Happy Thanksgiving
Laniakea
Have a happy holiday!
Liz
---------------------------------------------
Need a gift for the holidays? Visit my page at
http://members.aol.com/Laniakea/bracelet.html to order a handmade bead
bracelet.
Kyle
Please, noone say "Turkey Day". It cheapens the holiday into a time
for overeating and sports. There are 364 days for that, let's take
one for overeating, sports, and giving thanks.
Uh-oh, someone just put me in a position of responsibility! The day has suddenly turned sinister...
Happydude
>Happy Thanksgiving.
I too would like to take a moment to wish everyone a happy
Thanksgiving. In an hour I will be on my way to Kentucky to visit
family, eat, and pretend I like football.
I'll be gone until Sunday so feel free to break into my house and take
anything you want while I'm away.
Happy Thanksgiving.
-
Oh! that's a meat thermometer?
Well I don't have a fever, that's
for sure.
-Ben Katz
Shez
>I'll be gone until Sunday so feel free to break into my house and take
>anything you want while I'm away.
Party at Happydude's!
Now, who has the address?
--
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endless, nameless
Laniakea wrote:
> Just wanted to send out a "Happy Thanksgiving" to all the Daria fans out there!
> Have a happy holiday!
>
Hey! There's Daria fans in the UK, too!
I don't get a fucking holiday. I get two whole weeks of
exams, and my Art exam is tomorrow!!! I have to sit
there, painting little circles (I'm doing a piece
influenced by Varasely - bad idea) ALL DAY!! I can't
even concentrate for the hour-long lessons, and this is
*six* hours! We aren't allowed to talk, and we can't even
bring in personal stereos, which is not fair 'cos last year's
year 11 did. I'll stop compaining now. Bye. :)
Alli
Shez
> my Art exam is tomorrow!!! I have to sit
>there, painting little circles (I'm doing a piece
>influenced by Varasely - bad idea)
So is Op Art back in fashion or something? I guess I'm a bit out of
touch with the art world, when I was at school we were mostly into the
Surrealists (Yves Tanguy was my favourite).
>ALL DAY!! I can't
>even concentrate for the hour-long lessons, and this is
>*six* hours!
It's remarkable how an exam can concentrate the mind though.
Speaking of time, my newsreader says that you're posting your
messages 8 hours before you've written them (the one I'm replying to
now won't have been written for another hour yet according to the
header). Useful trick if you can pull it off in your exams too.
I think your computer clock is set to the Pacific time zone.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with
great force.
-- Dorothy Parker
Progbear
Shez wrote:
>> my Art exam is tomorrow!!! I have to sit
>>there, painting little circles (I'm doing a piece
>>influenced by Varasely - bad idea)
>
>So is Op Art back in fashion or something? I guess I'm a bit out of
>touch with the art world, when I was at school we were mostly into the
>Surrealists (Yves Tanguy was my favourite).
Wow...from Mervyn Peake to Tanguy...is there no end to the coolness that
is alt.tv.daria. I have a Tanguy T-shirt...everyone always thinks it's Dali
(No, that's that *other* shirt I always wear).
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
make GEORYN disappear to reply
"'Thin Thighs For Your Man.' But I don't *like* men with thin thighs" --Daria
N.P.:"Fingers II"- B l u e M o t i o n
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> endless, nameless <Nic...@csc-lnd4.demon.co.uk> writes:
> > my Art exam is tomorrow!!! I have to sit
> >there, painting little circles (I'm doing a piece
> >influenced by Varasely - bad idea)
>
> So is Op Art back in fashion or something? I guess I'm a bit out of
> touch with the art world, when I was at school we were mostly into the
> Surrealists (Yves Tanguy was my favourite).
I've done some work on Surrealism. I think Art Nouveauis pretty popular, and
Pop Art. I think I'm the only one
who's done any Op Art, but it all depends on what question
you pick for your coursework/exam, 'cos it'll say to look at
Picasso's still life, or design a mural for a public place in the
style of Lichtenstein, or something like that. Some are more
vague than that, I picked one about the patterns on shells.
I thought the little dots in Varasely's work looked like that,
sort of. It was a stupid idea, really, 'cos it was really hard to
do.
>
>
> >ALL DAY!! I can't
> >even concentrate for the hour-long lessons, and this is
> >*six* hours!
>
> It's remarkable how an exam can concentrate the mind though.
Yeah. I think the incredible fear of not being ableto finish in the allocated
time drove me into some
medetative state which enabled me to concentrate
for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Odd, that. :)
> Speaking of time, my newsreader says that you're posting your
> messages 8 hours before you've written them (the one I'm replying to
> now won't have been written for another hour yet according to the
> header). Useful trick if you can pull it off in your exams too.
> I think your computer clock is set to the Pacific time zone.
I'll check that (or better, get someone else to). I'm nogood with computers.
I'm posting now from one of our
other computers, (my dad buys a new one, like, every
year, so we've got about four) because the one I was
using before started making funny noises and then stopped
working while I was using it, so guess who's gonna get
the blame for that. :)
Alli
endless, nameless
Progbear wrote:
> Shez wrote:
>
> >> my Art exam is tomorrow!!! I have to sit
> >>there, painting little circles (I'm doing a piece
> >>influenced by Varasely - bad idea)
> >
> >So is Op Art back in fashion or something? I guess I'm a bit out of
> >touch with the art world, when I was at school we were mostly into the
> >Surrealists (Yves Tanguy was my favourite).
>
> Wow...from Mervyn Peake to Tanguy...is there no end to the coolness that
> is alt.tv.daria.
No, there isn't. Cool TV shows have cool newsgroups. :)
> I have a Tanguy T-shirt...everyone always thinks it's Dali
> (No, that's that *other* shirt I always wear).
I like Dalí's work. I was looking through
a book of his stuff in class once, and within
10 minutes all the girls were looking at the
painings going "Eww! That is so gross!" and
all the guys were looking and going "Hey, you
can see that woman's tits!" Isn't it strange
how art can be interpreted differently by the
different sexes?
Alli
Shez
>
>Shez wrote:
>when I was at school we were mostly into the
>>Surrealists (Yves Tanguy was my favourite).
>
> Wow...from Mervyn Peake to Tanguy...is there no end to the coolness that
>(No, that's that *other* shirt I always wear).
Yes, Tanguy is a bit like some of Dali's plastic forms.
I like the ones of squiggly little pebbly objects that seem to be perched
on the shores of eternity. Actually that image makes me think of the
endless virtual beach in Neuromancer. I have some Tanguy postcards
somewhere, I didn't know there were tshirts too. I should scan one of
them in for my Last Stop Cafe website, it would fit right in.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
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Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
-- Oscar Levant
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(c)Shez asserts the moral rights of authorship under the Berne Convention
Martin Sylvester
Shez wrote in message ...
>[...]I have some Tanguy postcards
>somewhere, I didn't know there were tshirts too. I should scan one of
>them in for my Last Stop Cafe website, it would fit right in.
Please, Shez, can it be the one called something like "Suffering softens
pebbles"?
There is a bit of Tanguy online already. Not all the images at
www.tanguy.org/ actually work, but the links might be worth exploring.
Octavio Ocampo is one painter I get enthusiastic about (won't bore you with
the others). His "Metamorphic" art is arresting, to say the least, once you
spend time looking at it. Nothing much online, AFAIK, only one of his (IMHO)
lesser works, at http://www.valuenetwork.com/business/visualconcepts.html
I'm told there's a place in Leeds that exhibits some prints; a gallery in
York has a few, though not the one I was looking for (still, nice day out in
York, anyway). I bought my first (and, so far, only) Ocampo print in the
craft centre in the former RAF Hemswell missile base in Lincolnshire.
The one I've got is "Calvary." A visiting friend saw it, changed holiday
plans, and drove 80 miles to buy a print!
Martin.
--
* Parish of St Mary on the Sea & St John Fisher, Grimsby, UK
* Homepage: http://www.sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk/
* NRCDT - a registered charity. I do not intend to imply that any views
* expressed above represent the policy of NRCDT or any other organisation.
Laniakea
>I don't get a fucking holiday.
Sorry about that. I guess this is just one of those holidays where Americans
celebrate that they are no longer part of the UK. Please, no offense was
intended.
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> Shez wrote in message ...
>
> >[...]I have some Tanguy postcards
> >somewhere, I didn't know there were tshirts too. I should scan one of
> >them in for my Last Stop Cafe website, it would fit right in.
>
> Please, Shez, can it be the one called something like "Suffering softens
> pebbles"?
>
> There is a bit of Tanguy online already. Not all the images at
> www.tanguy.org/ actually work, but the links might be worth exploring.
>
> Octavio Ocampo is one painter I get enthusiastic about (won't bore you with
> the others). His "Metamorphic" art is arresting, to say the least, once you
> spend time looking at it. Nothing much online, AFAIK, only one of his (IMHO)
> lesser works, at http://www.valuenetwork.com/business/visualconcepts.html
Yeah, I like some of his work. I like Richard Oelze, he does theserather gloomy
paintings with like, oh, it's so hard to explain. I don't
know if any of his stuff is online, so I can't give you a link. It's sort
of like animals, weird ambiguous creatures, all sort of stuck together
like rocks or something, like ones that have been there for millions
of years. Usually they're all the same colour, and they all have their
eyes open, and it's quite eerie to look at because it looks so still and
quiet. It's weird.
Alli
endless, nameless
Laniakea wrote:
> >Hey! There's Daria fans in the UK, too!
> >I don't get a fucking holiday.
>
> Sorry about that. I guess this is just one of those holidays where Americans
> celebrate that they are no longer part of the UK. Please, no offense was
> intended.
That's OK. I wasn't offended. I probably should have put
a smiley there, but I was stressed out about my Art exam.
Anyway, here's one :)
Alli
Shez
>> It's remarkable how an exam can concentrate the mind though.
>
>Yeah. I think the incredible fear of not being ableto finish in the allocated
>time drove me into some
>medetative state which enabled me to concentrate
>for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Odd, that. :)
Exams exist in an alternate universe where time stands still for three
hours before suddenly jumping to five minutes before the finishing time.
Three seconds later those last five minutes have gone. This is usually
just long enough for your entire life (which, if you didn't revise, is
now over) to flash before your eyes.
-Shez.
--
__________________________________________________________________________
"My life is over. I mean, it's not just 'over', it's OVER over." --Sabrina
__________________________________________________________________________
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> endless, nameless (Alli) <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> writes:
> >> It's remarkable how an exam can concentrate the mind though.
> >
> >Yeah. I think the incredible fear of not being ableto finish in the allocated
> >time drove me into some
> >medetative state which enabled me to concentrate
> >for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Odd, that. :)
>
> Exams exist in an alternate universe where time stands still for three
> hours before suddenly jumping to five minutes before the finishing time.
> Three seconds later those last five minutes have gone. This is usually
> just long enough for your entire life (which, if you didn't revise, is
> now over) to flash before your eyes.
>
I remember my SATs two years ago. Exams are done in the gym or
in the sports hall, and in both of those places it's either freezing cold
or boiling hot, and on this particular week it was so cold I couldn't write,
I had to sit there for 10 minutes at the beginning of each exam waiting
for my hands to warm up. Of course, it would have helped if we hadn't
been made to stand outside for 15 minutes before each exam without
coats on or anything, and also if we could have done the SATs *after*
the year 10 exams, GCSEs and A levels had been taken by the older
students rather than before so it wouldn't have been *snowing* but
logic appears to escape the minds of teachers when it comes to exam
timetabling. Speaking of which, the reason I was stressed out about the
Art exam before, was that we were told we had 3 weeks to prepare,
but then they moved the exam forward by a week and a half to avoid
'clashes in the timetable' (which had proved to be no particular problem
for anyone) leaving us all totally unprepared for the exam. I'm done
ranting now, so I'll shut up.
Alli
Shez
>I remember my SATs two years ago.
What are SATs? I thought they were just some American thing. At least
you're the first non-American I've ever heard mention the word. I
thought they were just the US version of GCSEs or something.
Just to bring in a smidgen of topicality, I took a look at one of the Daria
websites and realised I've not seen any season 1 episodes yet, just 10
from season 2. I guess this means I've lots to look forward to, but only
if C5 decide to rerun them (assumung they ran them in the first place).
On the thing about having to line up outside without a coat on, I think
schools see exams as some sort of ritual thing. Ideally they'd have
everyone line up naked and maybe beat them with birch twigs in a
purification ritual, but what with the protection of children act and
everything they have to settle for just making you stand in the snow with
no coat on. Hey, that reminds me of an episode of some weird TV
series, possibly the Demon Headmaster or something.
BTW, what's this "endless, nameless" thing? It sounds like a Taoist or
maybe Buddhist reference.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
Email to Gnus will be rejected: if replying by email, address it to Shez.
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3660BBF2...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>Exams are done in the gym or
>in the sports hall, and in both of those places it's either freezing cold
>or boiling hot, and on this particular week it was so cold I couldn't
write,
[...]
Didn't realise you went to a public school, Alli! 8-)
(Note to USA readers, before you diagnose snobbery: "Public school" does
*not* mean in English English what it means in US English, as at least one
US author has found to their embarrassment.)
I remember six years of termly exams in a college hall that was freezing
cold in winter. In the year of the Big Freeze I wore my winter sports
underwear, two pairs of socks, shirt, sweater and bodywarmer, woolly hat and
woollen trousers; and I took in with me a vacuum flask and a few biscuits,
and took a restorative coffee break at the normal time. (Why push on without
an accustomed break when you most need to be working well?) By the third
exam, some fellow students were taking in empty mugs and sitting near me.
Fortunately it was a big flask.
I carried on with the coffee break even in summer; great way to restore
concentration halfway through the exam (it was the break, rather than the
coffee, I think).
Now, whether you can get away with that in school is another matter. And it
would lead to a reputation for, shall we say kindly, mild eccentricity.
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> nameless Alli <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> writes:
> >I remember my SATs two years ago.
>
> What are SATs? I thought they were just some American thing. At least
> you're the first non-American I've ever heard mention the word. I
> thought they were just the US version of GCSEs or something.
I think they're a different thing over there, but in the UK they're
StandardisedAssesment Tests or something like that, and you take them when
you're 7, 11
and 14. People my age or older will have only done them at age 14, they were
only given to 11 and 7 year olds *after* I was 11, thankfully. You take them in
several different subjects, mine were for Maths, Science and English, and I got
level 8, 7 and 6 respectively. Level 8 is apparently very good, I was one of 3
people in my school to get that in that year. I think it goes up to level 10,
and
that's equivalent to A* at GCSE, but no 14 year old is expected to get that.
>
>
> Just to bring in a smidgen of topicality, I took a look at one of the Daria
> websites and realised I've not seen any season 1 episodes yet, just 10
> from season 2. I guess this means I've lots to look forward to, but only
> if C5 decide to rerun them (assumung they ran them in the first place).
I think they ran all of them, I'm not sure about The Misery Chick, though.I
haven't seen The New Kid yet, but I know they've shown it. It's on
tomorrow, actually.
>
>
> On the thing about having to line up outside without a coat on, I think
> schools see exams as some sort of ritual thing. Ideally they'd have
> everyone line up naked and maybe beat them with birch twigs in a
> purification ritual, but what with the protection of children act and
> everything they have to settle for just making you stand in the snow with
> no coat on.
We have to wait in alphabetical order, so I always go in last but one,'cos my
second name's Yannacopoulou (before anyone asks, it's Greek)
and there's some guy called Youngman or something. I think it's some
pathetic way of preventing us from talking, but it doesn't stop anyone,
because out of the two people you're gonna be standing next to, you're
bound to be on speaking terms with at least one of them.
> Hey, that reminds me of an episode of some weird TV
> series, possibly the Demon Headmaster or something.
I haven't seen that, but I'd assume that the name is fairly representative of
the
show's subject matter. We don't have a 'demon headmaster', we did have a
demon headmistress but she left after she went mad. I'd say she was already
mad, but aren't all teachers?
>
>
> BTW, what's this "endless, nameless" thing? It sounds like a Taoist or
> maybe Buddhist reference.
LOL. Yeah, it could be, but it's actually the name of the hidden track
onNirvana's Nevermind!
Nirvana - Buddhist - pretty close, I guess. :)
Alli
Kyle
wrote:
>Just to bring in a smidgen of topicality, I took a look at one of the Daria
>websites and realised I've not seen any season 1 episodes yet, just 10
>from season 2. I guess this means I've lots to look forward to, but only
>if C5 decide to rerun them (assumung they ran them in the first place).
>
www.daria.org (if you have real player, if not you can download it for
free at www.real.com) gives you all the ep's but one, on the web,
commercial free.
>BTW, what's this "endless, nameless" thing? It sounds like a Taoist or
>maybe Buddhist reference.
Hey, now! If you are going to call Alli a thing, we'll have to kick
you out of this newsgroup!
>
>-Shez.
>--
>____________________________________________________________
>_____________
>Email to Gnus will be rejected: if replying by email, address it to Shez.
>Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe at <URL:http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/>
Uh-oh, someone just put me in a position of responsibility! The day has suddenly turned sinister...
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <3660BBF2...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>
> >Exams are done in the gym or
> >in the sports hall, and in both of those places it's either freezing cold
> >or boiling hot, and on this particular week it was so cold I couldn't
> write,
> [...]
>
> Didn't realise you went to a public school, Alli! 8-)
>
> (Note to USA readers, before you diagnose snobbery: "Public school" does
> *not* mean in English English what it means in US English, as at least one
> US author has found to their embarrassment.)
What does it mean in the USA?
>
>
> I remember six years of termly exams in a college hall that was freezing
> cold in winter. In the year of the Big Freeze I wore my winter sports
> underwear, two pairs of socks, shirt, sweater and bodywarmer, woolly hat and
> woollen trousers;
Well, we have to wear school uniform, and that isn't particularly warm.There's
this one guy I know who couldn't get a jumper big enough to
fit him (he's tall, over 6 ft, I think) so he wears his white school shirt with
this KoRn t-shirt on underneath. So, of course, he trys to keep his back
turned away from teachers because it says "All Day I Dream About Sex"
across the back! Tsk.
> and I took in with me a vacuum flask and a few biscuits,
In that Art exam I just had, we were allowed to eat, and I kept hearingsomeone
going "Psst! Alli!" I soon realised this was coming from my friend
Wendy (who eats about as much as a small elephant and still manages
to stay under 8 stone) who was offering me biscuits. This continued
throughout the exam at 5 minute intervals, and by the end of the first hour
I had to refuse the biscuits (I'm trying to keep my weight down!) so she
produced a large bag of Starburst and offered me some of them! She
showed me all the food she'd brought afterwards, you'd be amazed at how
much someone that thin can eat.
> and took a restorative coffee break at the normal time. (Why push on without
> an accustomed break when you most need to be working well?) By the third
> exam, some fellow students were taking in empty mugs and sitting near me.
> Fortunately it was a big flask.
>
> I carried on with the coffee break even in summer; great way to restore
> concentration halfway through the exam (it was the break, rather than the
> coffee, I think).
>
> Now, whether you can get away with that in school is another matter. And it
> would lead to a reputation for, shall we say kindly, mild eccentricity.
We're not allowed to do that in school, no. They'd accuse us of cheatingand we'd
actually be banned from taking any of the other exams and given
a U for all the exams we'd already done. If they thought it was particularly
serious, we'd never be allowed to take any exams on that examination
board again. I always thought that was a little excessive, but it has happened.
Alli
Shez
>www.daria.org (if you have real player, if not you can download it for
>free at www.real.com) gives you all the ep's but one, on the web,
>commercial free.
Thanks, but I guess they take a while to d/l.
C5 shows them commercial free anyway, as it happens.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
Martin Sylvester
Shez wrote in message <5EJVwFAC...@xerez.demon.co.uk>...
>What are SATs?
Standard Assessment Tests, or Standard(ised) Assessment (Achievement) Tasks,
or (in the USA) Scholastic Aptitude Test (TM). Used, in the UK, with GCSE
results to
measure the standards of teaching in a school. SATs are taken at 7, 11, and
14. It goes something like this: Look at the last SATs, predict likely
grades for the next SATs (or the GCSEs), then compare actual grades:
(actual)>(predicted)=good,
(actual)<(predicted)=bad.
>I thought they were just some American thing. At least
>you're the first non-American I've ever heard mention the word.
If only I could say the same! (I'm a school governor.) The introduction of
SATs has put a lot of teachers under stress. But it is better than just
measuring GCSE results, since it lets you see what the school has achieved
rather than simply what the school's intake of pupils is like. One of the
schools I govern recently scored (I think) CC compared to *all* schools, and
(I know) AA compared to all *similar* schools!
>Just to bring in a smidgen of topicality, I took a look at one of the Daria
>websites and realised I've not seen any season 1 episodes yet, just 10
>from season 2. I guess this means I've lots to look forward to, but only
>if C5 decide to rerun them (assumung they ran them in the first place).
They did run them, and I hope they repeat them. I've got seven unseen First
Series episodes to look forward to! <smug grin>
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
<even more smug grin> Well *I* have cable, so I don't have to watch themon
shitty C5! :)
I don't like the idea of watching a channel that started itself with by showing
the Spice Girls, so I like to avoid C5.
Alli
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3660D602...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>We're not allowed to do that in school, no. They'd accuse us of cheatingand
we'd
>actually be banned from taking any of the other exams and given
>a U for all the exams we'd already done. If they thought it was
particularly
>serious, we'd never be allowed to take any exams on that examination
>board again. I always thought that was a little excessive, but it has
happened.
Even if you take your break at the desk, without leaving the hall, without
getting up, without talking to anyone? With the biscuits in a clear plastic
bag, and the Thermos open to inspection by the invigilator? That isn't
excessive, that's Draconian! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I
would *not* want to be fifteen again!
Alli, college is going to seem like freedom must to a released long-term
prisoner.
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> Shez wrote in message <5EJVwFAC...@xerez.demon.co.uk>...
>
> >What are SATs?
>
> Standard Assessment Tests, or Standard(ised) Assessment (Achievement) Tasks,
> or (in the USA) Scholastic Aptitude Test (TM). Used, in the UK, with GCSE
> results to
> measure the standards of teaching in a school. SATs are taken at 7, 11, and
> 14. It goes something like this: Look at the last SATs, predict likely
> grades for the next SATs (or the GCSEs), then compare actual grades:
> (actual)>(predicted)=good,
> (actual)<(predicted)=bad.
And of course they always predict lower than they think you're goingto get,
because if they say you'll get a higher grade than you
actually get, the teacher gets fired. And if the results are looking a
bit pathetic from all schools, the Exam Board just change the grade
boundries so that everyone gets a higher grade, so I'm told. :)
> >I thought they were just some American thing. At least
> >you're the first non-American I've ever heard mention the word.
>
> If only I could say the same! (I'm a school governor.) The introduction of
> SATs has put a lot of teachers under stress. But it is better than just
> measuring GCSE results, since it lets you see what the school has achieved
> rather than simply what the school's intake of pupils is like.
Yeah, 'cos they don't enter people if they think they're going to geta U, do
they? Oh, yeah, and if they haven't handed in enough
coursework.
> One of the
> schools I govern recently scored (I think) CC compared to *all* schools, and
> (I know) AA compared to all *similar* schools!
'Similar'? What, ones getting the same results as them?, or ones
taking in similar pupils?
Alli
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3660D602...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>Martin Sylvester wrote:
>> Didn't realise you went to a public school, Alli! 8-)
>>
>> (Note to USA readers, before you diagnose snobbery: "Public school" does
>> *not* mean in English English what it means in US English, as at least
one
>> US author has found to their embarrassment.)
>
>What does it mean in the USA?
Oops. Missed this question. Too busy muttering darkly to myself about stupid
exam regulations.
In the USA, it means schools you can attend without paying, cfr "Private
schools."
The American writer who goofed had read that Lord X. had agreed to be
President of the (English) Public Schools' Ski Club (Association?), and in
speculating about His Lordship's motives wrote something like, "We can be
certain that Lord X. would not have attended a public school." He was
informed that Lord X. had attended a very ancient public school, thank you
very much.
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <3660D602...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>
> >We're not allowed to do that in school, no. They'd accuse us of cheatingand
> we'd
> >actually be banned from taking any of the other exams and given
> >a U for all the exams we'd already done. If they thought it was
> particularly
> >serious, we'd never be allowed to take any exams on that examination
> >board again. I always thought that was a little excessive, but it has
> happened.
>
> Even if you take your break at the desk, without leaving the hall, without
> getting up, without talking to anyone? With the biscuits in a clear plastic
> bag, and the Thermos open to inspection by the invigilator? That isn't
> excessive, that's Draconian!
Absolutely. It's very stupid really, but I'm pretty sure we'd still be
disqualified.
> I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I
> would *not* want to be fifteen again!
Ah, luckily I've only got another 2 and a half weeks of that.
>
>
> Alli, college is going to seem like freedom must to a released long-term
> prisoner.
Oh, good. But I have stupidly decided to take A levels at my school
(Maths, Maths Further, Physics, Electronics. Yes, my feminist principles
are once again rearing their ugly head) so I won't get to go to college,
'cos it'll be school only without the uniform.
Alli
KTrick45
<<What does it mean in the USA?>>
In the USA, "public school" is what, in the UK, you'd call "private school."
That is, a tax- supported school, to which students who live within a certain
geographic area are assigned to attend, unless they choose a "private school"
(which is what you call a "public school" in the UK). See?
Peace
Kevin
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3660E2EC...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>> (actual)<(predicted)=bad.
>
>And of course they always predict lower than they think you're goingto get,
>because if they say you'll get a higher grade than you
>actually get, the teacher gets fired.
That can be done if the teacher is free to predict on subjective opinion.
But if you're using objective SAT data, and a mathematical model to arrive
at the prediction, and the teacher in question isn't the one running the
calculation...
I think the practice you refer to is one of the things SATs were brought in
to defeat.
>And if the results are looking a
>bit pathetic from all schools, the Exam Board just change the grade
>boundries so that everyone gets a higher grade, so I'm told. :)
Wasn't there a lot of suspicion recently when A level grades suddenly jumped
up? The Boards deny any tomfoolery....
>Yeah, 'cos they don't enter people if they think they're going to geta U,
do
>they? Oh, yeah, and if they haven't handed in enough
>coursework.
You do need to keep an eye on the proportion of pupils entered for exams, in
case the staff deny people an opportunity to take an exam for fear they'd
mess up their pretty figures. OFSTED inspectors look out for this, and so
should governors. You can't keep pupils away from SATs, so the 7/11/14
progression is still there to be measured.
>> One of the
>> schools I govern recently scored (I think) CC compared to *all* schools,
and
>> (I know) AA compared to all *similar* schools!
>
>'Similar'? What, ones getting the same results as them?, or ones
>taking in similar pupils?
Similar pupils. Social indicators like the proportion of children with free
school meals are factored in. I'm simplifying for the sake of clarity (but
our latest OFSTED report will soon be online, huzzah!).
I guess this is not the best time to be discussing the exam system! Sorry,
Alli!
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3660E7C6...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>> Alli, college is going to seem like freedom must to a released long-term
>> prisoner.
>
>Oh, good. But I have stupidly decided to take A levels at my school
Oops! Okay then, *University* is going to seem.... 8-)
>(Maths, Maths Further, Physics, Electronics.
Best of luck! Hope you manage to keep up the art, or take up reading
philosophy, to keep your intellectual life well-rounded.
Martin Sylvester
KTrick45 wrote in message <19981128172603...@ng42.aol.com>...
>Alli wrote (referring to "public schools"):
>
><<What does it mean in the USA?>>
>
>In the USA, "public school" is what, in the UK, you'd call "private
school."
>That is, a tax- supported school, to which students who live within a
certain
>geographic area are assigned to attend
A better definition than mine, since I neglected the concept of assignment
by area. BTW, we'd call this a state school, or a council school, not a
private school.
>unless they choose a "private school"
>(which is what you call a "public school" in the UK). See?
We also use the term "private school" to refer to fee-paying schools. Most
people here would understand "public school" to mean a private school (ie
most pupils are there because their parents pay for them to attend) which
(i) is for pupils aged 11 and over (if they were younger it would be a "prep
school"); and (ii) has a certain social cachet, perhaps by virtue of great
antiquity or enormous fees. If we heard a school described as a public
school, we would also assume it is a boarding school (cfr "day school").
Public schools also have a reputation amongst the general public, fairly or
otherwise, for spartan living conditions, physical discipline, and bullying,
and for offering easier entry into Oxford and Cambridge than pupils would
have if they went to lesser private schools, or to state schools.
Another category here in the UK is that of the "Voluntary Aided" church
schools, which people can elect to attend without making any payment; public
funds pay most
of the costs, and the church congregations pay the rest.
There are others, too, but I'm not going to muddy the waters any more than I
have already!
Now I am *not* going to go on to describe how cricket is played, other than
to say there are eleven in each team, dressed in white, and the game
involves a hard leather-covered ball and a wooden bat made ideally of
willow.
"Ah, those happy summer days at public school. The First Eleven in their
whites, the crack of leather on willow. Willow's a cabinet minister, now, of
course."
Progbear
Shez wrote:
>>I remember my SATs two years ago.
>
>What are SATs? I thought they were just some American thing. At least
>you're the first non-American I've ever heard mention the word. I
>thought they were just the US version of GCSEs or something.
SAT=Scholastic Aptitude Test. Sort of a college preperatory exam, which a
lot of parents get all in a tizzy about. Supposedly the score you get on it
determines what sort of college you'll get into and, in turn, your whole
future...but people like me see it for what it is--a whole lot of B.S. (And if
you think that's bad, how about the PSAT, Pre-SAT) Remember Ramona's "My First
SAT Prep" reader, or whatever it was called, from "College Bored"? The SAT is
famous for the "analogy" questions (e.g.: "Quinn is to Daria as mosquito is to
______").
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
make GEORYN disappear to reply
"Parece cosa de maligno. Los pianos no estallan por casualidad." --Gabriel
Garcia Marquez
N.P.:"Fascist Christ"- T o d d R u n d g r e n (T R - I) / N o W o r l d O
r d e r
Laniakea
knowlege in school work. I took the test every year since Kindergarden (I think
now it starts in 2nd grade). Nearly four years ago I was pulled out of public
school so I haven't taken the test since 8th grade. By then we were getting a
little punchy.
"Turn to the corresponding section of your work book and fold it back so only
that page is showing. Read along silently as I read aloud."
Nine years of number 2 pencils and filling in those circles correctly was about
to drive SOMEBODY nuts.
endless, nameless
KTrick45 wrote:
> Alli wrote (referring to "public schools"):
>
> <<What does it mean in the USA?>>
>
> In the USA, "public school" is what, in the UK, you'd call "private school."
> That is, a tax- supported school, to which students who live within a certain
> geographic area are assigned to attend, unless they choose a "private school"
> (which is what you call a "public school" in the UK). See?
Ah, now that's what we'd call a state school, actually. Private schools areones
you pay to go to. Public schools are the really posh ones like Eton and
Harrow. Or something like that.
Alli
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <3660E2EC...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >> (actual)<(predicted)=bad.
> >
> >And of course they always predict lower than they think you're goingto get,
> >because if they say you'll get a higher grade than you
> >actually get, the teacher gets fired.
>
> That can be done if the teacher is free to predict on subjective opinion.
> But if you're using objective SAT data, and a mathematical model to arrive
> at the prediction, and the teacher in question isn't the one running the
> calculation...
> I think the practice you refer to is one of the things SATs were brought in
> to defeat.
But it still happens in the GCSEs, according to my Frnench teacher.Last year,
all the GCSE grades she predicted were wrong because
she'd said they'd be lower than they were. That happens a lot, she
says, in the GCSEs. But I don't know about the SATs.
>
>
> >And if the results are looking a
> >bit pathetic from all schools, the Exam Board just change the grade
> >boundries so that everyone gets a higher grade, so I'm told. :)
>
> Wasn't there a lot of suspicion recently when A level grades suddenly jumped
> up? The Boards deny any tomfoolery....
LOL. Suuure...
>
>
> >Yeah, 'cos they don't enter people if they think they're going to geta U,
> do
> >they? Oh, yeah, and if they haven't handed in enough
> >coursework.
>
> You do need to keep an eye on the proportion of pupils entered for exams, in
> case the staff deny people an opportunity to take an exam for fear they'd
> mess up their pretty figures. OFSTED inspectors look out for this, and so
> should governors. You can't keep pupils away from SATs, so the 7/11/14
> progression is still there to be measured.
OFSTED. Ah, yes. We had the inspectors in earlier this year. It's quitefunny to
see how some teachers react to that. Our Electronics teacher
refrained from making his usual racist comments directed at this one
American boy in the class, and my French teacher (not the one I
mentioned before) managed to remember all his stuff; pens, cassettes,
everything. Also, these beautiful displays of students' work suddenly
appeared all around the school, and the canteen suddenly decided to
have an 'Italian week', ie, they put up posters of places in Italy on the
walls and served Spaghetti every day.
>
>
> >> One of the
> >> schools I govern recently scored (I think) CC compared to *all* schools,
> and
> >> (I know) AA compared to all *similar* schools!
> >
> >'Similar'? What, ones getting the same results as them?, or ones
> >taking in similar pupils?
>
> Similar pupils. Social indicators like the proportion of children with free
> school meals are factored in. I'm simplifying for the sake of clarity (but
> our latest OFSTED report will soon be online, huzzah!).
>
> I guess this is not the best time to be discussing the exam system! Sorry,
> Alli!
Yeah, especially as I'm reading messages about exams rather than
actually *revising* or anything....better go do some work.....later...
Alli
endless, nameless
Laniakea wrote:
> The SATs are tests that school children take every year to measure their
> knowlege in school work.
Over here you only have to take them 3 times, at ages 7, 11, and 14.I only took
them once, as I think I've already said, 'cos when I was
7 and 11 they didn't have SATs for 7 or 11 year olds.
Alli
Kyle
<sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Alli, college is going to seem like freedom must to a released long-term
>prisoner.
>
>Martin.
>
This does not sound promising. I'm going to college next year, and
this statement reminds of of the old librarian in the Shawshank
Redemption for some reason (Not giving you any ideas, Alli)
Kyle
<sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>The American writer who goofed had read that Lord X. had agreed to be
>President of the (English) Public Schools' Ski Club (Association?), and in
>speculating about His Lordship's motives wrote something like, "We can be
>certain that Lord X. would not have attended a public school." He was
>informed that Lord X. had attended a very ancient public school, thank you
>very much.
>
Pardon my ethnocultural-centricity (I always wanted to use that word
in a sentence), but what does it mean in England?
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <36610CEA...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>Martin Sylvester wrote:
>> I think the practice you refer to is one of the things SATs were brought
in
>> to defeat.
>But it still happens in the GCSEs, according to my Frnench teacher.Last
year,
>all the GCSE grades she predicted were wrong because
>she'd said they'd be lower than they were. That happens a lot, she
>says, in the GCSEs. But I don't know about the SATs.
Are we talking about the same thing? Teachers still make subjective
predictions about individual pupils' grades, but in measuring the standards
in a school one would want to see how the objectively calculated averaged
predictions for the school, or for a department, compare to the real
outcomes. "In an average school, with these SATs scores for this year group,
one would expect x passes at GCSE; in this school there were y passes. Over
the last three years, results exceeded/fell below the average prediction by
z%. There were m people measured. These figures have a confidence rating of
n." Of course the model will improve in accuracy as more data become
available (not only adjusting the model in the light of more datasets
processed, but also as the data at ages 7 & 11 becomes available). It seems
a more objective method than leaving individual teachers to set their own
targets ("Oh, look, I exceeded them again!"). Whether it will work is
another question!
>OFSTED. Ah, yes. We had the inspectors in earlier this year. It's
quitefunny to
>see how some teachers react to that. Our Electronics teacher
>refrained from making his usual racist comments directed at this one
>American boy in the class, and my French teacher (not the one I
>mentioned before) managed to remember all his stuff; pens, cassettes,
>everything. Also, these beautiful displays of students' work suddenly
>appeared all around the school, and the canteen suddenly decided to
>have an 'Italian week', ie, they put up posters of places in Italy on the
>walls and served Spaghetti every day.
LOL! There's little as entertaining as seeing your teachers enter Headless
Chicken Mode. I suppose it might mean a bit of variety (Variety? Spaghetti
every day?) in the canteen once every three years. Did you get yourself a
copy of the full report and compare it to your own experience? Did the
inspectors spot the pantomime?
>> I guess this is not the best time to be discussing the exam system!
Sorry,
>> Alli!
>
>Yeah, especially as I'm reading messages about exams rather than
>actually *revising* or anything....better go do some work.....later...
Yep. Last thing you want to do is get it all into perspective. Until the
exams are over, anyway. 8-)
Martin Sylvester
Kyle wrote in message <73qac2$937$2...@208.134.200.61>...
>Pardon my ethnocultural-centricity (I always wanted to use that word
Pardoned!
A public school is a private school. Zen, or what?
For an intelligible answer, see my earlier, verbose post in reply to Kevin.
<g>
Shadoc64
>I think they ran all of them, I'm not sure about The Misery Chick, though.I
>haven't seen The New Kid yet, but I know they've shown it. It's on
>tomorrow, actually.
"The Misery Chick" is an interesting one. First, they showed all of season 1 up
to "Teachings Of Don Jake". Then they decided to stop there and rerun season 1
again. They stopped at "Road Worrier", and Daria disappeared for months. They
finally showed "The Misery Chick" when they decided to run season 2, and it
hasn't had a second showing yet.
I'm starting to get curious now, what is the ratio of English to American
posters here? Originally I was the only English regular, now there's Alli and a
few others.
Shadowcloak
shado...@geocities.com (NOT @aol)
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/7252/
"Oh, no. The toilet is talking to me again." - Jane Lane
Shez
>I
>haven't seen The New Kid yet, but I know they've shown it. It's on
>tomorrow, actually.
I realised on watching it just now that I'd seen part of it before, back in
the days before I was a Daria fan (ie. earlier this year). I like the web
hits bit at the end. TV without violence just wouldn't be TV.
There seems to be some inconsistency between episodes about who the
fashion club members think Daria is, last week she was Quinn's "cousin"
but this week she was just some random girl that Quinn wants to help.
Are the episodes being shown out of order? I hate it when broadcasters
shuffle the episodes of a series 'cos they're too ignorant to realise there
are subtle subplots that progress from week to week.
>> Hey, that reminds me of an episode of some weird TV
>> series, possibly the Demon Headmaster or something.
>I haven't seen that, but I'd assume that the name is fairly representative
>of the show's subject matter.
In the episode in question these prefects (who are under the hypnotic
control of the headmaster) make a couple of kids stay out in the
playground without their coats for a couple of hours and clear up all the
snow, as punishment for wanting to have fun at breaktime.
>> BTW, what's this "endless, nameless" thing? It sounds like a Taoist or
>> maybe Buddhist reference.
>
>LOL. Yeah, it could be, but it's actually the name of the hidden track
>onNirvana's Nevermind!
I always thought that was just part of Something In The Way, though I
did wonder why they downed instruments for 10 minutes in the middle.
It gives you time to go make a cup of coffee though.
Bjork's Debut is a bit like that, some versions of the album have a
minute-long countdown at the end followed by an extra track, Play
Dead, which I think is the best one on the album.
I wonder if Nirvana were into buddhism or anything or whether they
just thought the name was cool. There was a Dilbert cartoon once
where they mention the geek equivalent, nerdvana.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
____________________________________________________________
_____________
Email to Gnus will be rejected: if replying by email, address it to Shez.
(c)Shez asserts the moral rights of authorship under the Berne Convention
Shez
>I had to refuse the biscuits (I'm trying to keep my weight down!) so she
>produced a large bag of Starburst
I see you've been indoctrinated by their american rebadging. You mean
Opal Fruits of course. And Snickers are really marathons, not that it
makes them any less icky.
>and offered me some of them! She
>showed me all the food she'd brought afterwards, you'd be amazed at how
>much someone that thin can eat.
The key is not how much you eat, but remembering to bring it up again.
Since she showed you afterward what she'd been eating, I take it she
did. (That's funny, I seem to recall Jane entering an art contest on a
similar theme.)
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
-- Laurence J. Peter
Shez
>(Note to USA readers, before you diagnose snobbery: "Public school" does
>*not* mean in English English what it means in US English,
Just to add my comments to what is becoming an increasingly confusing
discussion, in the UK "public schools" and "private schools" are one and
the same thing, ie. privately run schools. I think they were called "public"
to distinguish them from church schools, back in the days when there
were no state schools.
Another weird thing is that as I understand it, in most countries going to
a private school has a stigma attached as people are only sent to them
because they're too thick to cope with the normal public (state) schools,
whereas in the UK, going to a private school is the norm for rich kids,
and they see attending a state school as some sort of stigma. Look at
shows like Clueless for instance, they all go to a state school. In the UK
those kids would all be in a private school, simply because their parents
are loaded. But it has to be that way, to preserve the heritage of our
feudal class system. If everyone received equal schooling, our country
would no longer be such an inspiration to the Karl Marx's of the world.
Shez
>Even if you take your break at the desk, without leaving the hall, without
>getting up, without talking to anyone? With the biscuits in a clear plastic
>bag, and the Thermos open to inspection by the invigilator?
I'm sure eating in exams was totally forbidden when I was at school.
Imagine trying to work whilst the person behind you is munching crisps
and slurping coffee. You know, in California it's actually *illegal* to eat
on public transport, never mind being banned in exams! They have all
sorts of weird little laws like that, antisocial behaviour is basically
legislated against there. It's probably a clever ploy though, as then
people who want to rebel against society just do stuff like eating a
hamburger on a bus, whereas over here the equivalent act would be
slashing the seats or something.
Martin Sylvester
Shadoc64 wrote in message <19981129065853...@ng35.aol.com>...
>[...]>
>I'm starting to get curious now, what is the ratio of English to American
>posters here? Originally I was the only English regular, now there's Alli
and a
>few others.
Good question. There's also at least one guy from France. I guess most of us
have web access, so I've cooked up a web-based survey!
Go to http://www.sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk/members/daria/survey.htm to
participate.
endless, nameless
Kyle wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Nov 1998 22:09:32 -0000, "Martin Sylvester"
> <sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >The American writer who goofed had read that Lord X. had agreed to be
> >President of the (English) Public Schools' Ski Club (Association?), and in
> >speculating about His Lordship's motives wrote something like, "We can be
> >certain that Lord X. would not have attended a public school." He was
> >informed that Lord X. had attended a very ancient public school, thank you
> >very much.
> >
>
> Pardon my ethnocultural-centricity (I always wanted to use that word
> in a sentence),
<blank stare> Huh?
> but what does it mean in England?
A school you pay to go to; one of the really exclusive ones that arenot public at all really because
your grandpa has to be in the House
of Lords for you to be accepted, almost.
Alli
endless, nameless
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <36610CEA...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >OFSTED. Ah, yes. We had the inspectors in earlier this year. It's
> quitefunny to
> >see how some teachers react to that. Our Electronics teacher
> >refrained from making his usual racist comments directed at this one
> >American boy in the class, and my French teacher (not the one I
> >mentioned before) managed to remember all his stuff; pens, cassettes,
> >everything. Also, these beautiful displays of students' work suddenly
> >appeared all around the school, and the canteen suddenly decided to
> >have an 'Italian week', ie, they put up posters of places in Italy on the
> >walls and served Spaghetti every day.
>
> LOL! There's little as entertaining as seeing your teachers enter Headless
> Chicken Mode.
Hehehe. I was actually a good little girl for that week, but only because Iknew
I'd be in for it after the Inspectors had gone if I threw ink at the
racist Electronics teacher I mentioned. He wears this white coat, you see,
and it's sometimes very hard to resist squirting ink on people who're
wearing white coats for me, especially when they pick on that American
guy, 'cos I like him....
> I suppose it might mean a bit of variety (Variety? Spaghetti
> every day?) in the canteen once every three years. Did you get yourself a
> copy of the full report and compare it to your own experience? Did the
> inspectors spot the pantomime?
The school were apparently very proud of the report, they sent copieshome to our
parents just to show off. But it was all a load of crap, really.
we did have one teacher who didn't give a crap about OFSTED, he
called one inspecter arrogant and annoying to her face!
>
>
> >> I guess this is not the best time to be discussing the exam system!
> Sorry,
> >> Alli!
> >
> >Yeah, especially as I'm reading messages about exams rather than
> >actually *revising* or anything....better go do some work.....later...
>
> Yep. Last thing you want to do is get it all into perspective. Until the
> exams are over, anyway. 8-)
Hehehe. We've got two tomorrow: English Language, and Physics.English exams are
always the worst, I think. I don't know *how* I
managed to get into set 1 for English, I'm terrible at it!
Alli
Mikel Midnight
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
> Oh, good. But I have stupidly decided to take A levels at my school
> (Maths, Maths Further, Physics, Electronics. Yes, my feminist principles
> are once again rearing their ugly head) so I won't get to go to college,
> 'cos it'll be school only without the uniform.
Er ... why is this feminist? At least, in this day and age? Well, maybe
it still is in the United Kingdom.
In article <xVbZyNAx...@xerez.demon.co.uk>, Shez
<Gn...@xerez.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm sure eating in exams was totally forbidden when I was at school.
> Imagine trying to work whilst the person behind you is munching crisps
> and slurping coffee. You know, in California it's actually *illegal* to eat
> on public transport, never mind being banned in exams! They have all
> sorts of weird little laws like that, antisocial behaviour is basically
> legislated against there. It's probably a clever ploy though, as then
> people who want to rebel against society just do stuff like eating a
> hamburger on a bus, whereas over here the equivalent act would be
> slashing the seats or something.
I am having to use public transport for work into San Francisco right now,
and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) is the worst I have ever been on. It
is exhorbitantly expensive (one day's round trip including bus to and from
the station is $7.50) and the stations are horrendously ugly ... they lack
the sleekness and futurism of Washington D.C.'s Metro, the style of
Detroit's People Mover, or the antique charm of London's Underground.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"She always had a terrific sense of humor" Mikel Midnight
(Valerie Solonas, as described by her mother)
blak...@best.com
__________________________________________________http://www.best.com/~blaklion
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >I
> >haven't seen The New Kid yet, but I know they've shown it. It's on
> >tomorrow, actually.
>
> I realised on watching it just now that I'd seen part of it before, back in
> the days before I was a Daria fan (ie. earlier this year). I like the web
> hits bit at the end. TV without violence just wouldn't be TV.
Yeah. But it can be too much sometimes. Like in the filmCasino, they've got
that guy's head in a fucking *vice*, and
I had no idea if they were actually gonna squish his brains
out or not!
> There seems to be some inconsistency between episodes about who the
> fashion club members think Daria is, last week she was Quinn's "cousin"
> but this week she was just some random girl that Quinn wants to help.
> Are the episodes being shown out of order? I hate it when broadcasters
> shuffle the episodes of a series 'cos they're too ignorant to realise there
> are subtle subplots that progress from week to week.
Yeah, that's really annoying. Who was it who posted what the C5annoncer-person
had been saying to introduce each episode? Well,
today, it was "And now on channel 5, some cartoon fun!" Fun.
Yearbook. Fashion Club. Sure.
>
>
> >> Hey, that reminds me of an episode of some weird TV
> >> series, possibly the Demon Headmaster or something.
> >I haven't seen that, but I'd assume that the name is fairly representative
> >of the show's subject matter.
>
> In the episode in question these prefects (who are under the hypnotic
> control of the headmaster) make a couple of kids stay out in the
> playground without their coats for a couple of hours and clear up all the
> snow, as punishment for wanting to have fun at breaktime.
When we were in year 7, without fail we'd be locked in the LowerSchool building
when the sun was out, and shut in the playground
whenever the temperature dropped below 5 degrees. I never managed
to find any logic in this. Oh, yeah, and when it snowed (the one
winter weather condition that a 12 year old *wants* to be outside for)
we'd be inside again, to prevent us from having any fun, ie snowball fights.
Of course, now we're in year 11, we're allowed to go in the hall or
outside whenever we want, because noone listens to teachers when
you're bigger than they are.
>
>
> >> BTW, what's this "endless, nameless" thing? It sounds like a Taoist or
> >> maybe Buddhist reference.
> >
> >LOL. Yeah, it could be, but it's actually the name of the hidden track
> >onNirvana's Nevermind!
>
> I always thought that was just part of Something In The Way, though I
> did wonder why they downed instruments for 10 minutes in the middle.
> It gives you time to go make a cup of coffee though.
That's a use for a hidden track, I guess.
>
>
> Bjork's Debut is a bit like that, some versions of the album have a
> minute-long countdown at the end followed by an extra track, Play
> Dead, which I think is the best one on the album.
Kenickie (recently deceased) had one on their first album, andit's hilarious!
It's called Montrose Gimps It Up For Charity, and
is basically bassist Emmy-Kate Montrose singing some song
that includes the lines "I've been jumping around the scaffolding
for quite some time now when I saw your pretty face looking
through the windows when you were cleaning the windows....
I like your shoes, I like your groove, so come on!" and all the
other band members standing around laughing.
Or, worse, Ash had one on 1977, which was a recording of
their bassist (what is it with bassists?) vomiting and urinating
all over the floor in a drunken stupor. Lovely.
> I wonder if Nirvana were into buddhism or anything or whether they
> just thought the name was cool.
Neither, apparently. I think they liked it at first, but then got a bit
tired of it, especially when they had to pay out $50 000 to another
Nirvana who were around in the '60s. Courtney Love is a
Buddhist, though, but Nirvana had been Nirvana for several years
before she appeared.
> There was a Dilbert cartoon once
> where they mention the geek equivalent, nerdvana.
I didn't see that. What is Dilbert anyway?
Alli
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Martin Sylvester <sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> >(Note to USA readers, before you diagnose snobbery: "Public school" does
> >*not* mean in English English what it means in US English,
>
> Just to add my comments to what is becoming an increasingly confusing
> discussion, in the UK "public schools" and "private schools" are one and
> the same thing, ie. privately run schools. I think they were called "public"
> to distinguish them from church schools, back in the days when there
> were no state schools.
> Another weird thing is that as I understand it, in most countries going to
> a private school has a stigma attached as people are only sent to them
> because they're too thick to cope with the normal public (state) schools,
> whereas in the UK, going to a private school is the norm for rich kids,
> and they see attending a state school as some sort of stigma. Look at
> shows like Clueless for instance, they all go to a state school. In the UK
> those kids would all be in a private school, simply because their parents
> are loaded.
Where my cousin (no, not my brother) lives, they still have grammarschools and
those exams you take when you're 11 to see if you can
go to one. So, my cousin totally fails his exam, and can't go to grammar
school. Big fuss from his parents. I forget whether they managed to get
him into grammar school now, but they sort of went mad about it. I think
they're sort of the posh type, they have horses and stuff, so their son
*had* to go to a good school. Me, I just went to the local state school.
My mother went to grammar school and hated it. She refused to even
consider sending me to this nearby all-girls school because it reminded
her too much of her old school.
> But it has to be that way, to preserve the heritage of our
> feudal class system.
Which is possibly the most ridiculous thing about this country.
> If everyone received equal schooling, our country
> would no longer be such an inspiration to the Karl Marx's of the world.
>
Very true.
You know, I thought that when Labour got into power,
they might be a little bit socialist, you know, because they
were supposed to be the workers' party, but no, they go
and introduce tuition fees for Universities, ensuring that
many people I know will be denied the education they
could otherwise have had, like my friends Karen and
Wendy. Their older sister will go to Uni, but they can't
because they're twins, and they have a brother who's
only a little younger than them, and there's no way most
people could afford to put four kids through Uni at the
same time. So I sometimes think this country could use
a Karl Marx.
Alli
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >I had to refuse the biscuits (I'm trying to keep my weight down!) so she
> >produced a large bag of Starburst
>
> I see you've been indoctrinated by their american rebadging. You mean
> Opal Fruits of course. And Snickers are really marathons, not that it
> makes them any less icky.
I think Opal Fruits was a much better name. And Iremember being, like, 5
years old, and we did this
mini-marathon thing at school (for charity, I think)
and afterwards our teacher said, "We were going to
give you all Marathon bars now, but they were
renamed a week ago, so you can all have a Snickers
instead." We were all quite annoyed, 'cos Snickers
is such a crap name, but we ate them anyway. It's
funny how you can remember things like that from
over 10 years ago.
> >and offered me some of them! She
> >showed me all the food she'd brought afterwards, you'd be amazed at how
> >much someone that thin can eat.
>
> The key is not how much you eat, but remembering to bring it up again.
> Since she showed you afterward what she'd been eating, I take it she
> did.
No, I meant she showed me all the empty sweet wrappers!Bulimia is much more
likely to affect me, she's not worried
in the slightest about her weight. I don't know why I'm
worried about my weight, I'm only 90 pounds.
> (That's funny, I seem to recall Jane entering an art contest on a
> similar theme.)
Maybe I should have done that for my Art exam.I could have just puked all
over a sheet of paper,
and said I was influenced by Pollock or something.
Who was it who cut up sheep and put them in
formaldehyde? I guess if that's art, so's vomiting.
In fact, cutting up sheep would definitely make me
vomit.
Alli
endless, nameless
Mikel Midnight wrote:
> In article <3660E7C6...@vossnet.co.uk>, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Oh, good. But I have stupidly decided to take A levels at my school
> > (Maths, Maths Further, Physics, Electronics. Yes, my feminist principles
> > are once again rearing their ugly head) so I won't get to go to college,
> > 'cos it'll be school only without the uniform.
>
> Er ... why is this feminist? At least, in this day and age? Well, maybe
> it still is in the United Kingdom.
I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
where you are and whether you're male or female, but
I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
at GCSE, let alone A level.
>
>
>
> In article <xVbZyNAx...@xerez.demon.co.uk>, Shez
> <Gn...@xerez.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > I'm sure eating in exams was totally forbidden when I was at school.
> > Imagine trying to work whilst the person behind you is munching crisps
> > and slurping coffee. You know, in California it's actually *illegal* to eat
> > on public transport, never mind being banned in exams! They have all
> > sorts of weird little laws like that, antisocial behaviour is basically
> > legislated against there. It's probably a clever ploy though, as then
> > people who want to rebel against society just do stuff like eating a
> > hamburger on a bus, whereas over here the equivalent act would be
> > slashing the seats or something.
>
> I am having to use public transport for work into San Francisco right now,
> and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) is the worst I have ever been on. It
> is exhorbitantly expensive (one day's round trip including bus to and from
> the station is $7.50) and the stations are horrendously ugly ... they lack
> the sleekness and futurism of Washington D.C.'s Metro, the style of
> Detroit's People Mover, or the antique charm of London's Underground.
Charm? London Underground? LOL!
Nah, it's not too bad. Just a little dirty.
And those map thingies are really confusing.
Alli
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3661D671...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>
>
>Martin Sylvester wrote:
>> LOL! There's little as entertaining as seeing your teachers enter
Headless
>> Chicken Mode.
>
>Hehehe. I was actually a good little girl for that week, but only because
Iknew
>I'd be in for it after the Inspectors had gone if I threw ink at the
>racist Electronics teacher I mentioned. He wears this white coat, you see,
>and it's sometimes very hard to resist squirting ink on people who're
>wearing white coats
Do you have a bad memory related to people in white coats? <g>
>for me, especially when they pick on that American
>guy, 'cos I like him....
Vavavavoom? (Sorry!)
>The school were apparently very proud of the report, they sent copieshome
to our
>parents just to show off.
'Tain't necessarily so. They're legally obliged to send a copy of the
summary report to every parent, and to tell the parents that they can demand
a copy of the complete report.
>we did have one teacher who didn't give a crap about OFSTED, he
>called one inspecter arrogant and annoying to her face!
Fine example. No, really! Commendable: (i) refusing to be intimidated by
someone with power and (ii) choosing to be upfront instead of bitching about
her behind her back. (Not commendable: giving in to impatience?)
>Hehehe. We've got two tomorrow: English Language, and Physics.English exams
are
>always the worst, I think. I don't know *how* I
>managed to get into set 1 for English, I'm terrible at it!
That would have been a dream day for me, English and Physics. They put me in
advanced maths, and I could never work out why. Especially when I got the
O/A result (O/As were an exam at sixteen pitched somehere between O level -
GCSE A to C - and A level).
Good luck, Alli.
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <3661EFCE...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
>before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
>female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
>where you are and whether you're male or female, but
>I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
>at GCSE, let alone A level.
Do you have the Girls into Engineering Challenge where you are? One of the
schools I govern has a great record of success in this.
Kyle
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> But it has to be that way, to preserve the heritage of our
>> feudal class system.
>
>Which is possibly the most ridiculous thing about this country.
>
Trust me, there are plenty more ridiculous things about Britain.
Shez
>> hits bit at the end. TV without violence just wouldn't be TV.
>
>Yeah. But it can be too much sometimes. Like in the filmCasino, they've got
>that guy's head in a fucking *vice*
But as they said on the Fry & Laurie show once, "You could take the
sex and violence out of TV, but where would you put it?"
>Fun.Yearbook. Fashion Club. Sure.
School Yearbooks are another of those curious American things. I
never knew what one was until recently. Angela Chase summed it up
pretty well in the My So-Called Life yearbook episode when she tells
her teacher why she doesn't want to be involved with the yearbook:
"People make this book, to supposedly remember what happened.
But in fact they put in what was supposed to happen,
because if you made a book of what *really* happened,
it would be a really upsetting book."
>When we were in year 7, without fail we'd be locked in the LowerSchool
>building
>when the sun was out, and shut in the playground
>whenever the temperature dropped below 5 degrees. I never managed
>to find any logic in this.
Power. Power corrupts. It brings out the sadist in people. I think
teachers fall into two categories, those misguided souls who want to
indoctrinate the nation's youth to make the world a better place; and
those who enjoy the sense of absolute power that comes from being in
charge of people who are much smaller and weaker than they are.
> I didn't see that. What is Dilbert anyway?
A comic strip about office life (at some software company IIRC). I
think there's a daily or weekly web version though I don't know the
URL. It's sindicated in some computer magazines and newspapers
though. Dilbert also has a dog called Dogbert, in fact I think it was the
dog that coined the term "nerdvana". It's sort of a Calvin & Hobbes for
grownups in a way (always supposing C&H aren't for grownups).
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she
meets and then teams up with three complete stangers to kill again.
-- TV listing for The Wizard of Oz
Shez
*rumblepurrs* writes:
>I am having to use public transport for work into San Francisco right now,
>and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) is the worst I have ever been on. It
>is exhorbitantly expensive (one day's round trip including bus to and from
>the station is $7.50) and the stations are horrendously ugly
That's the sort of prices we have to pay in London too. The difference
is that in SF you can (or could when I was there) rides the buses for $1
a round trip, which is a fraction of what I have to pay. For the
equivalent of $1 you can travel precisely one stop in London.
It amazed me to discover that the fabled "land of the car", where even
schoolkids seem to have their own transport, actually had a much better
and much cheaper public transport system than we had.
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
_____________
Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >> hits bit at the end. TV without violence just wouldn't be TV.
> >
> >Yeah. But it can be too much sometimes. Like in the filmCasino, they've got
> >that guy's head in a fucking *vice*
>
> But as they said on the Fry & Laurie show once, "You could take the
> sex and violence out of TV, but where would you put it?"
That's a very good.point.
But still, some is fine. But not too much.
>
>
> >Fun.Yearbook. Fashion Club. Sure.
>
> School Yearbooks are another of those curious American things. I
> never knew what one was until recently. Angela Chase summed it up
> pretty well in the My So-Called Life yearbook episode when she tells
> her teacher why she doesn't want to be involved with the yearbook:
>
> "People make this book, to supposedly remember what happened.
> But in fact they put in what was supposed to happen,
> because if you made a book of what *really* happened,
> it would be a really upsetting book."
LOL. I never understood the concept of the yearbook. And
the prom. What's with that? There's so much that could go
wrong, I mean, what if you can't get a date? Then you can't
go. What if you can't afford to buy good clothes? It's just....
stupid. Pointless, really. Why have all these things to
remember your high school years when they were the worst
years of your life? We just got a crappy photo of the whole
year together. Oh, yeah, and on the last day of school there's
this sort of ritual where everyone signs everyone else's shirt.
I've still got mine from when I left primary school, it's got all
these signatures of people I haven't spoken to for five years.
Someone wrote "Guns 'n' Roses Rule!!!" accross the back,
which is kinda depressing, I always hated Guns 'n' Roses.
>
>
> >When we were in year 7, without fail we'd be locked in the LowerSchool
> >building
> >when the sun was out, and shut in the playground
> >whenever the temperature dropped below 5 degrees. I never managed
> >to find any logic in this.
>
> Power. Power corrupts. It brings out the sadist in people. I think
> teachers fall into two categories, those misguided souls who want to
> indoctrinate the nation's youth to make the world a better place; and
> those who enjoy the sense of absolute power that comes from being in
> charge of people who are much smaller and weaker than they are.
Ah, but most of the older students are both bigger and strongerthan the
teachers. And it's amusing when I get told off by a
teacher who, with her four-inch heels on, is still a good 6 inches
shorter than me. Hehehehe.
>
>
> > I didn't see that. What is Dilbert anyway?
>
> A comic strip about office life (at some software company IIRC). I
> think there's a daily or weekly web version though I don't know the
> URL. It's sindicated in some computer magazines and newspapers
> though. Dilbert also has a dog called Dogbert, in fact I think it was the
> dog that coined the term "nerdvana". It's sort of a Calvin & Hobbes for
> grownups in a way (always supposing C&H aren't for grownups).
I'll have to watch that. :)
Alli
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <3661D671...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >
> >
> >Martin Sylvester wrote:
> >> LOL! There's little as entertaining as seeing your teachers enter
> Headless
> >> Chicken Mode.
> >
> >Hehehe. I was actually a good little girl for that week, but only because
> Iknew
> >I'd be in for it after the Inspectors had gone if I threw ink at the
> >racist Electronics teacher I mentioned. He wears this white coat, you see,
> >and it's sometimes very hard to resist squirting ink on people who're
> >wearing white coats
>
> Do you have a bad memory related to people in white coats? <g>
Possibly. But actually, it's more to do with wanting to
be four years old again, you know, like when your
parents had just decorated, and you scribbled all over
the walls? You must have done that at least once, I'm
sure everyone has. I can't possibly be the only one.
>
>
> >for me, especially when they pick on that American
> >guy, 'cos I like him....
>
> Vavavavoom? (Sorry!)
Shut up! :)
>
>
> >The school were apparently very proud of the report, they sent copieshome
> to our
> >parents just to show off.
>
> 'Tain't necessarily so. They're legally obliged to send a copy of the
> summary report to every parent, and to tell the parents that they can demand
> a copy of the complete report.
>
> >we did have one teacher who didn't give a crap about OFSTED, he
> >called one inspecter arrogant and annoying to her face!
>
> Fine example. No, really! Commendable: (i) refusing to be intimidated by
> someone with power and (ii) choosing to be upfront instead of bitching about
> her behind her back. (Not commendable: giving in to impatience?)
I wasn't there, but I'm told it was because she was trying to
tell him how to teach his form or something, and he got annoyed.
I find that strange, he's not usually too irritable, so I think he
just did it to make his class laugh.
>
>
> >Hehehe. We've got two tomorrow: English Language, and Physics.English exams
> are
> >always the worst, I think. I don't know *how* I
> >managed to get into set 1 for English, I'm terrible at it!
>
> That would have been a dream day for me, English and Physics. They put me in
> advanced maths, and I could never work out why. Especially when I got the
> O/A result (O/As were an exam at sixteen pitched somehere between O level -
> GCSE A to C - and A level).
Physics, I can do. English, no. For some reason, I've alwaysbeen very good at
the subjects that boys are generally better
at, and bad at the ones that girls are supposed to be good at.
For example, I was crap at Textiles and HE, but good at
Electronics and Physics. Strange. Sort of.
>
>
> Good luck, Alli.
Thanks. I'm gonna need it!
Alli
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <3661EFCE...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
> >before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
> >female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
> >where you are and whether you're male or female, but
> >I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
> >at GCSE, let alone A level.
>
> Do you have the Girls into Engineering Challenge where you are? One of the
> schools I govern has a great record of success in this.
I don't know. They did basically force me to do Electronicsat first, but I
took it upon myself to get a reasonable grade
when Vayia decided she was more of a cookery person.
Alli
endless, nameless
Kyle wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Nov 1998 16:05:23 -0800, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >> But it has to be that way, to preserve the heritage of our
> >> feudal class system.
> >
> >Which is possibly the most ridiculous thing about this country.
> >
>
> Trust me, there are plenty more ridiculous things about Britain.
There are an infinite number of ridiculous things about Britain.But there are good ones, like the fact
that here, everyone gets
free medical care to a reasonable standard, and free education.
Not all countries have these. But Britain would be a lot nicer if it
wasn't so bloody cold all the time!
Alli
Eccles9697
>had been saying to introduce each episode? Well,
>today, it was "And now on channel 5, some cartoon fun!" Fun.
>Yearbook. Fashion Club. Sure.
But without annoying BBC announcers, Monty Python would have missed out on
making about half their jokes on Flying Circus.
Always looking on the bright side of life (is that allowed on this newsgroup?),
Dagny
Visit the Parsley Firefly
http://members.aol.com/Eccles9697
Monty Python, Spike Milligan, Marx Brothers and More!
"One must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you
still have chaos in you." Friedrich Nietzsche
Eccles9697
I think that's a requirement. I got lost on the New York Subway because the map
was confusing. Well, lost may be a little strong since it was always quite
clear where we were cuz of the little sign things, we just couldn't figure out
how to get where we were going and went back and forth between two stops about
10 times. But we eventually got where we were going.
Progbear
Mikel Midnight wrote:
>I am having to use public transport for work into San Francisco right now,
>and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) is the worst I have ever been on. It
>is exhorbitantly expensive (one day's round trip including bus to and from
>the station is $7.50) and the stations are horrendously ugly ... they lack
>the sleekness and futurism of Washington D.C.'s Metro, the style of
>Detroit's People Mover, or the antique charm of London's Underground.
Hey, I like BART! But then, I've had my whole life to get used to it. It
is expensive, though, but where else can you watch nude sunbathers from your
train car (actually happened once, when passing an apartment rooftop in Albany
or El Cerrito somewhere). Anyway, if you don't like BART, you won't like
Vancouver's Sky Train or Atlanta's MARTA, both of which have similar (nearly
identical in the case of MARTA) design.
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
make GEORYN disappear to reply
"'Where do you get your ideas from, Ms. Le Guin?' From forgetting Dostoyevsky
and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?" --Ursula K. Le Guin
N.P.:"Pulse Piece"- B i r d s o n g s o f t h e M e s o z o i c / S o n i c
G e o l o g y
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Slimline Alli writes:
> >No, I meant she showed me all the empty sweet wrappers!Bulimia is much
> >more
> >likely to affect me, she's not worried
> >in the slightest about her weight. I don't know why I'm
> >worried about my weight, I'm only 90 pounds.
>
> Of course, 90 pounds could well be overweight, provided you're under
> 1 metre tall.
LOL! Nah, I'm about 5'5''. I think that's 1m 65cm.
> Most weight problems can be fixed by simply stretching a
> person until they reach a socially approved height : weight ratio.
> I think Gail Porter is the same weight as you, and people keep saying
> she looks like she needs feeding up. (They probably don't say it to her
> face though, as apparently she's a black belt in karate.)
Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they said
I needed feeding up!
>
>
> You know, it's funny how the dieting industry hasn't gone metric but
> sticks with pounds and calories instead of kilos and joules. You'd think
> they'd be attracted to the improved numbers: in metric units you can eat
> over 4 times as much and yet be under half the weight!
I've never been able to cope with calorie-counting, allthose numbers, it's
much too confusing!
>
>
> >Who was it who cut up sheep and put them in
> >formaldehyde? I guess if that's art, so's vomiting.
> >In fact, cutting up sheep would definitely make me
> >vomit.
>
> That would be Damien Hirst. I like to think of him as bringing taxidermy
> up to date. Why stuff when you can pickle? I think people overlook the
> fact that taxidermy is an art form, they basically have to rebuild the
> animal from just its skin. The trouble is both stuffed animals and pickled
> ones lose their novelty pretty quickly; Hirst needs to find a new idea as
> once you've seen one sheep in formaldehyde you've seen them all (even
> if some of them are cows or sharks).
Yeah, it's all the same. And it's all gross. It's all a bit like
dissection in Biology class.
Alli
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >Where my cousin (no, not my brother) lives,
>
> That's what you say anyway.
Hehehe. No, he is my cousin. Most of the time I wish he wasn't,
but he is. I wish I could say that my brother is only my cousin,
but he looks just like me, so it wouldn't work.
>
>
> >> If everyone received equal schooling, our country
> >> would no longer be such an inspiration to the Karl Marx's of the world.
> >. So I sometimes think this country could use
> >a Karl Marx.
>
> Well he's still here, but he doesn't do much anymore aside from pushing
> up the daisies in Highgate Cemetery. There's always Ken Livingstone of
> course, if his own side don't do him in. It's pretty shocking that labour
> seem to want to sabotage their best chance to win the mayor of London
> election, I mean Ken's a shoo in for the job. I guess it's that labour have
> ended up being as rabidly anti-socialist as the tories are.
More so, I think. They're just finishing off what Thatcherwas out to do.
> Oh well, at
> least they're going to get rid of all those leftovers from the Norman
> Conquest that sit in the House of Lords.
Hehehe. I always think that it's kinda ironic that thiscountry is run by people
whose only claim to peerage
is that their great-grandmother was a prostitute and
had an illegitemate child by by a prince or something.
> Brittany was totally wired in the paintball episode. I wonder if they were
> trying to tell us that military types are just jinogistic airheads, like
> cheerleaders? That was the only way I could make sense of it, apart
> from perhaps the subtle message that people can't be pigeonholed and
> may turn out to have surprising talents.
I never thought of that. I'm not one to look for messages inthings. I just work
on the theory that life is stupid and pointless
and everything has a message which is that life is stupid and
pointless.
Martin Sylvester
endless, nameless wrote in message <36623E3D...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they
said
>I needed feeding up!
If it happens again, Alli, let me know and I'll send you a pre-paid jiffy
bag. Ah, go on!
I can offer to eat the chocolate for you because I have the secret of
successful weight management. (Buy bigger trousers.) And no, I'm not
overweight. Just two-and-a-half inches underheight. 8-)
Favourit...@my-dejanews.com
"endless, nameless" <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > ... I guess it's that labour have
> > ended up being as rabidly anti-socialist as the tories are.
>
> More so, I think. They're just finishing off what Thatcherwas out to do.
The two main parties in the House of Commons are the Tory party, and the Tony
party. What's the difference?
> > Brittany was totally wired in the paintball episode. I wonder if they were
> > trying to tell us that military types are just jinogistic airheads, like
> > cheerleaders? That was the only way I could make sense of it, apart
> > from perhaps the subtle message that people can't be pigeonholed and
> > may turn out to have surprising talents.
>
> I never thought of that. I'm not one to look for messages inthings. I just
work
> on the theory that life is stupid and pointless
> and everything has a message which is that life is stupid and
> pointless.
Life isn't stupid and pointless. It's just pointless. So you might as well
find something constructive to do in the meantime, and give it a point.
If you look hard enough you'll find meanings in things...
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Mikel Midnight
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
> I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
> before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
> female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
> where you are and whether you're male or female, but
> I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
> at GCSE, let alone A level.
Actually I know quite a few female electronic engineers, but I live in
Silicon Valley, so perhaps have an unrepresentative sampling ...
> Charm? London Underground? LOL!
> Nah, it's not too bad. Just a little dirty.
> And those map thingies are really confusing.
OK, at least comparative charm. And the maps are less confusing then the
ones in BART which are often out of date ... I once missed a train because
the map that was in the station didn't show an extension which had been
built.
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >> But as they said on the Fry & Laurie show once, "You could take the
> >> sex and violence out of TV, but where would you put it?"
> >
> >That's a very good.point.
> >But still, some is fine. But not too much.
>
> I don't really like violent shows, but the idea of Daria hitting Qiunn 3000
> times appealed to me somehow.
Yeah. Do you have younger siblings? I've got a 12 year oldbrother, and I'd like
to hit him 3000 times.
> But if Daria went on a killing frenzy in the local mall with a
> machine gun, I suspect I'd probably enjoy it, especially if she had the
> members of Fashion Club in her sights.
Oh yeah. I can imagine why that would be fun.
>
>
> >> "People make this book, to supposedly remember what happened.
> >> But in fact they put in what was supposed to happen,
> >> because if you made a book of what *really* happened,
> >> it would be a really upsetting book."
> >
> >LOL. I never understood the concept of the yearbook.
>
> Did you not see My So-Called Life then? C4 repeated it during the
> summer holidays a year ago. It completely blew me away, it was so
> exactly like I remembered school, I suddenly realised it was the only
> true to life high school drama I'd ever seen. It's chock full of great
> observations like the one above. Along with Twin Peaks I reckon it's
> one of the best drama series ever. Sadly it was cancelled after one
> season.
Why did they cancel it? I watched it when it was first on,but I was about 12
and I didn't really get it then. But thinking
back, some of it is so true to life, "I bet it's possible to die of
embarrasment. I bet it's been medically proven," or whatever
she said. That was so annoying that it got cancelled.
>
>
> >the prom. What's with that? There's so much that could go
> >wrong, I mean, what if you can't get a date? Then you can't
> >go. What if you can't afford to buy good clothes? It's just....
> >stupid.
>
> There was a great Molly Ringwald film about proms, "Pretty In Pink".
> She played her usual semi-suicidal character who wasn't invited to the
> prom or something but gets there in the end. (I wonder what happened
> to her - she was pretty much on par with Winona Ryder at the time, but
> seems to have sunk without trace.) Then of course there's Carrie, that
> recently got repeated on UK tv. Without the perennial angst of the
> prom, there'd be a lot fewer decent films around, that's for sure.
> As if the prospect of going to a prom wasn't bad enough, without having
> a bucket of pig's blood dropped on your head!
Ah, I saw Carrie. I mentioned it here not long ago. Actually,the bit I found
most disturbing was Carrie getting locked in
that little room by her mother - that hit much too close to home
for me. That thing with the pig's blood, I was just waiting for
them to pull the rope and it took so long! Suspense is sooo
annoying sometimes. But it would have been a worse movie
without the suspense.
Alli
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> endless, nameless wrote in message <36623E3D...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they
> said
> >I needed feeding up!
>
> If it happens again, Alli, let me know and I'll send you a pre-paid jiffy
> bag. Ah, go on!
OK then!It was one of my friends' birhtday today. We'd all bought
him chocolate, because what the fuck do men want for their
birhtday? It's so hard to find presents for them that aren't just
a big bar of Dairy Milk. He does need feeding too, though.
That's 'cos his mother gives him money to buy lunch, and he
keeps it, he just scabs food off everyone else. I don't know
what he does with the money, probably buys fags after school
or something.
>
>
> I can offer to eat the chocolate for you because I have the secret of
> successful weight management. (Buy bigger trousers.)
I have a problem finding trousers that fit, because notmany shops sell them in
a size 6 (that's not the same as
a US size 6, I don't think) with a 32 or 34 inch leg.
They seem to think that the only people who're a size 6
are really short, which I guess figures, sorta.
> And no, I'm not
> overweight. Just two-and-a-half inches underheight. 8-)
I must be overheight, then. That sounds better than 'skinny'. :)
Alli
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli scribbled:
> > it's more to do with wanting to
> >be four years old again, you know, like when your
> >parents had just decorated, and you scribbled all over
> >the walls? You must have done that at least once, I'm
> >sure everyone has. I can't possibly be the only one.
>
> Let's face it, you are. No-one I know ever scribbled on walls when they
> were a child, not a single one.
That can't be true! Come on, has noone here done that?I was a terrible child, I
really was. That wall/crayon/scribbling
incident was one of many very very bad things I did. It
was 'cos my mother was busy and I wanted attention
and I decided to get revenge by adding my own decorations
to the newly-painted walls. Another one: I was about two.
We were staying in some hotel, we'd just arrived, and my
parents had turned their backs for about 30 seconds, and in that
time I had taken the hotel room telephone to pieces and was
in the process of scatteriing its remains all over the room.
Oh, and another: when I was at play group, I took all the
brand-new felt-tipped pens and dipped the drawring end in
glue, ruining the lot of them. Then, I wandered off and looked
innocent when the teacher questioned us about the pens.
> They were all polite and well behaved
> and only applied their crayons to paper, neither using them to draw on
> walls, nor eating them.
I never ate crayons. I may have force-fed them to mybrother at some time, but I
don't think I ever ate them
myself.
>
>
> >Physics, I can do.
>
> With Physics it's easy to work out the stuff you can't remember, which
> is why I was better at it than Chemistry (although Chemistry was more
> fun) as in Chem. there were more facts to learn and few universally
> applicable laws.
I don't like Chemistry. Biology's worse, our teacher is soooboring, she just
repeats everything she says about 50 times.
For Physics, we've got a really good teacher who gets us to
learn stuff by telling us these little anecdotes and talking about
his mad grandmother and his wife and kids and stuff, which
sounds like it would be very boring but is actually truly hilarious
the way he tells it. And, oddly enough, he manages to relate
most of it to what he's trying to teach, and I'm never quite sure
how.
>
>
> >English, no.
>
> The only time I got an 'A' for an short story, the teacher practically
> accused me of cheating. My essay got in the school magazine, but
> although I won a prize for it, I always had this nagging feeling that it was
> only published in the hope of flushing out who "really" wrote it. I think
> he thought it was written by, you know, ... this older person I sort of
> knew ... who was a couple of years above me at school ... and who
> was very good at writing stories.
I've never been accused of cheating, possibly because myessays are so appallingly
bad that I'd have had to have got
my 12 year old brother to do them for me, and noone on
earth would be dumb enough to do that!
> In fact what had happened was I'd finally found out how to write cool
> stuff, which was basically to do a stream of conciousness, which was
> ideally suited to the topic we'd been set, namely daydreaming. It was
> my attempt to use the surrealist automatic writing method, and it
> worked well, whereas when I'd tried writing stories properly by
> working out plots and so on they always ended up really crap and
> would get me maybe a 'C'.
My teacher usually refuses to even mark my essays.
She's got this really high-pitched Scottish voice, and she
sort of screeches at me so the whole class can hear.
"Take it back! It's rubbish! I can't even mark this, if you
wrote this in the exam you'd fail! It's terrible! Here, do it
again!" Of course, I always do better in the exam, because
it's, like, you've got adrenaline or something. With non-exam
things, it's like, you've got 8 weeks to do this so I just leave
it until the last minute. You can't do that in the exam! It's
*all* the last minute!
Alli
endless, nameless
Favourit...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <366242E5...@vossnet.co.uk>,
> "endless, nameless" <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > ... I guess it's that labour have
> > > ended up being as rabidly anti-socialist as the tories are.
> >
> > More so, I think. They're just finishing off what Thatcherwas out to do.
>
> The two main parties in the House of Commons are the Tory party, and the Tony
> party. What's the difference?
Anyone ever see that Harry Enfield & Chums ChristmasSpecial, or whatever it was?
Tory Boy turning into....Tony
Boy! It's quite funny how easy it is to imitate politicians,
but on the other hand, it's quite disturbing that the country
is being run by a Spitting Image puppet.
> If you look hard enough you'll find meanings in things...
If you have an electron microscope or extremely twistedjudgement, that is. :)
Alli
endless, nameless
Mikel Midnight wrote:
> In article <3661EFCE...@vossnet.co.uk>, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
> > before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
> > female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
> > where you are and whether you're male or female, but
> > I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
> > at GCSE, let alone A level.
>
> Actually I know quite a few female electronic engineers, but I live in
> Silicon Valley, so perhaps have an unrepresentative sampling ...
Possibly. I just know that I'm the only girl in myElectronics class, and that last
year there was only
1 girl did an Electronics GCSE, and that they had to
initially force me to take Electronics, I only got
annoyed about the gender issues when I found out
that I was the only girl. Also, after sitting through
1 lesson I was pretty pissed off about the general
attitude of everyone else there towards me, the
teacher made some comments (I forget what exactly)
and I got pretty tired of hearing jokes like:
Q. What do you do if your dish-washer breaks down?
A. Slap the bitch.
>
>
> > Charm? London Underground? LOL!
> > Nah, it's not too bad. Just a little dirty.
> > And those map thingies are really confusing.
>
> OK, at least comparative charm. And the maps are less confusing then the
> ones in BART which are often out of date ... I once missed a train because
> the map that was in the station didn't show an extension which had been
> built.
The main problem I have with the London Undergroundmaps is that they use colours
like black, dark brown, dark
purple, grey, and those are all pretty close to the colour of
the dirt. And they have, like, three different shades of orange
or something as well, making it pretty hard to identify which
line is which.
Alli
mike...@my-dejanews.com
blak...@best.outdamnspam.com (Mikel Midnight) wrote:
> In article <3661EFCE...@vossnet.co.uk>, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
> > before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
> > female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
> > where you are and whether you're male or female, but
> > I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
> > at GCSE, let alone A level.
>
> Actually I know quite a few female electronic engineers, but I live in
> Silicon Valley, so perhaps have an unrepresentative sampling ...
I'm graduating in May from An Eltrical Engineering program, and about 15% of
my graduating class are female(4 out of 26). And to respond to Alli, they are
all ranked very high grade average wise(they're all in the top half of the
class- that's got to mean something). Maybe the reason they do better is
because they want to take the courses in this area as opposed to another(I'm
saying maybe you just don't know the girls that take Electronics).
--
Mike Quinn
I can be reached through e-mail at:
mqui...@student.villanova.edu
Martin Sylvester
Alli wrote in message <36632751...@vossnet.co.uk>...>
>Martin Sylvester wrote:
>> I can offer to eat the chocolate for you because I have the secret of
>> successful weight management. (Buy bigger trousers.)
>I have a problem finding trousers that fit, because notmany shops sell them
in
>a size 6 (that's not the same as
>a US size 6, I don't think) with a 32 or 34 inch leg.
>They seem to think that the only people who're a size 6
>are really short, which I guess figures, sorta.
Yes, there is a limited range of sizes for taller people. The thing that
bugs me is jackets: the best bargains always turn out to be only in medium
height fitting. Sometimes try them on anyway, hope triumphing over
experience, to have a good laugh at the sight of four inches of wrist
visible where the sleeve ends.
>> And no, I'm not
>> overweight. Just two-and-a-half inches underheight. 8-)
>
>I must be overheight, then. That sounds better than 'skinny'. :)
This may not last. I used to be able to stoke away the food without gaining
any weight at all (I know you're choosing to watch the weight, but I can't
see why). Once went back to visit Nottingham Playhouse (where I'd appeared
in some plays) and the wardrobe lady showed me my entry in her book: skinny
build, 28 inch waist, 6ft tall... Things had changed.
Sometime when I was round about 22 years old, somebody snuck in as I
slept, opened up an access panel, and turned on the weight gain switch...
<g>
Martin Sylvester
Alli aka endless, nameless wrote in message
<36632D7A...@vossnet.co.uk>...
[...]
>We were staying in some hotel, we'd just arrived, and my
>parents had turned their backs for about 30 seconds, and in that
>time I had taken the hotel room telephone to pieces and was
>in the process of scatteriing its remains all over the room.
First demonstration of your interest in electronics!
My brother gave me a battery, some bits of wire, a bell, some bulbs and so
on to play with when I was four, or younger. Paper clips made great
switches. I got really excited when I got a relay to play with. Wired up a
contraption with it, to sound, and keep sounding, a bell, when anything came
through the letterbox. The flap completed the circuit when it brushed
against a wired drawing pin. Didn't bother to tell anyone else about it
(it'll be a nice surprise), and they'd not had chance to spot it before the
postman came. Blue flash, nice inductive kick from the relay coil, postman
leapt back, bell starting ringing (and only I knew how to turn it off), and
parents (may they rest in peace) started wondering if they'd ever have a
postal delivery again.
Happydude
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Martin Sylvester wrote:
>> endless, nameless wrote in message <36623E3D...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>> >Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they
>> said
>> >I needed feeding up!
>> If it happens again, Alli, let me know and I'll send you a pre-paid jiffy
>> bag. Ah, go on!
>OK then!It was one of my friends' birhtday today. We'd all bought
>him chocolate, because what the fuck do men want for their
>birhtday?
Men want Ibanez Tube Screamer distortion pedals, or maybe it's just me
> It's so hard to find presents for them that aren't just
>a big bar of Dairy Milk.
How about a Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb & Delay. On second thought give
him the chocolate and keep the pedals for yourself :)
Musicians are easy to shop for, guitarists especially, just buy them
some strings or some effect pedals.
>probably buys fags after school or something.
I wish I were a brit just so I can say things like that and get away
with it.
-
Oh! that's a meat thermometer?
Well I don't have a fever, that's
for sure.
-Ben Katz
Martin Sylvester
Happydude wrote in message <3662cc1c...@news.magicnet.net>...
LOL! First public schools, now fags (which has *three* different meanings in
English English, all of which differ from the meaning in US English). All it
needs now is for someone to mention fannies.
I promise that, to give others a chance, I'll try to sit back for 24 hours
before answering any "So what does it mean, then?" questions.
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> Alli wrote in message <36632751...@vossnet.co.uk>...>
> >Martin Sylvester wrote:
> >> I can offer to eat the chocolate for you because I have the secret of
> >> successful weight management. (Buy bigger trousers.)
> >I have a problem finding trousers that fit, because notmany shops sell them
> in
> >a size 6 (that's not the same as
> >a US size 6, I don't think) with a 32 or 34 inch leg.
> >They seem to think that the only people who're a size 6
> >are really short, which I guess figures, sorta.
>
> Yes, there is a limited range of sizes for taller people. The thing that
> bugs me is jackets: the best bargains always turn out to be only in medium
> height fitting. Sometimes try them on anyway, hope triumphing over
> experience, to have a good laugh at the sight of four inches of wrist
> visible where the sleeve ends.
>
> >> And no, I'm not
> >> overweight. Just two-and-a-half inches underheight. 8-)
> >
> >I must be overheight, then. That sounds better than 'skinny'. :)
>
> This may not last. I used to be able to stoke away the food without gaining
> any weight at all (I know you're choosing to watch the weight, but I can't
> see why).
Nor can I really. I think it's just fear of being fat, like if I'mskinny, then
noone can call me names because I'm too big,
and I can say to other people "at least I'm not fat!" if they
piss me off. I don't do that very often, though, because it's
either not effective at all, like if they aren't bothered by their
weight, or it's too effective, and they, like, go bulimic or
something. I wouldn't wish an eating disorder on my worst
enemy, it's horrible when you see people who're just wasting
away, and it must be really frustrating for their families.
There's a Manic Street Preachers song called 4st 7lb, that's
about anorexia, "I wanna be so skinny I rot from view" or
something like that. I forget how it goes.
> Once went back to visit Nottingham Playhouse (where I'd appeared
> in some plays) and the wardrobe lady showed me my entry in her book: skinny
> build, 28 inch waist, 6ft tall... Things had changed.
>
> Sometime when I was round about 22 years old, somebody snuck in as I
> slept, opened up an access panel, and turned on the weight gain switch...
> <g>
Hehehehe. My dad won't admit that he's put on weight.
He just says his trousers have all shrunk over the past
few years. We're all like, suuuure....
Alli
endless, nameless
Happydude wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:16:34 -0800, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Martin Sylvester wrote:
>
> >> endless, nameless wrote in message <36623E3D...@vossnet.co.uk>...
> >> >Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they
> >> said
> >> >I needed feeding up!
>
> >> If it happens again, Alli, let me know and I'll send you a pre-paid jiffy
> >> bag. Ah, go on!
>
> >OK then!It was one of my friends' birhtday today. We'd all bought
> >him chocolate, because what the fuck do men want for their
> >birhtday?
>
> Men want Ibanez Tube Screamer distortion pedals, or maybe it's just me
No, that's me as well. And I'm not a man. And I don't thinkI'm going to get one,
anyway.
>
>
> > It's so hard to find presents for them that aren't just
> >a big bar of Dairy Milk.
>
> How about a Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb & Delay. On second thought give
> him the chocolate and keep the pedals for yourself :)
That sounds like a good idea. There's so much more you
can do with distortion pedals, chocolate is over in 20 seconds!
>
>
> Musicians are easy to shop for, guitarists especially, just buy them
> some strings or some effect pedals.
Ah, but this guy isn't a musician. He's not into sports. Hedoesn't read books. He
doesn't even listen to much music.
Chocolate is just about the only thing I could think of.
>
>
> >probably buys fags after school or something.
>
> I wish I were a brit just so I can say things like that and get away
> with it.
It means gay in the States, doesn't it?That gives the phrase "I need a fag" such
a different
meaning!
Alli
endless, nameless
mike...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <blaklion-ya0240800...@nntp.best.com>,
> blak...@best.outdamnspam.com (Mikel Midnight) wrote:
> > In article <3661EFCE...@vossnet.co.uk>, "endless, nameless"
> > <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > I had a really long reply to this, but then Netscape crashed
> > > before I could send it, but basically, it was: how many
> > > female electronic engineers do you know? I don't know
> > > where you are and whether you're male or female, but
> > > I don't know many girls who've even done Electronics
> > > at GCSE, let alone A level.
> >
> > Actually I know quite a few female electronic engineers, but I live in
> > Silicon Valley, so perhaps have an unrepresentative sampling ...
>
> I'm graduating in May from An Eltrical Engineering program, and about 15% of
> my graduating class are female(4 out of 26). And to respond to Alli, they are
> all ranked very high grade average wise(they're all in the top half of the
> class- that's got to mean something). Maybe the reason they do better is
> because they want to take the courses in this area as opposed to another(I'm
> saying maybe you just don't know the girls that take Electronics).
I have done a little research into this (and when I say "a
little," I mean it) and I have discovered that at my school,
in last year's year 11, there was 1 female Electronics
student, ditto this year, that's 5%. In this year's year 10,
there are no girls in Electronics. This year, no girls took
A level Electronics, and next year, one girl will, ie me.
My uncle is an electronic engineer, and where he works,
there are no female electronic engineers. I'd say women
are definitely a minority in that field.
Alli
endless, nameless
Martin Sylvester wrote:
> Happydude wrote in message <3662cc1c...@news.magicnet.net>...
> LOL! First public schools, now fags (which has *three* different meanings in
> English English, all of which differ from the meaning in US English).
I only know the one. What are the other ones? Theyprobably aren't used much
around here.
> All it
> needs now is for someone to mention fannies.
You know I mentioned the american guy in my Electronics
class? Well, he asked me once what the word 'bugger'
meant. How do you explain that sort of thing to someone?
I mean, I just laughed and told him to look it up in a dictionary!
I am not going to define words like that!
Alli
Happydude
<sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>LOL! First public schools, now fags (which has *three* different meanings in
>English English, all of which differ from the meaning in US English). All it
>needs now is for someone to mention fannies.
In the UK rubbers correct mistakes, in the US rubbers prevent
mistakes. No matter where you are from, never forget to bring a
rubber!
Shez
>My brother gave me a battery, some bits of wire, a bell, some bulbs and so
>on to play with when I was four, or younger. Paper clips made great
>switches. I got really excited when I got a relay to play with. Wired up a
>contraption with it, to sound, and keep sounding, a bell, when anything came
>through the letterbox.
Impressive achievement for a four year old!
Interestingly enough this probably means you knew more than your
school teachers at that age: in tests a while back, most graduate primary
school teachers proved incapable of making a bulb light, on being given
a battery, bulb, and one piece of wire. Even more surprisingly, when the
test was repeated with MIT engineering graduates, most of them were
also incapable of making the bulb light up.
After a great deal of research of this type, it was concluded that
teaching science was actually reducing people's understanding of the
subject: the reasearchers amassed a large amount of convincing
evidence that many pupils emerge from their lessons knowing less than
when they went in! (But, as indicated in Alice in Wonderland, maybe
this is why they're called _less_ons.)
-Shez.
--
____________________________________________________________
____
"Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'".
____________________________________________________________
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Email to Gnus will be rejected: if replying by email, address it to Shez.
(c)Shez asserts the moral rights of authorship under the Berne Convention
Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe at <URL:http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/>
Happydude
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>Happydude wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:16:34 -0800, "endless, nameless"
>> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> >Martin Sylvester wrote:
>>
>> >> endless, nameless wrote in message <36623E3D...@vossnet.co.uk>...
>> >> >Last year, everyone gave me chocolate for Christmas. I protested,and they
>> >> said
>> >> >I needed feeding up!
>>
>> >> If it happens again, Alli, let me know and I'll send you a pre-paid jiffy
>> >> bag. Ah, go on!
>>
>> >OK then!It was one of my friends' birhtday today. We'd all bought
>> >him chocolate, because what the fuck do men want for their
>> >birhtday?
>>
>> Men want Ibanez Tube Screamer distortion pedals, or maybe it's just me
>
>No, that's me as well. And I'm not a man. And I don't thinkI'm going to get one,
>anyway.
you could always build one at a fraction of the cost (see below)
>> > It's so hard to find presents for them that aren't just
>> >a big bar of Dairy Milk.
>> How about a Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb & Delay. On second thought give
>> him the chocolate and keep the pedals for yourself :)
>That sounds like a good idea. There's so much more you
>can do with distortion pedals, chocolate is over in 20 seconds!
I hope you do go into electrical engineering, you may end up designing
the next great distortion unit. Perhaps you could build them as a
hobby or side project and then sell them as a source of extra cash
while your in school. There are schematics for almost any type of
pedal on the web, they seem easy enough as long as you have a basic
knowlege of electronics and schematic reading. It would be much
cheaper to build your own since most of the cost of commercial units
are in the brand name, casing, paint job, labor, etc.. I've dropped
alt.guitar from my subscription list in favor of alt.guitar.effects,
AGE is much better than reading the alt.guitar Kurt Cobain
flame-o-rama
>> Musicians are easy to shop for, guitarists especially, just buy them
>> some strings or some effect pedals.
>Ah, but this guy isn't a musician. He's not into sports. Hedoesn't read books. He
>doesn't even listen to much music.
>Chocolate is just about the only thing I could think of.
>> >probably buys fags after school or something.
>>
>> I wish I were a brit just so I can say things like that and get away
>> with it.
>It means gay in the States, doesn't it?
yes
>That gives the phrase "I need a fag" such
>a different
>meaning!
I'm not even going to touch that one.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I wanted to call someone a
"bloody wanker"
endless, nameless
Happydude wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 17:44:08 -0000, "Martin Sylvester"
> <sylv...@sylvesternet.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >LOL! First public schools, now fags (which has *three* different meanings in
> >English English, all of which differ from the meaning in US English). All it
> >needs now is for someone to mention fannies.
>
> In the UK rubbers correct mistakes, in the US rubbers prevent
> mistakes.
We have that one over here, too, but it's not used as much.
Alli
endless, nameless
Happydude wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 18:04:00 -0800, "endless, nameless"
> <yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >
That would probably be a good idea. Better than gettinga proper saturday job, anyway.
:)
Speaking of electronics and making and selling musical
equipment, our Electronics teacher (yes, him with the white
coat) got cancer, and the "temporary" substitute is this weird
guy who makes snare drums and sells them for eight hundred
quid. That's OK, but he keeps telling us about it, which is
a little boring, really.
> There are schematics for almost any type of
> pedal on the web, they seem easy enough as long as you have a basic
> knowlege of electronics and schematic reading. It would be much
> cheaper to build your own since most of the cost of commercial units
> are in the brand name, casing, paint job, labor, etc..
Hmmm....I probably could. And it'd be much better thanspending five months saving up
for one.
> I've dropped
> alt.guitar from my subscription list in favor of alt.guitar.effects,
> AGE is much better than reading the alt.guitar Kurt Cobain
> flame-o-rama
Hehehe. "Kurt Cobain lives in your gizzard!"Tim Hodge and FA13. Dickheads.
> >That gives the phrase "I need a fag" such
> >a different
> >meaning!
>
> I'm not even going to touch that one.
Good...
>
>
> I wish I had a dollar for every time I wanted to call someone a
> "bloody wanker"
I wish I had a dollar (or rather, a pound, it's worth more)for every time I actually
did call someone a "bloody wanker."
But it is a pretty normal thing to say over here.
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> Alli writes:
> >We were staying in some hotel, we'd just arrived, and my
> >parents had turned their backs for about 30 seconds, and in that
> >time I had taken the hotel room telephone to pieces and was
> >in the process of scatteriing its remains all over the room.
>
> An early indication of your future career as an engineer
Hehehe. I know this guy, actually, who got this PCfor his birthday, and he took the
bloody thing to bits
just to see how it worked! Of course, it didn't work
when he put it back together, so, guess what, his
parents bought him another one! Spoilt bastard.
>
>
> >Oh, and another: when I was at play group, I took all the
> >brand-new felt-tipped pens and dipped the drawring end in
> >glue, ruining the lot of them.
>
> and a Daria fan. Or possibly Beavis & Butthead?
Daria, much more. I didn't do it 'cos I was stupid, I did
it to get revenge on the teacher. She told me off for
attacking Amy Pugh, who I still hate to this day. I'm not
one to bear a grudge, oh no. :)
>
>
> >I never ate crayons. I may have force-fed them to mybrother at some time, but I
> >don't think I ever ate them
>
> So you weren't one of those kids who ate soil and ants then?
Oh, no. I was much too sensible to eat things like that.I ate snails a few times,
but they were cooked, so that
was OK. I made my brother eat mud, not that he needed
much convincing or anything. You could just give him
some and say "look, chocolate mousse!" and he'd eat it.
And then he'd start crying when he realised it wasn't.
I have a friend who used to eat small stones and gravel.
And her twin sister would eat grass until about 3 years
ago, which I find quite depressing.
Alli
Eric Stevenson
: Yeah. Do you have younger siblings? I've got a 12 year oldbrother, and I'd like
: to hit him 3000 times.
You mean you haven't already? Get with it. Before you know it, he'll be
all grown up and able to hit back.
endless, nameless
Eric Stevenson wrote:
I probably have. I've attacked him with a chair, I know
that (it was just the first thing that I picked up, OK?).
The good thing is that by the time he gets big enough to
hit back, I'll be away at Uni, hopefully, so I won't have to
deal with him. :)
Alli
Kyle
an incredibly shy child. BTW, where's your sig?
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:42:51 -0800, "endless, nameless"
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>That can't be true! Come on, has noone here done that?I was a terrible child, I
>really was. That wall/crayon/scribbling
>incident was one of many very very bad things I did. It
>was 'cos my mother was busy and I wanted attention
>and I decided to get revenge by adding my own decorations
>to the newly-painted walls. Another one: I was about two.
>We were staying in some hotel, we'd just arrived, and my
>parents had turned their backs for about 30 seconds, and in that
>time I had taken the hotel room telephone to pieces and was
>in the process of scatteriing its remains all over the room.
>Oh, and another: when I was at play group, I took all the
>brand-new felt-tipped pens and dipped the drawring end in
>glue, ruining the lot of them. Then, I wandered off and looked
>innocent when the teacher questioned us about the pens.
>
>
>I never ate crayons. I may have force-fed them to mybrother at some time, but I
>don't think I ever ate them
>myself.
>
>
>
>>
>Alli
>
___
Uh-oh, someone just put me in a position of responsibility! The day has suddenly turned sinister...
Another Nugget of Knowledge from the Wonderful World of Kyle(TM), ICQ#12773280
endless, nameless
Kyle wrote:
> I was (am, I don't like thinking of myself as almost grown up at 16)
> an incredibly shy child.
I wasn't too shy when I was younger. I am kinda shynow, but I'm improving. I still like to sit in a
corner not
saying anything, but I have now discovered that there
are people on the planet who're worth talking to. Sort
of.
> BTW, where's your sig?
The hard disk on the 'good' computer melted. I'musing one of the 'bad' computers, now, and I have
yet to figure out how everything works, and it's got
all different applications and stuff, and I'd only just
gotten used to the other one, and it's all so confusing!
One day, I'll find out how to create a new sig, but for
now I'm concentrating on finding out how to work
Netscape, which is broken or something....
Alli
Martin Sylvester
Shez wrote in message ...
>Martin Sylvester writes:
>>My brother gave me a battery, some bits of wire, a bell, some bulbs and so
>>on to play with when I was four, or younger. Paper clips made great
>>switches. I got really excited when I got a relay to play with. Wired up a
>>contraption with it, to sound, and keep sounding, a bell, when anything
came
>>through the letterbox.
>
>Impressive achievement for a four year old!
Nah, can't claim the credit for the post-bell contraption at four. The relay
didn't come with the first box of junk, it came later. Can't recall exactly
when; sometime between five and eight. At nine I wrote a letter suggesting a
way of cutting down transmission losses in power lines; worse still, I
posted it. That led to me being given a tour of a newly-commissioned power
station, and a very nice tea. No wonder I went through a pompous phase later
(What do mean, "What makes you think it's over?"?)
>Interestingly enough this probably means you knew more than your
>school teachers at that age:
Never found out. At that age it was bells, bulbs and batteries at home;
sand, bricks and water at school. I guess I just assumed that electrical
stuff just was something you did for fun, not in school time.
>in tests a while back, most graduate primary
>school teachers proved incapable of making a bulb light, on being given
>a battery, bulb, and one piece of wire. Even more surprisingly, when the
>test was repeated with MIT engineering graduates, most of them were
>also incapable of making the bulb light up.
That's staggering!
>After a great deal of research of this type, it was concluded that
>teaching science was actually reducing people's understanding of the
>subject: the reasearchers amassed a large amount of convincing
>evidence that many pupils emerge from their lessons knowing less than
>when they went in! (But, as indicated in Alice in Wonderland, maybe
>this is why they're called _less_ons.)
If credible, that's a real indictment of the way science is taught. I was
lucky to have an unquenchable fascination for physics, and a chemistry
teacher who knew how to teach. Still remember his explanation of solid,
liquid and gaseous states. Not so lucky in biology. As for IT, it wasn't
then offered, in our school, until sixth form, and I never remember seeing
any good IT books in school. I had to make private arrangements that
included timesharing a sixth-former's identity so I could get processor time
for my programs (and so I could get to punch the cards in the first place),
and relying on my height and a bit of chutzpah to get into the college
library and study the computing books there... I've said too much already!
But I'm wondering, given what you've said, whether I learned more pursuing
IT semi-licitly than I might have done in a taught course?
endless, nameless
Shez wrote:
> >I did
> >it to get revenge on the teacher. She told me off for
> >attacking Amy Pugh, who I still hate to this day. I'm not
> >one to bear a grudge, oh no. :)
>
> Wasn't Amy Pugh a character in a Spike Milligan poem?
> I seem to recall one that goes something like "amy pugh was only
> two..."
She was about four at the time, I think. She still actslike two, though.
>
>
> >I made my brother eat mud, not that he needed
> >much convincing or anything. You could just give him
> >some and say "look, chocolate mousse!" and he'd eat it.
> >And then he'd start crying when he realised it wasn't.
>
> You do realise this is all going on your record don't you?
> What if your headmaster trawls Usenet to get the lowdown on his
> students.... I can just see him typing "yannaco" into DejaNews and then
> printing out a long list of misdemenours that you haven't been punished
> for yet.
Hehehe. I think there's many misdemeanors that I haven'tyet been punished for, or
even told anyone here about.
>
>
> >And her twin sister would eat grass until about 3 years
> >ago, which I find quite depressing.
>
> I didn't know grass was depressing, I thought that was barbiturates...
LOL. Nah, she's not really the sort for, shall we say,
experimentation, so she would only eat the sort of grass
that you find in people's lawns, the legal kind. I find it
depressing that a 13 year old would still be at the stage
of eating things she found in the garden. She maintains
that she was only 'testing' it to see if it would be good
enough to feed to her precious guinea pigs, but I think
that's just as bad really. She's a strange girl.
Alli
Happydude
<yan...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> >> How about a Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb & Delay. On second thought give
>> >> him the chocolate and keep the pedals for yourself :)
>>
>> >That sounds like a good idea. There's so much more you
>> >can do with distortion pedals, chocolate is over in 20 seconds!
>>
>> I hope you do go into electrical engineering, you may end up designing
>> the next great distortion unit. Perhaps you could build them as a
>> hobby or side project and then sell them as a source of extra cash
>> while your in school.
>
>That would probably be a good idea. Better than gettinga proper saturday job, anyway.
>:)
That's the beauty of it. You're your own boss, you set your own hours,
you can work from the comfort of your own home.
>Speaking of electronics and making and selling musical
>equipment, our Electronics teacher (yes, him with the white
>coat) got cancer, and the "temporary" substitute is this weird
>guy who makes snare drums and sells them for eight hundred
>quid. That's OK, but he keeps telling us about it, which is
>a little boring, really.
>> There are schematics for almost any type of
>> pedal on the web, they seem easy enough as long as you have a basic
>> knowlege of electronics and schematic reading. It would be much
>> cheaper to build your own since most of the cost of commercial units
>> are in the brand name, casing, paint job, labor, etc..
>Hmmm....I probably could. And it'd be much better thanspending five months saving up
>for one.
Exactly, you could build one for 1/5th the price of the commercial
version. Once you build something that sounds good build copies, sell
them and keep your prototype. After I spent $60 US for an E/H "Big
Muff Pi" distortion pedal (hate the name, love the sound.) I'm
seriously considering building my own effects from now on. I'm
thinking of getting a tube pre-amp from PAiA, they sell unassembled
amp and synthesizer kits, to practice on and save $200, the cost of a
pre-assembled pre-amp (plus some distortions sound like crap unless
they are driving a tube amp or pre-amp (Fuzz Face and Tube Screamer
for example.))
anyway, build the pedals, charge double the production cost, add labor
cost, find a good housing for the electronics (hand paint the housings
and charge extra for it, they are one of a kind after all.)
>> I've dropped
>> alt.guitar from my subscription list in favor of alt.guitar.effects,
>> AGE is much better than reading the alt.guitar Kurt Cobain
>> flame-o-rama
>Hehehe. "Kurt Cobain lives in your gizzard!"Tim Hodge and FA13. Dickheads.
Plus the "Yngwie Malmsteen rules" vs. "Yngwie Malmsteen sucks" flame
wars. A never-ending debate about a big-hair spandex wearing metal
guitarist who was(nt) popular over 15 years ago. I wont even start
with the "If Eddie Van Halen did it then it's good enough for me"
lemmmings (aka WWEVHD)
>> >That gives the phrase "I need a fag" such
>> >a different
>> >meaning!
>> I'm not even going to touch that one.
>Good...
>> I wish I had a dollar for every time I wanted to call someone a
>> "bloody wanker"
>I wish I had a dollar (or rather, a pound, it's worth more)for every time I actually
>did call someone a "bloody wanker."
>But it is a pretty normal thing to say over here.
-
I once shot a man just to watch him die.
Then I got distracted, and I missed it.
-Dave Foley, the Kids In the Hall.
Shez
- a registered charity writes:
>>the reasearchers amassed a large amount of convincing
>>evidence that many pupils emerge from their lessons knowing less
>>than
>>when they went in! (But, as indicated in Alice in Wonderland, maybe
>>this is why they're called _less_ons.)
>If credible, that's a real indictment of the way science is taught.
Well I heard about it at least 3-4 years ago, so the research would
probably be a couple of years older again. Hopefully the way science is
being taught has been changing as a result. Certainly the stuff on
teaching science that the OU broadcast these days shows improved
ways of doing it.
There was a documentary about this research, also rebroadcast by the
OU, and they questioned all these students on their graduation day with
two basic tests. What seemed to throw them was that only one wire
was supplied, and instead of touching the other bulb contact directly to
the battery, a lot of students would try and make it light with just the
wire connecting one terminal to the bulb. It was staggering to watch
them doing this and saying stuff like "maybe the bulb is broken, or
perhaps the battery is flat".
The other test was a biology one, and is perhaps more understandable.
People were handed a small log and asked what trees were made of, ie
you plant a seed and it grows into a tree or plant or whatever, where
does all that mass come from? Most people said it's made of soil,
whereas the answer is that it's mainly made of carbon from the CO2 in
the air. When told this, a lot of the students expressed surprise, because
"air isn't heavy like wood is". They were also sceptical about wood
being mainly carbon, which left me wondering what on earth they
thought coal was.
I thought we all learned where trees and coal and stuff came from in
science lessons at school, but for many people the lessons about
photosynthesis, ancient tropical forests being squished, etc etc never
sank in.
As to the value of science lessons, it seems to me that bright people will
learn the stuff no matter how badly its taught, and really dumb people
won't learn it no matter how well it's taught. But there's a wide middle
ground in between of people who can learn stuff provided it's taught
well, and it was these people who were coming out knowing less than
when they went in, as the lessons were just confusing them. This sort of
thing is probably true of many subjects though, in fact probably all
subjects, it's just that no-one's done the research.
-Shez.
--
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