MikeL

Great chapter, Dan. Thanks.

dkstories has released Chapter 2 of Dreams of a Father. Enjoy reading and have a great weekend!

Johnathan, Welcome to GA. To find others your age, click on "Members" near the upper right of this page; then click on "Toggle More Options"; then enter the age you want (near the bottom); then click "Go". You will see a list of all GA members who are that age. There are about 80 members who are currently 15 years old. There are also teen support and teen forum areas for you to check out. Have fun and get all the benefits of GA. Mike

Great picture, Jess. No doubt our goat author always travels in style. Wonder what this service would cost.

Hope one of my favorite writers had a great birthday!

Yeah...we swimmers are gorgeous!

How do you make a blonde laugh on a Wednesday? Tell her a joke on a Monday!

Hope a great author has a great day! Happy Birthday, Carl! Other notable birthdays today: Fidel Castro, 82.

Be careful never to let a blonde have a coffee break... It takes too long to retrain her afterwards! Postcard from a blonde: Having a wonderful time. Where am I? What do you call a blonde standing between two brunettes? A mental block! What do you call a blonde with half a brain? Gifted! And remember... smart blondes have dark roots!

So, the entertainment is set for the stag party. What surprises me is that Eric is willing to risk life and limb on a motorcycle just to evade paparazzi on LA streets. A court order would be safer.

Carl Holiday has released Chapter 14 of The Artists titled An Awakening.

Hi.

I just saw the US mens team win gold with a world record in the 4x100 freestyle...Phelp's second gold medal in the '08 Olympics.

Actually, I think Michael Phelps has a better chance of winning 8 or more gold medals. This would break the record held by Mark Spitz.

Yes?

I re-read The Log Way to get a better feel for the characters in In the Fish Bowl while waiting for chapter 21 to be posted. I'm still waiting.

Another great chapter, CJ. General Bradson gets an offer he can refuse. And, it appears he will be at the center of the action in this story. The marriage proposal was cute but I don't think I would like Eric being involved in planning wedding events for me. Looking forward to chapter 3 already. Psst...hey, guys...no cliffhanger in chapter 2.

C James' story Changing Lanes continues with Chapter 2, Mission to Idaho.

Well, you selected three pretty good commercials and one loser. I remember two of them. Anything with Yogi Berra is worth watching...always funny. The really bad one in your quartet is the freecreditreport.com commercial. There is some humor in it, but it is basically a scam. There is a caption on the screen at 0:25 which discloses that "Offer applies with enrollment in Triple Advantage". Without the caption, the commercial would be false advertising. They are offering something which is not free. You have to pay them $14.95 per month for a credit monitoring service; then they will supply your free credit report. You do get a seven day free trial period during which you can withdraw and not be charged for the monitoring service. How much monitoring do you get in seven days? Here's the real catch. You can go to www.annualcreditreport.com and get a free credit report. Everyone is entitled under federal law to get free credit report once each year from each of the three credit reporting agencies. In effect, you can get a free credit report once every four months and monitor your own credit standing. To their credit, freecreditreport.com discloses this on their home page. Why would they pay so much to advertise something that is free? Because they can make a lot of money by having a catchy jingle sung by cute guys.

Many thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes. This is a great community! It's been a great day and a great year.

How could I forget the DVR? Just record all shows you want to see. Then you can zip right through the commercials during playback. My remote has a button that skips forward thirty seconds. I can press it 6 or 8 times very quickly so that it moves on with the show after five seconds or so of no commercials. Sweet!

Would you believe I don't remember that one?

He's back! See: I know, I know ... it's been a long time ..

You are probably not the only one noticing nonsensical advertising. I doubt, too, that I am the only one not noticing. It seems I have developed the ability to completely ignore commercials. The advertisers are really wasting their money on me. Of the examples you mentioned, I can remember exactly none. Actually, the pads on the feet thing is vaguely familiar; I don't remember the tree though. Occasionally, someone will describe a commercial they've seen, and I think that it seems familiar, but I couldn't possibly tell you what kind of product - let alone the brand name - is being advertised. I also make good use of the remote control. If the show I'm watching breaks for commercials, I'll flip to Fox News for 3 or 4 minutes. (You begin to develop a feel for how long a break will be.) What does surprise me is how so many networks schedule their advertising for exactly the same time as all the other channels. You can surf the channels and find commercials on all of them. The Super Bowl commercials? That's a different story. I do watch and remember them. I can't change channels because we have a crowd over every year; a lot of them watch the commercials and talk during the game. Anyone else immune to TV commercials?

Is the methamphetamine itself tainted or is it some other factor, such as dirty needles, that is responsible? The Wikipedia article also said, "Experts attribute this to "AIDS fatigue" among younger people who have no memory of the worst phase of the epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as "condom fatigue" among those who have grown tired of and disillusioned with the unrelenting safer sex message. This trend is of major concern to public health workers." This seems to be a response to the initial question.