Former Member

Or Gavin could take a road trip up US-101 and discover Camp Refuge. There’s at least one eligible bachelor in the Hiouchi area… ;–)

Group marriage? Kind of a throwback to the Sixties or Seventies. A favorite theme of early Robert A Heinlein… ;–)

Harrisize verb [ with obj. ] 1 to take an existing sympathetic character midway through a story and completely transform the motivations and trajectory in an extremely negative direction from a planned story arc. 2 an act by an author totally blindsiding his/her readers and completely fucking with their minds leaving them in a state of disbelief. Example Wayne Gray has a habit of harrisizing characters in his stories to drive his readers crazy. Origin early 21st cent. from the name of a character in a Wayne Gray story that first exhibited this phenomenon.

They have sparkling hard cider? ;–)

You keep mentioning Georgette’s progress. I’ve very afraid that you’ll pull another ‘Harris’ on us. Fortunately, there’s a doctor and a near-nurse on hand… ;–)

It was so perfect. Until… ;–)

Yeah, I’m boycotting Eminem despite Elton John’s support of him. And, aside from the now-mostly neutered Tumblr, I don’t do Social Media – I don’t trust the smirking Weasel. I’m wary of Alphabet/Google too. ;–)

The context suggests it’s not Paid Time Off, Power Take-Off (as on a truck or tractor), Patent and Trademark Office, Parietal-Temporal-Occipital association area, or any of the other (less likely) definitions on the Wikipedia disambiguation page, so Parent Teacher Organization seems the most likely. Phantom of the Opera is the only other possibility… ;–)

For a ‘straight’ guy, Danny seems to have really accurate Gaydar… ;–)

I know I’m ancient, but what does that mean, what TV show or movie is it referring to? I never watched Golden Girls or Sex in the City because I don’t feel like I need to live my life through women who act like men (because men write the scripts). Modern Family’s Cam annoyed me because straight men were writing a Gay character for a straight man to portray. I don’t do Minecraft, Worlds of Warcraft, or any of the other online games either… ;–)

This is a safe way to eat raw cookie dough. The alternative is to buy the refrigerated tube. But making your own doesn’t have all the extra preservatives and other additives…

That reminds me, I should make some eggless chocolate chip cookie dough (no eggs, so you can eat it raw)! ;–)

And they’ve set it up so individual churches, hospitals, and other units are financially independent. All the money flows only in one direction: to the Vatican. They let valuable services go bankrupt while the overall institution is morally bankrupt.

You’re probably right about the manner of giving him ‘a few digs’ that @Mancunian was intending, I prefer my interpretation better! ;–)

Those groups toss same-sex relationships into that category too. And then most of them refuse to recognize Same-Sex Marriage. So as far as they’re concerned, no matter what we do, we’re sinning. Ironically enough, my being unwillingly celibate means I’m less sinful in their eyes than Eric & Peter! An awful lot of judgement from people who were specifically commanded not to judge others (‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’). See I can quote the KJV just like Satan! ;–)

Good thing, because the next chapter was going to be ‘Chapter 9 - Deflowered.’ ;–)

Oh no! Jett’s dad has just been diagnosed with a terminal disease! He came home to die. He wants to make sure Jett has settled down and in a stable relationship. Then he can pass away in peace… ;–)

Is Mr Reilly secretly Mr Squirrel? ;–)

When I read this, I kept thinking of you as ‘Greg’ too! ;–)

Speaking of name dropping, some of us loved the character names, even though we tormented you for not having known that there were famous people who shared those names! ;–)

So far, Mr Reilly has been an exemplary teacher. He’s expertly tailoring his message to suit each student best. He pushed the entire band far more than they had ever experienced before, but managed to produced results that the kids could easily see! He would have had a much more difficult job if the results weren’t concrete and visible. Brett learned a lot of psychological tricks from living with his mother. And they’re serving him well as a teacher. I’m sure his long relationship with Billy has helped too, giving him patience that most of us lack. ;–)

Around here, the real estate values have meant that bowling alleys and drive-in movie theaters have almost all been replaced with office complexes for tech startups. During the recession, when GM discontinued half of their brands and all the car companies consolidated their dealerships, all those huge plots of land were converted into office complexes too. With so many stores having been bought up by Federated (Macy’s/Bloomingdales), closing locations, or going out of business, lots of shopping centers are attempting to add office and residential space as a replacement for those empty storefronts. My own city has been passed by because it’s geographically in an awkward location. We’re on a peninsula with several major freeways. We get all the congestion from commuters driving in from more distant suburbs. But because the land was developed many decades ago, there aren’t huge open plots of land to build on. We aren’t near enough to Silicon Valley to get the spillover that’s driving in-fill development further south of here. Our glory days were during WWII when there were several Victory Ship dry-docks working overtime to win the war in the Pacific. When the war ended, the shipyards closed and the jobs disappeared, never to be seen again. When George Lucas sold what became Pixar to his buddy Steve Jobs (in order to pay off his ex-wife), the company was founded here. But it later moved to Emeryville, near the Bay Bridge. We do have a large oil refinery in town. Woo hoo! Pollution and occasional refinery explosions and fires! And for decades, they ran the city. ;–)

Yes they were! They just weren’t generally known in England and the West yet. There is a whole world out there that existed before the English ‘discovered’ it. Thousands of years of civilization before the Greeks and Romans. There’s a company in Japan that has been in existence more than 11 centuries! ;–)

I posted some other links (if you’re bored) in the Lounge… ;–) When I was homeless, libraries were a great resource, free WiFi and power outlets (gotta recharge the cellphone somewhere), free magazines, books to read, and a warm (or cool), comfortable place to spend the day.

Conversion therapy is illegal for children in California. Proposals to make it illegal for adults as well have been resisted by ‘religious’ special interest groups. Conversion therapy is still legal is most states. :–(