4. Never ignore a warning. I respectfully suggest that this is not like the other five elements in your set, and not particularly good advice. Unless you qualify it as "never ignore the appropriate warning" and tell us how to spot those in advance. The other five are memorable and useful out of the box.
After Abi mentioned introducing her 7-year-old to Calvin and Hobbes, we got three volumes for my 7-year-old Mythbusters fan. He loves it, seems to tap into the frustrations of aspergers in a way that is just right, right now. I thought I remembered them so well, there was no need to buy them; lost indeed. So thanks. (it's also kind of scary that with Calvin being nominally six, even dear sprog is reading as an older person.)
re #15 Actually, 1992 wasn't an ordinary year either. There was a big change in what they could do with excess campaign funds following some financial scandals. Retire before 1992 and keep some big chunk of cash. 1992 was also the first election following the Clarence Thomas hearings (and the Anita Hill grilling and smearing). The election was billed as the Year of the Woman - eight female Senators of both parties. (followed immediately by the backlash of 1994...).
Congratulations, and thanks. Umm, you will still be here too,
please, right? This is an addition, not a move? (That is, yum, free ice
cream; change still a little scary.)
re Quantum of Solace and theme songs: anyone else notice that you could sing it to Guantanamera. Can anyone write a Bond-esque version in Spanish?
Stefan@7: The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (Paperback)
by Eugene Trivizas (Author), Helen Oxenbury was added to my cart before Xmas on the recommendation of a 10-year old friend. But not bought or read yet, so I can't confirm his opinion.
Abi, there is a Little Bill cartoon episode where they use the three little pigs story to explain the importance of government home safety inspectors. To preschoolers.
I'm working on a partial resolution of the congnitive dissonance problem Lizzy mentioned. The problem, I think, is that cops are taught that their lives depend on being in control of any interactions with people. Which they are taught to do by dominating people. Now, that's often crudely effective, I imagine, around drunks and people prone to physical violence (where cops get called in, anyway, families=different). But it's just shortsighted, out of line with what we say the US is all about, deeply offensive and avoidable. There are better ways to take control, but people go with what's easy and familiar to them.
So I have a lot of sympathy for the poor schmo who expresses his training, at least when considered from a distance. And as another small white female I treat cops as courteously as paramedics, firefighters - presuming they're the good kind until I see differently. But some cops just seem to love the domination part. Scary, disturbing, and of course, the police force can't exactly weed these bullies out for being good at what they're trained to do.
It's sort of like the Liar/Truthteller puzzles, but not quite close enough to work in a link to the XKCD strip.
I remember family things from about 15 months old but only in brief flashes: being frustrated that I couldn't go swimming, being happy that mom was going to to teach me something, being sad that the color TV broke during the thanksgiving parade.
But I do remember, at age 3, my family making me watch the moon landing on TV because they said I would want to remember that for the rest of my life. Which was clearly ridiculous, I tried to explain, because the image was so grainy and noisy - you could see it so much better on Star Trek. But they didn't get it, so I watched. I don't really remember the watching, but the "they don't understand me" part - that's vivid.
Question: When my father, um, turned into an Elvis impersonator,* we were told (paramedics) it was most likely a stroke, with a handwaving explanation of stimulating the heart to beat faster. Sounded plausible, as he was secretly off his diuretics and other meds. (But also ill so maybe dehydrated and suddenly facing low BP?) So are there two risks to bathroom visits? Or were they mistaken?
* He'd have approved the description, and loved a good grisly EMT story as long as he didn't have to see it.
Lee, Mary Dell and Joann: Thanks, looks like great advice, and the two near home might just be convenient enough to work well. He'll enjoy knowing there are potential friends of all ages, that's always a big deal to an only child. This might work out well.
Is the game still running? May I suggest toilet water, bookkeeper, hotel de ville (at least, it confused me for way too long). Zoonoses (but only if you mispronounce it). My son just misunderstood handicap (in racing) as something jockeys wear that is mysteriously helpful to them.
And if there is "universal remote" surely there is "universal joint"
I've got a friend who just turned ten (son of a friend, also a friend), and he has recently gotten into Diskworld in a big way. So I've sent him to the diskworld cakes particled here occasionally, and he's getting a lot of fan stuff for his birthday. Now, I've been a loyal SF reader ever since "Dar Tellum: Stranger From a Distant Planet" in second grade, but somehow never managed to go to any conventions. Friends went, told me about them, I read about them here, but never got around to acting on the info.
So I'm hoping some of you can tell me, are there any conventions that would be suitable for a precocious ten year old who likes Terry Pratchett? If it were commuting distance to eastern Massachusetts, he'd be more likely to get an adult to bring him. I know that people here have talked about bringing kids, but you/they are examples of adults who know which ones to go to (with friends who will be there), bringing kids, not newbies bringing newbies. And the point of wanting him to go is so that he found kindred spirits to talk with, not a chance to feel isolated.
For that matter, while I'm wishing, is there a website sort of like ML but for the much-younger set? SF, hobbies, word games and even news but by people whose experiences started in the '90s?
I've been reading this, fascinated, since last night, and am honestly curious about something. (Well, lots of things, but I'll keep it to the one for now.) There are many things other people do in public bathrooms that disgust me. Pee on the seat. Pee on the floor. Smear on the seat. Fail to flush properly. Improperly dispose of menstrual supplies. Okay, sorry, you get the idea. Gut-level disgust, fear of germs. The idea of sex happening nearby does not inspire that kind of reaction. Scorn, maybe, or shock. The thrill of having a good story to tell when I left. (Leaving bodily fluids, condoms, etc. on the seat would be icky, but that's aftermath.) My reaction is "Get a room," not "Get a cop!"
So would I rather use (1) a reasonably clean public toilet where other folks sometimes cruised, or even discreetly coupled, or (2) a port-a-potty where everyone's waste is unflushed, surfaces are all filthy, paper is often absent, etc.? It's obvious. So I'm wondering about the folk here who have expressed such disgust - how much of the "ick" is due to things like condoms on the floor, and how much to the sex itself? Because janitors are way cheaper and less authoritarian than cops, and airport cops might have other pressing jobs to do.
(BTW, you can tell I'm a regular reader (lurker), not a drive-by, from your logs, correct?)
About twenty years ago I applied to be a proofreader. The spelling test was ten words, including hemorrhage. I began h-e-m-h-o, stopped, started over and got it right. The nice woman was impressed: "No one has ever gotten all ten words before, and no one has ever recovered from that mistake before." But I didn't get the job, or even an in-person interview, because clearly I wouldn't stay for a lifetime, and it was a small family firm. (They wouldn't even hire me until they found the right person.) Grr, but rejections don't always feel that good.
I'm a longtime reader, but not a con-attending fan. Books that grabbed me as a kid:
- The Danny Dunn series (somewhat obsolete in the seventies, really so now, but so much fun.)
- The Oz books (not so much the first famous one. A young friend had the opposite reaction (as did his mom, a poet: they found the first original and the rest derivative. I found the first melodramatic with a trite ending, but the rest sparked my imagination.)
- The new Tom Swifties were great (and so many!) especially since there were only the five Danny Dunn books.
These were pageturners that got me thinking about what-if, even when the action was implausible or the characters not that interesting. Seems like that would be a plus for a reluctant reader (but since I wasn't one, maybe not).
Someone should tell our hosts about the 2005 Ig Nobel prize for literature:
LITERATURE: The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters ... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."
It's not yet on the Ig site itself www.improb.com/ig/ig-top.html , but CNN has a report here (literature is at the bottom): http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/06/dog.invention.ap/index.html
Additional variable: width of fingers varies tremendously, no reason to think it varies proportionately to mouth-opening-gap. (Sorry to interrupt, will return to reader status now)
Your solution is a "defense" (only) in the sense that if he took the extra three years, his record would be clean and his life might be quite good. You're not tattooing a "P" on his forehead, nor condemning him to menial labor forever. You allow for forgiveness. Some people don't look beyond punishment, would never hire someone who had been in prison for example. I doubt the Crooked Timber folk see you as either soft or postmodern enough not to care about plagiarism, I suspect the more draconian suggestions (in the comments) are not as well thought out. I understood the original Healy post as saying he had expected you (known for, shall we say, firmness with people who abuse your hospitality online) to be more furious at the student, not that he thought you had endorsed Gunn's claim. Hope that doesn't make you take too many points off for comprehension...
For a while, the Noggin channel was running Electric Company episodes, first in the afternoon and then in the middle of the night for old folks like us. They also ran some first season Sesame Street shows as "Sesame Street Unpaved." Lately though it's been mid-nineties Sesame's and Daria instead of EC.
Those sketches were just as funny as I remembered though. Bill Cosby too, though he wasn't unknown back then.
I was in my twenties before I got the Fargo North, Decoder joke. Almost drove off the road laughing.
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