In honor of mothers' day
 

You're a dad? To quote Keanu, whoa.

Good response, by the way.

r(mental images constantly developing)p

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

The child's name is Trae or Trey, I don't remember how it's spelled. He was three or four at the time that I first met him, I think he's six or seven now. My family has an annual party where friends and colleagues are invited to hang out, drink beer, eat a lot, and generally be merry. His mother is a professional colleague of my dad's, and it's one of those deals where you sort of have to invite them. Trey and his family showed up, and the first thing he did was uproot several small trees that my mother had just planted in the garden. When it was explained to him that it was NOT ok to uproot small trees, he continued to do it. At some point, my brother picked him up and escorted him to his mother.

As is the nature of small kids at parties, he managed to escape his mother, and his next victims were the dogs. First he started bugging my mother's dog, who at that time was pretty blind and deaf. He kept on poking her with a stick, and she finally snapped at the stick. Fortunately for the dog, another guest witnessed the whole thing and took the kid and the stick away from the area of the dog, and the dog was put on a sympathetic lap, where he couldn't get to her any more.

My sister's dog at the time was still in gun school, and he had his training collar on because he could get a little wild. It was late in the evening, and he was exhausted from chasing sticks and eating all sorts of food he wasn't supposed to. My sister had patiently explained that the remote to Holden's training collar was only to be used by her, and never without reason. First, Trey started doing the stick poking thing to Holden, who was much quicker to respond than my mom's dog. When my sister, who hadn't seen what was going on, heard the barking, she immediaetly got the remote to his shock collar, and gave a warning shock to Holden. Trey LOVED the reaction to the shock collar, and distracted my sister, got a hold of the remote and started shocking Holden. He would press down on the button and not let go. To this day I think my sister is prepared to skin that child alive. My brother ended up grabbing the remote to the shock collar and forcibly handed the kid to his mother, who was oblivious to the whole thing.

Last time I saw the kid was year or two later, where he was whacking trees with sticks. Holden was older and wiser than the kid, and a friend of mine who had no idea about the earlier incident remarked that she'd never seen a dog look so much smarter than a kid before. The crowning moment was when the kid started whacking the windchimes with a stick, annoying everyone, and one of the windchimes whacked him in the face on the upswing.

Kid stuff
 

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
You are reading the wrong thing into the comment. They are actually saying, "in relation to my current life experience, life before having kids was meaningless." They are only trying to stress to you how meaningful their kids are to them. It's called hyperbole.

Here, let's use an analogy to help you understand: "Once I found that perfect little handbag, I realized my entire life without it had been meaningless."

TM

If you were the teacher and she was the lawyer, would you stay home?

In honor of mothers' day
 

Dammit, Leagaleze, this is like the third time I've had the system automatically log me out while I'm typing a reply, and then, upon logging back in, it doesn't retain my response and it's all lost. Help?

The substance of my post:

I know parents who hate all children. they don't admit it either, but it is obvious.

Yes, those responses are of course rude responses, as are others that are routinely sanctioned (you should keep your options open, shouldn't make that decision yet, etc.). Somehow, the notion that telling childless couples that they'll regret it isn't recognized as being just as rude as telling current or expecting parents that they'll regret it.

Miscellaneous suggestions for responses to parents castigating the childless: Turn-about is usually a good method for rudeness, but, as notd above, the turn about "you have children? Well, you'll regret it; you can't understand the satisfaction of controlling your own life when you're enslaved to another being's needs, and besides they'll abandon you to die old, sick and alone in a nursing home while they wait to get your money," while basically the same comment as you have gotten, hits too many sacred cows to make the point. Saying "Well," cut eyes to offender's children, "we'll just have to agree to disagree" passes. Saying "Oh, I'm sure we'll manage to find satisfaction somehow" while softly brushing invisible lint off of your spouse's sleeve is just cruel. Fair but cruel.

General defense to intrusive comments: puffing up like a pigeon and saying "I BEG your pardon," and then saying, if they stupidly ask the question again "I'm sure I never discuss such personal matters casually" tends to clinch it, though you will be thought to have a stick up your ass. People underestimate the benefits of being thought to have a stick up your ass; it insulates one from so many of life's little barbarities.

BR(insert anal fetish joke here)S

Outing?
 

Caligula Clerk was a Penske sock? Well, that explains a lot.

As for retrograde ejaculation, it is a real phenomenon. Mostly it occurs in guys versed in the ways of tantric sex, but it can happen in the untrained as well. The tantric folks say that by not ejaculating they're retaining their chi, but the ejaculate probably just ends up in the bladder and pissed out anyway.

tm

P.S. Raauouauaoul, you're so full of shit.

Educate me, puckheads
 

Or simply limit your comments to "kick his fucking ass!" and "where is that fucking beer man?"

Thrashers(wasn't raised to sit still and be quiet at hockey)Fan:cheers:

Smokin' Stork
 

This is probably a stupid question but why does the fact that some people are authorized to take the pics prevent the paparazzit from getting different and potentially more embarrassing photos- which is what we really want to see?

Edited to add that I think this stalkarazzi thing makes more sense on the baby level and not the wedding level which is a one time event. However, I am not sure why the stalkarazzi wouldnt still go for it just bc the Star has some pics of the little gekko wrapped up in towels. ANd why does CZJ have to do these stypid commercials? I am guessing she gets nachos in the prenup and divorce is not an impossibility

Kid stuff
 

Absofuckinglutely. All day with my kid? No bullshit at the office? Yez. We've had this discussion. Hard at first, but it gets better every day (or so I'm told).

TM

Kid stuff
 

I can answer that (for us, not him).

I have several women friends (corporate executives, lawyers) whose husbands no longer work, or work on "projects" rather than jobs. The husbands were successful in their careers, but as a couple they made the decision to focus on the wife's career rather than the husband's.

Some raise the children, but some are childless and prefer to have one of them available for travel or entertaining or just plain family life, which they felt is not possible with both as high-powered execs. One couple has a floating "sabbatical" structure where one can take a year off, or more (my personal favorite).

Even(the OM has agreed to stay home if/when we have the OddKids)Odds

In honor of mothers' day
 

This is perhaps the most ignorant thing I've ever seen you say (and that's saying something!) I'm not saying that women with lots of time on their hands (armies of babysitters and no work outside the home) can be dullards -- in fact, I agree that most of them are. I had much first-hand experience with lots of them when I was on maternity leave.

However, you try staying home (without babysitting help) with a child (or two, or three) all day, and you'll be so grateful you have a job to go to, I wager the complaining-about-his-job, crotchety SD would disappear forever.

Raising children is real work. A lot harder than sitting behind a desk all day, that's for sure. Anyone who can spout off such ignorance clearly has never cared for a child. From the tenor of your attitude, I'm sure that after two days of looking after a child you cared about, you'd be begging to go back to your miserable job.

d(And I have no respect for "full-time mommies" (what kind of bullshit label is that? If you're a mother, you are by definition a full-time mommy) who don't have pride in their children -- what, you'd rather they be ashamed of them?)tb

In honor of mothers' day
 

TM,

You're right - there is an exception. If a woman has worked and quits work to raise kids for a while, there's nothing wrong with that. She has her opinions, goals, etc. My problem is the husband-hunters who never work at anything real, get hitched, start pumping out kids and spend their lives between soccer practice, the nail salon, and the home. So yes, there is a carve-out, and yes, I painted with too broad a brush. that's part of the problem with this limited medium...

S(only so mch time to type)D

ChildSmack
 

1. I'd fantasize about ways I could throttle that little fucker. Quietly. With nobody looking.

2. I'd explain everything to the parents (except my desire to throttle, of course), and tell them either to get a baby sitter or not come to futire parties. I've used this approach with family without guilt.

K(of course, we have not talked to this person in about 2 years, but I don't consider it a loss)E

Kid stuff
 

What would you do without *us*?

In honor of mothers' day
 

They probably didn't feel that about theirs either; it's only in retrospect.

However, I couldn't agree more that such officious lecturing is, uh, slightly offputting.

In honor of mothers' day
 

I think you're still missing it.

The problem is that you're too quick to lump women who choose to stay home with their children as uninteresting, with their only goal being finding a husband and staying home with the kids. While there are women out there who know from day 1 that they want to stay home and raise their children (and I don't see anything wrong with that -- I think it's admirable and requires patience and sacrifice), there are also former career driven women who have decided after spending some time at home with their kid that they don't want to go back. No shame in either of those.

And I bet there are more housewives out there who are very interesting (in your sense of the word) who can more than hold their own against most career women, including those who can only talk about their pathetic fucking existence at work and how they can't find a date. You just wouldn't know, because as soon as they say one thing about staying at home or their kid, you shut off your brain.

TM

Smokin' Stork
 

On 1), nothing prevents it, but the EXCLUSIVE FIRST PICS label has a lot of value in that world, which is gone once the pics are there. Also, better quality actually has value. From everything I've read about this industry, which is not much, readers/buyers actually do prefer high-quality pics to ones that look like they've been taken from behind a bush late at night, while running away from the cops, since that's how they were taken. So the paparazi are left to pick up crumbs like CZJ smoking with child in tow. Still valuable, but not as.

2) Didn't CZJ sign some deal where she comes into more money each year? Like, $1M for each year she stays with him, and after 7 years she gets full inheritance rights, or at least pretty good rights? But, yeah, if you're a 28 year old marrying a 56 year old, you have to figure that as soon as your tits sag because a baby has been clamped on to them, the chances that another 25 year old with perky nips might draw his attention go way up.

Kid stuff
 

The proper question is: What would you all do without me?

And I have a computer at home.

TM

In honor of mothers' day
 

I have met few women of my generation who have never worked. However, on my last vacation I hung out with a totally cool chick. Three kids, never ever worked, well-educated, lots of fun to be around, well-adjusted etc. No less opinionated or goal-oriented, intelligent etc. than the rest of us. I would not call her boring at all - I've met many many working women who are more boring than she. I did not meet her kids but I am sure they are delightful. If you're not the working outside of the home type, and you don't have to, why should you do it? And why should you be judged as boring or stupid if you make that choice?

I think you are being too judgmental here.

In honor of mothers' day
 

DTB,

My problem was with women who do nothing else but have kids and raise kids and talk about their kids and live every waking moment for their kids. I failed to specifically define the target of my ire, and so I deserve the heat. Please understand, as the shild of a career oriented woman, I have nothing but respect for women who juggle career and children. Its their steallr example that causes me to have such a low opinion of husband-hunetsr who never have a real job, start pumping out kids early and never do anything else. I knew these awful women in college and now see them at reunions - they have nothing to say except what golf course they joined and how much they enjoy mommyhood. Sorry - solely devoting your life to doing something everyone has the biological ability to do is not grabbing life for all its worth.

The most interesting people are those who have the time and/or ability to interest others with their unique views, humor or world experience - none of which you'll get if you've been doing nothing but living in idyllic suburban ignorance shuffling from the nail salon to soccer practice to the golf course pool. Like it or not, our ability to interest others and bring something to the conversation is a product of our life experiences, good a=or bad. I'd wager that the life of an indulgent kid who followed a band across the country is at least more interesting than a woman who rarely leaves the neighborhood. If all you do is work, you're dull. If all you do is raise kids, you're dull. I didn't make this rule - its fact. I cannot help it that when I sit down and discuss politics/sports/music/you name it with women who've never done anything other than raise kids, they bore me. And they can't help boring me.

S(what can i say... its a fact)D

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

Young Jeffrey Dahmer?

A few comments. If you are going to bring your kids to a social event -- you as a parent are STILL responsible for supervising them.

My brother and his wife will sit around oblivious to what the kids are getting into, meanwhile they would rather fight over whose turn it is to change a kid's diaper because it might cut into their good time.

Another annoying thing is when you have to listen to a parent bargain with a kid to stop acting like a little shit. "Pookie, if you quit beating the dog, we'll get ice cream on the way home." - - Fuck the ice cream. You do not reward a child for acting the way em is expected to act. They are rewarded for acting above and beyond expectations and they are punished when they act inappropriately. I want to smack the parent upside the head every time they cave in to a child just to get them to stop acting like a brat. You're reinforcing the bad behavior, idiot! Bad behavior has negative consequences, not rewards!

And SD, I have to agree with Thurgreed. You may find stay-at-home mothers tedious to associate with, but I'm in the camp that I would much rather have one of the parents at home at least until the child is in school, if possible. My wife and I have sacrificed a lot in terms of income/social life/etc. so that the kids will have someone at home with them and so a consistent message is communicated to them.

Unfortunately, the type of behavior illustrated above comes about precisely because the parents try to delegate too many parental responsibilites to others. Sorry, end of rant.

Edited to ask. Gun school? Is that a Texas thang?

In honor of mothers' day
 

A few other people have had this problem. The problem is because this board uses cookies that have a built-in timeout period. This timeout period isn't a problem if you have your options set to "Automatically login when you return to the site."

However, if you have this option set to no and you are inactive (composing a response) for the period of time within which the cookie is set to expire, the board software will log you out and you will not be able to post the message you took such painstaking effort to compose.

There are only three ways to solve this. The first is to edit your profile so that the software automatically logs you in when you return to the site. The second is to make sure you compose any long-winded posts in a text editor like notepad. The third is to make sure you ALWAYS copy the text of your replies to the clipboard before you hit the "Submit Reply" button. If you do that, you'll be able to paste it into a new reply box after you log back in.

Hope this helps.

In honor of mothers' day
 

No, there's four. Write shorter posts.

In honor of mothers' day
 

I stand corrected.

Smokin' Stork
 

I don't think it makes a difference whether it's a wedding or a baby photo. In those cases, the photogs aren't looking to embarass, they are looking for exclusivity, and the celebs selling their photos allows them to control quality, since their whole careers are based on image, while making it economically less attractive to the paparazzi. If the celebs release authorized photos, there is really no incentive to go to the trouble of getting unauthorized photos, with the attendant loss of quality control.

Now the as for the photos of cottage cheese ass, on the other hand, there will always be a market. It's different than the baby/wedding photo thing.

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

I was in a grocery store and some kid, old enough to know better, was being really nasty to her mom. I actually said to her, wow, if I talked that way to my parents, I would be in some real pain.

Her mom, who looked utterly fed up, said, "see?" to the daughter, who actually blushed bright red.

I am still not sure why I said anything, normally I wouldn't.

Smokin' Stork
 

So, speaking of embarrassing -

How come none of you "holier than thou anti-smoking zealot types" aren't going to take Catherine to task for endangering the life of little Michaela or whatever?

What if l'enfant hacks up a lung?

not7yS

Smokin' Stork
 

I've heard (heck, it could have even been here), that in Europe it is not frowned upon to do commercials and many of the top stars do them regularly. Not the sign of a career slump as it often is here...

Maybe that is also why Guy Ritchie thought it would be OK to sign Madonna up for a BMW ad...

n(but those are godawful stupid commercials)cs

In Honor of Mother's Day / Poll
 

For fear of ending up with children like those described above, we have decided to limit our household to ONE - this way we outnumber him and seem to be reasonably in control. Still, there's no end to the questioning - "you mean you're going to make him grow up alone?, etc." It never ends.

Kid stuff
 

Which would make you OddParents?

Smokin' Stork
 

Because it was completely expected from her . . .

This is the classy lady who solicited donations to a trust for baby #1 at some outrageous shindig.

Even(not a fan)Odds

In Honor of Mother's Day / Poll
 

Most of the real hard-core brats I have known were/are "only" kids.

Kid stuff
 

He can park the kid(s) in front of the TV with a DVD of My Little Pony XIV playing and yap on the computer all day long.

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

Put the collar on the kid.

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

Having again been logged out automatically, I'll try that again (yes, I accept cookies, and no, I'm not hitting refresh).

Worst was sort of cumulative, but it was capped by the offending 9 year old distant relation coming up to me and grabbing my crotch, saying "I know what you've got down there, all sluts have cunts!" I did smack him - backhanded him actually. There was a knife next to me, the fucker was lucky. Yes, the parents needed to be beaten with sticks, but they were too drunk to do anything but fight. I understand that his behavior has improved markedly since being sent to a boarding school with corporal punishment, actually.

On abusing guilty parents, I still fondly remember having dinner once with some HS friends and one of their fathers, who was a real curmudgeon (er, that's a compliment in my world). There were two little kids running around unattended and shrieking, doing the "bad kid in a restaurant" thing. My friend's father complained to the waiter a couple of times. Finally, one of the kids, running while looking backwards at the chasing kid, smacked into someone's table and sloshed their drinks all over, and plopped down in the middle of the restaurant screaming. My friends' father slammed his fist down on the table and stood up, bellowing "Get me the manager, I demand that it be removed immediately. And [pointing at the parents], if you do what is right you'll kill it before it can grow up." He got scattered applause, actually. I've always wished since that I had the balls to make a scene like that.

I met a kid once who, at his mother's art opening, set some of the peices on fire an managed to gut both the gallery and his mother's career. He was appropriately named Damian. Having such kids off a leash is ultimately its own punishment, I guess.

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

The mother of the kid in question works probably 80 to 100 hours a week. I think that the father works at home, but I'm not quite sure. From watching the interactions with parents and children, I'd say that almost everything is delegated, and bargaining is the way parents relate with their kids. I will say, the kid is getting a little better as he gets older, but I still won't let the Displaced Dog anywhere near him.

My mom had four kids in five years. In those five years she got a doctorate. When she walked across the stage to get the degree, she was pregnant, and afterwards, she decided to stay at home. She ran several businesses, including my father's, but she never had a real job, never got a W2, never got a 1099. But, if my family had to hire someone to do what she did while she "wasn't working" it would have cost several million over the course of her 23 years of staying home with the kids. Yes, in the early years, raising the kids undoubtably were the focus of her life, but in reality her focus was on all aspects of the family.

Overrated/Underrated
 

There used to be a place called Mama Desta. It was in a strip mall at Richmond and Shepard, Across from the Indian Restaurant and Lil' Pappasito's. There was also a Jamaican night club there. You might not want to go into the Jamaican nightclub. :bang:

(Smacked with a) POLL
 

The "browse board with cookies" option won't solve the problem since the cookies automatically time out. If they time out and you do not have the "Automatically login when you return to site" set to "Yes," you will get logged out automatically after the cookie expires (in other words, while you're composing your post). So, you need to have the "automatically login" selection set to yes, which you currently don't. If you want an admin to change it for you, we can.

In honor of mothers' day
 

There's this outlaw website in Mexico. It's kinda like Ebay, but you can sell more...unique items. ;)

Computer facts of interest
 

As other people log on temporarily to each others computers around here, and the different user gets the internet preferences on the hard drive, that's not really an option.

However, more amusing computer troubles, this guy had a meteor smash through his roof and kill his printer while he was working: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...ll_navarro.jpg
(spree: picture of meteoric destruction)edited to fix pic



edited by MR to replace pic with a link to the pic

buy the cards
 

http://www.greatusaflags.com/product...&aff_sub_id=13

(Site to buy the cards that the troops were using to identify the different most wanted Iraqis.)
http://www.greatusaflags.com/images/novelty_mw_l.jpg