MikeL

Hope one of my favorite writers had a great birthday!

Yeah...we swimmers are gorgeous!

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Some airlines offer round the world tickets at reasonable prices. There are some restrictions, like a requirement to stay overnight on at least four different continents. Ha! Wouldn't keep me from going. Of course, you need sufficient time and money to make it worthwhile. I would go to Europe (Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries), somewhere in Asia I haven't been (Hong Kong or Tokyo), Australia, and Brazil. I'll have to find someone to travel with me. My wife won't make that long a trip; she hates getting on and off planes, trains, buses, etc. Any volunteers?

Great to hear you are back writing. Looking forward to more chapters.

Quitting smoking? I did that years ago. It wasn't easy but, due exclusively to the support and encouragement of my best friend, my wife, I was able to break nicotene's death grip on my life. If you are committed to someone who encourages you to give up smoking, you should see it as your loving duty to your partner to break up your relationship with tobacco. Otherwise, you are engaging in a m

The New York Times reported today, 8/3/08, that HIV infection rates in the United States are 40% higher than previously thought. The article, H.I.V. Study Says Rate 40% Higher Than Estimate, discloses that a new, more precise testing method "found that 56,300 people became newly infected with H.I.V in 2006, compared with the 40,000 figure the agency has cited as the recent annual incidence of the disease." The article further states that "findings confirm that H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, has its greatest effect among gay and bisexual men of all races (53 percent of all new infections) and among African-American men and women." Have earlier findings, that the infection rate previously declined and has remained steady since the late 1990s, led gays to relax their safe sex practices? Has your own attitude about safe sex and AIDS prevention changed in the past 10 years? Please comment.

Actually a pretty good picture, Pai-chan. You do not look weird.

Welcome, Jaci. It's nice to have you here. Thanks for the picture.

Interesting question, Rob. I'm not a writer so I'm no help. Thought I would ask if you had seen Nicholas James' stories. He may be one to contact. See: What's the Difference Between Me and You? by Nicholas James.

I must have missed something.

Pai-chan, I think your picture is great. The hair and eyes are fine. Aren't most Swedes fair-haired?

Jim already knows about the Canary Islands. Why not there?

Good observation. Carlisle is English, not Irish; Carlshitski is neither. Elvis put the bananas and peanut butter on the bread together before dipping the sandwich in batter and dropping it into the deep fryer. Don't know about Jon.