Mahone

Hmmm... most of our tv shows are hosted by British people, just as I assumed most American TV shows would be hosted by American people. By Chef Ramses I assume you mean Gordon Ramsay who is very well known here, mainly for his deplorable temper (which is not unique to him I must admit, it's quite a common trait among chefs). With regards to British people playing American characters, I usually find it's the other way around. In one case, though the name of the film escapes me, the film was based on a true story involving British soliders in real life, however in the film they were American soldiers and even had American flags on their uniform. The media here had a field day over that one. Not entirely sure why they'd choose a British host because of his accent...? Whats good about a British accent? Lol.

Itunes is a start, though still not the best deterrent to piracy. There is better. The only reason apple created itunes anyway is because their ipods were encouraging piracy (to this day in the UK it is not legal to have a copy of your CDs, even for your ipod), and this was their answer to the legal problems they potentially faced. Spotify is probably a better example.

Ah yes, I've heard about this. Terrible condition. I believe I saw someone with this condition (or similar) once while I was shopping, but didn't want to look in case she got embarassed, so I'm not 100% certain.

The tactics the music and film industry are employing to try and "prevent" piracy will never work. Attempting to bully people into doing as they want will not work seeing as in half the world the industry has no legal rights anyway and the way in which ISPs and the music industry track the copyright infringers will just be circumvented again and again. The technology already exists which makes it pretty much impossible for ISPs to see what data is being transferred over their networks. When the data is encrypted, they have no proof that any piracy ever took place. DRM was made such a mockery of... it was all cracked, often within a couple of hours of its release. And because of its inconvenience to those who pay for their music legally, DRM is now seen on the same level as offshore call centres. Basically the industry is trying to keep its clutches on it's old methods - it made them billions and they are desperately trying to hold onto it. But they will lose and eventually they will realise they have to update their methods. The cost of films and music is ridiculously expensive for what it is. And the argument that it wouldn't be as expensive were it not for piracy is just not true. One illegal download does not equate to one lost sale and in a lot of cases, many bands have become much more well known due to piracy. Then more people go to their gigs. It is true they make most of the money out of their gigs, some bands even release their music for free because of this. Whether piracy is morally wrong or not, I think it was about time that it happened. The industry is being slowly forced to update its ways now, even though they are being dragged kicking and screaming.

I've been on some tablets since I was about 14 (I'm 23 now) which make me extremely tired. The problem is, because I took them as prescribed for years without any "breaks" from them, I didn't realise the effect they were having on me. When I was about 20 I had a stage of depression in which I didn't want to do anything, and stopped taking the tablets as well. It was at that point I realised how alert and awake I felt in comparision to the previous 6 years, I feel like I'm on a high when I don't take them and will stay up until the early hours of the morning. So now I'm juggling taking them and not taking them, trying to decide if the effects the tablets were prescribed to stop or the side effects they cause are worse. So on a day I'm not taking them, you'll likely see me here at about 3am and then again at 7am

You could buy me a new one if you really wish - the only "casual" coat I have is becoming a little worn

That's where I've been going wrong all these years!

Exellent solution! It should be an addition to every childs "sacrament bag" (usually contaning titbits, drawing utensils etc). Maybe the church could even provide them free of charge to needy mothers?

Hey most Americans can't drive anyway... real driving is driving with what you call a stick (as opposed to automatic) *i'll get me coat*

Ahhh, if we are going to discuss gender discrimination, we need to talk about car INSURANCE

He wouldn't have been allowed to read the book. The mission field rules have not changed drastically for some time now. It would have sounded better if he'd actually said that, but the response he gave basically implied he couldn't be bothered and in all fairness it's probably what he meant as well. Not really a good impression. Incidently, they didn't have any success with the guy in question, I never saw him again.

Happens in my line of work a lot too... can I say pcworld? Really hate that company. Anyway here are a couple of examples that made me chuckle a bit. Basically a technician rigged a computer to appear broken. The problem was simple to fix, required no new hardware and should probably have cost about £20 (about $35) for the call out fee and that's it. So he placed secret cameras around the house and called a guy in to fix it who had previously been reported for potentially scamming customers. This is the result... it's in two videos and the end is really quite funny as he is approached about it: Part one: Part two:

That reminded me of when I went out with the missionaries about three years ago now. I was sitting in a discussion in which the missionaries asked the guy to read the BoM. Later on in the discussion, the guy presented the missionaries with a book on religion which he'd found interesting (it wasn't an attempt to bash the church, merely asking their opinion of it) and gave it to them and asked them to read it. They gave it straight back to him and one replied "I do this for 11 hours a day, when I get back, I just want to go to sleep, I don't really have time to read another book". While his reply was truthful, I did notice the irony in the fact that the missionaries had just asked him to read their book, but they in turn refused to read his. Had I been the investigator, I think I wouldn't have invited them back

This is very true, the technique has to work otherwise they simply wouldn't do it. Some people are gullible and some don't know how to say no and the salesmen jump on this. Fortunately I have neither of these issues - I've been a little paranoid since my early teen days due to certain things, there is no chance I'll ever actually trust the salesman (even if I know him because I'm a regular there). And I will say I'm not interested if I'm really not and if they carry on after I've said no twice, I'll just walk away or hang up.

I so predicted this in my post here

Naturally.

I don't trust any sales people. If I want to buy something and don't know much about it, I google everything I don't understand before I go shopping. I will not take a sales persons word for anything without clarification from an unbiased source. I've never had chance to have an issue with car salesmen, however telemarketers is a different story. While it's not a marketing tactic I would do personally, I accept that the people who do it are doing it to make a living. This does not excuse the lies a lot of them come up with in order to get put through to the person who can authorise sales in the first place ("he asked me to call back today", "he is expecting my call", "it's a personal call", "don't worry I'm not selling anything") and does not excuse them ignoring you when you say you aren't interested in their services and then carrying on trying to sell it to you. The reason I always research any product I don't fully understand before I go out to buy it is not just because I believe salesmen will twist the truth, but also because they often genuinely don't know the product they are trying to sell very well (which is quite understandable for some of them, they are often only given the basic information about the product) and will make an answer up in order to prevent their embarassment. Oh and the other thing... no salesman has ever made a sale out of me by approaching me first... if I want something, I will go to them. If they approach me without any indication I actually want their services, I will not look into their company again. I just don't trust people who do that.

Is abcnews.com really that bad? Maybe an American can clarify

I can't help but laugh each time I see this thread title... I know some topics are discussed into quite some depth on this forum, including being "gay", yet I never dreamed that that particular topic would seriously shift to penguins and still be ON topic- it's brilliant

Oh dear... I thought the coke and mentos mints tricks were bad. Hope this one doesn't turn into a popular trick as well - can't see the poor school caretaker being too pleased cleaning up 20 large white splodges across the playground ^_^ *runs off to post on the video on several student forums*

I guess it depends on what reason He might have 'to go down to that level of scrutiny'. I think it would be wrong to assume reasons for His commandments (that term is used loosely as I accept it's debatable as to whether it is a commandment), when quite frankly we don't have reasons for a lot of them. Could it be because not having tattoos gives His church a better image to the majority, thereby saving many more souls? In that case, it's not such a little thing.

Speaking of tattoos, I read this on the morning journey into work in the newspaper: Tattoo teenager left seeing stars | Metro.co.uk Basically it seems as though the poor girl got a really noticable tattoo on her face, regretted it in the morning and cannot afford to have it removed, so is trying to claim that she fell asleep while it was being done (yeah right - how is that even possible) and it's not what she asked for. Stupid girl.

Always glad to help :)

Lol, to be pedantic, as has already been pointed out, we are animals. Just a distinct species.

I admit, that thought had crossed my mind Though 'bird' is really street language for a woman. I have never and never will call a woman a 'bird'. It's disrespectful IMO.