JamesSavik

Current 1. Battlestar Galactica 2. the Shield 3. Jericho Honorable Mention: Law & Order All Time 1. Star Trek: Next Generation 2. Babylon 5 3. Third Watch

Bah! I'm a Ron Weasley fan.

Huh huh hu huh... Bard! You said hook up in the end.

Did somebody say lawyer jokes? q: What's meaner than a grizzly bear with the clap? a: The lawyer that gave it too him. q: What's the difference between a bankrupt attorney and a pigeon? a: The pigeon can still make a deposit on a Mercedes. q: Have you heard about the lawyers

Why me? Stronger men than me have gone to the laughing academy after pondering that question too deeply so I usually leave it alone. I have found that what's for dinner is a much more productive question.

Sorry it didn't work pal. Sometimes when you are stuck in such a situation, it leaves you in a sort of limbo and you can't move on. Now you can.

Its not really so odd. If you watch classic Loony Tunes [bug Bunny, Daffy Duck, Roadrunner, etc] there are multiple layers of double entendres that people of different ages and sophistication will appreciate. If you watch a group of people of mixed ages watching a Loony Tunes cartoon, they will laugh at distinctly different places. I always try to take a wrong turn at Albuquerque because that is how some of the most interesting trips begin.

A rich person enjoys their work, loves and is loved by their family and has personal honor and integrity. It has NOTHING to do with money.

In my experience, the people that are the harshest critics don't have any of their own work posted. Criticism and feedback often don't have a whole lot to do with each other. Killing off a character people like or having something bad happen to them often generates noisy complaints. I see criticism over a typo or mispelling as bitching rather than feedback. Pay $20 for the novel and I'll clean that right up. I got a lot of criticism for drugs and violence in some of my writing- specifically glorifying drugs & violence. I was mystified by this as my stuff was way tamer than network TV. Is the author of a murder mystery advocating murder? Readers talk about what they like or dislike which isn't really feedback. It can be useful but usually it is something like Doug should dump Mikie and see Brian... Reader criticism is rooted more in context than craft. Feedback from writers can be invaluable. They are the ones that can give you real insights into the craft.

What about the purple dinosaur? With all of his singing and dancing, he's way too fabulous to be just another kiddie cartoon character. To his credit, with all of the childrens shows and personal appearences, he's never eaten or stepped on one single kiddie.

"Opinions are like assholes: if it ain't yours, it stinks." -Solomon Short

This chick cut a pretty sweet deal for a murder in Alabama. It looks like she is trying to get a new trial which is a huge roll of the dice. If a judge finds her guilty in a new trial, the previous plea is gone and she could be sentenced to life.

I hear if you are cute and make that confession, they'll invite you to seminary.

I agree with you Colin. The gay = feminine thing is way overblown. While it may be true for some, it clearly doesn't work for others. There is a a comedian who does a that's so gay bit. Todays gay guys hang out in gyms and bench press 300 pounds. That's so gay indeed. Back when I was a teen, the very few people that were "out" were effeminate in mannerism. This caused me some difficulty because I didn't fit in with that crowd. When they found out that I wasn't an easy lay, they called me "Butch boy" and didn't let me play in their catty fairy games. Not that I really wanted too- I found them obnoxious as hell.

LOL- ok I'll grant you that point.

mea culpa This also depends on how big you are and if the extra bulk and weight is more of a burden than you want to lug around.

Actually there are some differences. In pre-industrial revolution societies, diets were limited to what could be grown in the general area. Foodstuffs, with the exception of some luxury foods, were rarely shipped because it was difficult to transport any distance and get it there unspoiled. Technological advances in transportation and refrigeration made it possible to distribute foods like we know them today. Once a fruit or vegetable that was out of season was impossible to get. Now we just ship it in from California or South America where everything is in season. In rich agricultural areas, this wasn't much of a problem. For the most part however, places like Europe and Russian Asia that had rough winters, this caused some serious dietary deficiencies. As a result, children raised on this diet had developmental problems that led to a generalized lowering of IQs. In many ways this accounted for the difference in peasants and the growth of the middle class and the sociological changes that occured with the industrial revolution.

I got a PM from a student requesting advice on buying a notebook PC and I thought that I would share my suggestions here in my blog. These are just a few of my thoughs and suggestions. I would be delighted if it gave anybody inspiration or ideas. If not, well... it is here for free. _________________________________________________________________________ I suggest either HP or Dell. Both are very solid and priced competetivly. Both have websites that let you design and price your own configuration with various options. HP and Dell are established companies and have tons of experience building all sorts of computers. Your notebook won't be their first. Toshiba makes a good laptop too but they tend to cost more for the same box. Once you've bought your notebook, you aren't through buying stuff yet. Remember to save some of your cash for software. I suggest Microsoft Office student & teacher version and Mathematica. Both run about $100 for the student version. Depends on what you study of course. Here's a tip: buy Microsoft Office 2003. It's on its way out but can be had at significant discounts. You may want a second power adapter: one for where your PC lives most of the time and one for the road. Another item you may want is either a backpack or breifcase for your laptop. Most kids use a backpack which is OK but I like something that protects it better. I use a notebook breifcase by Vaultz. Unlike soft-sided backpacks, the Vaultz products protect the items you are storing and they look really good. Vaultz If you want a backpack for your notebook, I suggest Swissgear. Their cost is middle of the road and they add a lot of little details that make their backpacks more convenient like special pockets for cd player and a cell phone. They also stand up to wear very well. I've had one for 6 years and it looks brand new. Swissgear I have a sweet little HP laptop that I got this spring that I configured myself for a little less than $900 BUT that was before Vista [which I would stay away from for a while until they get the bugs out]. As far as specs, I'd go with 17" screen- or a minimum of 15". Go with a gigabyte of memory minimum. 2 MHz processors are fairly standard now. Try to get as much hard drive as possible. 100 GB is fairly common in laptops now and probably about right for most peoples needs. Most notbooks come with a network adapter. If you need a modem, get it with your PC, don't add it later. The original manufactuer will have it installed correctly and will save you a headache. You may also want a USB hard drive to back up your data to. They connect to your laptop via a USB port and act like an extra hard drive. I got one by Seagate with 320 Gbyts for $90. I copy all my critical files to the secondary drive. The notebook hard drive or the USB drive may die but it is unlikely that both of them will die at the same time and your data (work, collections, etc) will live on after a crash. Here is an example of the drive that I have. They come in all sizes and are really worth it for backup or data trandfers between laptop and desktop.

My 2 cents: kids today are no smarter or dumber than previous generations. This generation has some rather unique advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, computers and the internet contribute BUT we all know that there is no better media for wasting time [other than television]. Good nutrition is available and it is useful from a developmental standpoint but many kids/families don't eat well because of economics and/or ignorance. Medical knowlege is also a big positive for this generation- if they can afford health care which is by no means a given. As easy as it is to bad mouth education today, if you apply yourself a decent education can be had with some effort. On the negative side of the ledger, this generation has some very serious problems. Television is worthless and worse, it is getting young people out of the habit of reading. With a near 60% divorce rate, that translates into over half of kids coming from single parent homes. Youth culture is at a low ebb: hip-hop/gansta rap are spreading wothless values. Gone are the idealistic values fostered by the artists of the sixties and seventies. They have been replaced by a constant barrage of filth that encourages young people to get strapped, get rich selling drugs, slapping hoes around and popping any fool in the head with your 9 that disrespects you. Higher education is problematic and is getting prohibitively expensive even to middle class families. Drugs have become a pervasive part of society and by attempting to control them with increasingly punative laws, a great many of todays young people, as many as 1 in 10 by some projections, can look forward to spending at least some time in jail. There has been a steady erosion of civil liberties over the last 20 years which means that this may be the first generation to grow up not knowing anything different than the current police state. At this point, I am drifting dangerously towards politics so I will simply leave my analysis as is and see if it lands anywhere close to the mark.

Seen on a mens room wall in Texas: I sTink, therefore I am. Texans are such philosophers...

EEEK! How horrifying. I'll have nightmare for weeks.

There was a character in Lil Buddah's Someday Out of the Blue who was a friend of the protagonist. When asked about his orientation: "Are you gay, str8, bi?" "No, I'm Cody." I like his answer a lot because where I came from, your label could really cost you. I think we would all probably be a lot saner if we could blow off the label crap and be comfortable being individuals. Of course, I'm an idealistic pragmatist: I long for the ideal but I don't know the way to Utopia1. ________________________________ 1- isn't Utopia somewhere in California?

Knowing your editor, he is well on his way to a PHD. My respects and regards too the esteemed Aaron & company.

>>How do we find the balance? There is the trick: there is so much individual variation in people, that's what makes them fascinating to read and write about. From a sociological standpoint, a 14 year old from a sheltered, wealthy family is going to be quite different from a 14 year old who lives in a trailer with his crack-head, prostitute mother: so different in fact that they would appear to come from two different planets. Teens from sheltered environments would usually tend to be less mature and/or sexually sophisticated. They may or may not have tried alcohol or drugs but are much less likely to be chronic users. Their experience is limited because of familial involvement. On the other hand, a teen from a seriously dysfunctional environment may be very sexually sophisticated. His use of sex may be a learned survival skill (prostitution) or an artifact of abuse. He may have learned how to be sexually manipulative to get what he wants or have his own way. Typically a teen in this situation has tried alcohol and drugs, may have a habit and may even be a small time dealer. There is also a great deal of variation physiologically. While height/weight and body maturity falls into some very broad ranges, those ranges are fairly consistent for adolescents of both sexes. Example: a six foot 14 year old male is exceptionally rare but a 6 foot 16 year old male is fairly common. Sexual maturity works pretty much the same way in males. By age 11 ~12% are sexually mature, age 12- 33%, age 13- 74%, age 14- 90, age 15- ~100% It is necessary to point out that since these original statistics appeared in the 50s, these numbers have been sliding lower with sexual maturity occurring somewhat earlier. Theories on why this is is happening range from hormones added to beef & chicken to improved all-around nutrition. Children as young as 8 or 9 are being effected. This is often called petty-adolescence and can be very problematic for the child since they are very much out of synch with their peers. In the various theories of character development, Language, culture, personality all play a role. In one school of thought, the character is thought to be a product of the overall culture and specific environment. [Consider how different a person from Southern California and Southern Mississippi might be. How might they be similar? Do we know enough about either culture to know?] While this is logical, how do we explain Goth kids? Is there an invisible vampire culture with its own fashion and music or is this a chosen sub-culture that some people may be intrigued by or feel more comfortable with? How articulate is a character? How smart? What is their history and life-experience? Attitudes? General outlook? These are questions that the author must address in order to build a believable character with depth and dimension. It is not necessary to reveal all of the facets of that personality to the reader but- if you, as an author know that character, you will be able to "write him" more believably.

take 2 aspirin and stay away from orange juice. The acidic orange juice can be rough on you stomach. Oh yeah- a nice, warm bath and linger in it a bit. You'll feel better.