who the hell would let their daughter wear this?

I teach the girls who wear this sort of thing. For school, they mostly stay in the dress code, or have figured out ways to "work around it". It's when they go out or dress for special occasions that this sort of thing appears.

If I were to show them the photo, many of them would declare it "too cute" and discuss where they would wear this sort of thing.

All I can say is...you should see some of the parents. Plenty of them see nothing wrong with this sort of thing and will buy it for their daughters.

It's not okay just because her ass isn't actually hanging out!

Has anyone gotten the postcards I sent while I was on vacation? I ask because I just got an email from my friend in Houston saying he just got his yesterday.

I did! It got here sometime before x-mas. If I didn't say yay about it here, I meant to.

Huh. That's quite the time difference.

Has anyone gotten the postcards I sent while I was on vacation? I ask because I just got an email from my friend in Houston saying he just got his yesterday.

I got mine about a week ago and I suck for not saying so! It's on my fridge!!

That's so weird. So Chicago takes about a month. SF a month and a half and Houston almost 2. Ok, so when I go to Sydney, we need to try this with a bunch more cities and judge the time difference.

ETA: YOU DO NOT SUCK!

Anyone here a chess player?

I'm writing a scene where a semi-expert is playing with/teaching a novice. What are some things the semi-expert might do to even things out a little? Like, could he let the novice make some extra moves at the beginning of the game or something?

Like, could he let the novice make some extra moves at the beginning of the game or something?

No. Never. What era? Because different strategies happen in different eras - depending on who came up with them.

So if this is one of your 19th century scenarios, the standard chess openings would be different than the ones that happened in the mid 20th century.

Early 19th century, my usual era. I'm not looking for a detailed description of a game. The novice is a 9-year-old girl, semi-expert a 24-year-old man. The girl has just lost another game, and she's arguing all the reasons the man should be letting her win, saying it's not fair and so on. He says, basically, "Look, if I just let you win, this wouldn't be the educational experience I'm shooting for. And I *am* helping. I did X, Y, and Z that I wouldn't have done if I were playing someone on my level."