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Azriel
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 11:23 pm
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.
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Lumbele
Member
07-12-2002
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 4:40 am
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".
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Dogdoc
Member
09-29-2001
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 5:06 am
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
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:32 pm
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.
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Maris
Member
03-28-2002
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:38 pm
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.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 12:39 pm
I am so very sheltered, lol.
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Dogdoc
Member
09-29-2001
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 3:29 pm
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!
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Jasper
Member
09-14-2000
| Monday, August 20, 2007 - 8:35 pm
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.
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Darrellh
Member
07-21-2004
| Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 2:00 pm
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>
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Saturday, December 01, 2007 - 12:16 pm
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.
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Sharinia
Member
09-07-2002
| Saturday, December 01, 2007 - 12:32 pm
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.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, December 07, 2007 - 11:38 pm
Bumping this up for Autism Speaks ...
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Hermione69
Member
07-24-2002
| Friday, December 07, 2007 - 11:49 pm
Very moving. Thanks, LT. I've sent it on to family and friends also.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:04 am
Thanks for posting that LT.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:10 am
I viewed
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Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 9:15 am
Thank you LadyTex. You are a sweetheart for posting and promoting this video.
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Grannyg
Member
05-28-2002
| Saturday, December 08, 2007 - 10:41 am
It was very touching. We have a whole class (7 kids) who are austic. They just steal your heart.
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Heyltslori
Moderator
09-15-2001
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:05 am
I received this in an email and thought it was really cool! One Sheet of Paper
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Hukdonreality
Member
09-29-2003
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:08 am
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/
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Heyltslori
Moderator
09-15-2001
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:11 am
That is very clever! Thanks Huk!
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Denecee
Member
09-05-2002
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:44 am
Very cool! I wish I had an ounce of that kind of talent! Thanks for sharing your finds!
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Mameblanche
Member
08-24-2002
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 11:48 am
Great stuff, thx, I've emailed them to my joke list. 
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Twinkie
Member
09-24-2002
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 12:35 pm
http://www.freerice.com/index.php Test your vocabulary and feed the hungry at the same time.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:07 pm
Warning about flip flops from China/WalMart. this is legit. http://www.lamanaphotography.com/walmart2.htm http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/flipflop.asp
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Rosie
Member
11-12-2003
| Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:44 pm
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.
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