JoyfulC

Additional Comments:

It doesn't happen too much anymore, but it's always been a real turn-off for me when a guy starts badmouthing any other woman, be it his wife, his ex-wife, his mother-in-law, some other SP he saw, someone he works with, his real estate agent, his MP. Doesn't matter. The minute a guy starts badmouthing another woman, I am turned off. I prefer guys who love women. I realize that not every relationship or encounter with the opposite sex is going to be a good one and there are going to be some tragically unpleasant ones, but I prefer to focus on the positive, and I very much prefer men who do the same.

Congrats on selling your boat. It will probably always have a special place in your heart and memories, but there will be other boats in your future. Your dedication to keeping your financial house in order assures that. Best of luck to you!

My newest comfort food craving: crusty bread dipped into warm leftover spaghetti/pizza sauce.

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well. Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I go out with you", and take into account the fact that I went out with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct . . . leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God." THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A." ____________________________________________ Credit for this post goes to I Fucking Love Science - https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience?ref=stream

Motorboating?? Wat dat???

I would like to use my Bluetooth headset with Skype and VoxOx. In other words, when I am using the headset, I want my system to recognize it as both speakers and mic. And I'd like my Bluetooth device to show up as options in the Audio settings for these applications. (They're there but greyed out in Skype. Not sure what the deal will be with VoxOx. It's buggy as hell anyway.) I bought a Bluetooth dongle. It came with no drivers, but I downloaded WIDCOMM 4.0 and also downloaded and installed the patches. WIDCOMM recognizes the dongle and the headset, but says no headset service is available. There is an Audio Gateway service that is available, but I'm not sure what the difference is. It appears I don't have a headset driver ?? Any advice?

Not sure about the insurance guy. I think the guy who came in lowest was the first one. He really took his time, looked at everything, measured, tried everything to make sure it worked. The guy who came in highest was sent by the ex's lawyer. He breezed through in just a few minutes, and didn't look at anything. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that appraisals could vary by so much. How can the courts take this seriously? Having lived here for six years, I take the lowest estimate to be the most truthful. I love this place, and it's been an adventure living here, but you can see daylight through the cracks in the foundation in the basement (which is often flooded because there are no weeping tiles or sump pump). Both the back and front porches are slowly sliding off (that earthquake a couple years back wasn't helpful). The plumbing and electrical wiring is... let's say "creative." The windows were state-of-the-art in the 1950s. And the whole place seems to have been designed for "little people." I wouldn't know where you'd start to renovate this place. It would probably cost you several times as much as just razing it and building new. But all that said, I do love this little old shack!

Happy birthday, Nicki!

We rent a property that is apparently involved in a divorce. Over the past year and change, we've had FIVE appraisers in here determing the worth of the place. Two for him, one for her, and one for the insurance company. Oddly enough, all have come to very different estimates of the place's worth. (The lowest estimate is half that of the highest estimate.) WTF???? Are there no standards for property appraisers?? Fred and I have never been interested in owning property, but sheesh! This has left us with a totally jaded idea of what property appraisers really do. Aren't there any industry standards?? I'm left wondering if property appraisers aren't even bigger whores than SPs are.

(My new favourite quote, seen on a t-shirt I will be buying for my husband.) "There are only 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

WANT!!

Maybe I'm biased, but I'm not so convinced that it is creepy for a man to prefer very young women. Don't we all have our preferences? Must they necessarily make some dodgy psychological case against us? I guess I find myself objecting when I read articles like that because I certainly took advantage of those guys who were into younger women when I was younger. And all my life, I've preferred guys over 40. That doesn't mean that when I was 20, I was looking for a father figure or that I felt I was that much more mature. (...well, okay, I may have gone through a phase of that...) But really, it was and is just a preference. Obviously, there are those who take advantage of others. Some might feel that an older man took advantage of a younger woman's naivety. Others have certainly accused younger women of taking advantage of an older man's feeble-mindedness, or even just his male menopause. But I don't think there's always necessarily advantage-taking going on. I think it's possible that two people can just prefer each other, even if they have their differences otherwise. I'd beware too of a lot of this sort of judgment coming down to insecurity on the part of those being judgmental. Like the older woman who prefers to think there's something wrong with the guy who just naturally prefers the younger women. Or younger guys who think they can convince an older woman who prefers older men that, really, they're just as mature. (Trust me, boys. It ain't about maturity. The guys I prefer may be older, but nobody's calling them mature. ;) )

I dove into this thread with enthusiasm, hoping for some insight into why my husband seems to have simply stopped mowing the lawn.

We've been reading about the Green Bin program with curiosity, wondering how it would work. I imagine it's a tough sell for many in the city because you see the process of degeneration at its worst. Here at home in the boonies, we have a large and vibrant compost pile, and don't tend to think of it as yucky at all. But then, we turn it regularly, and so it seems more like compost than rotting goo. The past few weeks, we've been eating out of our garden. In fact, this past week, I've been up to my ass in tomatoes to be put up! When you think about it, we EAT the stuff that you put in your Green Bin--. Well processed, of course, but we waste very little. (--Well, that and the llama shit some generous friends give us every spring. Llama shit is great stuff! ;) )

Interesting article. I guess I've always just taken it for granted that some men chase younger women. I was very young when I started this, and of course, all the men I saw were older men who wanted a much younger women (girl). That was okay, but I do prefer seeing guys who prefer to see someone around their own age. I'm just more comfortable with that. But what I don't get, and which is still hard for me to wrap my mind around, is what's with all the younger men insisting they want older women these days? I swear, if I were comfortable seeing guys in their 20s, I'd be cleaning up. (But I'm not.) Is it something that always existed and somehow I just overlooked it? Or is it something new?

Absolutely!

Having been shaved myself for many years, I think this is true for the first few days or week, but the skin tends to toughen up to being shaved after a while, reducing problems. Just like the skin of the face. There are the inevitable cuts and nicks, from time to time.

Are you telling us that there are? I'm not so sure. This is the first I've heard of it. BLS is one thing, but I can't imagine anyone in this business being so fussy that she'd refuse to give a BJ to someone sporting natural hair. Or so precious that she'd hate doing it. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing there are guys here who can't imagine a lot of the things we do as being pleasant. Myself? I don't find the hair all that onerous. It's really only been in recent years that guys started showing up without any. Nope, but you're not the only person who's posted here. Some have suggested that shaved is more hygienic. I agree with that. And as you said below, it can be done in such a way as to not be crass or indiscreet. If it's going to make that much difference, then it's probably better that they ask. It just never occurred to me that it would.

Peachy, I can see your point WRT BLS, but RG had said earlier: "...By not shaving yourself it may make certain activities (bj,bls) completely unpleasant for the lady, and they either don't do them or do them but hate doing them. ..." BJ?? That just boggled my mind!

But unshaven is still the norm in society. While there may be an unusually high percentage of shaved guys on CERB, that doesn't reflect the market as a whole. If an SP is going to refuse to provide normal services to someone for essentially being normally unshaved, I think she should disclose that fact. I do think it's unprofessional if she allows her undisclosed preference to get her off the hook for providing some perfectly normal services (while taking the rate for full service), all the while blaming the customer and putting him down for being normal and natural. If he's unclean, that's one thing. Help him clean up, or give him back his money and put him out. But hairy isn't unclean, and it's an insult to suggest that.

You're absolutely right, of course. But that doesn't make it any more pleasant when you find yourself on the wrong end of it. If, with your help, we decide that being shaved is the new "industry standard" for high quality service, then I hope you realize that is going to exclude a lot of otherwise decent guys and good customers who, for one reason or another, simply cannot or will not shave. I know you''re a great customer, and you are able to shave and prefer to do so. But please don't be snobby about it. It isn't for everyone, and a lot of those guys are really decent too!

And I've never been embarrassed in front of any family doctor either. I always tell them I am a professional, as that's relevant information to their role in helping me manage my health. But it's different with emergency room staff and such. I've spent a fair bit of time in emergency rooms and on orthopedic wards, both for myself and with my husband, and I was surprised at how judgmental some medical personnel can be. Once, when I landed in a Calgary hospital with a broken femur, the nurse who finished cutting off my clothing spotted a string and asked, with clear contempt and distaste, if I were on my period. I was, of course. And I told her I would take care of it myself, if she brought me what I needed to deal with it. (And that's actually my preference.) Still, I found her attitude quite unprofessional. After all, it's not like I planned to go out and break my leg that day just so I could force some poor nurse into changing my tampon for me. Imagine if she'd encountered this same condition with someone who wasn't capable of dealing with it on their own? Would they have had to be subjected to her obvious disgust? She was a nurse, for goodness sake. It's part of the job description. Another time, following surgery, my husband was a bit backed up. I went to the nurses' station and asked for a glycerin suppository for him. I could tell by the looks on their faces that if there were any way they could avoid giving him one, they were going to. They were all about convincing me that he didn't need one. Until I offered to insert it, and then they dropped all objections, and got me one for him. And once when he was in physio following surgery, one of his balls dropped out of the side of the liner in his shorts. You'd have thought he was thrill flashing the therapist. She made a big indignant stink about it (and while I'm normally pretty easy going, one sure fire way to get me up in your face is to attack my husband). Being old hands at physio, we decided we'd do for ourselves, and he refused to return to her. We told her that if she caused us any trouble, we'd launch a formal complaint over her behaviour. I tend to be very shy, and will go out of my way to avoid an embarrassing situation or one where I might have to face some ignorant judgmental ass. I felt that being shaved was the best thing for my business, and so I was shaved (despite many comments and requests to the contrary). I may be yet again someday. But I must be honest and admit I did feel stigmatized by it in certain situations.

Thanks. I'm downloading it now. I did find that Videozilla converts wmv files into mp4 files with only a slight increase in file size. I'm still having a hella time with getting html5 video to run. I hear IE9 will do a slightly better job supporting some html5 and css3 standards (...but no support for XP... blech!). Why does everyone use that stupid browser???

Having hair down there for the first time in fifteen years or more, I haven't found it to be uncomfortable at all yet. Certainly less itchy than shaved. It feels soft and intriguing to the touch, so much so I can't keep my hands off it. (The kitties are getting jealous.) Over the years that I was shaved, it did cause me embarrassment on a few occasions. I ended up in ERs a couple times with broken bones requiring surgical treatment. There was always an awkward moment of silence (and slightly audible gasp) when it was first noticed that my little pussy was of the hairless variety. Another time, we had started swimming at a local community pool. I got to know some of the women there around my own age, and one day, we all left the pool at the same time and went back to the showers. I stripped off my bathing suit, just like the other gals, thinking nothing of it. Everyone had been talking and laughing up to that point, but a hush fell over my swim companions, and some pointed looks were exchanged. I was so mortified, I wished I could get sucked down the drain. (When I'm not working, I'm actually very modest. I could be voted the Woman Least Likely To Have Had Premarital Sex by most people who know me outside the business.) I know from personal experience that people make certain assumptions when they see a shaved public region. So I can understand why there would be guys who just wouldn't want to have that going on, with everything from spouses to medical staff to anyone who might see them naked. Shaved balls are nice if they're very closely shaved. (Otherwise, it's a bit like scrubbing your tongue with sandpaper.) And I can't say for others, but for me, hair down there isn't going to turn me off or make me less playful. Poor hygiene --will-- do that! But I don't equate having natural pubic hair with poor hygiene. I equate being unwashed with poor hygiene. Additional Comments: I should note too that a couple of those trips to the ER occurred when the HIV/AIDS hysteria was on in full bloom, and people were shit freaking terrified that they were going to sit next to someone HIV+ on a bus and catch it. So I do believe that there were times when health care professionals saw that I was shaved, that they jumped to the conclusion that I was also probably a strong possibility for being HIV+. Yeesh!