Gene Splicer PHD

Nicotine withdrawal plus lack of sleep. Wait 1 day, then if it doesn't stop, go to the ER. They will work with you if you don't have health insurance, but the most important thing is this: if you are the least bit worried that this wont fade or gets worse, get to an urgent care or ER facility IMMEDIATELY. Brain stuff is not something you want to wait on to see if it gets better on its own. Money is no reason to wait. I quit smoking, so I know that it can be really hard, and part of that is the physical withdrawal stuff. Headaches are common when you quit smoking. But that is irrelevant if it gets bad, get to a doctor.

I don't post because I don't have time. I think this is a great story - let there no be no doubt about that. But I have my complaints, and I've refrained from spouting off, because it really is your story to tell. But you've given me the opportunity, so... I don't have time because I can pretty much skip a good three chapters and not lose any of the essentials of the story. Maybe I mean I don't have the patience. You're moving people around on the chessboard, but no pawns are taken, there's no 'check'. The last really major event in this story was the beheading of the mob boss, some ten chapters ago or so. Everything since then has been "Bridget reads a fax" - "Gray drives a car with Trevor in it" - "Rachel and Martin sail around awhile" - "Shane takes off his shirt". That's all great, but I want to read how the boy who had weights tied to him as he sank under the water, with his boat adrift above him, finally gets his revenge. I think you've gotten too wrapped up in the detail in this story. I think its neat that there are a lot of plot devices in play, that there are a lot of interesting little details to plot out - if I had a calendar and a sextant and a spreadsheet to keep track of it all, and the time I'd need to really figure out where all the little niff-naw details are going to all suddenly come together and make something happen. You say there are five chapters left. I think it's closer to fifteen, because all these details need their own exposition and their own storylines to track, and while I think it's great that a diver under Atlantis found the zinc anode, I know that an experienced diver has spent some time around boats, and you don't need a forensic expert to diagnose that Atlantis is basically a new boat. Two lines: "What did you find?" "The fiberglass is really clean, the glass is new, the running gear is all new. The sails still have creases. That boat hasn't been in the water long". - would have sufficed to let Gray deduce that Trevor is sailing a boat that's pretty much a total refit. CJ, that's one stroll down a dock to deduce the condition of the boat. The ropes would be very clean, and neatly faked out on the dock, and very twisty because they just came out of the bag. The boat would be tidy and clean, as a very proud boat owner would want to show off their prowess and their shiny new boat. The running gear - lines, bumpers, the zodiac, is all new, and that would be very apparent to someone whose been around a marina - especially a diver. But you turned it into a full paragraph of exposition about scratches on locks. Why did you handle it that way? I think you did that specifically so you could string out the story with the bubble trail and throw in an unnecessary cliffhanger. Tension in a story is a great thing, but when it's done with such a targeted, specific reason - string the reader along - it becomes tedious. It's a lot like the news broadcast telling me I need to tune in after the break to find the criminal in my neighborhood. Cliffhangers are fun - once in a while, used in moderation. Not every chapter has to string me along - I've been reading for 135 chapters, it's not like a quiet end to a chapter is going to stop me now. Almost a million words, and if you really look at what's gone on in each chapter and ask "what happened in this chapter?" the answer is usually "not much". Turn it into a web serial, which has no end, but is the "continuing adventures of Trevor and Shane". Write as many cliffies as you want in that environment. You're at 143 chapters before its finished, at least. Finish it. And then you will get a really great bit of review from me. As it is, I'm a little tired of catamarans floating around Australia while somebody reads a fax in Bermuda.

Your conference paper should include references to 18th century wealth management strategies, or at least a short couple of paragraphs on the cost of outfitting a warship for long sea voyages, concentrating on the financial impact of 8 pounders over grapeshot on local blacksmithing operations in the port vicinity. Or something. Also, threaten to shell the conference facility from the fleet of sail powered warships you've got anchored nearby if people don't pay attention.

AGAIN? Spill brother. WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

*too

It's a great book.

Isn't it piled under cannabis? If it's not, WHAT THE HELL WAS I... Also, it seems MSNBC has apparently decided that something is a little off, because the link doesn't work, and searching their site (using Bing - might be part of the problem there) doesn't go anywhere either. But, anecdotally, I will say that high dudes who are likely to get testicular cancer are probably trying to microwave something they shouldn't.

George Granger brings the guns to bear and shells the crap out of Malibu. Stef is upset about the nine pounder in the dining room table, until... George leads an expeditionary force to Escorial and pounds it into gravel.

AOE 2 and Age of Mythology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaz_II It doesn't look good!

He's learning how to strategize, to get his way. He's learning how to play the game. He's not learning how to fix things, though. When he's thoughtful, he seems to sort of "get it" but the minute his dad or Robbie or his mom jump in the frame, he's back to reacting again. Just like a teenager, his emotional defense pops up and the rational thinking goes right out the window. So yeah, he's learning, but he's not doing anything with what he's learning other than getting people to see his way. Brad hasnt had his "come to jesus" moment with Will yet, I don't think. He doesn't realize yet what's at stake. He's just like Will - anytime Will comes into the picture, there Brad goes, off the handle or skidding sideways again.

Well, just so you know I singled you out only because you made some fairly "black and white" statements about how the law can be used to assist with parental authority - while I agree that that's one way to handle it, it almost never turns out to be a course of action that anyone should take without knowing the consequences and almost always ends up with a totally destroyed relationship between the parents and the kid. I'm glad your parents took the tack they did with you and that it's worked out well in your family and with your son. There are an awful lot of families, though, where this wouldn't work, mostly due to social factors that I won't rant about Parenting is hard. So is being a teenager.

Oh you don't have kids or spend much time with families with teenagers in crisis, do you ? There's a thing called choosing your battles with kids. You try to pick the battle that will have an effect, and you try to balance reaction to their actions, and vice versa. It's not as simple as calling the law or shipping them off to a school. It's a whole lot trickier than that, the risks are a lot higher. I mean, if a baby is screaming and won't quiet down, do you yell back? That just makes it worse, and do you think this changes when they become teenagers? It doesn't! They just yell louder back at you or throw things and leave, or tell you to piss off and go do what they want anyway, or have big hissy fits. What you are talking about here. Tim, is when it escalates and never gets better. My cousin's kid was 15 when they caught her with pot. My cousin asked my opinion (as the family druggie) what I would do in her situation. My answer was that she could go two ways. She could lock the kid down, search her room and her person randomly, ban her from seeing her friends, take away her phone, take away her privileges, random drug tests, hair tests, the whole thing. Up to and including a short stay in a rehab if it came to that. Or she could talk to the kid, find out what was up with the pot smoking, tell her in no uncertain terms that the pot had to go, come up with some ways to maybe push the kid to see some different friends, etc. - all of this with the never-voiced hope that the pot will be a temporary phase. My cousin went the lock down route. For a year. When she got her freedom back, the kid stopped coming home, stopped calling to say where she was, basically she broke free. And hasn't, except for short visits home, been back since. She got her own phone from some friends, found some couches she could sleep on, got a small job to put money in her pocket. Emancipation, really, only without the law. We all knew it would happen, we all saw the ugly, ugly looks the kid gave my cousin, the silence, all that anger. The whole experience so poisoned her about "home" that she didn't really think she had one anymore, so she bailed. And truthfully my cousin lost a whole lot more than a stupid battle about pot. She really lost the relationship. It's better but will never ever really be a good one again. Legally, my cousin could have had the kid dragged home when she didn't come home, could have taken away the phone again, shipped her off to a school or camp, could have taken all kinds of legal measures to keep her minor child under control. And my cousin, knowing what would happen if she cracked down again, has backed off. Way off. She will lose her daughter, in one way or another, if she escalated it again, and so she has chosen (wisely, I think) to let the kid find her own way. But there's no "winner" in this, Tim. You don't win when a kid sees no options and the parents can't see them either. The daughter didn't win, she had a harder adolescence because of her decisions and her mom's reactions. The mom (my cousin) didn't win, she basically lost all the trust her daughter had in her. Nowadays, my cousin sends a little money her way once in a while, keeps in regular touch, and hopes the girl doesn't end up on a stripper pole somewhere. Sometimes it's all that's left. Sometimes, parents have to let the really independent ones go their way, and make their mistakes, and hope it all turns out okay in the end. What Mark has created here is a situation that I think is waaay polarized, more for dramatic effect and storytelling than anything else. Brad is not interested in compromise. He's not interested in anything Will has to say, and is now very much on the defensive. And he's reacting, rather than thinking about options. And Will, in that fuzzy emotional/logical/stressed and dunderheaded way that teenagers have, is doing exactly the same thing. He doesn't care why his dad's being a dick, he just knows his dad's being a dick because he "doesn't care". He's overreacting to his dad's stupid decisions. The problem is that he has the resources to really escalate the situation to a point that will have no good outcome for anyone. Mark has said that this "battle" between Brad and Will in some ways reflects his own relationship with his son, who (I think) is a little older than Will. And I think he's putting little pieces of the battles he's had with his son in the story, only highly dramatized. What he's been really, really good at is overemphasizing that the kid's opinions matter- not because he's a special snowflake that has "needs" - but that you have to be nuanced in dealing with kids, because they will usually react, without any sense of balance, without thinking. If a parent just drops the hammer, the kid will hit you with it, really hard, because they have no sense of a proportional response. The baby yells, the parents yell back, the baby yells louder. It's a never ending cycle - so you learn to let the baby cry itself to sleep. You don't call the law on it. Part of dealing with a kid is including them in the decisions that affect them, even if they don't have a choice in those decisions, because it lets the kid in on what you're thinking. And that can lead the child to a better response than you would get otherwise. Brad is a business leader, and understands a proportional response, and absolutely refuses to include Will in his thinking process. That's a mistake, a big one. It means Will is reacting to his own situation without consideration of his dad's situation, so Will is operating in a vacuum. And a kid in that situation is likely to do, well, just about anything, because he's not a big thinker at this point in his cranial development. Also, he's Will, which (in my mind) means he's arrogant like his dad, and not exactly the smartest stick in the pile, and emotionally about ten years old. The problem is that he's got the resources to screw with his dad and the family, and they know it.

Skydive is sweet. Live mesh was cool too, but I guess they're killing that. I'm a M$ partner so I get 25 gb free. If anyone has onenote, it can sync to a web (skydrive) notebook, meaning you can have a notebook that syncs in addition to documents.

And those who can't teach gym teach politics

It's like one big cliff, reading this story. You'll be on the edge of your seat. CJ has a way of keeping you clinging to the edge. It's what goats do. Also, eating anything in sight, and bleating. They do like their cliffs, those goats.

I had a little racing cat when I was a boy - probably 15 or 16. We called it "heeling" and getting one of the hulls up was, er, "up on one". When we were standing on the monohull that was in the air, and trying to hold the boat from going over, that's "hiking" or "hiking out". The boat had hike straps for passengers and I had a little trapeze thing that I'd put around me to hike out. When I had it up on one I generally stood on the "up" monohull and leaned waaay out. The goal was never to get up on one, though, as you mention it makes the boat really unstable and steering gets hard (I had an extender on the rudder, but the way it worked it screwed with the way the rudder reacted).

This, right here, is exactly right. Thank you for saying what I feel, too. And I think Sunshine is doing this very well. Now I'm going to find that "Cement Garden" novel

I think this is Sunshine's story and her universe. If in that universe the adults are pretty much non-existent (and useless when around), and tasers can be left around and used multiple times, that's how it is in this universe. I don't think any of these people are redeemable either but we'll have to wait and see. ...and it goes without saying that if the intent is to make these people bring out the "ick" factor so well (as they do), it's a well written story in its own right. Not all fiction is rainbows and puppies.

It's also called texting your mom with MOM MAKE ME A CHICKEN SANDWICH AND THIS TIME TAKE OFF THE SKIN. YOU KNOW I HATE THE SKIN YOU ALWAYS FORGET. EVEN WHEN I TURNED 25 YOU FORGOT GOD I HATE YOU SOMETIMES

It's not gaming that's the problem. People who are broken will play games in broken ways. Also, ridiculously overhyped attention to the wrong factors helps portray professional gamers as "sick". Which is a shame.

Why don't you officially change your cliffhanging schedule to every other week? If you're that busy, give yourself some slack. It's not like we can't wait for another cliffhanger every two weeks instead of a cliffhanger a week. Sheesh, dude. Next thing you know you'll be trying to catch up on cliffhangers, and one should never be in a hurry near steep inclines.

It's an interesting direction you've taken. I look forward to the next chapter, where the perspective might reveal more about what the narrator is trying to achieve. Was that your intent?

I think the defining moment of the season was the very last shot of last year's episode, the flower pot. Walt has now turned a serious corner.