John H in natter.. (because sometimes the truth is worth a snerk or two.)

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OK, I recently asked you guys for help with Getting Married.

I'll just warn you now I'm going to be asking advice on stuff like Buying A House and Having Children and so on soon. In the year 2019 I'll be still here, (on the lightning-fast Buffista Board, contributing to "Natter 7,000,009: President Ita, remember us?" with the display wired directly into my visual cortex, posting 1000 words a minute just by twitching a couple of muscles in my forehead, from my summer home on Mars) asking for tips on parenting teenagers.

But for now, I just want your help on grinding coffee.

erinaceous:

I have to give a talk to a buncha folks that like crossword puzzles. I want to look fun yet authoritative.

victor infante, in Firefly:

So, the "blame Firefly for Dark Angel's demise" nuts have melded with the "Mutant Enemy is evil because they killed Tara" nuts?

Man, I haven't seen lunacy organize like this since the Reform Party!

From Nutty, in the Hollywood Gossip topic over in the Ovies Forum back on WX:

You know what I think? I think only famous people have pals.

I do not have pals. I have friends, and if they talked about me that way, they would be ex-friends, and also ex-alive.

Luckily, I am not a famous person, because I would be a famous person in jail.

victor:

So, the "blame Firefly for Dark Angel's demise" nuts have melded with the "Mutant Enemy is evil because they killed Tara" nuts?

Trudy:

They imagine crime?

In Angel, nonspoily:

KATIE M: I think it's a Bad Idea and will End Badly if it actually happens.

CONNIE N: Well, of course it will End Badly. That's why we're watching Angel and not Friends.

Vonnie K in Firefly:

I just can't take these people seriously - other than shaking my head and mumble "bah, another case of the internet bringing the wackjobs together."

Betsy:men don't like to say "penis" except at the doctor.

They don't?

MiracleMan: This is utter crap. My friend Flash and I just did a whole thing over AIM along the lines of "my penis is so big it bends light and screws up whale migration patterns."

Real men don't mind saying the word "penis". Real men like to climb up to the roof and shout "PENIS!!" every chance they get, while howling at the moon and urinating on the downstairs neighbors.

Which reminds me, Aimee...we may have to move again.

"PENIS!!"

Hil R, demonstrating over in Firefly why Buffistas.org is the best of all possible places to engage in discourse:

As I learned it (in French class), the subjunctive is a mood, the perfect and pluperfect are tenses. The subjunctive is used when, rather than stating that something happened or didn't happen (or is happening or is not happening), you're using the form of the verb to express uncertainty over whether it happened. The perfect is for an action that was started in the past, and the pluperfect is for an action that occured before the action in the past tense. I always confused subjunctive with past conditional. So, in a quick South Park demonstration (slightly revising the lyrics):

Subjunctive: "What would Brian Boitano do if he were here right now?"

Conditional: "He'd make a plan"

Pluperfect: "Brian Boitano had been here"

Past: "before he made a plan"

Perfect: "Brian Boitano has been here for awhile

Present: "and he is making a plan."

Next week, on Grammar With the Buffistas: Nouns, Adverbs and Adjectives, demonstrated using Shut your Fucking Face, Unclefucker.

(Cool, I got COMMed! But, erm, the "make" in the conditional should be part of the bolded verb, and the "would" in the subjunctive shouldn't. And I edited slightly to make the distinction between pluperfect and imperfect clearer.)