Allyson, where did you get this? Do you have a link. I must get one for my nephew

JPL store.

I know stages and dance floors use sprung wood flooring which is usually tongue-in-groove planks, on top of ply, on top of something else (I think this part varies). Anyway, it is a pretty solid floor, but with just enough give that it's less likely to destroy ankles and knees and such. A quick google tells me that this is common in sports, too.

eta: And reading further tells me that sports flooring lays the boards differently for a thicker, harder floor. So, I dunno either.

And I have now ascertained that there is only ONE other person in my office who pronounces "cot" and "caught" the same way. Everyone else has enough vowels to pronounce them differently.

I am now cracking up my co-workers by sitting here muttering "cah-ah-ah-tttt," "cawt"!

TAR: Rob was playing a semantics game about lying. He didn't actually bribe the security guard not to tell the other teams (and he didn't ask them to lie, he just asked them not to tell the other teams about the better bus), he told some other guy, and the security guard was nearby. So when he was accused of lying after asking if he told the "security guard" he was all like, nope!, didn't do that. In spirit the other racers were right, but semantically Rob was telling the truth.

Mostly, I thought it was just funny, though, so YMMV.

JPL store.

I don't know what this is.

I have only about 10 vowel sounds.

A quick google tells me that this is common in sports, too.

For no reason in particular, I am now picturing a "quick google" as a small bird-like animal that periodically comes up behind you and whispers in your ear....

In retrospect, I may have potentially ignited a flamewar on TwoP. Someone posted a snippet of showfic using Goonies quotes, and I responded that I hated Sean Astin so much in that movie, I wanted to slap him hard enough to make Patty and Cathy Lane collapse in pain on their Nick at Night reruns.

We'll see if the author takes it as a personal slam rather than a tengental movie gripe.

For no reason in particular, I am now picturing a "quick google" as a small bird-like animal that periodically comes up behind you and whispers in your ear....

I was sort of picturing it as a quick, sordid information retrieval done in some dirty back alley, or a nearby motel room over you lunch hour.

Huh.

Safe to say that Russell Crowe isn't the most loved guy out there, but the Gladiator star really made enemies with the wrong person.

Namely, Osama bin Laden.

In an interview with GQ in its new March edition, Crowe for the first time talks about a kidnapping plot against him, which he says was hatched by al Qaeda in a bid to " culturally destabilize" the United States.