glomph

You'll probably like this one.

The car I learned on in driver's ed and also my first car were like that. My first car was 12 years old when I bought it and then I drove it for four years, including trips halfway across the country. Toward the end something was worn out, so you had to hold your mouth right and do a little twist with your wrist to shift into first. All my cars since then have been automatics, but I find that I have no trouble driving stick shift when needed. My most trouble was in England, remembering to change gears with my left hand. Once I got in a tight spot and instinctively reached for the gear shift and opened the door.

I gather that they are more likely to kick you out if you know Arabic. That sounds incredibly stupid under the circumstances, but that seems to be the pattern.

It would depend upon how many of the others were polymorphous.

I saw Beowulf 3D this past afternoon. I thought it was very well done. The animation style that looked so creepy in the Polar Express previews seems to work in this context for me. I'll resist the temptation to say that the story was a bit dated, but the movie does make me want to go back and read the book since it's been about 40 years. The 3-D worked quite well for the most part, and they even had some previews in 3-D. The rain and the snow were particularly impressive. It looked like the precipitation was falling in the theater between me and the screen. A lot of minor touches were done better than they had to be to get by. One distraction was the clumsy ways they obscured a vital area during Beowulf's nude scenes. It was probably more obvious in 3-D, where it looked like you could lean sideways and see around whatever was in front, but, of course, that doesn't work. I heard some reviews of Sweeny Todd on the radio recently, and they said that a lot of the music was left out, including everything sung by the chorus. One reviewer thought the powerful acting compensated for the awful singing. Others thought the singing, particularly by the woman, was too bad to be salvaged. I saw the play on Broadway with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou, so I'd rather remember it like that. But if you haven't seen the play, you might want to give the movie a shot.

He did a pretty good George W. Bush on SNL. Here's a video (ignore ad at end). I've managed to avoid all of his movies, as best I recall.

We were too polite to mention it.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can often rent a decent substitute for it. It would be nice to have enough money that you are not obsessed with it, but not to have so much money that you are obsessed with it. Warren Buffet says that he wanted to give his children enough money that they could do anything, but not enough money that they could do nothing. Wisdom is good, but to have all you need/want/can have wouldn't be too interesting. The pursuit of wisdom is a very rich life-long process, and its own reward. And there are things that you can sort of know intellectually, but can't really understand without experience. Youth is over-rated, and anyway these days people age much more slowly than they did, and it's not just because I'm getting old. Health is another thing. Some kind of health challenges may be blessings in disguise because they make you take better care of yourself and make you aware of your mortality and thus make you appreciate the time you have. But without at least some decent level of health and some control over chronic things, it's hard to enjoy much else. Power, as defined above, doesn't sound like much fun. And even if it starts out to be, the old truth that power corrupts will get you in the end. I voted for freedom. It gives you the opportunity to strive for all the others anyway. And as for love, did anybody say how cute that fairy is?

The funny part of the clip was at the end where she tells her mother's reaction.

He took "shallow" somewhat literally and out of context, in line with some stereotypes about engineers.

They do expect you to have the WiFi turned off even if they don't say it explicitly every time. For the same reason, I'd expect you must be able to turn it off on the Kindle. If you haven't already loaded what you want to read on the plane, you could find a hot spot in the airport while you are waiting for the plane. What reviews I've read and heard suggest that it is much more book-like than past readers. (And why do they call them "readers" when they just display the book and don't read it? The person is the actual reader, like with a book.) I do think "Kindle" is a strange name. Do they expect you to burn your real books? If I got one, I guess I'd read Fahrenheit 451.

That's either a really good grade on a test or you need really thick glasses. Hope it's the latter, and if so, congrats.

I once watched a movie on TV in Paris that was in French and had French subtitles. That was helpful for me, since I could read it and hear it and follow the dialog better than I could have with either one alone. The movie was about auto racing and didn't have a lot of dialog anyway. I was curious as to why they had the subtitles. There was not any difference in the words except for "cuss" words: The actor would say some vulgarity in English, and the subtitle would give the French equivalent. I didn't see it from the beginning, but I eventually caught on that the action took place in Canada. I figured out that the subtitles were for those French who won't admit that they can understand the Canadian variety.

I spent too many years in Dallas to pull for the Cowboys ever.

Well, maybe now, but it used to be when you gave your servants their gifts (and maybe the day off). "Good King Wenceslas" is a carol for boxing day, all nice and Victorian as it is. St. Stephen's Day is on December 26. A guy once told me, BTW, that he would get bombed on Pearl Harbor Day (December 7) and get stoned for St. Stephen's Day. And a good traditionalist is not going to take down the decorations before January 6 (twelve drummers drumming and all that).

Don't confuse gender with sex. (Or is that a definition of "gay"?) The German "das M

Some people are just famous for being famous, and a lot of them are not much so.

We used to have at least two white parties in the South: the Democrats and the Republicans. As for the fashion police, I recall that Michael Jordan was fined some years ago for wearing white shoes after Labor Day (either by his team or the NBA).

I quite consciously used Brian Kinney as a role model when I first watched the show, in attitude, though certainly not in actions (going to clubs and picking up guys, etc.). I was trying to deal professionally with an overall situation that I thought called for a certain level of detachment, determination, and I guess in retrospect, self-absorption. Things seemed to have worked out much better than anyone could have reasonably expected, so I owe a debt of gratitude to a fictional character for his inspiration to me that got me through a challenging situation.

Besides what Graeme said, it's not uncommon in the US legal system to take account of aggravating factors in crimes, so it's not like the concept of hate crimes breaks new ground. It's just one more example of an established legal principle.

Most hybrids currently on the market don't plug into the power grid at all, so the only coal power in the car is what was used in the making of the car and the batteries.

What mendacity!

I really enjoyed lots of ages, and am glad to be able to remember them in varying degrees of detail. I've been reconnecting over the past couple of years with people I knew in high school, and we seem to have improved as persons with age. When I was 11 I told myself to remember always that I was extremely happy during that year. At this point I have no idea why it was such a good time for me; I just recall that I promised myself that I'd remember it was a great age for me to be. But would I want to relive my life? I think not, but it sort of depends. I didn't feel that great during my 40s, for one thing. Now I know why, so if I could go back with the knowledge I have now, that would be a better experience. But then I might mess up some of the things that have turned out well since. While I enjoy my work for the most part, I find myself looking forward to when I can retire in a few years. I should be more comfortable financially then and will have more time to travel and work on my personal projects and such, assuming my health stays good for a while. It suits me just fine to be in the last third of my life. Of course, I don't know whether I'm in the beginning, middle, or near the end of that third.

I'm celebrating recalling my first trip to London. I was reminded by the scone recipe of when I ordered "lemonade" and was surprised at what I was served. The scone recipe reminds me also of the ice cream bread recipe I posted in another thread.

In Arkansas they intended to pass a law that would allow a pregnant girl to marry a bit younger than their previously legal marriagable age if she has permission of her parents. However, the bill that they passed left out a "not" somewhere, with the result that a girl of any age (6, 8, whatever), can get married if she has parental permission as long as she isn't pregnant, or something like that. The error was not discovered until the legislature had adjourned. When they reassemble, I imagine they'll repeal it right away, if they haven't already. In the meantime, according to gay marriage opponents, such a marriage would have to be recognized in every other state.