Bondwriter

The chanting will resume! When I saw the post, I thought you'd announce it was up. I'm all disappointed now...

Even if doesn't lead you into a relationship, things will certainly be easier for you. Congratulations on this bold move.

I'd be tempted to go for the "Get a room, you two!" line, but: 1/ Someone used it already. 2/ I've got a feeling you didn't need the advice.

Sadly enough, the pool party that was planned afterwards was cancelled, CJ telling us it would be rescheduled at a later date, because he wants to make sure this Canadian buddy of his can make it. I don't know if us lambs can mingle with goats too much, though.

That's Moli

Well, not the first adjective that came up. Mean, wicked, devious, evil, irritating... I actually thought CJ pulled this trick rather well, since after all he just skips the conversation with Dex (and C&S going to bed, lol), and then goes on with the story. And I was so pissed at CJ for not telling that I looked for the least little detail that would make the whole scheme fall apart. I love your #2 theory. A high-scale fraud. It'll be fun when Chris and Steve will watch the FBI take away Thaddeus and Johnson who will mumble:" Darn, had it not been for these meddling homosexual youngsters, our scheme'd have worked perfectly!" (Yeah, I'm still a Scooby Doo fan)

This is a beautifully written, very moving story. WOW! Saying more would be useless.

This is all fine and dandy, but earning enough money to pay the bills and indulge in a bit more than the ordinary chow makes your life less worrisome. I also agree having tons of money isn't a guarantee of happiness. But it helps keeping trouble away.

Not into prediction but yeah, sharing an intimate moment with friends you bring back from a night-club drunk could be a not so smart move. Tabarnak de famille de fifs, ces Lemoureaux! Leur a

In for this one (damn, now I'll have to do research!)

And Picasso could draw figuratively like no one. I agree that playing with language is something writers can do. But it's instead of its is most of the time a result of inattention, or lack of knowledge, not of a creative burst. Actually, if it wasn't too clear with my little story, I don't believe grammar to be very useful in language learning. The French system force-feeds grammar to the students in their native language from the beginning, and seen how 80% of the population spell, it's time that could be better spent teaching them to express themselves first. At some point it does help though. There must be other threads around with this debate going on.

I don't see how you people can go praising this chapter. Now we know how purely evil CJames is. Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan are some of his names. After about four lines reading, I scrolled down, having the uneasy feeling that indeed the shuffle stuff was meant as "I'm stalling and will hide these vital information from you". Then I screamed out loud, I cursed, I screamed more. I went on reading, and with all my anger and frustration of not learning what would happen, I went searching for any flaw in the chapter. Something that would make it a pure gimmick, some problem making the trick kill the story. And I couldn't find any. All scenes work well. He gets my goat. So I have to agree with Graeme's statement of last week: CJames is a bastard. Well, Eric is too. I just can't wait to learn if the Sheriff and the philandering preacher sell drugs, weapons, human beings or military secrets. Apparently it's not porn... *taps his fingers nervously*

Bert and Ernie taught me a great lesson in life: don't eat cookies in bed, crumbs will annoy the person who shares said bed. And I'm glad to learn that Dick Grayson was followed by other Boy Wonders.

Yes, I won't take bets on the ending. I loved the party scene, and the unspoken matters that will arise. It looks like Phillip is really in love, so will he eventually drop Jarred? If the one who'll finish with Andrew is the one who gets most love-making screen time, though, it looks like Phillip is the winner. But who knows of the devious tricks authors might play on us?

Condolences. I couldn't help but feel a bit sad for Jeremy and Naomi, and their mom, that they don't have a ceremony/ memorial service with their friends, hers, a special time during which everybody gathers just to remember her, even in a non-religious setting. I thought it wasn't very important until last summer and the untimely death of my dad (he had a great funeral, quite fun actually). The whole "in the next room but dead" thing did bring a few weird feelings I had at the time. At the same time, everybody's quite supportive, and the siblings have to go with the flow, which avoids too much pathos. Great birthday for Rachael. I wish we'd known her more so we'd have more of her point of view. Are we gonna be given some homophobic linebackers bashing somewhere down the road? That would be fun, but don't get Jeremy wounded or bruised in the process, we're watching you!

We'll never repeat it enough. Grammar is language about language. Here is a little fairy tale. Once upon a time, there was a valiant young lad called Jamie. He had a much sharper nickname, and his blason representing the macabre symbol of My Compound Love Affair struck awe in the heart of his numerous enemies, down there in the far away realm somewhere south of the Great Empire that ruled the world. Jamie had attended school, and there his wits and his sharp tongue had not helped him to make only friends. Yes, quite a few foes he had, not only among the students, but also among the teachers. For Jamie's wits were not always a blessing, since he felt he lived among a few ignoramuses who annoyed him deeply. Nevertheless, there was one teacher who had given Jamie the love of language. Not only of vocabulary, but also of its logic, also known as syntax and grammar. This particular body of knowledge had opened our paladin's eyes on a whole new realm, one in which you could lay out your thoughts clearly not only by picking the right words, but also by understanding how they arranged together to make up a meaningful, clear, sensible sentence. Syntax and grammar had been around since the beginning of the written word. Mastering them in ancient times was the privilege of a few. They never disappeared, but according to the country and the language that was spoken, they made more or less sense. You see, over the centuries, all languages had evolved, been renewed, because they were used by people everyday and the slight shifts that occurred from one province to the next became rules for the majority. Of course, the birth of newspapers and then the radio had unified languages, but they kept on evolving, though not at the same rate. So when Jamie discovered that knowing syntax and grammar's arcane jargon helped out to spell better, but also to understand better and hence to think better, he had a brainwave. Had he been religious, he'd have considered it his sacred duty to crusade and enlighten his fellow human beings with this knowledge. But alas, in his empire, it was not too easy to go around using the jargon without having some people frown, looking at him as if it was some cryptic knowledge. Of course, there were good reasons: one had never needed any grammatical knowledge to learn a language. In some languages the relationships between words, the tenses, etc. were all transparent in the spoken form too, without vicious distinctions to be made between its and it's or they're and their. The various educational institutions had also made choices that could be deemed as ideological regarding teaching syntax and grammar in the different realms and empires. But Jamie had gone on a crusade, and he would tirelessly try to convince his peers that understanding the jargon would bring them happiness, confidence in their writing capacity, and less work for their editors. He would ride his steed and let others know, hoping it wouldn't discourage them from pursuing their quest towards a better mastery of language, since knowledge was freedom. And some observers from across the sea could not help but feel respect for the brave objective or possessive cases knight. Willing to help him out to make the jargon more meaningful to the masses. (to be continued)

From this quick excerpt, my natural sympathy goes to Gabe: he's assertive, he's a professional who can't take a job poorly handled. I'll wait and see if Brandon is not a complete jerk; until now he's been wallowing in self pity, complaining about his employer (basic employee behavior: if he's not the boss, isn't there a reason in the first place?) As for pools, there are plenty of them in hotels, so you shouldn't be too disappointed, I imagine.

For Zibidibido: the song and a cool animation. I guess Shadowgod's posting brought back to my mind a lot of Leonard Cohen's songs with great lyrics: Chelsea Hotel, Suzanne, The Partisan... Darn, going into hippie mode again! Here is the vid for Razor's song; the great singing and the amazing pictures would be sorely missed if you'd had only read the (fabulous, must I say) lyrics. Edit: the above is a parody, but worth watching, so I'll leave the link. Here is an AMV that features the song with slightly better production.

This starts of as a promising fantasy epic, with a nice duo whose fate is to defeat the forces of evil, or so we might infer from the prologue. If you want us to rant, then we'll order you to bring in more chapters so we find out about what's in store for Liam and Aden. From the sneak peek you provided, they won't get to enjoy a peaceful summer on the lake shore for very long. But we'll (well, I'll) be on the look-out for more adventures and romance.

Maybe a comparison would be better phrased. The point being that what gets you into writing is as mysterious as what gets you to love.

Right on. But all of the above about incorrect grammar in dialogues still applies. "You speak more eloquently than I," could be uttered by a character who tries to sound educated, but still lacks the mastery of the objective and subjective case pronouns, and could follow Razor's grammar course.

Wasn't it a mix between the boy friend and the muse? That's how I heard it. I liked the atmosphere and the narrator's mood, I didn't mind not understanding it all.

If only there could be a goats only forum, you'd have read chapter 1 already. Drugs, rock n' roll, no sex though. But I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.

Chase the goats. Hide from the pirates. Welcome!

If this bird (a condor) is big enough to lift Snowy in the air, what about CAPRA HIRCUS? Depicted underneath: less than 2 ft high, weighing UP TO 50 lbs. (Sorry to put up goat erotica, since the animals are in the nude, and it may get some strong reaction from the goats seeing this. It's not considered illegal, since the typing/ speaking goats haven't been banned and prohibited - yet.)