Phi for All

ROFL! There's the idea for macmac's site. We do a report from an anonymouse source inside the bureau that reveals how many conspiracy extremists they've lost during active surveillance due to some sort of aluminized electronics defense.

Oddly enough it's not the brand or quality of foil that makes the tin-foil hat, it's the complexity. Mere tin-foil molded into head protection qualifies you for nut-job status. Coathangers or any type of wire framing under the tin-foil bumps you up to whacko first class, and if you use three or more products to construct your conspiratorial cranium carapace (scotch tape doesn't count) you are a dyed-in-the-wool, strap-me-down, howl-at-the-moon loon.

... unless the steel was somehow pre-damaged from a shock of some kind, and impact or something, a titanic jolt that might have happened just before the flames started.... And the temp of burning kerosene bit has already been debunked. The conspiracy assumes there was nothing else flammable in the building.

KFC, are you saying the mozzarella becomes stiff and doesn't break down after you chew it a few times? I think you are buying cheap cheese, or you're putting too much on. ffsjoe could be right as well. A good pizza should be cooked fairly quickly (under 10 minutes) at high temperature (500° F or more) on a pizza stone. If you cook them longer at a lesser temp you're asking for a tough and chewy 'za.

I just requested it from my local library. They'll let me know when one of the four copies they have is available. I haven't read too much of this thread, purposely skipping the parts where you talk about the plot. I'm sure you didn't spoil anything for anyone, but I'm like you, abskebabs, I prefer to know NOTHING about a book or film before I get into it. My favorite fiction experiences have been when I'm completely caught off guard by a movie or TV show. I got to see the first season of 24 on DVD and the only two things I knew about it was that it starred Keifer Sutherland and that each episode was a real-time hour in a 24 hour long season. What a ride! Can't wait to see Primer. Thanks for the tip! Soemtimes it can seem as if you're being ignored. What's usually happening is that you've already said what needed to be said and anyone else's comment would be redundant. Don't take it personally, threads ebb and flow like the tide and you can never tell when one is going to really take off and gain interest. Don't forget that this is finals time for many students, too.

Prisoners don't have email access, do they? With the way people feel about malware and spam, he's lucky he didn't get the control-alt-delete penalty.

Probably. But I appreciate your fleshing out your subsequent posts and helping us understand what you meant by "supposedly intelligent" and "false views". God forbid anyone should get the wrong idea and think you're an asshole.

Please go into a bit more detail because this sounds quite a lot like Flaming.

I don't question the need for a strong military. I question those who defend the current way the defense budget is allocated by saying we need a strong military. It's like saying you don't support the troops if you question why we're in Iraq. I still think a cohesive defender force with a single command structure and a single administrative structure would insure the most effective military units with the most efficient use of funds. Spend the savings on bringing education up to global levels.

We had a thread 6-7 months ago about US Military Spending and had some interesting figures and arguments.

Ah, but Romeo and Juliet didn't so much have their hearts broken as they were denied their love by outside forces. And I think their tale has a bit more flesh hanging off it than anything herme3 is likely to show us in his early writings (no offense, herme3; you've made a start but you're not our Will).

What real drama factor is there for someone who ends their suffering with suicide? Tension is lost when the solution is so easy. All the character setup in the world can't make us care about their death if they kill themselves over heartbreak. I'm not particularly interested in reading about someone who loves, has their heart broken and then kills themselves. You may think it's dramatic but it's not. I suppose if they slit their wrists and as they became too weak to move the phone rings it might spark my interest, but overall it's just not good drama.

The day was meant for surfing, the frothy waves greeting Jason and Rebecca as they crested the dune and found themselves on a deserted stretch of pristine beach. After helping Rebecca lay out their blanket, Jason announced his intentions to test the water and pulled his shirt off over his rippling muscles. Glancing shyly back over his shoulder as he hefted his board, he watched as Rebecca knelt on the blanket and unselfconsciously removed the top of her suit and began rubbing sunscreen over her magnificent upper body. Blushing furiously, Jason turned back to the ocean, shifting his surfboard down to cover himself, and hobbled down to the water's edge. He was saved from further embarassment as two gleaming, futuristic robots screamed out of the morning sky, blasting at each other with particle weapons as one fought to aim his warhead-tipped rocket at a suddenly visible and threatening asteroid while the other robot fought to stop him. Finally, the rocket launched, streaking up to impact with the asteroid. Jason had just enough time to think, "More sunblock, Rebecca!" as a bright white nuclear light enveloped the beach. Naaaaah! It just doesn't fit. This is a chaste story about true love transcending death. No room for robots and nood boobs. Keep doing what you're doing herme3.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. -Eleanor "YT" Roosevelt I SOOO agree, it's disgusting, flagrantly terrible really. Were you just saying this or do you think there's a chance...?

Maybe all it needs is the pronoun fix: "It certainly wasn't anything he'd never seen before."

Romance? Pure fantasy! This never happened to me before! I hope you don't mind, but I took some notes: It certainly wasn’t anything that Jason had never seen before. Double negative, tripped me up and drew me out of the story. Fix this. “Rebecca... Such a beautiful and innocent name”, thought Jason. You should use italics or some other device other than quotes and "thought Jason" to denote thinking (or if you like the quotes, make it Jason thought, "Rebecca...). As I was reading I thought he was saying this out loud to Rebecca. And I'm with Bettina, you use their names too often. Pronouns are your friend. It was funny, as I was reading I was joking to myself, thinking, "This needs a car chase!". Then he runs her car off the road into a tree. Niiiice. I liked it. When you first mentioned that her car was a new Eclipse I thought, "That's unnecessary". Now I know why you told me about her car. Tell me more about her brand new car and then play up the fact that he just wrecked it, it makes me care more and it makes it more believable when she goes ballistic. After that last day of school, they got on an airplane and went to the mountain resort in Canada. This sounds a little stilted, like you edited yourself a couple of times because you thought it sounded funny to say, "They flew to the resort." It sounds even weirder to say, "they got on an airplane and went..." They didn’t know what to do now. They were completely lost, and they had no idea where the resort was. They walked around for a while, but they noticed that the Sun was going down. The first two sentences here are great, they convey emotion, they tell me these guys are starting to panic. The third sentence is too tame, it doesn't go with the other two. Walked around for a while? Too vague, too boring. And the sun going down while lost in the snow is a really big deal. Needs more emotion. For the end, in the cave before they go to sleep, I think we need to hear more dialogue. It's a pretty sugary story, full of undying love and two hearts beating as one and all that, so don't be afraid to go with it a bit farther. We should hear how Rebecca found out why her old boyfriend dumped her. We should hear Jason tell her why she was the first girl he ever dated. At that moment, she took her last breath and died in Jason’s arms. Not sure you need to be this blunt about it. You already told us they woke up feeling no pain, no cold. Hypothermia, we get it. Dying in his arms, at least saying it that way, is pretty cliché. I like that you're bold enough to kill them off in the end, but I think you can allude to it and we'll all understand. It makes it more poignant without the actual words. Great job, all in all. Proud of you that you took a chance, wrote it down and decided to share it with us. Hope you don't mind my redlining (part of what I do for a living) and I hope you'll understand this is just my take on the story. Only you should write it, but I thought you'd liike to know about the places where I stumbled reading it. Bravo!

Definitely. Show those barbarians how civilised people act.

Email her at trisha.goddard@@townhousetv.com and tell her to Google "goat dung". But don't really do it, because I would never advocate that sort of thing. Never. Don't do it. I really mean it. I'm serious, don't even think about it. No way. Please don't. Tell her "hi" from me if you do.

Could be US Homeland Security checking to see how gullible we are here. "4shur dude, next time jst leave the detergent on ur dog and let HIM dry out, then ur bomb will be able to WALK!"

He could be for real. He types like he's hard of hearing....

I think the US has less stability but a larger presence in the Middle East, so we've increased both the danger and our ability to cope with it. I think Afghani women in Kabul have it slightly better than under the Taliban (we see photo ops of them attending school without burkas), but no where else in Afghanistan. Khadafy in Libya really was startling. He obviously learned the Saddam lesson. But I wonder if Iraq hasn't become the terrorist central that Libya used to be. We are still very much in crisis there. The next decade will see if our recent actions present more danger or more opportunity. I sincerely hope people stop dying so much over there. I hate hearing about having to break eggs to make an omelette.

WHAT!?!?! I could (pick one): 1. sing a better song 2. do a better acting job 3. kick the ball better 4. be more intelligent than YOU, you wiggly piece of goat dung, and do it for a tenth of the money! I'm worth MILLIONS compared to you! I deserve your money!!!

Without trying to nitpick, which definition of God are you thinking of that science could observe and test?