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Post by kerouac2 on May 28, 2018 7:58:16 GMT
It is strange to buy pens now when I had all the pens I wanted for free for about 40 years.
I still get free pens from the charity beggars in the mail, but they are usually unreliable.
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Post by whatagain on May 28, 2018 10:25:07 GMT
I still get pens from hotels. Some are ok.
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Post by onlyMark on May 28, 2018 10:42:50 GMT
Thinking about pens now that it's come up, I've had to buy quite a few in Zambia for the daughter to do her school work. I found very few I could buy were of good quality, ball points I'm talking about. She's been doing a distance learning course/home schooling. The teachers, in Germany, wanted all her work sent to them on Word documents. I argued against it and wanted it hand written, and said, for example, in the German course, she'll never make a mistake will she, because of the spell and grammar checker. In maths, trying to use Word to record calculations is a pain in the arse and she's have to hand write it anyway before transferring it otherwise she'd lose the thread whilst she's trying to find the cubed root symbol. Plus trying to draw graphs and stuff is needlessly complicated.
I told them that I wanted, nay needed, her to use handwriting and drawing as otherwise it'll be a dying art. She spends enough time on a keyboards as it is. I'd scan it as a PDF, send it and I'm sure that also in this day and age, the teachers can make corrections by adding comments. It took some time, like six months or so of me sending it and them rejecting it until they realised I wasn't going to give up. So I had to keep buying pens.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 28, 2018 12:58:51 GMT
Is your daughter in agreement?
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Post by onlyMark on May 28, 2018 16:04:58 GMT
Never asked her. There are some things, I'm sure you know, are not for the kids to have an input into. There are things I don't ask their permission/opinion about. Not many, granted, but in this case I am in a far better position to decide on her/their education than they are. It has happened where they are given a choice and asked which would they rather do, for example, home schooling in Zambia or a boarding school in Germany, but there are rare occasions when bringing them up where there is no debate. What Mrs M and I say, goes. I am not their 'friend', I am their parent. I am not addressed as 'Mark', even though they all are adopted. To them I am always their father, dad, papa, whatever in that way.
I know your question was tongue in cheek and my answer may appear to be an overreaction, but I thought I'd give it a full answer nevertheless.
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Post by mickthecactus on May 28, 2018 16:22:31 GMT
Never asked her. There are some things, I'm sure you know, are not for the kids to have an input into. There are things I don't ask their permission/opinion about. Not many, granted, but in this case I am in a far better position to decide on her/their education than they are. It has happened where they are given a choice and asked which would they rather do, for example, home schooling in Zambia or a boarding school in Germany, but there are rare occasions when bringing them up where there is no debate. What Mrs M and I say, goes. I am not their 'friend', I am their parent. I am not addressed as 'Mark', even though they all are adopted. To them I am always their father, dad, papa, whatever in that way. I know your question was tongue in cheek and my answer may appear to be an overreaction, but I thought I'd give it a full answer nevertheless. Not at all. Just wondered. How old is she?
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Post by onlyMark on May 28, 2018 17:04:00 GMT
Eighteen and a half. Apparently the half is still important even at that age.
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Post by questa on May 29, 2018 1:01:09 GMT
18 is pretty special but you don't want people to think you are only just 18 Like a barrister with a snowy new wig or a doctor with a new brass plate among the weathered ones of the partners.
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Post by mossie on May 29, 2018 14:15:45 GMT
19 and a half was my important age. I had just joined my first front line squadron, 3 years before that I was a simple farm lad chewing a wisp of straw, boots stained with pigshit. A very steep learning curve, which continued for anther couple of years ever steeper. But another 3 years and I was a has-been and rapidly developing into an alcoholic. Marriage and becoming a father rapidly changed that !!
But those are very important ages.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 4, 2018 15:35:35 GMT
I am aghast not only that 4th of July hot dog eating contests still exist but that they are reported in international news. Why can't they have a contest to see who can buy the most groceries for refugee families instead?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2018 18:05:30 GMT
Monaco is building another 6 hectares (60,000m²) of apartments out over the water, at about 100,000 euros per square metre. I think it is high time that France takes over this European tumour and puts an end to it. De Gaulle almost did it in 1962, but it is time to crush this ridiculous anomaly once and for all.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 13, 2018 18:56:10 GMT
A correct loo would use about 2 m2. If we consider we piss - or more - twice a day at home and stay in our home 50 years it is still worth 10 euros a piss. Quite expensive.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2018 19:00:45 GMT
More and more, they are telling us to piss in the shower for ecological reasons. Unfortunately, I piss more often than I take a shower, but yes, I do try to remember to piss when I am in there. It's kind of weird at first, but it really makes sense.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 13, 2018 19:54:17 GMT
And to think George Costanza was shamed right out of the athletic club on Seinfeld for getting caught in the act pissing in the shower...
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2018 20:15:15 GMT
He was ahead of his time.
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Post by questa on Aug 13, 2018 22:30:22 GMT
"You are such an idiot you would get out of the shower to take a piss!" Oz put-down.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 16, 2018 14:06:03 GMT
Holidays are tiring me. On Monday I work. Gotta catch up on sleep.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 22, 2018 14:34:16 GMT
Why has no one been to the moon since 1972?
People born in 1972 are now 46 years old. Do they even believe that it is possible? Is there nothing to dream about?
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Post by questa on Aug 23, 2018 0:07:02 GMT
The dream is Mars and putting people there, but it will not be a return trip, the scientists have to wait until the People allow human sacrifice to be accepted.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 26, 2018 8:21:52 GMT
I guess it's time to plunge outdoors into the madness.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 19, 2018 4:07:21 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that almost every movie nowadays contains a scene with someone vomiting?
Puking is almost as ubiquitous as smoking cigarettes in films. And far more ubiquitous than in real life. I mean, once you’ve outgrown childhood tummy upsets and college overdrinking, how often does anyone throw up? Even including morning sickness for moms-to-be and Montezuma’s Revenge for travelers, and chemotherapy for cancer patients, vomiting is still pretty uncommon. But not in films. Why is that?
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 19, 2018 17:37:58 GMT
Yes!!! I have noticed it and don't get it at all. I remember there was a vomit scene that went on and on in The Tin Drum and it seemed so gratuitous. That was a long time ago and it remained with me as an anomaly. Not any more! Soon there will be lots of cartoon vomit as the Disney princesses get pregnant.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2018 21:06:14 GMT
I have absolutely no idea what y'all are talking about. What kind of movies are you ladies watching?
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 19, 2018 21:10:11 GMT
The movie I saw today (The Sisters Brothers) had quite a bit of vomiting in it.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 19, 2018 23:50:43 GMT
Every movie, and most series. Mr. Kimby doubted it when I first pointed it out, but now each time we watch a movie I gleefully call out the vomit scene.
The latest was Brigsby Bear, when the character whose movie was premiering had the nervous pukes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 19, 2018 23:58:46 GMT
Yep. And they show the vomit, too. What next -- pooping?
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Post by Kimby on Sept 20, 2018 0:02:34 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that almost every movie nowadays contains a scene with someone vomiting? More vomit scenes than death scenes. Actors have to retrain.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 20, 2018 1:32:02 GMT
Along with vomit scenes, there are a lot of orgasm scenes nowadays too. It's bad when the actors get the two techniques mixed up.
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Post by questa on Sept 20, 2018 3:09:11 GMT
Once, when the Post Mortem of a victim was being done, we saw a sheet-draped body, maybe a calm face or close ups of needle marks on a forearm.
Then the US forensic series spread and the goal was to have the most ghastly corpses. Drowned in a tub of acrylic medium, burnt in a car with all the plastics melting on the victim, contorted corpses and nightmarish faces.The budgets are spent on special effects to the detriment of decent stories and scripts (which call for more viewing of body than is needed.)
Maybe it is all a plot with the vomit actors in on it...sort of "whoever barfs first, barfs loudest"
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Post by bjd on Sept 20, 2018 5:25:40 GMT
I guess that all leads up to a general hardening of sensitivity and emotion. When you see such things in movies, what does it take to be affected by real-life atrocity?
This is one reason I won't read detective stories by people like James Ellroy. The gratuitous description of tortured and dead victims is over the top and unnecessary.
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