japanese live longest because of their advanced industrialization, or that the French live longer solely because they're bigger a$$holes than those lower on the list. This is exactly the kind of flim-flam you'd expect from conspiracy theorists. Wake up, folks. I know you want to believe that drugs are bad and plants are good, but neither extreme is correct. Anyone who pushes that much propaganda is only trying to sell you something. --> The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

What horsedang! Take rhubarb stalks, make them into a tasty pie. Eat the leaves too, die of alkaloid poisoning. But, hey, if you think grazing on the daisies will cure a burst appendix, be my guest. Or should surgeons only use "natural" hand-chipped stone knives to try to remove it first? Those same Chinese who guzzle ephedra are the same idiots who believe powdered rhino horn is an aphrodisiac. Their protein-deficient diet is one of the main reasons they tend to be shorter than the global average, so their knowledge of human nutritional needs is not 100% encyclopedic. You're living in a fantasy world. Hope you survive the trip... The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

"Killdozer" was actually based on a good sci-fi short story from Ted Sturgeon. The movie sucked, but the original story was quite good. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

vickles: I didn't say none of them worked, I said that not all of them worked. The problem with "getting educated" is that the sources of this education are heavily invested in the whole herbal craze. They don't make any money if they say that ginseng is useless. They can't sell blackberry leaves or whatever for heartburn if they admit Zantac actually works. Greed and corruption go hand in hand with giga-buck industries, whether its Merck Pharmaceuticals or Organic Grass Clippings in Capsules, Inc. If you look at the folks who really push the herbal agenda, you'll see that a lot of their rhetoric sounds just like those nutbars who insist the government is keeping the Roswell aliens and their flying saucer at Area 51. The lack of evidence is all due to a far-reaching evil military/industrial conspiracy. For all we know, Claritin is really just pine cones boiled in balsamic vinegar, but if it comes from a drug company, it's somehow "unnatural". --> Ever hear of the decongestant Sudafed? Odds are if you're over ten years old you've taken it at least once for a cold. It's been around since the late 60s, where it used to be a prescription drug. Where'd it come from? Chemical analysis of the ma huang plant--we call it the Ephedra plant revealed the active compounds, the ephedra alkaloids called ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine is the one that acts as the decongestant, hence, "Sudafed". However, the other alkaloid, ephedrine, acts very similar to amphetamines and cocaine. All those weight loss products that contain this stuff are barely regulated, yet the body builds up a tolerance for the drug, requiring more and more for the same effect and producing withdrawal symptoms when people wise up and stop taking it. Not exactly good for a head cold. Ephedrine has been linked to several deaths from heart arrhythmias and strokes in people with no prior history of cardiovascular disease. If you're going to take any substance for your health, doesn't it make sense to only take the specific substance to address the problem? Without the research the drug companies did to map out the different alkaloids, the FDA probably would never have approved it. Yet, the "organic" folks just grind up the whole herb, put it in capsules, and sell it over the counter. Real smart, that is. --> Of course, the drug companies aren't saintly bastions of altruistic science. They're out to make a buck, the same as the weed-eaters. Biggest case in point: Schering-Plough, makers of the allergy medicine Claritin. It's now being sold over-the-counter because of its safety record as a prescription drug. Schering made a mint, charging well over $1 a pill because the stuff worked. So what's the problem? Claritin's generic name is "loratadine". Now that Claritin is being sold over the counter, Schering can't sell it for $60 a bottle, no one would buy it. So what did they do? New drug! Enter "Clarinex". Claritin, Clarinex...wait a second... Clarinex' generic name is "desloratadine". Now, it doesn't take a doctorate in molecular biochemistry to see that there's probably not all that much difference between "loratadine" and "des-loratadine". So now, Schering can charge exorbitant amounts for prescription Clarinex, while selling Claritin to everyone else over the counter. As the old song goes, "My God, how the money rolls in..." Also, the insurance companies won't pay for over the counter Claritin, of course, and they don't want to pay for Clarinex (or the similar drug Allegra) when Claritin is available OTC, so if your doctor prescribes Clarinex, many insurance companies make you pay the highest drug co-payment in order to get the prescription filled. Meanwhile, you can still get a box of generic Sudafed for under five bucks...which will still stop your runny nose without emptying your wallet or making your heart seize up. In short, don't buy the whole bill of goods from any extremists, be it an herbalist, a drug company, or some preacher in an Ohio cornfield. They dangle a little bit of truth in front of you, but for the most part, it's just to cover up another money-making scheme. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

The problem with herbal remedies is that just because a few actually do work, (ephedra, St. John's Wort) the berry-huggers somehow think that justifies all their bizarro drug-company conspiracy theories. Relying on old wives' tales is no method of scientific testing of any substance. Remember the same folklore that gave us echinacea and saw palmetto also tells us: --Whiskey is a cure for snakebite. --Tea is good for a belly wound. --Powdered rhino horn is an aphrodisiac. --Handling frogs gives you warts. --Friday the 13th is unlucky. None of which, are, in fact, true. Remember also that the herbal/chemical dietary-supplement industry has grown into a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS. Yet, to these boneheads, it's perfectly okay to make billions of dollars off of selling straw to the gullible, but immoral to make billions off of scientifically-proven drugs. Pure propaganda. You can keep your black cohosh, thank you very much. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Zixette has this thing for Johnny Depp ever since seeing him in Chocolat. Sigh. Oh well, she puts up with my bizarre movies, so a little payback is to be expected. So, I grumbled along to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl last week. I really expected to hate POTC:TCOTBP. For one thing, no movie should have a title TEN WORDS LONG. (Okay, so Dr. Strangelove's full title was 13 words, but still...) And a movie based on a forty-year old amusement park ride? Did no one at Disney learn anything from The Country Bears? However, the movie was surprisingly watchable. Sure, there were plot holes, but Depp's weirdness plays right into this character, and Geoffrey Rush has just the right touch of bombast for the evil pirate captain Barbossa. The swashbuckling almost spills over into the now-overused Chinese wu xia/Japanese chambara motif, but stops short of being Hidden Treasure, Crouching Pirate. Of course, it had to star that other panty-moistener du jour, Orlando Bloom, whose prissiness as Legolas the Elf in The Lord of the Rings was mitigated by his awesome death-dealing archery. Here, he just doesn't convince as a master swordsman. He looks like he's doing a bad Errol Flynn impression the whole movie. All that aside, it's still rates a B+. Worth a matinee showing, if not full price. I doubt it will translate well down to video, so if you have a couple of hours and six bucks to kill, you might be as pleasantly surprised as I was. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Goey: Email me about that PFAL book, and I'll see what I can do. ;)--> Zix The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Tom: Remember that there are but four kings and seven stacks in the regulation game of solitaire. If you do not have a king- or queen-headed run on the board, trying to open a stack may be less than optimal, considering the rightmost stacks have more cards that must be turned over. Try using a right-to-left rule for a while instead of a left-to-right rule and see if that doesn't alter the odds somewhat. God bless! Zix The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

=========================== NEWSFLASH: It can now be revealed that LarryP was laboring under a typographical error all these years. He is, in fact, hung like a mole, not like a mule. The Management would like to apologize for any confusion and/or grave disappointment this oversight may have caused, except that it is too busy snickering behind his back. =========================== WANTED: One anatomically-correct inflatable VPW doll, preferably low-mileage. Must have appropriate "French", "Greek", and "Aramaic" orifices. Call Mike at (555) IDO-LATR. $5,000 cash, or willing to trade one Bible in like-new condition, never opened and only dropped once. =========================== We now return you to the regularly-scheduled Zixar's Thread™... "No soup for you!" The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Soup? Your pitiful attempt at derailing MY THREAD has failed. I'll have the pasta e fagioli. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Since I started this thread, that makes it MINE. Mine, mine, mine, do you hear? That means you have to laugh at my jokes, take any abuse I see fit to heap upon your sadly-deluded selves, and have the good sense to kindly go kill yourselves when you don't wet yourself in apostolic ecstasy at every single syllable I feel like flinging into the electronic ether. Why won't you a$$holes listen to what Holy Doctor Do-little wrote between the lines? I know you're so very stupid, since it's all your fault his Holy Mother Ministry didn't annex the Sudetenland, but since I've written several hundred paragraphs that explains how amazingly clued-in I've declared myself to be, I'm certain I must have convinced at least one of you blaspheming LOGs into realizing mine is the One True Way, since I speak for HIM. Just ask HIM. Or ask ME, since I and only I know what HE really meant when he wrote every single one of HIS Holy Collateral Teachings. Don't bother writing back, since I'm not interested in reading anything any mere non-Doctor wrote, unless I can find a phrase or two to ridicule and ignore the rest. Good Doc, I'm so d*mn good that way! I'm begging someone to find out where I live and make my messianic fantasies complete. I simply won't be satisfied until someone nails me to something for my unappreciated work. Or gives me somehow-non-demonically-related liver cancer. Nobody gets to kill me any other way, 'cuz this is MY THREAD! Now, who's up for some ill-founded condescension or some smug pseudo-patronizing, hmm? The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Don't hold your breath, E.W. ... Mike no longer interacts with human society on any quantifiable level. Ever since he won the Lifetime Idolatry Medal with Gold Calf Cluster, he's been so in love with the sound of his own typing that the only reason he takes so long to evade a direct question is because he only has one hand free at any given moment. Still, idiots get what they deserve. The Universe seems to take great glee in providing folks like Mike as negative examples. I wouldn't be surprised if Goey or someone got rich off of him. That book writes itself... The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

popping this back to the top... :)--> The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

It's also odd that Harry's school breaks for Christmas and Easter... ;)--> Hem hem... The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

The passage quoted is taken out of context. In it, Harry is having a nightmare that his best friend's father is being attacked by the evil wizard Voldemort. He wakes up in time to warn the adults to hurry to save him. --> The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

Er, I should say that no CG was used in the gunfights. Some of the cityscapes and such were CGI, obviously. But still... The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

I just saw this on DVD, and SGL was right. Fantastic flick! Keep in mind as you watch it that NO wires and NO computer graphics were used when they made this. (even in the motorcycle flip sequence and the gun-kata fight in the hallway) Well worth renting if you like action movies and thought-provoking dystopian vision. The director commentary is also very interesting. I think I'm going to buy this one for keeps. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

I was of a similar mindset regarding the HP books a couple of years ago, namely, I didn't want witchcraft being peddled to kids. Then, Hope, Chinny, and a few of the other chatroom regulars at the old GS browbeat me into reading the first one. If you don't give up on it in the first chapter, (which I had done, once before) you'll find that they're on the same level as any other children's fantasy book. Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Rabbit, for that matter...(talking bunnies? Devilish!) The "witchcraft" in them consists mostly of mangled Latin and wand-waving. For example, Hermione fixes Harry's broken glasses by using the "Reparo" spell. The kids get their school assignments from a talking hat. --> Basically, the books are so popular because they are just plain well-written. They don't talk down to kids, and they aren't so syrupy that adults will gag. For a quick overview, rent the first movie. It's nearly shot-for-shot right out of the book. (The second one is more abridged, simply because these movies push the three-hour mark already, and they're the two shortest books.) I just finished reading the fifth one last night. Another of the reasons it just keeps growing in popularity is that each of the books is better than the last. No one really dies from the bad guys until the end of Book 4 (the only book that departs from the standard HP formula: Harry's miserable with his adoptive family, goes off to the new school year, gets framed for something he has nothing to do with (again), solves the mystery with the help of his two friends (and others), and gets the hurray at the end. Repeat until mind-bogglingly rich.) I would think more kids get hurt mimicking swordfights from Lord of the Rings or He-Man than fall off their Quidditch brooms. Your kids are smarter than you give them credit for. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

How sensitive. I can hardly wait for the follow-up thread, "If you are offended by nigger jokes, don't read this". Ooh, I know! Maybe you can get Rafael to post again with your "All-Time Greatest Spick Jokes", thread, too. Very witty. Or we could have a go at the poor, the retarded, or maybe just the ugly. After all, it's their own damn fault they're fat, foreign, or ******-up, right? GreaseSpot is really circling the drain now. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."

I liked it, I thought it was one of Jim Carrey's best performances to date. It could have been so much better if a few flaws had been fixed: 1) Bruce's life is not that bad to begin with. He has a good job and a gorgeous girlfriend, but one bad day totally flips him out. 2) It would have been so much better if God had given Bruce a set time limit for his omnipotence, say, seven days, instead of leaving it open-ended. 3) The third bit I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it, but it has to do with the big turning point. Still, I'd give it a good A-. Carrey reaches a good balance between sharp humor and his typical rubber-faced slapstick cariacatures. He's learning he doesn't have to rely 100% on d*ck and fart jokes the rest of his career. The fool hath said in his heart, "PFAL is the Word of God..."