Hee. I've been Buff-diving and came across one of my all-time favorite quotes from Aims:

my bobbes were uncle discussing my gauchos. I'm not kidding. It's tripoli crazy because I haven't work any in YONKS.

That will never not be funny.

Oh sj, I was so sorry to hear about your car and other life frustrations. I'm gad you're treating yourself with Chinese.

Thanks. It's ok really. I just need sleep and everything else won't seem so difficult, and I plan on sleeping as soon as this baseball game ends.

But he came back with "I thought you (all) would appreciate my observations."

My brain is melting and draining out my ears with the effort to not pick his observations apart with respect to their logical relationship, or lack thereof, to the original post.

How wrong would it be for me to reply that on second thought I do appreciate his thoughts, and would like to continue the dialog, so long as he does not mind me mocking him mercilessly across the internet? Very wrong?

See, I think that I would get all trolly on his arse, myself, and shred his argument, and generally be the mean kid.

Ditto Hil's idiot student.

Cute Fay's Student moment:

during papier mache making activity

TinyWeeAmericanBoy (looking at bit of newspaper about to be dunked in glue): Hey! This guy is trying to be the new American President!

Fay: Oh! (stares at old white guy) Is that Mr McCain?

TWAB: Yes!

Fay: I prefer Mr Obama.

TWAB: Me too! (dunks paper in glue and slaps it on his balloon with gusto)

Red Sox win! Time to (hopefully) sleep.

I hope all those fevers and nasty colds are gone from buffistas in the morning.

OMG, heard the best song tonight at a benefit I was at (from a group I've heard stuff from before). Sadly only on their MySpace page, but go there and listen to "WifeSwapping"--it's so all about the lesbian drama I'm always telling y'all and the complex "her ex's roommate's ex's new girlfriend's ex..." stuff.

You know, reading Fay's post re: her student and the newspaper made me realize how utterly WEIRD it was to think MR. McCain/MR. Obama.

All we ever hear regarding politicians in the U.S. is predominanatly last names, sometimes the full or first name, but without honorifics. Whereas you very rarely hear a European newscaster refer to a politician as anything but (And I'm hearing BBC broadcasts in my head, and oy, am I old because the veddy British Voices are all saying "Mrs Thatcher"...oh! there's a "Mr Blair." PreCatholic.) Mr or Mrs or Miss.

Query...in Britain, it's still usually Miss, isn't it? I know that my students who were predominantly Hispanic called me "Miss" -- I mean, ALL the students did. "MEESS!" Hee. Respectful courtesies were paramount; even if it were the first day, and they didn't know your name from Adam, you were ALWAYS "Miss" or "Mister" NoLastName, even if they were making fun of you behind your back, to get your attention or to respond to you, it was always with a respectful title.

You know, it makes me feel anachronistic, but I really appreciate it. I believe in equalite, fraternite, blahblah revolutioncakes, but I also believe strongly in manners as a social lubricant. They can be constricting, but I've seen mannered and I've seen mannerless and I'd rather have a dance of courtesy than the senseless anarchy of mannerlessness.

Wow. LAte night tea-driven manner rants. I'm fucking aged.

My leg is hurting -- a weird muscle pain in my thigh, not like any pain I'm used to. I've been watching House all afternoon, so it's freaking me out.

That is how I describe the muscle ache in my thigh I get when I am short of potassium. Orange juice, apricot nectar, tomatoes, potatoes, milk and yoghurt, dried apricots, kiwi fruit, and peaches among other things are rich in potassium. And the upside of eating some of these things is that they nummy and nutritious, even if potassium isn't the problem. The single best hit of potassium, short of eating a spoonful of salt substitute (potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride), is Low Sodium V-8 - not only does it have tomato juice in it, it uses potassium chloride for flavor. When I am really in deep need, I can down most of a six-pack of it before I notice that metal-can taste, or that it does not taste right without real salt in it.

Query...in Britain, it's still usually Miss, isn't it?

It certainly was for me the whole time I was in school - Miss/Mr/Mrs LastName was the norm. Don't know what it's like now. I'm Miss Fay at my present school - but this Firstname business hadn't been the habit until the year I joined. If I'd been there a year earlier I'd have been Miss Jay, but because when I joined the one token heterosexual bloke joining the staff rejoiced in the name Mr Fagg, they decided perhaps first names were the way to go. (I only learned this a year or so later. Not sure what I make of this rationale, really.)

Although I'd say Mr Blair or Mr Brown or Mrs Thatcher (well, okay, or Thatcher-Thatcher-Milksnatcher, or That Evil Old Bag), it did strike me as odd too to be saying 'Mr McCain', since one never hears him described thus. But it seemed totally inappropriate drop the honorific when talking to a 7-year-old; we ALWAYS call the other adults in school "Mr" or "Miss" (Miss applied to the married women too, actually, for the most part, because in Thai it's 'Khun' regardless of gender and marital status, so I guess they're trying not to complicate it unduly for the wee 'uns? Or something?).

...Actually, I ALWAYS call my colleague Mr Brian "Mr Brian", even in social situations. He's my parents' generation, and even though he's very playful and a good giggle, I still feel faintly rude calling him just Brian. It's sort of in jest that I always use the honorific, but also sort of not. (Heaven knows what he makes of it, but in return he always calls me Miss Nichola.)

I have a friend who teaches high school and her students call the teachers by the first name. It's an alternative school; a last chance school, and they claim it makes the students feel less intimidated or some such.

I used to think -- before I taught high school -- that this was perfectly right and reasonable, but I have completely changed my mind. There's so little manners and respect in most American high schools and most kids in an alternative setting are going to be "intimidated" OR made easy by first name usage. If they get too het up, they'll just call you a fucking bitch anyway.

Might as well get the teeny repspectfuls you can, eh?

And I am 36 damn years old, and I would NEVER NEVER meet an old teacher or professor of mine and call them Joe or Susan or whatever. It's took me a year to call a collge professor by his first name, and I knew him quite well socially (that's code for I've seen him tripping balls, talking to the nice flowers on his wallpaper) but I still called him Dr. ---- when talking about him socially.

What do y'all think? I find that I call older people by an honorific until they've insisted at least 3 or four times that they prefer to be called by their first. And I would never introduce them by their first name.

Now, someone younger, my age or about 10 years older? Don't front me your shit is tight, bitch. (Hee.) I give the honorific out of either from genuine respect or very stiff social nicety. If I don't like you or think you're a stupid ass, I'd rather stab myself in the face. But old asses still get the title.

We call all our politicians by their first names. Wouldn't do to let them get ideas above their stations.

eta - And pretty much everyone else too. I can't think of anyone outside of primary school I've referred to as Miss (although all my primary school teachers used Ms) or Mr. or whatever.