Former Member

Joy really needs to come to her senses soon. She’s only now starting to realize that Douglas is a cad (such a British term!). She probably thinks she’ll need to crawl back to Geoff and beg him to return to her life, but all she needs to do is tell him she was wrong to reject him and is trying to adjust to a new reality. That’s all! ;–)

I spent hundreds of dollars on my Atari 2600 back in the very late ‘70s and into the ‘80s. Aside from game cartridges, I had special joysticks and even a trackball! I also bought a special cartridge that attached to a cassette tape player to load games – it was supposed to make distributing games cheaper, but only the one company supported the add-on and they soon went out of business… ;–) By the way, my younger brother and I had Lego from the mid ‘60s! I still have the rather small box. We used to split the best parts between us and still managed to build some great stuff! ;–)

Make that three. While he was cuter back when he shaved on Baywatch, Jason's just not my type. I prefer thin, blue-eyed blonds or redheads – things I don’t see very often in my neighborhood. ;–)

I used that excuse to buy Lego for my nieces and nephews. At one point I found out my sister-in-law sold my oldest nephew’s old Lego in a garage sale. I started buying Lego (and Duplo) to keep at my parents’ house so she couldn’t sell it. He and his cousins always had a box of Lego to play with at Grandma & Grandpa’s house! ;–)

What do I have to do to prevent you from biting me? ;–)

With interests like that (and the age you appear to be), you should meet @Wesley8890. He’s mentioned some of those same characters. My nieces and nephews are around your age too – my parents and brothers married relatively old and my nieces and nephews were born several years after my brothers got married. My nieces and nephews were growing up during the transition from paper gift certificates to plastic gift cards. ;–) When I was little, only the very youngest toddlers and infants were put into car seats. They were basically boosters that only prevented them from sliding around on the seat. Kids were often held in their parents arms. We used to sit in the cargo area of the numerous station wagons, sliding around when the brakes were applied or when we turned corners. I remember sitting with my brother in the package shelf above the engine in a ‘60s VW Beetle! Seatbelts (mandatory installation, voluntary use in 1968) and padded dashboards were introduced in the ‘60s. Shoulder belts arrived in the ‘70s. New York was the first state to mandate seatbelt use (December 1, 1984) – New Hampshire only mandates that minors wear seatbelts! While it certainly wasn’t a free-for-all, there weren’t as many child safety laws (ie toxicity and choking hazards). ;–)

Woody’s father should understand that it’s very normal for the second sibling (who is relatively close in age) to be very unlike the first. There are valid psychological reasons this happens. It has to do with attempting to establish individuality. But Woody is also a middle child. We middle children often feel, rightly or not, as though we get less attention that the golden first child or the doted on baby. In the case of Glenn & Glenda, two babies: Glenn being the youngest son and Glenda being the only daughter with both getting special treatment because of their unique status as twins as well. Woody had been the baby until the twins came along and demanded at least twice as much attention as a single infant would. It’s likely that as twins, they were born prematurely and were smaller than singleton infants. They would have needed extra care and special treatment as premies. Middle Child Syndrome would be a very legitimate phenomenon for Woody. Jon would be unsympathetic since he had had to deal with Woody’s birth (making the birth of the twins less unfamiliar) and he is still the golden first child. Glenn & Glenda would never have known life any different and would disregard any resentment from Woody as unreasonable. Woody’s parents don’t seem to have thought through the psychological aspects of their family dynamics on Woody. Woody’s father seems overwhelmed by four children and deals with that by trying to treat his sons the same even when Woody is clearly unlike his brother. Woody feels neglected and ignored. But his attempt to get attention from Indyboi91 is ill-advised. Especially when Jeff seems interested in more than just friendship… ;–)

Sometime the ideas are intended as suggestion, but other times I try to come up with the wildest concepts for their comic possibilities. I like attempting to think outside the box. But spoofing Nifty tropes can be fun too – Amos’ brother could have adopted dozens and dozens of abused and abandoned Gay boys (because that what extremely wealthy Gay men do in Nifty stories)! ;–)

This isn’t from my childhood, but it is from my youth… The Acura Integra Hot Wheels ad from 1995! ;–) The Hot Wheels part reminds me of my childhood though. My younger brother and I had dozens of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars and tons of Hot Wheels track. We even had a bunch of Hot Wheels Sizzlers. When we moved we gave the whole collection to one of our younger friends to enjoy. ;–)

You should get an electron tracer! Find out exactly where each electron originated from. I’m sure if you ask Sinterklaas nicely, you can get a Skwish-powered tracer… ;–) Maybe he’ll throw in a Skwish-powered electron filter too! ;–)

Hmmm. Should I start musing on ads I remember from my childhood in the ‘70s? Would that be better? ;–) I set this up as a place for me to contemplate current ads. People have been reacting to my musings. But there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t have your own thoughts about ads that you’ve seen! This is your personal invitation to contribute in whatever way you choose, @Solivagant! ;–)

@Ivor Slipper is British, so it’s possible that this is set in the UK. Has anyone noticed any identifying words like lorry or any of the words spelled with excess letters (like colour) French style (such as centre)? Did @Ivor Slipper intend for this to be a mystery too? ;–)

I think there are places here on GA where you can ask for assistance or critiques. Try to find a beta reader and/or an editor to smooth out your work before you post it. Better to have the most embarrassing misspelling, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies discovered in private. ;–) Writers would be more likely to know about resources than a mere reader like me! ;–)

Tired old tropes like that write themselves. ;–) I might be able to come up with amusing ideas, but I don’t know how to wrap a story up satisfyingly. I also cannot write convincing dialog. There are too many others who already do that, I don’t need to add my incompetence to what’s out there. ;–)

The parents probably have died and the older brother could have that done since he is a surviving relative. It would be costly, but if he’s rich… ;–)

Amos’ older brother could be extremely wealthy and childless – he could be searching for heirs to leave his incredible wealth to. Or he might have an eligible, single heir who might fall in love with Mrs Hayes. You know, the usual tropes that these sorts of stories rely on – a twist could be that the heir is a woman! ;–)

@Aceinthehole, should I change my Reaction to ‘Haha’ so you have a full house with all of the possible Reactions to this chapter? ;–)

My family believes in ‘good enough’ so there aren’t any spectacularly expensive things that any of my other relatives will inherit. Probably the sole exception is my favorite Aunt & Uncle’s house. They bought a nice house in 1961. It just happens to be located in a part of Silicon Valley that has a particularly good school system! ;–) Apparently you weren’t the only one to complain about pet hair because they have separate models intended to perform that task better (the ‘Animal’ models). Did you sell yours to a non-pet owner? ;–)

I agree with chris! I also think it could be a great learning experience to try to trace the owners of the house. There’d be records kept by the city that are often accessible through the library. Unless there was a major flood or fire, the records should still be around somewhere. ;–) If they can find the last names, they can start searching for Amos at a local cemetery. They can try to find Amos’ sibling(s). If an adult had wanted to put those things in a casket, it probably would have happened, but a child’s wishes are much more likely to be ignored as inappropriate. There might be an obituary in the local newspaper too.

Prices have come down, but even the factory refurbished models on eBay are well over US$100. I remember in the ‘70s, one of my aunts had a canister vacuum cleaner that had a water tank. Somehow the dirt and dust was captured by the water instead of a filter bag. I never understood how it worked, but it was supposed to be better the filter bag canister model my mother had or the filter bag upright model she got later. I had plenty of experience using my mother’s vacuum cleaners! ;–)

But not only is California mandating green sources for electricity, with increasing percentages into the future, but the more people sign up to buy non-carbon-based electricity, the larger the percentage of electricity is produced from renewable sources. When customers want something, even tone-deaf utilities like PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electricity) will eventually accommodate the demand – especially when they are legally mandated to do so. California doesn’t have any coal generation plants, but some of our electricity supplied out of state does come from coal. My impression is that the legislation will eventually prohibit the purchase from those sources. Economics will force the closure of them since the largest market in the area won’t buy it. It may seem like a meaningless gesture, but every little bit helps. If you believe there’s no point, there will never be any change. Even huge corporations are jumping on the bandwagon because it's cost-effective.

And now, during NCIS, I saw an ad for Dyson. Another company I’ve never seen a TV ad for before. I can imagine that NCIS viewers would be a good source of customers for the engineering and design of Dyson products. I remember reading about Dyson vacuum cleaners in a very expensive Japanese design magazine way back in the ‘80s. I thought it was a clever idea and the unique style was very appealing to me. But since it was British and more or less a design proposal at the time, I never expected to be able to buy one. These days, it’s more the price that keeps me from buying one. $180 to vacuum clean a studio apartment seems a little bit much to me since I’m on a very limited income. ;–)

This evening, I saw an ad for Yamaha pianos. It started out with a young Asian girl waking and discovering a key. She runs past her parents who look on happily as she unlocks a piano. At first I thought it was an ad for Disneyland or some other fantasy-type holiday gift. ;–) This was the first time I’ve ever seen a Yamaha TV ad for anything. ;–)

I thought that line went, ‘Yo Mama is so ugly that…’ ;–)

I wonder what percentage of the population is asexual like your friend…