Bondwriter

Let me give it a try with the Who. Artist: The Who 01. Are you male or female? It's A Boy 02. Describe yourself? I'm A Man 03. How do you feel about yourself? I'm Free 04. Describe what you are thinking right now? The Song is Over 05. Describe where you currently live? Going Mobile 06. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Tommy's Holiday Camp 07. Your best friend is? Boris the Spider 08. What would you ask for if you had just one wish? Miracle Cure (not for me, though) 09. You know that: We're Not Gonna Take It 10. What's the weather like? Summertime Blues 11. If your life was a television show, what would it be called? Gettin' in Tune 12. What is life to you? Amazing Journey 13. What is the best advice you have to give? Love Ain't for Keepin' 14. If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Tommy

So Shadowgod is the one who's interested in shirtless blond surfer boys? I should have known!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, James Albert!

One down (well, two if we count the Hawaiian Hell's Angel), two more to go! And this so finely decorated church burning down, poor Thaddeus. The vomit touch was a delicate and thoughtful idea from the author. I can

And of course, your contribution to a higher quality level is even bigger...

The BeaStKid and Bondwriter: goody two shoes for the 21st century! Now, I agree with you...

Figures do not matter when your kind soul may come through in just a few posts! (Getting the back patting back on track!) :pickaxe:

And included in the guests are the numerous bots that crawl the web. As for the time, it is yours, or the one you set in your settings. For me (GMT+1), it's 9:12 AM.

Only two females in Bob's list! So much for the stereotype of girls being chatty! By the way, a goat in French (une ch

Hello, Tamaraicia! Welcome again. Live chat was not used enough, so it was canceled a few weeks back. But there are tons of thread to express yourself too!

Thanks guys. Having seen mothers losing their children, I think I had to go through something that though tough, was rather natural in the big scheme of life. I'm lucky enough to have been able to talk a lot when my dad learned about his cancer not to have regrets about things that were left unsaid, even if of course I miss him.

(This is the extent of my medical abilities. The selfish me says: more great stories, but I do hope you get out of this depression phase fast.)

I hope you manage to go through this parting process OK, keep in touch with Megan and Jesse and get to have other friends you have a similar relationship with, though they of course will never be a replacement or substitute.

Sincere condolences. I fear I'm getting close to join the club, and this is a prospect I fear very much. I hope you and your family get some positive things out from this moment.

We have had lengthy discussions about this issue with the band. And I think we'll stick to English for a while. So, just for you, Ieshwar, a song in French: Une Journ

It was just one year ago today that the phone rang, a bit earlier than it is now. I was chatting with BC, the artist who draws Simon, as we were supposed to meet the following week to have lunch as I wanted to meet him in person, since he lived two hours away from home, though in a different country. I picked up the phone, and right away, I knew by my mom's voice that something was wrong. My dad was in the clinic. He had undergone an operation to remove a tumor to his lung. He was 63, and had been smoking since he was 14, except for one year when I was a kid when he quit. He also had a heart condition. This was the concern. My mom told me he had suffered a heart attack during the night. I had seen my dad the evening before, and he seemed OK. He was sitting as is normal after such an operation, and though he had some oxygen mask and was dressed in the silly gown you've got to wear in these settings, everything seemed to go smoothly. We were undergoing a major heatwave at the time, and he had complained of the fact they closed the window during the night. But I kissed him good bye, telling him I'd be back the next day. He had not wanted too many visits, since he didn't like being seen in what he considered a diminished state. Over the phone, my mom asked me to come pick her up at 12:00 to go and see my dad, and have lunch with her. Needless to say, I no longer felt like going on with Simon's adventures for the morning, so I showered and got ready to go to my parents' early. I was about to leave when the phone rang again. This time, my mom was sobbing and I knew right away what her next words would be. My dad was dead. There was no blur, no overwhelming feeling of doom. My dad was dead. As I walked to my car, I felt all soft and mellow, and braced for the things to come. I called the funeral home and asked them to go pick up the body, and we scheduled an appointment in the afternoon to settle all the issues. We went to the clinic to pick up my dad's stuff. We were offered to go into the room, and accepted. So here he was, left as he'd been when they'd tried to revive him. His eyes had reopened and his mouth was gaping open. We gathered all of his belongings in his bag and got out from the room. That's when I cried for the first time, as I hugged my mom. We had to wait in the stuffy hall for the chief nurse to take care of the administrative formalities. We discussed all the practical things that had to be done with my mom. We were strangely calm; she had been alerted during the night, so she hadn't slept much, but she held on bravely; my parents never were too much for cracking up in public places. We went home and started the round of phone calls. There was a funeral to arrange, as in France you have to manage to get a church for a religious funeral, otherwise it's just the cemetery, there are no funeral homes where you can have the ceremony as in the U.S. Then we called my sisters, and I cried for the second time hearing them sobbing. My older sister was on vacation in the south, with husband & 4 kids, my youngest sister had to fly back from Baltimore. She had come to spend three weeks at the end of June and the beginning of July, my father having scheduled his operation just after she left. This was a blessing since she had last seen him in a rather joyful setting. Then we called my father's friends. We went to the funeral home. I couldn't help smiling at the contrived look on the woman's face, and her circumlocutions. She called the mayor's office in the village my dad was born, and where my grandparents were buried. There is a family vault there, that may contain eight people, so there were 6 places left. The woman said that "he expressed the will to rest there". I couldn't help but think that, first of all, he didn't express any will, but that we made the choice for him, though we had spoken about this issue, and that he wanted to be buried, not rest. Being a great Six Feet Under fan, I discovered how the whole process actually worked in my own country. Then we had to choose the coffin. I knew exactly what my dad wanted: the cheapest one. Even though, it was outrageously expensive, but well, funeral homes have some sort of monopoly, so they use and abuse it. Of course we were offered the "options", like the cross over the coffin or other stuff I deemed ludicrous; I managed to remain polite, and we settled for some (free) engraving over the coffin. We were then led to the funeral parlor, a little house built behind with two (slightly) refrigerated rooms designed to keep bodies. It was a relief to see my dad looking like he was resting this time. They had dressed him up, so the sight was less shocking than in the morning. This whole thing weirded me out, though, mainly the idea that less than 24 hours had gone by since I last saw him alive. The numerous boxes of tissues provided proved useful, since this time I did burst into tears. We went back to what now was my mom's, and the visits started. At least, it allowed us to have time fly by without noticing. I was busy managing to get the obituary printed in the newspapers, to provide guests with drinks... So, it was a Friday, and the funeral was on the Wednesday after. My sisters got there on Sunday and Tuesday. Going to pick up my sister at the airport was really weird. The funeral turned out to be a great moment. It was a family reunion of some sort, the church was packed, the testimonials were great, I managed to read mine without flinching, and the reception after the burial under the blistering sun (this was the hottest day of the heatwave). There was a huge crowd, and fits of laughters through the sobs. Well, a funeral. I felt bad for the undertaker, who couldn't manage the crowd, and was getting late on schedule. Plus, he had to stay dressed in his black suit with a temperature over 40

Thought-provoking considerations, Wildone. Until a while, I thought Shadowgod's "Mr. Williams is involved" was an OK theory, but it's unlikely we'd have yet another coup de th

Every time I saw an interview of him, he came across as smart and thoughtful. Parts of his antics I like, and some I dislike. I don't know his music that well, though the band I play in has covered Great Big White World for four years, and it's always a pleasure to perform this song. I wouldn't call him God, though. Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, all these guys are the same family: they freak out the moms and fascinate the kids.

I thought they'd go at it again, but eventually it's quiet. First of all, a little description is in order. I live in a small two-story house, in what used to be a textile industry neighborhood. In the 12th century, they dried out the swamps in the valley and started building a village in the shade of the cathedral; well they built the cathedral around the same time. In the 18th century the small village saw the implementation of textile plants. So it became people with the plants' workers. It was a working-class neighborhood, that developed its lore and legends. Came the 70s, and the big textile crisis. All the plants got closed down one by one; my neighborhood had already gone into becoming a bit derelict for a few decades; it was the lair of crime, prostitution and drugs, and hence was rather ill-famed. In the 80s, the city council and some real-estate developers undertook to rehabilitate the place. It all started with a dock next to the river that saw bars and restaurants settling in. In ten years, the neighborhood got cleaned up. When the university got new buildings there, it became profitable to buy housing in order to rent it to students. Eventually it ended up being populated mainly with students. There were a few long-time residents left, whose families had lived there for three or four generations. Working class, but no longer working for the most part. Actually, there are villages a few miles from my city in which all the economy was based on the textile plant in which the problem is the same. The thing is, this left with people who for a wide part are uneducated. Here comes my neighbor from across the square. My house is at the end of a street that opens on a cute little square, that was re-cobbled ten years ago, so that the now numerous tourists coming to visit find the place quaint and cute. On the right side of the square, looking from my window, there's a narrow canal with houses built along. It's the back of the houses, the front opening on another street. So you have very small yards, the kind big enough to set a few chairs and a table and the occasional barbecue, when the weather allows, from April to October. In one of these houses, lives one of the diehard residents. Mid to late 20s, must be unemployed, got married a couple years ago (I remember the noise of the party), got a kid less than nine months later; I suspect him of dealing hashish, because of the odd visits he gets, but this isn't my point. A few years back, prior to his marriage, sometime in late April early May, I heard some party starting and the noise increased over the evening. Well, all wasn't lost, I wrote a song about it. An Evening Racket It

This is the result of a collective effort, and credit should be given to people who may not be as active as they once were, but that got the ball rolling, though of course those who started it all and accompanied the site through its growing pains and have improved it steadily should be even more greatly thanked.

Conner's got his share of Internet erotica for the day with this lurid pic.

I wondered about this too. The LVSD has chronically been understaffed, so my fist assumption was that it was a narrative trick to have less cops working on the case, but of course Thaddeus would be likely to be behind this "epidemic". He'd have much to gain to have the law enforcement unable to investigate, or even take action if there were things to smuggle out of the tunnel, like an illegitimate son. Provided the twerp is not far away already, since it was hinted at strongly by the author?

Another question: if two half-brothers, not knowing they're half-siblings, engage in a romantic relationship, it's incest, yes, but is it wrong? Can they go on, or does the social taboo linked to incest endanger their relationship?

Happy Birthday! Now you're no longer underage, I can tell you you're VERY charming!