Billytea, with more exciting news from the world of biology:

Or there's the antechinus, an Australian marsupial of remarkable sexual appetites. Every year you can hear dads explain the facts of life to their newly mature sons: "Well son, it's almost July and you'll have noticed that your testicles are now as big as your head." Or at least you could hear that, if not for the fact that all their fathers are dead.

Jen:

Being an agnostic is so much less complicated. I just shrug and say, "beats me," and that's the end of the conversation. ;)

From Natter...

erikaj: I know little about my ancestors, except that one great-grandfather had an upsetting tendency to fall for get-rich-quick schemes that failed.Trying to raise cattle when he'd barely ever seen a cow, stuff like that.(they all got some bovine disease and died, of course.) And that was after the Worst!Mercantile!Ever!. I dearly hope I didn't inherit his business sense.

Nutty: erika, could be worse. Your last name could be Ponzi.

In the Buffy thread, a fine point of Christian theology is hashed out:

Steph: That [Christ] was human meant he could die in substitutionary atonement.

Jen: Wow. It's like algebra, only with grace instead of letters.

Cindy: But there is big debate as to whether you have to show your work(s).

billytea is so goddamn cool.

Rebecca Lizard, in Buffy

Dative of disadvantage! It's pretty cool. One of the double datives. Nepos is full of it.

The food was for aid to the troops, is the example my teacher gave. The second dative can be explained by DoD and turned to a "to" in English.

It can also be the dative of advantage, and I actually like to call it that way better, but then you don't have any fun alliteration.

But cooler are the dative of possession, the genitive of object. It's like there's been miscegenation between the cases.

I don't understand what it means, as I never learned grammar, but it just sounded so cool!

From Buffy 1, non-spoilery:

Jen: I suspect many people I know and consider dear friends will end up in hell along with me, which might make it bearable.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Almost everyone I've ever met, in fact, and probably heaven'd be kind of boring. It's just, I'm not sure how much company y'all are gonna be when we're, like, writhing in a lake of fire.

On the other hand, I bet the devil can quote shooting scripts.

dareva:But they'll be from really horrible episodes.

Jess PMoon: And only Riley's lines.

In Buffy, unspoilery:

Jen: I'll be surprised if I meet a maker, any maker, on the event of my death.

Betsy: With my luck, it'll be FrameMaker. "Unresolved cross reference in Betsy at age 21."

Buffy 1 is comedy gold today:

Miracleman: If the Pope is right, I still ain't goin' to Hell. Nope, I'm gonna distract the guard, slip out of line and catch a taxi to Valhalla.

'Cause those fuckers know how to par-tay!!

Nutty: Yeah, right up until you have to get chopped up on the battlefield every day. I mean, every day? Couldn't you practice your Ragnarok skills on weekends, and just drink and eat and watch soap operas during the week?

Miracleman: There's a trick to that, too. Volunteer as quartermaster.

Nutty: They also serve who only stand and hand out dinner?

In Bitches:

Teppy: Mocking my secret boyfriend! For shame...

billytea: Hey, I say it with the deepest concern. Gandhi had similar issues. Of course, he never reacted by swapping faces with John Travolta and killing all the witnesses.

(Hee. Now I'm imagining a Gandhi remake by John Woo. ...And now, E.T. by Quentin Tarantino. *sigh* I really should get back to work, shouldn't I?)

erika: Yes! And ease up on the caffeine too, I think. :)