Hil R: I feel like such a geek. I just had to call my mother because I realized that the only graphing calculator I have here is a TI-82, and I'm going to be taking Complex Analysis this semester and the TI-89, which I do own, would be very helpful. I asked her to send it to me if she found it anywhere, and listed a couple places it might be. She said, "I'm looking for a TI-83, right?" and I said, "No, the TI-89, but I do have an 83 somewhere too, and that would be better than the 82. There's also an 85 that I think might be on the bookshelves downstairs, and I think I had an 86 at some point but I'm not sure where that is." Then there was a long pause, and she asked why I owned five graphing calculators and I couldn't quite answer that.

Theodosia: but we still learned to use slide rules. (They hadn't been invented either when DX went to high school.)

DX Machina: Ahem...

t He pulls the lovingly preserved Faber-Castell slide rule from the desk drawer, and removes it from it's case, gently carressing it's precison-machined components. The left hand holds the rule firmly, while the right eases the slide back and forth in it's groove, moving it gently in and out as complex calculations are performed. As old skills are remembered, the speed at which calculations are performed begins to climb, and the slide moves back and forth more quickly now. The cursor is moving to and fro, as well, surrounding the slide rule, but hiding nothing, completely transparent, disclosing secrets as the series of calculations approaches completion. And then in a dizzying explosion of numbers, logs, sines, and pi, the sequence is done. The hands relax, the slide and the cursor are returned to normal position, and the instrument is slipped back into it's case, and to put safely away for another time.

In Previously:

Matt the Bruins fan: Man, when I think back on it... we had the advent of Dawn's "my pain is deeper than everyone else's" whining and BuffyWhipped!Spike, Joyce's illness, Riley deciding that the season's metaphor should consist of vamp feedings in place of back alley blowjobs, Glory's adventures in bubblebathing, the abandonment of Buffy's inner darkness/Slayer origin storyline, and Xander's relevance pulling a disappearing act all within a relatively short run of episodes. It's as if someone shook the entire WB run of the show and most of the suckitude settled into early Season 5.

helentm: But then in later season six, we've got Xander leaving Anya at the altar, magic!crack, Giles leaving, Riley coming back, and that thing with Spike and Buffy.

Emlah: Hmmm. It's like trying to decide whether a lemon or some sea salt is a better chaser for a glass of razor blades.

OK, so technically, it's Jacqueline in Natter, but...

Emmett: I'm going to be the ring-bearer, which is THE MOST IMPORTANT part in the whole wedding. Because if you don't have the rings, you CAN'T GET MARRIED. Hey, if A. [son of EM's current boyfriend] is in the wedding, he can be the leaf boy! (David and I, caught between "Leaf boy? Whafuck?" and "Oh, yeah, EM will be delighted to have her BF's son in her ex-husband's wedding," make small baffled noises. Emmett audibly rolls his eyes at our stupidity.) The leaf boy. He's like the flower girl, only he throws leaves. You know.

Betsy in Natter, proving that even in dreams punsters are unappreciated:

First day of school.

Ellen: "I had really weird dreams last night."

Me: "Oh?"

Ellen: "Yeah. We were being chased by this guy wearing all green and carrying asparagus, and I said 'We're being stalked' and you hit me over the head."

Erin G.: Theres something about poultry shears that makee me happy

More Betsy:

Nothing says 'party' like 'comatose capybara speedbumps'.

Betsy, en fuego!

Betsy [re: the happy ending in the movie version of Our Town]: It's like having Evelyn pop back up alive at the end of *Chinatown*. "It was only a flesh wound!"

Ken Buddha: Of course Polanski changed the original end of the screenplay to make it more nihilistic.

Betsy: Yeah, but Polanski was right.

waves hands as attempts to make some logical consistency out of her positions

fails

pretends she's doing the Lambada

**************

Trudy Booth [again, re happy endings tacked on in movies]:

I believe you, Scrappy, on an intellectual level...

But if Charlotte hadn't died I don't know if I'd have become a vegetarian each time I finished Charlotte's Web.

Betsy HP - You can come back to the carnivore side, Trudy. McDonalds has stopped serving Spider McNuggets in response to widespread protest.

Madrigal:

Babies basically are just little emissaries of all the bodily fluids. It makes one wonder why there aren't more baby clothes made of vinyl.

There was no coffee on my monitor from this one, but it induced a big gasp for air, and thus I thought it COMM worthy.

Daniel C. Jensen in Press:

Tonight is likely the last Buffy on UPN in the United States.

Chosen will be shown.

Next week UPN will be showing "UPN's Funky Flubs" in the timeslot.

Be very afraid.