Conner

The Goat Sub-Group committee will not be pleased. Btw, that wasn't a sacrifice. It's never been polite to eat one's sacrifice. That poor goat was simply the main course in a feast. Humans have been using goats for nourishment for centuries...a habit, I should note, that we've been trying to curtail for as long. You are, of course, welcome to enjoy goat milk. The ladies love to have their spiggots pulled. You will be hearing from the committee on this issue in a more formal manner. As a first step, we will likely start to monitor all your posts with generous attention to be given to this story and your blog. Enciting humans to eat goat is a felony. You know that little warning gage under your avatar, I suggest you keep an eye on it. You have been warned! Conner Faun Emeritus Chair, Goat Sub-Group Committee GA Keeper of the Golden Goat Hooves Chair, Joint Chiefs Of Goats

I like the concept, Steve. The Flock reminds me too much of sheep and there's enough around here as it is. The Cult and The Chosen are good. Then there's...... The Sanctioned The Conscript The Select The Allowed or Shadowgod's Allowed The Worshipers The Idoliters (made-up word, I think) Shadowgod's Sheltered Then there's... The Unseemly Card Carrying Shadows All this using my thesaurus. Conner

12 votes....is there a winner emerging? Half-goats like people to faun over them. Yes, Ieshwar, I have noticed that you're part of yet another CJ conspiracy! Conner

Happy B-day, Brax!! Yeah, I'm late! Or early for next year! Conner P.S. You're a nice long drink of water, I must say!

Check out the Jonas Brothers singing "Hold On" in Sambag's Blog on www.mostbeautifulmen.com There's two video segments from youTube there. Holy Cutness, Batman. Conner

Happy B-day, Kevin!!! Celebrate Celebrate Dance to the Music! Oh yeah, definitely shop! Conner

Bob, all authors are sadists. That would include you, by the way. They all start out very well intentioned. They all hope to entertain their readers, to please them, and then bask in the glory of their all consuming adoration. So, they set the stage with good character and plot development. Then WHAMO!! Right between the eyes. If their target is not the eyes, they do open heart surgery....without anaesthetic....they remove the heart from the chest cavity...and begin to tap dance all over it....then they call 911.....and the reader spends the rest of the story in ICU...the really successful authors are the ones who can bring about recovery before the story...or the reader...expires. Frankly, the cliffhanger is a very effective tool for any author, but particulary for authors who write serial stories. In fact, that's how great authors like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens made their living....and sold a lot of newspapers in the process. Then there's the flip side of that coin. If authors are sadists, then that makes readers masochists. When it comes to romantic stories, I'm one of the lead masochists. Anyway, I just felt a need to rant there a bit. I'm done. It is most definitely Josh who's looking up. Tap dancing, remember? Oops. My take on it is Scott is setting himself up for another heart-breaking experience. Luc is just such a wild card. It seems Josh has two options: become more assertive and fight for Scott; or stay close to Scott as a friend until something definitive happens. I prefer the former, but it's likely the latter. I suppose he could join the French Foreign Legion. Conner

I would suggest dkstories. There's also the Writer Support Team, mind you, I don't know if this is really "their" job. 3 of the members are CJames (he's everywhere, he's everywhere...only lurking though ) Razor and Myk. I believe the simplest solution is the one you already brought. That is to make a statement in the initial chapter to the effect that: "This story was inspired by Dante's Cove, produced by....." Seeing that it's true, it's also the right thing to do. It doesn't matter that your plot line goes off in a completely different direction. Becoming aware of Dante's Cove gave you the inspiration to write your story. What's the big deal anyway? Many authors have been inspired by all kinds of things, including other creative works.. I would suggest you take your email address off this thread and do not give your plot line out to any of the creeps emailing you. It's none of their business. As Rad suggested, ignore the creeps. They get off on being self-righteous. They love to show distain toward others as it helps them feel better about themselves. I have found the delete button works very effectively in this regard. Conner

Are you talking about something like a pair of shorts from Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester) and Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester) from Supernatural? Then, sadly, no. I do have DVD sets, though. Do you own a bed warmer?

I get 2 questions given that Ieshwar and Graeme both went for Robbie's strip club question. As for overnight stays in the hospital....lots of them....sometimes I wasn't even the patient. See the ER thread for one description. Most of them I'd like to forget. Me neither. Closest I ever came to snowboarding was standing up on a tobogan going down a hill...a little hill.....when I was younger....much younger. Hey, maybe I invented snowboarding!! Never have I been arrested more than once.

I wait for no one! :2hands: (I love it when I sound so manly, so defiant...) Great! Looks like Bobby may have a love interest. He and Cindy seem just perfect for each other. Good stuff. The scene leading up to the surprise birthday gift was hilarious. You just about had me there, Graeme, what with you putting a smile on Bobby's face. Shane to the rescue once again. Mark needs to lose whatever it is he has up his butt. Relax, dude, you're gonna bust a gut. So, Graeme, why don't we see the expression "mate" used much??? .....and the plot thickens around The Tree. Another great chapter! Conner

Rewind??? Well, I guess living in the 90's isn't really too far behind. I agree, snarly old ladies can get real mean. Scary mean. Conner

What's that I hear....is it a chant? I can't make it out.....yes, now I hear it.... 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 I expect a chapter today....pleaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssse. Your week's up, dude! I take it you'll be following your master's good example! Conner

WOW! Great great chapter! Please don't take this in a bad way but my sense of it was, "Is this our Rad, here. That young dude from the Philippines whose mother tongue is likely not English?" What I'm saying is your writing skills have taken a giant leap forward! Good on ya, dude!! A large part of the chapter was Zack doing the self-contemplation thing in his head. That can often be just a lot of tail chasing or navel gazing. Your work here was exceptional. Really superb. I felt like a welcomed guest into Zack's heart and intellect. That doesn't happen very often, believe me. I love the way the story is going. Can't wait for more....but I will anyway. One more thing, the scene between JR and Zack, the one right after JR's 10 year hiatus, was totally delightful. "I wet the bed." I thought I would die laughing. Great way to come out. Conner

Chapter 3 was superb. I'm starting to like your "two heads are better than one" approach to narrating this tale.

The only movie I saw this summer was Ocean's Thirteen. I went mainly because I'm a big Brad Pitt fan. This movie totally sucked. Pitt's participation in the movie was like a "cameo appearance". The lines he got were just so inept. As usual, the plot was so complicated, I didn't understand what was going on half the time. For best movie, I voted for Fantastic Four. I haven't seen it. I saw the first one though, and Chris Evans was just yummy. Do I need a better reason? I don't go to theatres often. In my view, movies are for entertainment. It's not an art form (making them is, but not watching them; the same goes for wine tasting, sorry dudes, not an art form but keep trying ). So watching movies in the comfort of my own home really works. Great poll, James! I particularly liked some of the choices you offered like, "Now I'm depressed, you bastard!" Conner

Hang tough, Bard-dude. Get yourself well and get out of that place. Conner

Looks like I'm being asked to "walk the talk" here. Good on ya, Kevin! Btw, you make a good point about reviewers projecting their own personal preferences/prejudices into a review piece. I do that myself. However, if the reviewer offers no insight or rationale for his opinions...well, he's not going to be taken seriously. As well, for more clarity, I wasn't asking for term papers with quotes, footnotes and references. Good grief! We're supposed to be having fun here. Mind you, putting a little intellectual sweat into one's post can be fun too...and you're often acknowledged for it. For me, there have been countless times when the little lightbulb in my head has gone on while reading an insightful post. I think, "Yeah, that's so true. Why didn't I see that!" Speaking of having fun, Nick was having a lot of fun in this thread....mostly at our expense. Nick, a brilliant author I should note and I really like him, has this "bad dude" alter ego that really works for him. Go figure. He likes being the man with the bad 'tude. I believe in another life, he was a gunslinger....Billy the Kid or something like that. I just want to point out that paying any attention whatsoever to Nick when he's doing that is a mistake. Time for me to put up or shut up. Dennis is my least favourite character. Or, to say it more accurately for me, he's the character that most annoys me, at least right now. With TLW, of course, my rating for Dennis was 0 stars out of 5. To put it simply, he behaved like a bully. He just seemed mean and angry all the time and incapable of showing any weakness. That said, though, his character still served a useful purpose in terms of his impact on the story's main characters. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Owen and Leo. I believe Dennis' behaviour contributed to that. It's only when we get to ITFB that we begin to get any kind of background information on Dennis. This helped explain his bullying. But this is not a defence for his behaviour, it's a mitigating factor in determining for how long we're going to throw him in the pokey. To his credit, he got himself out of the family home. But Dennis has become this hermit-dude. He absolutely shuns people. I still believe that, in his mind, his most significant relationship is with his dog. I'm serious. Lucky for the dog, I guess, that he hasn't learned how to ask probing personal questions or he'd be history as well. Leaving his family the way he did, I thought that he would open up more. I thought he would realize that there was a whole different way of living his life. Even now, however, I don't believe he has any regrets over his past behaviour...no remorse. If he does, he's keeping it well hidden....well duh!...that's our Dennis. He spends way too much time in his own head....not the recipe for a fun time. I've been trying to figure out what his purpose or role is in this story but I've not had any luck. I believe it's because I like Travis so much that I want Dennis to be better. I don't want him to be just another fish in the fish bowl. I want to see him stand up to his father and tell him that he's an asshole...then somehow see if he can recover something there. I want to see him put his brother through a wall. I want him to make amends for all the crap that he has dished out. I want him to get out of that damn basement he lives in and join the human race. Conner

That was a great start to your first story, Dhruv!! I must admit I know very little about India, so I'm enjoying the descriptions you've offered us so far. I do know that two of the greatest people who ever lived were Indians...Ghandi and Mother Theresa. If I were to have heroes, they would top the list. Jason's a mess right now...well duh! Who wouldn't be in his situation? I'm anxious to learn more about Dennis. Annie, of course, is a rare gem. That quote is from your end notes to Chapter 1. I could feel your excitement and your incredulity at the same time. It's like you woked up in the Land of Oz. Quite natural for a newly posted author, though. What was kind of ironic was the efiction statemend at the end that said, "Dhruv is the author of 3 other stories." Have you been holding out on us, Dhruv? Conner

I'd be happy with that! Conner

Due to my lofty position as chair of the Goat Sub-group committee, I am permitted certain leeway with other goats' property.....but mainly CJ's I say, "Go for it!" Conner

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! That was sweet. All I can say is goats are fantastic people. And a quote for you, CJ

HUMOUR FOR LOGOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS) : I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me. Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. To write with a broken pencil is pointless. When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. The thief who stole a calendar got twelve months. A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal. Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking. We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply. When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A. The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it. The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground. The dead batteries were given out free of charge. If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory. A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired. A will is a dead giveaway. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. A backward poet writes inverse. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft, and I'll show you A-flat miner. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in linoleum blown apart. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key. A calendar's days are numbered. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine. A boiled egg is hard to beat. He had a photographic memory which was never developed. A plateau is a high form of flattery. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses. Acupuncture: a jab well done

I've made 2 trips to Switzerland, both were business trips. I spent a week each time. The first trip was to Lucerne. What a beautiful place! The buildings seemed palatial to me. I felt like I was a character in a fairy tale. Lucerne Lake was just stunning. The meeting was only 3 days so I rented a car and toured the area. It was breathtaking. It was woderful to see the Swiss style homes all over the mountains. I felt like I was in a postcard. The food was divine everywhere I went. A few years after that, I was in Geneva. That visit was actually one of the highlites of my career. I was asked to chair a meeting of experts by WHO. We developed their current guidelines for GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) for pharmaceuticals. I didn't have as much time to sightsee, but I felt so much at home there. My trip to Paris had the advantage of more personal time. I spent 4 days walking all over the city. J'adore Paris. But don't make me choose. Conner