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Archive through January 24, 2008

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: Jan. 2008 ~ Mar. 2008: Free Expressions: Hey! Look at this!: Archive through January 24, 2008 users admin

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Azriel
Member

08-01-2000

Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 11:23 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Azriel a private message Print Post    
Juju, the first time I went into a stall with a squatting hole I didn't know what the hell was going on. I wondered why the woman before me was in the stall so long when you couldn't help but notice immediately when you entered that they had removed the toilet from that stall and just left a hole in the ground. I backed out and got back at the end of the line and waited for a different stall to open and low and behold they had yanked that toilet out too! Yes, I'm a bit slow, but it finally dawned on me and my girl scout camping days came in handy for figuring out the correct stance over the hole.

Lumbele
Member

07-12-2002

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 4:40 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Lumbele a private message Print Post    
LOL, Az, is that scenario ever familiar.

My first time in a public washroom in France produced one of those porcelain holes in the ground, too. I fled in horror thinking I must have entered the wrong door, and that I had encountered an unfamiliar version of urinal.
But the writing on the door reassured me, albeit in French, that this was indeed the intended place for "shes".
Come to think of it, it certainly eliminated the "toilet seat woes".

Dogdoc
Member

09-29-2001

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 5:06 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Dogdoc a private message Print Post    
I went into one of those "stand there and do it over a hole in the floor" toilets in Brazil. The hole opened into the river. The floor was dirty. I only used it once. lol

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:32 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Juju2bigdog a private message Print Post    
Well, um, I don't think you are supposed to stand. They don't call them squatters for nothing.

The squatting isn't so bad for me. It's the getting back up that is hell. I think they should have grab bars on the sides of the stall.

Maris
Member

03-28-2002

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Maris a private message Print Post    
Lumbele, lol. We used to call them Turkish toilets when I lived in Paris.

On our poor student incomes the first question we would ask when agreeing to meet somewhere for a drink was Do they have turkish toilets? If the cafe had turkish toilets then it was off our list. lol.

Wargod
Moderator

07-16-2001

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:39 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Wargod a private message Print Post    
I am so very sheltered, lol.

Dogdoc
Member

09-29-2001

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 3:29 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Dogdoc a private message Print Post    
Juju, I wasn't getting anything but my shoes close to that floor. It was unisex and just had a small hole in the floor. Blech!

Jasper
Member

09-14-2000

Monday, August 20, 2007 - 8:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Jasper a private message Print Post    
Ha, I too remember the squat toilets in Paris. After remembering my last experience of having to squat and pee outdoors which resulted in wet jeans and a ruined pair of shoes (one shoe anyways) I left and told hubby we had to find somewhere else.

Darrellh
Member

07-21-2004

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 2:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Darrellh a private message Print Post    
Lousy Is the Best They Can Ever Be

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/arts/music/26mich.html?
ex=1188964800&en=fb4702b3436d9af1&ei=5070&emc=eta1

By MICHAEL WHITE
Published: August 26, 2007
LONDON

THE Edinburgh Festival may be one of the world’s great arts fixtures, but its Fringe festival has always operated like a national freak show, opening nonjudgmental arms to anything that could be said to pass as entertainment. Proust on Rollerblades, Ibsen in drag, your favorite Wagner moments whistled by a chorus in gorilla suits: old-timers will have seen and usually passed by it all. And being passed by is the shared experience of Fringe events. They tend to play obscurely, in church halls and basement rooms to audiences of 16, barely noticed, instantly forgotten.

That said, the Fringe does have its star acts that either get seized on by TV talent scouts or at least acquire cult status and return year after year. One of the most spectacular of the cult items, not quite ready for prime time but expectant, will be playing Edinburgh’s sizable Canongate Church next Sunday. All seats are sold, and lines for returns will undoubtedly stretch around the block.

This hottest of hot tickets is an Edinburgh band called the Really Terrible Orchestra. And were you to ask what it does, the answer would be that with true Scottish candor it lives up to its name, or rather down to it: an orchestra that plays terribly.

“We are indeed quite bad,” the principal bassoonist admitted. The standard varies from player to player, he added, noting that he himself had passed Grade IV, the British examination level normally taken by schoolchildren around age 12.

“But I have trouble with C sharps — a design fault of the instrument, I think — which means I don’t play them,” he said. “And some of our members are really very challenged. We have one dire cellist who has the names of the strings written on his bridge. Otherwise he can’t remember what they are.”

The fascinating thing about the Really Terrible Orchestra, though, is that its appalling players are in fact eminent in other walks of life. They are politicians, bankers, judges, surgeons, senior academics. And the principal bassoonist who doesn’t play C sharps happens to be the polymath law professor and best-selling writer Alexander McCall Smith, the author of (among many other things) the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books, which are now being filmed for international release.

A genial, donnish figure who lives in the most genteel of Edinburgh suburbs and now ranks among the most popular literary figures in Britain, Mr. McCall Smith was one of the founders of the orchestra eight years ago. He likes to say that it was set up with no other reason than to give hopeless amateurs a chance.

“There were a number of us with children in school orchestras who fantasized about being in an orchestra ourselves,” he said. “And as there was no likelihood of ever being accepted into an existing ensemble, we decided to create our own. There’s a concept of asylum in the R.T.O. It’s therapy.”

It’s also something that could easily have turned into a standard amateur ensemble like a thousand others. But where standard amateurs may be incidentally bad, the Really Terrible Orchestra is fundamentally bad. Its random ability to play the right notes at the right time, or at all, is part of what the orchestra chairman, the lousy clarinetist Peter Stevenson, calls “our entertainment package.”

“We knew there was no market for a good amateur orchestra, because a poor professional one would always be better,” Mr. Stevenson said. “But there is a market for the R.T.O. And that our concerts sell out in advance, to audiences who just love to hear us scrape through easy arrangements of Bach or the last 40 bars of the ‘1812’ Overture — the rest is far too difficult — is proof. There’s always thunderous applause, especially if we’ve got lost in something and ground to a halt. Always a standing ovation. And it’s not just because we have our friends and family in the audience. People genuinely thrill to it.”
<snip>

Perhaps the height of the Sinfonia’s acclaim came when it was threatened with an injunction by the publishers of Richard Strauss on the ground that its performances of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” were rearranged without permission. The case never reached court, to the chagrin of the Sinfonia’s manager, who replied that the music had not been rearranged: “It’s just that we don’t play it very well.”

<snip>

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Saturday, December 01, 2007 - 12:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Got the link to this video in email. The band Five for Fighting will donate $.49 to Autism Speaks every time this video is viewed. Grab a few tissues before watching it, though.

Sharinia
Member

09-07-2002

Saturday, December 01, 2007 - 12:32 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Sharinia a private message Print Post    
Thanks ladyt. The rise in autism is alarming, it's epidemic, and it still doesn't get enough attention. I personally believe that our toxic world is partly to blame.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, December 07, 2007 - 11:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Bumping this up for Autism Speaks ...

Hermione69
Member

07-24-2002

Friday, December 07, 2007 - 11:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Hermione69 a private message Print Post    
Very moving. Thanks, LT. I've sent it on to family and friends also.

Jimmer
Moderator

08-30-2000

Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:04 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Jimmer a private message Print Post    
Thanks for posting that LT.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
I viewed

Egbok
Member

07-13-2000

Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:15 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Egbok a private message Print Post    
Thank you LadyTex. You are a sweetheart for posting and promoting this video.

Grannyg
Member

05-28-2002

Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 10:41 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Grannyg a private message Print Post    
It was very touching. We have a whole class (7 kids) who are austic. They just steal your heart.

Heyltslori
Moderator

09-15-2001

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:05 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Heyltslori a private message Print Post    
I received this in an email and thought it was really cool!

One Sheet of Paper

Hukdonreality
Member

09-29-2003

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:08 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Hukdonreality a private message Print Post    
I got that one sheet of paper e-mail too. It's wild!

I received this one in an e-mail and it's really cleverly done! Just be sure to wait maybe 10 seconds for the fun to begin:

http://producten.hema.nl/

Heyltslori
Moderator

09-15-2001

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:11 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Heyltslori a private message Print Post    
That is very clever! Thanks Huk!

Denecee
Member

09-05-2002

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Denecee a private message Print Post    
Very cool! I wish I had an ounce of that kind of talent! Thanks for sharing your finds!

Mameblanche
Member

08-24-2002

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 11:48 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mameblanche a private message Print Post    
Great stuff, thx, I've emailed them to my joke list. :-)

Twinkie
Member

09-24-2002

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 12:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Twinkie a private message Print Post    
http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Test your vocabulary and feed the hungry at the same time.

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:07 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Texannie a private message Print Post    
Warning about flip flops from China/WalMart.

this is legit.

http://www.lamanaphotography.com/walmart2.htm

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/flipflop.asp

Rosie
Member

11-12-2003

Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:44 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Rosie a private message Print Post    
I stopped wearing flip flops after I fell in my yard and broke my wrist. The combination of water, stepping down and flip flops is not good.