Loads Of Fun Quotes

We lusty bibliophiles know that reading, unlike just about anything else, is both good for you and loads of fun.

Load up our guns Bring your friends It's fun to lose and to pretend

Never drink diet soda. It shows you have no nerve. Only drink real colas, caffeine-packed energy drinks, or vitamin water. Hate champagne because that’s what everyone expects you to love. Energy drinks are the best party drinks. You never get tired, you never get a hangover, and you can make fun of all the loaded people who think they’re clever but are really acting stupid.

Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles & smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun & he's guilty. And all men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors & smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others & look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt & sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it & sometimes break in two. I've known a few. You work twice as hard to be a farmer as to be his hog. I suppose it's thinking about trying to be good makes the crack run up the wall one night. A man with high standards, too, the least hair falls on him sometimes wilts his spine. He can't let himself alone, won't let himself off the hook if he falls just a breath from grace.

And off we go, out onto the highway looking for a little fun. Perhaps a flatbed truck loaded with human cadavers will explode in front of a Star Trek reunion. One can only dream and hope.

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

Do you ever have any fun?" "Loads of it. Just not the sort that lands me in trouble." "We seem to have different definitions of fun.

Spending time, here in Eufaula, has helped me realize that barreling through life at a breakneck pace -- while exciting, sometimes glamorous, and always loads of fun -- has been, at best, a distraction. A useful tool in avoiding personal introspection or thoughts of the future.

You pull the trigger just for fun, forgetting I'm a loaded gun. So hate me for the things I've done, and not for what I've now become.

I finished loading the dishwasher, and then circled the couch to make sure I hadn’t missed any visible empty condom wrappers. That was never fun to explain. The fact that I had bagged a good portion of beautiful coeds at this school was no secret, but I didn’t see a reason to remind them when they came to my apartment. It was all about presentation.

In which case, the sword will never pick you.” “Thanks for that,” Tedros grunted, glancing at Hort. “Your dates must be loads of fun.” “It’s not like you’re marrying Miss Sunshine, either,” Hort pipped.

Slowly, even though I thought it would never happen, New York lost its charm for me. I remember arriving in the city for the first time, passing with my parents through the First World's Club bouncers at Immigration, getting into a massive cab that didn't have a moment to waste, and falling in love as soon as we shot onto the bridge and I saw Manhattan rise up through the looks of parental terror reflected in the window. I lost my virginity in New York, twice (the second one wanted to believe he was the first so badly). I had my mind blown open by the combination of a liberal arts education and a drug-popping international crowd. I became tough. I had fun. I learned so much. But now New York was starting to feel empty, a great party that had gone on too long and was showing no sign of ending soon. I had a headache, and I was tired. I'd danced enough. I wanted a quiet conversation with someone who knew what load-shedding was.

Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity.

There’s a difference between jumping off a cliff and having fun. Once you jump off a cliff, there’s no undoing it, there’s no stopping mid-air. But having the kind of fun that seems daring and embarrassing in front of strangers requires a special bravery.’ “What am I going to do without you?” ‘This loaded question is the reason I didn’t want anyone to know I was dying. There are questions I can’t answer. I cannot tell you how you will survive without me. I cannot tell you how to mourn me. I cannot convince you to not feel guilty if you forget the anniversary of my death, or if you realise days or weeks or months have gone by without thinking about me. I just want you to live.

Egeria smiles warmly. “Where did you learn court etiquette, Cat?” “In Castle Fisa.” “What were you doing there?” She sounds genuinely interested, and a little awed. “Mostly getting tortured,” I answer. “Loads of fun.

Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin.

It’s not going to be super fun if you’re scared the whole time.” “Scared?” “Of getting emotionally attached to me.” I leaned back on the chair and crossed my arms. “I think you’re overestimating how much fun you are to be around.” “Impossible. I’m loads of fun,” she said with a wink.

But drinking: manly. Having buddies: manly. Clowning around: manly. Earning lots of money: manly. Owning a fast car: manly. Slouching around: manly. Sniggering as you smoke joints: manly. Being competitive: manly. Being aggressive: manly. Wanting to fuck loads of partners: manly. Responding with violence to something that threatens you: manly. Not taking time to spruce yourself up in the morning: manly. Wearing clothes because they're practical: manly. Everything that's fun to do is manly, everything concerned with survival is manly, everything that gains ground is manly.

It's all a load of bolloxology, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of making fun of you, am I?

Don’t allow the demands of work load; make you lose touch with life.

A sense of humor is more than just having fun. It lightens the load for you and those around you.

Our main difference from chimps and gorillas is that over the last 3 million years or so, we have been shaped less and less by nature, and more and more by culture. We have become experimental creatures of our own making. This experiment has never been tried before. And we, its unwitting authors, have never controlled it. The experiment is now moving very quickly and on a colossal scale. Since the early 1900s, the world’s population has multiplied by four and its economy — a rough measure of the human load on nature — by more than forty. We have reached a stage where we must bring the experiment under rational control, and guard against present and potential dangers. It’s entirely up to us. If we fail — if we blow up or degrade the biosphere so it can no longer sustain us — nature will merely shrug and conclude that letting apes run the laboratory was fun for a while but in the end a bad idea.

And you?' 'Ah. I'm coping.' He said it simply, but it caused something in my heart to crack a little. 'It's not for ever,' I said, as we stopped. 'I know.' 'And we're going to do loads of fun stuff while you're here.' 'What have you got planned?' 'Um, basically it's You Getting Naked. Followed by supper. Followed by more You Getting Naked. Maybe a walk around Central Park, some corny tourist stuff, like the Staten Island ferry and Times Square, and some shopping in the East Village and some really good food with added You Getting Naked.' He grinned. 'Do I get You Getting Naked too?' 'Oh, yes, it's a two-for-one deal.' I leant my head against him. 'Seriously, though, I'd love you to come and see where I work. Maybe meet Nathan and Ashok and all the people I go on about. Mr and Mrs Gopnik will be out of town so you probably won't meet them but you'll at least get an idea of it all in your head.

By the grace of that God all disappointments, failures, mistakes, even tragedies become part of the winding path of our lives, given as turning points, and loaded with divine insight - should we care and have the strength to see.

Culture is a vulture but there's also vulture culture and cultured vultures and cultured yougurt (cherry, peach, pear, pineapple, grape, vanilla, plain, cherry vanilla, pineapple orage, cranberry, orange, mandarin orange, coffee, apricot, raspberry, blueberry, boysenberry, prune). And speaking of vulture culture there's counter-culture and under-the-counter culture, too. But whether you call it kulchur with a k and a ch and without the e it's still the same thing and you can't disguise it with pretty frills and a gallon of dog sweat. It still has two syllables and TWO-SYLLABLE WORDS SUCK so you can just forgetit, man. It's no fun at all and even fun wouldn't be fun if it was called funjure or funion or funching. But somehow fucking is still loads of fun even though there's that extra 3-letter cluster of vowels and consonants. Proof positive that there are exceptions everywhere you look. But don't look too hard, you might get eyestrain.

From the line, watching, three things are striking: (a) what on TV is a brisk crack is here a whooming roar that apparently is what a shotgun really sounds like; (b) trapshooting looks comparatively easy, because now the stocky older guy who's replaced the trim bearded guy at the rail is also blowing these little fluorescent plates away one after the other, so that a steady rain of lumpy orange crud is falling into the Nadir's wake; (c) a clay pigeon, when shot, undergoes a frighteningly familiar-looking midflight peripeteia -- erupting material, changing vector, and plummeting seaward in a corkscrewy way that all eerily recalls footage of the 1986 Challenger disaster. All the shooters who precede me seem to fire with a kind of casual scorn, and all get eight out of ten or above. But it turns out that, of these six guys, three have military-combat backgrounds, another two are L. L. Bean-model-type brothers who spend weeks every year hunting various fast-flying species with their "Papa" in southern Canada, and the last has got not only his own earmuffs, plus his own shotgun in a special crushed-velvet-lined case, but also his own trapshooting range in his backyard (31) in North Carolina. When it's finally my turn, the earmuffs they give me have somebody else's ear-oil on them and don't fit my head very well. The gun itself is shockingly heavy and stinks of what I'm told is cordite, small pubic spirals of which are still exiting the barrel from the Korea-vet who preceded me and is tied for first with 10/10. The two brothers are the only entrants even near my age; both got scores of 9/10 and are now appraising me coolly from identical prep-school-slouch positions against the starboard rail. The Greek NCOs seem extremely bored. I am handed the heavy gun and told to "be bracing a hip" against the aft rail and then to place the stock of the weapon against, no, not the shoulder of my hold-the-gun arm but the shoulder of my pull-the-trigger arm. (My initial error in this latter regard results in a severely distorted aim that makes the Greek by the catapult do a rather neat drop-and-roll.) Let's not spend a lot of time drawing this whole incident out. Let me simply say that, yes, my own trapshooting score was noticeably lower than the other entrants' scores, then simply make a few disinterested observations for the benefit of any novice contemplating trapshooting from a 7NC Megaship, and then we'll move on: (1) A certain level of displayed ineptitude with a firearm will cause everyone who knows anything about firearms to converge on you all at the same time with cautions and advice and handy tips. (2) A lot of the advice in (1) boils down to exhortations to "lead" the launched pigeon, but nobody explains whether this means that the gun's barrel should move across the sky with the pigeon or should instead sort of lie in static ambush along some point in the pigeon's projected path. (3) Whatever a "hair trigger" is, a shotgun does not have one. (4) If you've never fired a gun before, the urge to close your eyes at the precise moment of concussion is, for all practical purposes, irresistible. (5) The well-known "kick" of a fired shotgun is no misnomer; it knocks you back several steps with your arms pinwheeling wildly for balance, which when you're holding a still-loaded gun results in mass screaming and ducking and then on the next shot a conspicuous thinning of the crowd in the 9-Aft gallery above. Finally, (6), know that an unshot discus's movement against the vast lapis lazuli dome of the open ocean's sky is sun-like -- i.e., orange and parabolic and right-to-left -- and that its disappearance into the sea is edge-first and splashless and sad.

I say is someone in there?’ The voice is the young post-New formalist from Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won’t stay tight, with that hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone’s in there, the bathroom door composed of thirty-six that’s three times a lengthwise twelve recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from hitting the cabinets’ bottom drawer’s wicked metal knob, through the door and offset ‘Red’ and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little blackened chunks in the foil funnel’s cone, the smoke’s baby-blanket blue that’s sent her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the claw-footed tub’s porcelain, Molly’s had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer, she’s holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The Choice of a Nude Generation, when she was of back-pocket height and prettier by far than any of the peach-colored titans they’d gazed up at, his hand in her lap her hand in the box and rooting down past candy for the Prize, more fun way too much fun inside her veil on the counter above her, the stuff in the funnel exhausted though it’s still smoking thinly, its graph reaching its highest spiked prick, peak, the arrow’s best descent, so good she can’t stand it and reaches out for the cold tub’s rim’s cold edge to pull herself up as the white- party-noise reaches, for her, the sort of stereophonic precipice of volume to teeter on just before the speaker’s blow, people barely twitching and conversations strettoing against a ghastly old pre-Carter thing saying ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ Joelle’s limbs have been removed to a distance where their acknowledgement of her commands seems like magic, both clogs simply gone, nowhere in sight, and socks oddly wet, pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it, loading up the cone again, the ashes from the last load make the world's best filter: this is a fact. Breathes in and out like a savvy diver… –and is knelt vomiting over the lip of the cool blue tub, gouges on the tub’s lip revealing sandy white gritty stuff below the lacquer and porcelain, vomiting muddy juice and blue smoke and dots of mercuric red into the claw-footed trough, and can hear again and seems to see, against the fire of her closed lids’ blood, bladed vessels aloft in the night to monitor flow, searchlit helicopters, fat fingers of blue light from one sky, searching.

Early the next morning, I was driving westward toward the ranch. Marlboro Man had called the night before--a rare evening we’d spent apart--and had asked me to come out early. I’d just turned onto the highway that led out of my hometown when my car phone rang. It was dewy outside, foggy. “Hurry up,” Marlboro Man’s voice playfully commanded. “I want to see my future wife.” My stomach lurched. Wife. It would take me a while to get used to that word. “I’m coming,” I announced. “Hold your horses!” We hung up, and I giggled. Hold your horses. Heh-heh. I had a lifetime of these jokes ahead. This was going to be loads of fun.

Smells Like Teen Spirit" Load up on guns, bring your friends It's fun to lose and to pretend She's over bored and self assured Oh no, I know a dirty word Hello, hello, hello, how low? [x3] Hello, hello, hello! With the lights out, it's less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us I feel stupid and contagious Here we are now, entertain us A mulatto An albino A mosquito My libido Yeah, hey, yay I'm worse at what I do best And for this gift I feel blessed Our little group has always been And always will until the end Hello, hello, hello, how low? [x3] Hello, hello, hello! With the lights out, it's less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us I feel stupid and contagious Here we are now, entertain us A mulatto An albino A mosquito My libido Yeah, hey, yay And I forget just why I taste Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile I found it hard, it's hard to find Oh well, whatever, never mind Hello, hello, hello, how low? [x3] Hello, hello, hello! With the lights out, it's less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us I feel stupid and contagious Here we are now, entertain us A mulatto An albino A mosquito My libido A denial! [x9]

Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he’s covering up. He’s had his fun and he’s guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells.

I believe that every one of us here tonight has as clear and vital a vocation as anyone in a religious order. We have the vocation of keeping alive Mr. Melcher's excitement in leading young people into an expanding imagination. Because of the very nature of the world as it is today our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying, dissipating universe, that we can help our children avoid by providing them with “explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.

Now, look, since when did you think being good meant being happy?” “Since always.” “Since now learn otherwise. Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he’s covering up. He’s had his fun and he’s guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors, and smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit our appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others, and look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt and sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Me loaded and trying very hard not to make a scene, while the guy who had one gay slip with me and his wife are not five feet away, also trying not to be awkward. That’ll be so much fun. I just might hang myself with a rope made of braided napkins.” “Aww. Nice touch with the braid. Very gay,” Dylan told him, patting him on the back. Roan looked at him with a frown. “No one likes a sarcastic bastard, Dyl.” “Well, I do.” He paused briefly. “Obviously.” Ouch.

Grateful For You A gratitude poem from a Mother to her miracle child You are a wonderful treasure My love for you I cannot measure In you, God gave me an Angel Through you, I was blessed by the Heavens An answered prayer of way back Just when I thought it was over My precious gift from Above, you showed up! Filled with your bright smile and loads of fun You make me so fine Oh, what a privilege in life! To be given such a sense of pride As I call you my child While you chose to be mine You are so kind You bring me hope every time I could go through heavy tides With you by my side I always rise You help me to make many strides I cannot drown, not even once You give me a better chance To become a daring Mom I have peace, even in the storm Because you teach me to stay strong So glad you came along And never left me all alone What an honour to be your Mother! My perfect match Such a great catch! My very best friend Will you lend me a hand? To walk beside you on this land You are all I ever need And I am so grateful for you

Early the next morning, I was driving westward toward the ranch. Marlboro Man had called the night before--a rare evening we’d spent apart--and had asked me to come out early. I’d just turned onto the highway that led out of my hometown when my car phone rang. It was dewy outside, foggy. “Hurry up,” Marlboro Man’s voice playfully commanded. “I want to see my future wife.” My stomach lurched. Wife. It would take me a while to get used to that word. “I’m coming,” I announced. “Hold your horses!” We hung up, and I giggled. Hold your horses. Heh-heh. I had a lifetime of these jokes ahead. This was going to be loads of fun. He met me at my car, wearing jeans, boots, and a soft, worn denim shirt. I climbed out of the car and stepped right into his arms. It was just after 8:00 A.M., and within seconds we were leaning against my car, sharing a passionate, steamy kiss. Leave it to Marlboro Man to make 8:00 A.M. an acceptable time to make out. I never would have known this if I hadn’t met him. “So…what are we gonna do today?” I asked, trying to remember what day it was. “Oh, I thought we’d drive around for a while…,” he said, his arms still grasping my waist, “and talk about where we might want to live.” I’d heard him mention before, in passing, that someday he wanted to move to a different spot on the ranch, but I’d never paid much attention to it. I’d never really cared much where he lived, just as long as he took his Wranglers with me. “I want it to be your decision, too.

What on earth did we do wrong? What harm did we inflict? What did we do to you? Who are you to judge us? Who gave you the right? Are you the representatives of mankind, or what? Who appointed you? Was it God? Yourselves? You don't care if someone loves to go bowling or shooting! You don't care if someone wants to be a doctor or a flight attendant! So why can't we love someone of the same gender? What makes you say that the way we love is wrong? Because we're not "normal"? Because we don't abide by the provisions of God? The laws of nature? Well, fuck you. What a load of bullshit. You want to create a land for God? Good. Then let's bring back the regulations on sex positions first! Don't use condoms, and only fuck in the missionary position, damn it! Since sex should only be for childbirth, and any other pleasure is against the will of God, am I right? Come to think of it, you guys are fucking disgusting. I mean, I know you all fuck doggy-style and blow each other! So I guess you're all going to hell as well! The same goes for singles who don't copulate at all! If the union of man and woman is what is "normal", singles are the most abnormal of all! You're all going to hell, too! On, and let's just kill all the ugly people, fat people, and poor people while we're at it. Then it'll be heaven on earth, with no abnormal beings! Where the normal are free to kill the abnormal! If you ask me, you uneducated, narrow-minded scumbags are the ones that degrade human nobility! You're fucking revolting! Ignorant morons! Do you feel good? Or pissed off? Mad? Then come at me! Instead of being fucking cowards, bashing someone that's all tied up. Won't it be more fun to beat up a person of color? Kill me before I infect your brains and turn all of you into homosexuals! Kill me first! Stupid scumbags!

When the card came back you couldn't have found any red on it with a microscope. The pitchman handed down a ponderous mohair Teddybear and Ballard slapped down three dimes again. When he had won two bears and a tiger and a small audience the pitchman took the rifle away from him. That's it for you, buddy, he hissed. You never said nothin about how many times you could win. Step right up, sang the barker. Who's next now. Three big grand prizes per person is the house limit. Who's our next big winner. Ballard loaded up his bears and the tiger and started off through the crowd. They lord look at what all he's won, said a woman. Ballard smiled tightly. Young girls' faces floated past, bland and smooth as cream. Some eyed his toys. The crowd was moving toward the edge of a field and assembling there, Ballard among them, a sea of country people watching into the dark for some midnight contest to begin. A light sputtered off in the field and a blue tailed rocket went skittering toward Canis Major. High above their upturned faces it burst, sprays of lit glycerine flaring across the night, trailing down the sky in loosely falling ribbons of hot spectra soon. burnt to naught. Another went up, a long whishing sound, fishtailing aloft. In the bloom of its opening you could see like its shadow the image of the rocket gone before, the puff of black smoke and ashen trails arcing out and down like a huge and dark medusa squatting in the sky. In the bloom of light too you could see two men out in the field crouched over their crate of fireworks like assassins or bridge blowers. And you could see among the faces a young girl with candy apple on her lips and her eyes wide. Her pale hair smelled of soap, woman child from beyond the years, rapt below the sulphur glow and pitch light of some medieval fun fair. A lean sky long candle skewered the black pools in her eyes. Her fingers clutched. In the flood of this breaking brimstone galaxy she saw the man with the bears watching her and she edged closer to the girl by her side and brushed her hair with two fingers quickly.

We had read about snorting chocolate and talked about it on the show, and someone in Canada, where it’s being sold, sent us some. It had fancy packaging and a little spring-loaded double nasal catapult. Goudeau cocked it and put two little coke-spoons full of their fancy chocolate-and-spice mixture in it, one on each side, and I held it under my nose, breathed in, and hit the button. We had checked with CrayRay, and he said it wouldn’t affect the diet, but it probably wasn’t healthy. I love chocolate, and I got a big blast of it up my nose and down into my lungs. I kinda wanted to love it. The idea that I’d be snorting chocolate in my office while I was writing this appealed to me. It was a little fun, but really no more fun than walking into a Godiva store at a mall. It was the good smell of chocolate, and that was about it. We all tried it and enjoyed it a little, and then the headaches hit and we were done. I got to the show that night and was light-headed from not eating, and my throat and voice were fucked-up from snorting chocolate. I’m an idiot. Matt

Sam, Edilio’s a good guy,” Albert said, breaking in on Sam’s gloomy thoughts. “But like I said, he’ll tell the rest of them. Once the council knows, everyone knows. If everyone knows how desperate things are, what do you think will happen?” Sam smiled without humor. “About half the people will be great. The other half will freak.” “And people will end up getting killed,” Albert said. He cocked his head sideways, trying his best to look like the idea had just occurred to him. “And who is going to end up kicking butts? Who will end up playing Daddy and then be resented and blamed and finally told to go away?” “You’ve gained new skills,” Sam said bitterly. “You used to just be about working harder than anyone else and being ambitious. You’re learning how to manipulate people.” Albert’s mouth twitched and his eyes flashed angrily. “You’re not the only one walking around with a big load of responsibility on your shoulders, Sam. You play the big mean daddy who won’t let anyone have any fun, and I play the greedy businessman who is just looking out for himself. But don’t be stupid: maybe I am greedy, but without me no one eats. Or drinks.

The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each other. Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose and it did at least keep him on the move. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was --- indeed, is --- one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings. Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship's stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done. To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody. In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul. So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everyone in it in particular. This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this. He would insult the Universe.

The single book that has influenced me most is probably the last book in the world that anybody is gonna want to read: Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. This book is dense, difficult, long, full of blood and guts. It wasn’t written, as Thucydides himself attests at the start, to be easy or fun. But it is loaded with hardcore, timeless truths and the story it tells ought to be required reading for every citizen in a democracy. Thucydides was an Athenian general who was beaten and disgraced in a battle early in the 27-year conflagration that came to be called the Peloponnesian War. He decided to drop out of the fighting and dedicate himself to recording, in all the detail he could manage, this conflict, which, he felt certain, would turn out to be the greatest and most significant war ever fought up to that time. He did just that. Have you heard of Pericles’ Funeral Oration? Thucydides was there for it. He transcribed it. He was there for the debates in the Athenian assembly over the treatment of the island of Melos, the famous Melian Dialogue. If he wasn’t there for the defeat of the Athenian fleet at Syracuse or the betrayal of Athens by Alcibiades, he knew people who were there and he went to extremes to record what they told him.Thucydides, like all the Greeks of his era, was unencumbered by Christian theology, or Marxist dogma, or Freudian psychology, or any of the other “isms” that attempt to convince us that man is basically good, or perhaps perfectible. He saw things as they were, in my opinion. It’s a dark vision but tremendously bracing and empowering because it’s true. On the island of Corcyra, a great naval power in its day, one faction of citizens trapped their neighbors and fellow Corcyreans in a temple. They slaughtered the prisoners’ children outside before their eyes and when the captives gave themselves up based on pledges of clemency and oaths sworn before the gods, the captors massacred them as well. This was not a war of nation versus nation, this was brother against brother in the most civilized cities on earth. To read Thucydides is to see our own world in microcosm. It’s the study of how democracies destroy themselves by breaking down into warring factions, the Few versus the Many. Hoi polloi in Greek means “the many.” Oligoi means “the few.” I can’t recommend Thucydides for fun, but if you want to expose yourself to a towering intellect writing on the deepest stuff imaginable, give it a try.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

Engine room fire alarm’?” Rusty said. There was a moment of confusion before it kicked in. “ENGINE ROOM FIRE ALARM?” * * * “What the hell is that sound?” Harvey Tharpe said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the cabin door. Being on this yacht was better than being on the lifeboat but not much. They were packed in like sardines. There was food but being woken up in the middle of the night by a blaring “Squeee! Squeee! ” was not his idea of fun. The former businessman had been “robust” before being cast adrift on a lifeboat in a zombie apocalypse. He still had his height and some solidity. So he was more than a bit surprised when the short, blonde skipper of the boat, wearing not much more than a camisole and panties smashed him out of the way like an NFL linebacker on her way aft. “MOVE PEOPLE!” the boat captain shouted, continuing to hammer her way through the crowd of refugees. * * * “Fuck a freaking duck,” Sophia said, opening the door to the engine compartment. The smoke wasn’t so bad she needed a respirator but it was bad. And they were dead in the water. All the power except the shrieking alarm was out. She threw the main battery disconnect, then picked up one of the industrial fire extinguishers and played it over the exterior of the main breakers which were the source of the fire. “Skipper?” Paula said, picking another one up. “We need to get it open before we use them all up,” Sophia said, putting her hand on the extinguisher. “Get Rusty to get all the passengers up, out and on the sundeck.” She slid one hand into a rubber glove and popped open the main breaker panel. The whole thing was smoldering so she played the rest of the fire extinguisher over it until it was cold. A tick checker showed that the whole thing was electrically cold as well. Now if only the batteries hadn’t discharged their whole load into the panel and killed themselves as well. “What can I do, Skipper?” Patrick said groggily. The “engineer” was wearing not much more than the skipper. “Get a hand-held,” Sophia said. “See if there’s a sub in range. Tell them we had a major electrical fire. Fire is under control. No power at this time. May be repairable but we may need assistance. Don’t at this time but may. Got it? Do not call mayday or PON-PON. Do not.” “Got it, Skipper,” Patrick said. “And get these people the HELL OUT OF MY ENGINE COMPARTENT!

I thought I saw you scurrying in here hubby-kins!” A girl in a vivid orange dress stepped into the room and I had to look up at her towering height and shoulders which nearly matched the breadth of the Heirs'. Her teeth protruded a little from her lower jaw and her eyes seemed to wander, never landing on one spot. Her hair was a massive brown frizz with a pink bow clipped into the top of it, perfectly matching the violently bright shade of her eyeshadow. She marched between Tory and I like we were made of paper, forcing us aside with her elbows as she charted a direct path for Darius. “Mildred,” he said tersely, his eyes darkening as his bride-to-be reached out to him. Caleb, Seth and Max sniggered as Mildred leaned in for a kiss and Darius only managed to stop her at the last second by planting his palm on her forehead with a loud clap. “Not before the wedding,” he said firmly and I looked at Tory who was falling into a fit of silent laughter, clutching her side. I tried to smother the giggle that fought its way out of my chest but it floated free and Mildred rounded on us like a hungry animal. “These must be the Vega Twins,” she said coldly. “Well don't waste your time sniffing around my snookums. Daddy says he's saving himself for our wedding night.” Max roared with laughter and Mildred turned on him like a loaded weapon, jabbing him right in the chest. Max's smile fell away as she glared at him like he was her next meal. “What are you laughing at you overgrown starfish?” she demanded, her eyes flashing red and her pupils turning to slits. “I've eaten bigger bites than you before, so don't tempt me because I adore seafood.” Max reached out, laying a hand on her bare arm, shifting it slightly as his fingers brushed a hairy mole. “Calm down Milly, we're just having a bit of fun. We want to get to know Darius's betrothed. Why don't you have a shot?” He nodded to Caleb who promptly picked one up and held it one out for Mildred to take. “Daddy says drinking will grow hairs on my chest,” she said, refusing it. “Too late for that,” Seth said under his breath and the others started laughing. A knot of sympathy tugged at my gut, but Mildred didn't seem to care about their mocking. She stepped toward Seth with a wicked grin and his smile fell away. “Oh and what's wrong with that exactly, Seth Capella? You like your girls hairy, don't you?” Seth gawped at her in answer. “What the hell does that mean?” “You like mutt muff,” she answered, jutting out her chin and I noticed a few wiry hairs protruding from it. Seth growled, scratching his stomach as he stepped forward. “I don't screw girls in their Order form, idiot.” “Maybe not, but you do, don't you Caleb Altair?” She rounded on him and now I was really starting to warm to Mildred as she cut them all down to size. I settled in for the show, folding my arms and smiling as I waited for her to go on. “My sister's boyfriend’s cousin said you like Pegasus butts. He even sent a video to Aurora Academy of you humping a Pegasex blow up doll and it went viral within a day.” Caleb's mouth fell open and his face paled in horror. “I didn't hump it!” “I didn't watch the video, but everyone told me what was in it. Why would I want to see you screwing a plastic horse?” She shrugged then turned to Tory and I with absolutely no kindness in her eyes. Oh crap.(Darcy)

But now, strange as it seems, a peasant's small, scrawny. light brown nag is harnessed to such a large cart, one of those horses he's seen it often that sometimes strain to pull some huge load of firewood or hay. Especially if the cart has gotten stuck in the mud or a rut. The peasants always whip the horse so terribly, so very painfully, sometimes even across its muzzle and eyes, and he would always feel so sorry, so very sorry to witness it that he would feel like crying, and his mother would always lead him away from the window. Now things are getting extremely boisterous: some very large and extremely drunken peasants in red and blue shirts, their heavy coats slung over their shoulders. come out of the tavern shouting, singing. and playing balalaikas. “Git in. everyone git in!" shouts one peasant, a young lad with a thick neck and a fleshy face, red as a beet, “I'll take ya all. Git in!" But there is a burst of laughter and shouting: “That ol’ nag ain't good for nothin'!" “Hey, Mikolka, you must be outta yer head to hitch that ol' mare to yer cart!" “That poor ol' horse must be twenty if she's a day, lads!" “Git in, I'll take ya all!" Mikolka shouts again,jumping in first, taking hold of the reins, and standing up straight in the front of the cart. “Matvei went off with the bay," he cries from the cart, “and as for this ol' mare here, lads, she's only breakin' my heart: I don't give a damn ifit kills ’er; she ain't worth her salt. Git in, I tell ya! I'll make 'er gallop! She’ll gallop, all right!" And he takes the whip in his hand, getting ready to thrash the horse with delight. "What the hell, git in!" laugh several people in the crowd. "You heard 'im, she'll gallop!" “I bet she ain't galloped in ten years!" "She will now!" “Don't pity 'er, lads; everyone, bring yer whips, git ready!" "That's it! Thrash 'er!" They all clamber into Mikolka's cart with guffaws and wisecracks. There are six lads and room for more. They take along a peasant woman, fat and ruddy. She's wearing red calico, a headdress trimmed with beads, and fur slippers; she‘s cracking nuts and cackling. The crowd’s also laughing; as a matter of fact, how could one keep from laughing at the idea of a broken down old mare about to gallop, trying to pull such a heavy load! Two lads in the cart grab their whips to help Mikolka. The shout rings out: “Pull!" The mare strains with all her might, but not only can’t she gallop, she can barely take a step forward; she merely scrapes her hooves, grunts, and cowers from the blows of the three whips raining down on her like hail. Laughter redoubles in the cart and among the crowd, but Mikolka grows angry and in his rage strikes the little mare with more blows, as if he really thinks she’ll be able to gallop. “Take me along, too, lads!" shouts someone from the crowd who’s gotten a taste of the fun. “Git in! Everyone, git inl" cries Mikolka. “She'll take everyone. I‘ll flog 'er!" And he whips her and whips her again; in his frenzy, he no longer knows what he’s doing. “Papa, papa," the boy cries to his father. “Papa, what are they doing? Papa, they‘re beating the poor horse!" “Let's go, let's go!" his father says. “They’re drunk, misbehaving, those fools: let’s go. Don't look!" He tries to lead his son away. but the boy breaks from his father‘s arms; beside himself, he runs toward the horse. But the poor horse is on her last legs. Gasping for breath, she stops, and then tries to pull again, about to drop. “Beat 'er to death!" cries Mikolka. ”That's what it's come to. I‘ll flog ‘er!" “Aren't you a Christian. you devil?" shouts one old man from the crowd. “Just imagine, asking an ol' horse like that to pull such a heavy load,” adds another. “You‘ll do 'er in!" shouts a third. “Leave me alone! She’s mine! I can do what I want with 'er! Git in, all of ya! Everyone git in I'm gonna make 'er gallop!

Life aboard ship was like living in paradise for my agile friend and he could have continued this way forever if he hadn't discovered a splendid new game. When the stevedores were loading or discharging the ship, Peanut would hop onto the edge of the hatch and urinate down on them. Oh what great fun he had, never thinking that they would object to what he was doing. At first they would try to catch him but he was far too agile for them. Not that I understood what they were saying but I knew enough to know that the stevedores were shouting Bassa swearwords at him. Frustrated they would flip him the bird as they climbed down into the hold, foiled again. What a wonderful time Peanut had! His safest refuge was on top of the Wheel House, where the stevedores couldn’t go. Sometimes as a place of last resort he would dive through the open porthole into my state room. He didn’t like the Engine Room, as an alternate route to safety, since it was too hot and noisy. Besides the engineers didn’t much like a monkey messing with their things and who knows what trouble he could get into down there? Peanut, was wonderful entertainment when visitors came aboard. The Pan American flight attendants, they were called stewardesses back then, thought him adorable. I always had roasted peanuts for them to feed him, which he would pick and chew apart, littering the deck. The stewardess’s that came for my famous pizza parties always tried to pick him up and cuddle with him. Monkeys are unpredictable so I cautioned them to be careful but being such a cute little guy they seldom were. Ear rings were a favorite piece of jewelry to tug on, causing the ladies to scream. Most often he would let go but the wings above their pockets was another matter. Peanut would yank and pull on the insignia until it was his. I knew where he usually hid his loot and so could return their stuff but some of the stewardesses flew home without their wings.

Grateful for you You are a wonderful treasure. My love for you I cannot measure. In you, God gave me an Angel. Through you, I got blessed by the Heavens. An answered prayer of way back. Just when I thought it was all over. My precious gift from above, You showed up! Filled with your bright smile. And loads of fun. You make me so fine. Oh! What a privilege in life. Being given such sense of pride. To call you my child, And that you chose to be mine. You have been too kind, To give me hope, every time. I could go through heavy tides. With you by my side, I always rise. You help me make so many strides. Shall never drown, not even once. For you always give me a better chance. To become a daring Mom. I have peace, even in the storm, Because you help me stay strong. So glad you came along. And never left me, all alone. It’s a great honour to be your Mother. My perfect match. Such a great catch! My very best friend. Will you lend me a hand? To walk beside you on this land. For you are what I ever needed. And I am so grateful for you.

that evening: she was going to a country club dance with Lester Marlow. “She wasn’t sheddin’ no tears over the telephone,” Duane said bitterly. “She may be getting to like country club dances, that’s what worries me.” He was in such a terrible mood that the pool game wasn’t much fun. Jerry Framingham, a friend of theirs who drove a cattle truck, was shooting with them; he had to truck a load of yearlings to Fort Worth that night and asked them to ride along with him, since neither of them had dates. “We might as well,” Duane said. “Be better than loafin’ around here.” Sonny was agreeable. While Jerry went out in the country to pick up his load he and Duane walked over to the café to have supper. Sam the Lion was there, waiting for

Once, just west of Framingham on the Worcester Turnpike or Route 9 in Massachusetts, I caught a ride in a truck that had worn brakes. The driver, a jolly red-nosed individual with a white beard who could have passed as Santa Claus, suggested that I might want to get out considering the situation regarding the truck’s brakes. Not wanting to turn down a ride in the middle of the night, I rode it out with the driver. Going uphill was all right, but coming down was decidedly hairy. The driver knew what he was doing and used his engine to slow himself down, but he had to depend on his emergency brake if he wanted to, or had to, stop. At one traffic light, which was on a downhill slope, he couldn’t bring his rig to a stop and just blew through the intersection, horn blowing, weaving past the cross traffic. I hung on enjoying the excitement as the driver narrated his moves, as if he was telling a story. I watched and listened to him, too caught up in this wild ride to get concerned about the danger. There were a number of downgrades where he totally lost control of our speed, but fortunately the upgrade would slow us down again. He relied on his loud air horn, which sounded even louder in the dark of night. Fun was fun and eventually we got to Worcester, where I was glad to get off in one piece. I hope that he got his load to where it was going, but I knew that the farther west on Route 9 he went, the more mountainous the terrain would become and I didn’t want any part of that. Besides, this was where I needed to get off. My next leg would take me through Sturbridge and then on to Connecticut. .

We cross a bridge, and all of us girls gasp in unison and crane our necks to the right-hand window of the car, pushing each other to get a sight of Florence by night--the dark velvety river lit up with glittering lights; narrow bridges farther down, the famous one with all the houses on it clustered tight together; a cathedral dome, terra-cotta and white, rising above the marble buildings, illuminated with soft spotlights, exactly like-- “Oh, it’s like a movie!” Paige exclaims in delight. “A Room with a View,” Kendra agrees. “I love that movie.” I do too; I think the bit where Julian Sands goes up to Helena Bonham Carter in the cornfield and kisses her is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. I’m just about to agree, when Luca says, “Oh, yes. Italy is very romantic,” so dryly that the words die on my lips. His accent’s light, his English seems very good. “Lots of corruption, lots of bribes. Very romantic.” “Well, he’s a load of fun, isn’t he?” Paige says in my ear.

I came to two conclusions. One, being a woman, in this world, ultimately makes you crazy. And, two, you're more likely to be labeled crazy anyway if you're female." I pulled out some sheets from the World Health Organization. "Look, these guys are in charge of the health of the entire WORLD. And they're basically saying gender is the cause of loads of mental health problems. People don't wake up one day and think, Oooh, I think I'll go completely gaga. It's usually a case of spiraling circumstances. And, if you're a woman, think about it, we have a shitload of spiraling circumstances. We're paid less, we're told we have to beautiful, and thin, but we're also told to eat chocolate all the time otherwise we're not 'fun', and we're constantly being objectified and told to calm down when we care about something...Isn't all this likely to make us a little mental? Isn't being subjected to daily inequality going to be a spiraling circumstance?

Best Budget Travel Destinations Ever Are you looking for a cheap flight this year? Travel + Leisure received a list of the most affordable locations this year from one of the top travel search engines in the world, Kayak. Kayak then considered the top 100 locations with the most affordable average flight prices, excluding outliers due to things like travel restrictions and security issues. To save a lot of money, go against the grain. Mexico Unsurprisingly, Mexico is at the top of the list of the cheapest places to travel in 2022. The United States has long been seen as an accessible and affordable vacation destination; low-cost direct flights are common. San José del Cabo (in Baja California Sur), Puerto Vallarta, and Cancun are the three destinations within Mexico with the least expensive flights, with January being the most economical month to visit each. Fortunately, January is a glorious month in each of these beachside locales, with warm, balmy weather and an abundance of vibrant hues, textures, and flavors to chase away the winter blues. Looking for a city vacation rather than a beach vacation? Mexico City, which boasts a diverse collection of museums and a rich Aztec heritage, is another accessible option in the country. May is the cheapest month to travel there. Chicago, Illinois Who wants to go to Chicago in the winter? Once you learn about all the things to do in this Midwest winter wonderland and the savings you can get in January, you'll be convinced. At Maggie Daley Park, spend the afternoon ice skating before warming up with some deep-dish pizza. Colombia Colombia's fascinating history, vibrant culture, and mouthwatering cuisine make it a popular travel destination. It is also inexpensive compared to what many Americans are used to paying for items like a fresh arepa and a cup of Colombian coffee. The cheapest month of the year to fly to Bogotá, the capital city, is February. The Bogota Botanical Garden, founded in 1955 and home to almost 20,000 plants, is meticulously maintained, and despite the region's chilly climate, strolling through it is not difficult. The entrance fee is just over $1 USD. In January, travel to the port city of Cartagena on the country's Caribbean coast. The majority of visitors discover that exploring the charming streets on foot is sufficient to make their stay enjoyable. Tennessee's Music City There's a reason why bachelorette parties and reunions of all kinds are so popular in Music City: it's easy to have fun without spending a fortune. There is no fee to visit a mural, hot chicken costs only a few dollars, and Honky Tonk Highway is lined with free live music venues. The cheapest month to book is January. New York City, New York Even though New York City isn't known for being a cheap vacation destination, you'll find the best deals if you go in January. Even though the city never sleeps, the cold winter months are the best time for you to visit and take advantage of the lower demand for flights and hotel rooms. In addition, New York City offers a wide variety of free activities. Canada Not only does our neighbor Mexico provide excellent deals, but the majority of Americans can easily fly to Canada for an affordable getaway. In Montréal, Quebec, you must try the steamé, which is the city's interpretation of a hot dog and is served steamed in a side-loading bun (which is also steamed). It's the perfect meal to eat in the middle of February when travel costs are at their lowest. Best of all, hot dogs are inexpensive and delicious as well as filling. The most affordable month to visit Toronto, Ontario is February. Even though the weather may make you wary, the annual Toronto Light Festival, which is completely free, is held in February in the charming and historic Distillery District. Another excellent choice at this time is the $5 Bentway Skate Trail under the Gardiner Expressway overpass.

Prioritize food, friends, and sexual relationships. These three things are the basis of day-to-day happiness. Note that there is no mention here of money or freedom. There’s nothing wrong with having lots of cash and autonomy, but their pursuit shouldn’t interfere with opportunities to enjoy good food, sex, and friends. These three things are most likely to provide the happy experiences that accumulate into a life worth living. Cooperate. Working together with family, friends, and colleagues to achieve mutual goals is one of the most important sources of life satisfaction. Your achievements won’t make you permanently happier, but cooperation is inherently rewarding and provides a foundation for life satisfaction. Happiness doesn’t emerge only from leisure and fun, but also from work and productivity, particularly when you are satisfying your evolutionary imperative of cooperating with others. Not all the work we do is meaningful, as life has necessary drudgery, but working with people you trust and admire lightens the load.

You lot who haven’t had your stomach muscles cut through – don’t know how lucky you are. You take loads of things for granted. Sitting up in bed, for one. You probably don’t realise it, but you use your stomach muscles for that. Then there’s sneezing. Sneezing’s fun. They say it’s like a mini orgasm, don’t they? Not for me now.

Cooperate. Working together with family, friends, and colleagues to achieve mutual goals is one of the most important sources of life satisfaction. Your achievements won’t make you permanently happier, but cooperation is inherently rewarding and provides a foundation for life satisfaction. Happiness doesn’t emerge only from leisure and fun, but also from work and productivity, particularly when you are satisfying your evolutionary imperative of cooperating with others. Not all the work we do is meaningful, as life has necessary drudgery, but working with people you trust and admire lightens the load. Embed yourself in community. Give careful thought to any decisions that require you to pull up roots and go somewhere else. We evolved to be curious, so new people and new places are forever enticing. But you don’t need to abandon old friends to meet new people and see new places. Even if you have a strong wanderlust, you should try to retain your connections to your community. Learn new things. Learning is a lifelong source of happiness, and play and storytelling are two important sources of learning. At all stages of life, from childhood to young adulthood through to midlife and old age, we enjoy mastering new things. If you choose your activities thoughtfully, you can enjoy the process of learning up to your last healthy days on this earth.

Then he admitted he had been having chest pain along with his back pain. I imagine he got out as much as, “chest p—” before my mother grabbed him by the arm and loaded him into the car. She can be cavalier about some things—slap a Band-Aid on it, take an Advil, walk it off—but worst-case scenarios are her time to shine. This is the woman who calls my children before they leave for summer camp to say, “Have fun! Watch for bears! Don’t get a flesh-eating amoeba!” I get my keen eye for alarming possibilities from her.

In a flash it came to me - might not people who were forced to spend their working hours between walls like to hear about what went on in a hill-top croft, of how it was possible to get an immense amount of fun and satisfaction out of lifting loads of mud into a cart, even though your boots were leaking and you knew there was not enough in the kitty to buy another pair? Would they like to know about the way light could stream down a blue hillside on a spring noon, how a lark could suddenly leap into a pale, washed skye after a night of storm and make the air ring with song, of how it was possible to get by every sort of difficulty as long as there was this knowledge that you were all in it together, this solidarity with rock and sun and bird? I believed they would.

Maybe it's for good what has happen, maybe it's not for good. Nobody knows, but don't ruin your day thinking about this sad event (The Dead). In the film "The Night Before", the same thing happen, but it went to something new and wonderful, marvelous how?? The friends become best friends, parties, loads fun. This is all what we need!

Life Life is a 'stage' Every day is a book's new page. The most of life you should make, Every difficulty, as an opportunity, you must take. What you make out of life: gain or loss, The choice is finally yours. Always be in the NOW For everything in life, be in WOW! Life's a precious gift from God to you, One good deed every day, you should do. Perform your duties and your work, and you shall surely invite Lady Luck. Stay positive and have loads of fun Have a cheerful life in the long run! Be like the trees, and shine like the Sun Help everyone, expecting nothing in return. Life is a gift, make the most out of it Stay happy, healthy, kind and fit So that your 'play' is remembered Reminisced as a 'Hit'! (Poem Composed by Sangeet Pandey)

As it turns out, skiing trips are pretty bloody annoying anyway. It’s mostly about queuing, skiing. You queue to get your breakfast in the stupid wooden hotel, you queue to get on the minibus or find a taxi to take you to the stupid skiing place at the bottom of the stupid hill. You queue to buy a pass, which you lose later in the day and then you get down to the serious queuing, at the point where you get on the lift at the bottom of the mountain to take you to the top. This, technically, isn’t queuing, it’s something more akin to fighting, so I preferred this bit. You hang around in a big crowd on a sort of train platform. Except there are no tracks, just a big wire overhead. Eventually, the cable car device lumbers into view and disgorges a load of really annoying people with stupid smiles under their stupid hats on to the other side of the platform. The car never stops; it just swings around the bottom of the platform on a huge, horizontal wheel until it comes up the side on which you and several million Germans are loitering, ready to get on board. Then there is a really massive fight, lots of shouting, some vicious pushing and, the next thing you know, you’re on the cable car, face pressed to the frosted glass, staring through it at crying kids back on the platform, disappointed mothers and bereft lovers waving mournfully as the other half of their life is transported away on the carriage that someone, usually you, prevented them from getting on by elbowing them in the face and jabbing a ski pole into their groin. It’s really rather good fun. But only that part is fun; the rest of it is terrible.

It was Lippmann who gave us the concept of the “stereotype” (1922), which was basically a continuation of the Jungian concept of the archetype (1919) by other means. To Lippmann, the world outside our borders exists in a different space, consciously, from our own. We develop notions about life in those countries, their cultures, attitudes, and values, without ever go­ing there. Yet, their political situation affects our own; they exert a political influence—either through trade, communications, or transportation—on life in our own country even though we live in a constant state of unawareness of those countries, cultures, politics. The effect of these forces on us is invis­ible, but real. We then develop mental images—stereotypes—of the citizens of these countries, and it is upon the stereotypes that we act. The stereotypes determine our actions and reactions; like the stereotypes of the Islamic fun­damentalist, the Vietcong revolutionary, the Red Peril, they are easy targets, and the stereotype communicates a specific message, is, in terms familiar to the deconstructionism of Derrida, a text. Stereotypes can be created, and manipulated, by the gurus of mass com­munication and psychological warfare. Stereotypes are culturally-loaded and therefore not “value neutral.” We make snap judgments based on the nature of the stereotype; in the hands of the psy-war expert, a stereotype does not contain much complexity or depth. The idea is not to make the target think too clearly or too profoundly about the “text” but instead to react, in a Pav­lovian manner, to the stimulus it provides.

I’ve always said I didn’t want an ordinary life. Nothing average or mundane for me. But as I stared at the rather ample naked derriere wiggling two inches from my face today, I realized I should have been more specific with my goals. Definitely not ordinary, but not exactly what I had in mind. The Texas-flag tattoo emblazoned across the left cheek waved at me as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. The flag was distorted and stretched, as was the large yellow rose on the right cheek, both tattoos dotted with dimples and pock marks. An uneven script scrawled out “The Yellow Rose of Texas” across the top of her rump. Her entire bridal party—her closest friends and relatives, mind you—had left her high and dry. They’d stormed off the elevator as I tried to enter it, a flurry of daffodil-yellow silk, spouting and sputtering about their dear loved one, Tonya the bride. “That’s it! We’re done!” They sounded off in a chorus of clucking hens. “We ain’t goin’ back in there. She can get ready on her own!” “Yeah, she can get ready on her own!” “Known her since third grade and she’s gonna talk to me like that?” “Third grade? She’s my first cousin. I’ve known her since the day she was born. She’s always been that way. I don’t know why y’all acting all surprised.” I felt more than a little uneasy about what all this meant for our schedule. The ceremony was supposed to start in fifteen minutes. The bride should have already been downstairs and loaded in the carriage to make her way to the hotel’s beach. My unease grew to panic when I knocked on Tonya’s door and she opened it clad only in a skimpy little satin robe. “Honey, you’re supposed to be dressed and downstairs already.” I tried to say it as sweetly as possible, but I’m sure my panic came through. My Southern accent kicked in thick, which usually only happens when I’m panicked or frustrated. Or pissed. Or drunk. “Do you think I don’t know that?” she asked, arching a perfectly drawn-on eyebrow. “Do you think somehow when I booked this wedding and had invitations printed and planned the entire damned event, I somehow didn’t realize what time the ceremony started? And just who the hell are you anyway?” Well, alrighty then. Obviously this was going to be a fun day. “Um, I’m Tyler Warren. I’m assisting Lillian with your wedding today.” “Fine. Those bitches left me with my nails wet.” She held up both hands to show me the glossy, fresh manicure. “How the hell am I supposed to get dressed with wet nails?” she asked, arching both eyebrows now and glaring at me like I was somehow responsible for this. “Oh.” My mind spun with the limited time frame I had available, the amount of clothing she still needed to put on, and the amount of time it would take to get her in the carriage and to the ceremony. “Give me just a second to let Lillian know we’ll be down shortly.” I smiled what I hoped was my sweetest smile and stepped backward into the hallway. She slammed the door as I frantically dialed Lillian’s cell. “You’d better be calling to tell me she is in the carriage and on her way,” Lillian said. “It is hotter than Hades out here. I have several people looking like they’re about to faint, and I may possibly dunk a cranky, tuxedoed five-year-old

This particular song’s just something that’s been floating around inside me for a long time,” Tate went on. “Is she the one who got away? Yeah. She is. But it’s because she got away that I—that we,” he clarified, “are all here now.” “How do you mean?” the interviewer asked. Tate was silent for several heartbeats, then said, “When I met her, I was playing ball. She knew I wasn’t that good. But she also saw a talent in me I didn’t even know I had. She’s the one who encouraged my music. I lost her after that summer, but it’s because I lost her that Kendrick was even formed. So yeah, she is ‘Everything.’ She’s everything I have and everything I’m missing.” “Would it be safe to assume you work as hard as you do because you’re trying to prove to her what she’s missing?” the interviewer asked. “No,” Tate answered. “Not really.” “That’s a load of crap,” someone muttered in the background. “Okay,” Tate said louder. “Maybe it’s a little true. Did I hope she’d one day hear one of these songs about her and call me up? Sure. I think that’s the whole point of tracks like this. That there’s hope. I mean, that’s what life’s really about, right? Without hope, what the hell does a person have?” “A lot of”—BEEP—“ing fun,” Jace interjected.

God is not a robot. He isn’t a comptroller of an accounting company trying to make things add up or work out. He is a being full of deep emotion, longing, and memories of what it used to be like. The incarnation therefore isn’t about an equation but about remembering what home used to be like and making a plan to get back there. Consider this reboot of the Genesis creation account. It may help you see God’s emotion a little better. First off, nothing … but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function—just darkness … total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play. Day one: Then God’s voice booms out, “Lights!” and, from nowhere, light floods the skies and “night” is swept off the scene. God gives it the big thumbs up, calls it “day”. Day two: God says, “I want a dome—call it ‘sky’—right there between the waters above and below.” And it happens. Day three: God says, “Too much water! We need something to walk on, a huge lump of it—call it ‘land’. Let the ‘sea’ lick its edges.” God smiles, says, “Now we’ve got us some definition. But it’s too plain! It needs colour! Vegetation! Loads of it. A million shades. Now!” And the earth goes wild with trees, bushes, plants, flowers and fungi. “Now give it a growth permit.” Seeds appear in every one. “Yesss!” says God. Day four: “We need a schedule: let’s have a ‘sun’ for the day, a ‘moon’ for the night; I want ‘seasons’, ‘years’; and give us ‘stars’, masses of stars—think of a number, add a trillion, then times it by the number of trees and we’re getting there: we’re talking huge! Day five: “OK, animals: amoeba, crustaceans, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals … I want the whole caboodle teeming with a million varieties of each—and let’s have some fun with the shapes, sizes, colours, textures!” God tells them all, “You’ve got a growth permit—use it!” He sits back and smiles, says, “Result!” Day six: Then God says, “Let’s make people—like us, but human, with flesh and blood, skin and bone. Give them the job of caretakers of the vegetation, game wardens of all the animals.” So God makes people, like him, but human. He makes male and female.… He smiles at them and gives them their job description: “Make babies! Be parents, grandparents, great-grandparents—fill the earth with your families and run the planet well. You’ve got all the plants to eat from, so have all the animals—plenty for all. Enjoy.” God looks at everything he’s made, and says, “Fantastic. I love it!” Day seven: Job done—the cosmos and the earth complete. God takes a bit of well-earned R&R and just enjoys. He makes an announcement: “Let’s keep this day of the week special, a day off—battery-recharge day: Rest Day.”2 I’m not normally a paraphrase guy, but we always read the creation story like a textbook. I love this rendition because it captures the enthusiastic emotion that God felt about everything He created, especially humans. He loved it all. He loved us. Most of all, He loved the way things were.

This morning we all woke up at around 8:10am, the exact time I am usually loading my kids in the car. School starts at 8:30am. I could of woken up in a panic, started scrambling, rushing, yelling at the kids to hurry up, build up my heart rate for the result that was inevitable, WE WERE GOING TO BE LATE ANYWAY. Instead I chose to not resist what was, and simply accept the fact we overslept and we were now late. SO WHAT! It's not the end of the world. So the result was, we all got up, my wife got the kids dressed, I made their lunch, and we all sat at the table and ate breakfast in a calm, fun manner and went off to school. No madness, no frustration. So whatever you may be dealing with this week, and something you don't favor is actually happening, try not to resist it. Accept it, and you will find an inner peace that will make it all better.

[...] Depressive Episodes. [I]Episodes.[/i] Like depression is a sitcom with a fun punch line each time. Or a TV box set loaded with cliffhangers. The only cliffhanger in my life is "Will I ever get rid of this s***?" And believe me, it gets pretty monotonous.

Sastra Vasana is of three types; obsession with study, preoccupation with many subjects and marked squeamishness with regard to observances specified in the scripture. The Taittiriya Brahmana contains a narrative that can serve to illustrate the first kind of Sastra Vasana. Bharadvaja, the Veda says, seriously applied himself to the study of the Vedas for three successive births. In his fourth life too, he wished to strive unremittingly. Taking pity on him, Indra explained the impossibility of learning all the Vedas and then taught Bharadvaja about Brahman with attributes. While Bharadvaja’s study of the Vedas was not wrong, it was his obsession with mastering all the Vedas that was the problem. To get rid of this type of Sastra Vasana, the aspirant should impress upon himself that it is impossible to know a subject in its totality. Addiction to the study of many subjects is also bad. The story of Durvasa encountered in the Kavaseya Gita is pertinent. Durvasa, it is said, once came to the assembly of Lord Mahadeva to pay his respects. He arrived with a cart- load of books. Narada made fun of him by comparing him to an ass burdened with a great load on its back. Irritated and cured of his obsession, Durvasa dumped his books into the sea. Thereafter, Mahadeva initiated him into the knowledge of the Atma. One should realize that the Supreme cannot be known by being preoccupied with books on a variety of topics. Thus, the Katha Upanisad declares, “This Atma is not attained through much study, through the power of grasping the meaning of the texts or through much mere hearing”. Likewise, in the Chandogya Upanisad, we read that in spite of mastering a wide variety of subjects, Narada was not free from grief as he had not realized the Atma. To attain that sorrow-eradicating knowledge, he approached Sanatkumara as a disciple. It has been said, “What is the point in vainly chewing the filthy rag of talk about sacred treatises? Wise men should, by all means, seek the light of consciousness within”. Sincere practice of scripturally ordained rituals is essential for a person who has not progressed to the stage when he can dispense with rituals. However, undue fastidiousness with respect to religious observances, which characterizes the third type of Sastra Vasana, is an impediment. In the Yoga Vasista, we encounter the story of Dasura which is relevent here. Dasura, on account of his intense fastidiousness was unable to locate a single spot in the whole world adequately pure for him to perform his religious rites. Sri Vidyaranya who has elaborately dealt with the destruction of Vasanas in his Jeevanmukti Viveka, points out that Sastra Vasana leads to pride of learning. This is a reason, in addition to the impossibility of consummating the needs of Sastra Vasana, for the Sastra Vasana being labelled as impure.

ha ha. Have fun doing the same things you always do with each other! (excluding other people that is and having a boring night but trying to make it fun with loads of pictures and statuses on facebook saying "PARTYYY") ha ha. Have fun!

Piers Morgan Piers Morgan is a British journalist best known for his editorial work for the Daily Mirror from 1995 through 2004. He is also a successful author and television personality whose recent credits include a recurring role as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. A controversial member of the tabloid press during Diana’s lifetime, Piers Morgan established a uniquely close relationship with the Princess during the 1990s. I mentioned I’d been in contact with her mother. “Oh crikey, that sounds dangerous!” “She’s a feisty woman, isn’t she?” William giggled. “Granny’s great fun after a few gin and tonics.” “Sh, William,” Diana said, giggling too. “My mother’s been a tremendous source of support to me. She never talks publicly; she’s just there for me.” “And what about William’s other granny?” “I have enormous respect for the Queen; she has been so supportive, you know. People don’t see that side of her, but I do all the time. She’s an amazing person.” “Has she been good over the divorce?” “Yes, very. I just want it over now so I can get on with my life. I’m worried about the attacks I will get afterward.” “What attacks?” “I just worry that people will try and knock me down once I am out on my own.” This seemed unduly paranoid. People adored her. I asked William how he was enjoying Eton. “Oh, it’s great, thanks.” “Do you think the press bother you much?” “Not the British press, actually. Though the European media can be quite annoying. They sit on the riverbank watching me rowing with their cameras, waiting for me to fall in! There are photographers everywhere if I go out. Normally loads of Japanese tourists taking pictures. All saying “Where’s Prince William?’ when I’m standing right next to them.” “How are the other boys with you?” “Very nice. Though a boy was expelled this week for taking ecstasy and snuff. Drugs are everywhere, and I think they’re stupid. I never get tempted.” “Does matron take any?” laughed Diana. “No, Mummy, it gives her hallucinations.” “What, like imagining you’re going to be king?” I said. They both giggled again. “Is it true you’ve got Pamela Anderson posters on your bedroom wall?” “No! And not Cindy Crawford, either. They did both come to tea at the palace, though, and were very nice.” William had been photographed the previous week at a party at the Hammersmith Palais, where he was mobbed by young girls. I asked him if he’d had fun. “Everyone in the press said I was snogging these girls, but I wasn’t,” he insisted. Diana laughed. “One said you stuck your tongue down her throat, William. Did you?” “No, I did not. Stop it, Mummy, please. It’s embarrassing.” He’d gone puce. It was a very funny exchange, with a flushed William finally insisting: “I won’t go to any more public parties; it was crazy. People wouldn’t leave me alone.” Diana laughed again. “All the girls love a nice prince.” I turned to more serious matters. “Do you think Charles will become king one day?” “I think he thinks he will,” replied Diana, “but I think he would be happier living in Tuscany or Provence, to be honest.” “And how are you these days--someone told me you’ve stopped seeing therapists?” “I have, yes. I stopped when I realized they needed more therapy than I did. I feel stronger now, but I am under so much pressure all the time. People don’t know what it’s like to be in the public eye, they really don’t.

What could I do? I was beyond pissed off. Trevor not telling anyone about us was always a big issue between us. I understood his reasons and never pushed it. But when he made fun of guys who had the balls to come out of the closet? That was a line he shouldn’t’ve crossed. I hated he’d done it in front of me.” Edgard shoved a hand through his hair. “After dinner, the whole family loaded up and went to the big rodeo dance. I declined. “I burned my bootheels getting to the g*y cowboy bar in Denver and hooked up with a dentist who was in town for the rodeo. I spent the night in his hotel room and didn’t see Trevor until the following afternoon when we had to compete.” Chassie figured she wouldn’t much care for Trevor’s jealous reaction, but she wouldn’t be surprised by it. “We sucked in the arena. Lost our chance for points or purse. Soon as we were alone he lit into me. We fought. Not with words. With our fists. We beat the shit out of each other, Chass. It was ugly.” “Where’d it happen? Since you were always so discreet?” “In the living quarters of the horse trailer. Trev said something. I said something back. He took the first punch. I landed the last. Christ, we were rolling around on the floor, bleeding—” “Whoa—bleeding?” Edgard closed his eyes. “When we were shoving each other some beer bottles got broken and we just kept going, stomping all over them. Trevor slipped and fell and I didn’t help him up, I just kept beating on him. So he has a cut on his back and I have a gash on my arm as a memento.

se "in-between times" to get things done. For example, it takes 15 minutes or less to change the sheets on a bed. So when you're waiting for dinner to finish cooking, to go somewhere, or for something to finish up, make a bed. Planning saves you time. Know what you have to do-and set your priorities. ere's a fun idea! Why not lighten a gathering together load a little by hosting a tea "potluck." It's a great way to widen your circle of friends and expand your recipe files. You provide the beautiful setting-and, of course, the tea. Invite each guest to bring a wonderful tea-time treat to share, along with the recipe. Have fun sampling all the goodies. You can also invite someone to play the piano, the guitar, or even do a dramatic reading of some sort. After the gathering, create a package of recipes and send them to each participant, along with a "thank you for coming" note. Friends are the continuous threads that help hold our lives together. f you have a fireplace, make it the focus of the room. Add plants, a teddy bear collection, or whatever you like to catch the eye. Add homey touches with a favorite stuffed toy, a framed picture of yourself with your grandmother. Photos and vacation souvenirs are great to liven up a room. Slipcovers help you make incredible changes in your decor simply. In winter months, toss an afghan over a sofa or chair. When you're not using afghans or blankets, stack them neatly under a shelf or a table to add texture to a room. Instead of a lamp table, stack wooden trunks or packing boxes together. These make great tables and provide storage.

Thailand is a very difficult country to leave, you see, and diving there is a whole load of fun. Still, it’s not renown as a quick path to riches – and anyway, I was rubbish at it.

ant a successful party? Remember to laugh! Don't take yourself too seriously-especially when it's party time. Tell jokes, share funny stories that highlight your own embarrassing moments. Celebrate fun memories. One of our favorite family parties is getting out the old photo albums and making fun of ourselves. Guests love it too if you have them bring some pictures of their own to add to the fun. now when to say "no" to good things and "yes" for the best. Everything I didn't do yesterday Added to everything I haven't done today Plus everything I won't do tomorrow-completely exhausts me! AUTHOR UNKNOWN ne of the best compliments you can give a friend is to say, "You're such a kind person!" And what exactly is a kind person? • Kindness is an attitude of the heart. • A kind person goes out of her way to be nice to someone else. All through Scripture we're shown God's character, and it's one of kindness. So why not lighten someone's load today and bring him or her joy? • Offer to help lighten someone's load. • Open the door for someone. • Even a bright smile conveys kindness.

You can file your nails, make appointments, clean a shelf, throw in a load of laundry, or write a thank-you note. One pastor gave a copy of the book of Psalms to everyone in his congregation. He suggests they use it when they have a minute or so of "waiting" time. Why not make a list of what you can accomplish in five minutes so you'll be ready the next time you have a little spare time? ant some quick reminders to get more out of life? • In your Bible underline verses that remind you of how much you're loved by God. Check back when you need to be reminded. • Mend a broken relationship. Don't hesitate to say you're sorry. • Hang around with loving, giving people. Their attitude and joy are contagious. And we need all the love we can get, don't we? • Practice delight! The more you notice and rejoice in what God has done, the more positive and loving you'll feel. e spontaneous and throw a party. You can make just about any occasion special. Now don't laugh, but being spontaneous sometimes takes a little planning. For instance, you'll want to have something fun to eat in the freezer that you can prepare

Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted…. —Ephesians 4:32 (ASV) Jamie, our oldest daughter, spent the night with us. She had one request: to watch her favorite show, a popular TV dating program. I’ve caught a few snippets but I’ve never watched an entire show. Such silliness! I made homemade lasagna, one of Jamie’s favorites, and picked up some chocolate ice cream, but I planned to finagle a way out of watching the program with her. After supper, she helped me clear the table and load the dishwasher. Then her show started. Her daddy stretched out in his recliner, and Jamie sat on the sofa near him. “I’m going to take my bath, ya’ll,” I announced. “Be back in a little while.” I knew I’d bailed on her, but was it really that important? Sinking into my warm bubbles, I overheard Jamie and her dad discussing which one special woman might be chosen for a date with “the prince.” Rick wasn’t poking fun at the far-fetched island drama. I knew he’d rather be watching sports, but he made interesting comments and listened to Jamie’s observations—to his daughter’s heart, really. Something I’d ignored. After my bath, I put on my pajamas and crept back into the den. Only the last few minutes of the show remained. As I sat beside Jamie, a lump rose in my throat. “Sorry I didn’t watch the whole thing with you. I should have.” “It’s no big deal, Mom.” “Yes it is. This program’s important to you. Let’s do dinner again next week and we’ll watch it together. I promise.” Lord, little things matter so much. Help me listen with my heart and be kind—just like You. —Julie Garmon Digging Deeper: Prv 31:26; Phil 2:4;1 Pt 3:8

So passed a day in the life of a P.I. Not exactly a typical day but not totally untypical either. What makes a man stay with it nobody knows. You don’t get rich, you don’t often have much fun. Sometimes you get beaten up or shot at or tossed into the jailhouse. Once in a long while you get dead. Every other month you decide to give it up and find some sensible occupation while you can still walk without shaking your head. Then the door buzzer rings and you open the inner door to the waiting room and there stands a new face with a new problem, a new load of grief, and a small piece of money.

In my early comedy days, I made loads of fun of this guy. "The Spicer Commission spent millions of dollars," I declared, "they produced five phone books' worth of paper - and they still didn't answer the question." I added: "Our founding fathers would have been appalled." This was back in the day when you could use the term "founding fathers" and not get hissed at.

Grateful For You A gratitude poem from a Mother to her miracle child You are a wonderful treasure My love for you, I cannot measure In you, God gave me an Angel Through you, I was blessed by the Heavens An answered prayer of way back Just when I thought it was over My precious gift from Above, you showed up Filled with your bright smile and loads of fun You make me so fine Oh, what a privilege in life To be given such a sense of pride As I call you my child While you chose to be mine You are so kind You bring me hope every time I could go through heavy tides With you by my side I always rise You help me make long strides I cannot drown, not even once You give me a better chance To become a daring Mom I have peace, even in the storm Because you teach me to stay strong So glad you came along Never let me all alone What an honour to be your Mother! My perfect match Such a great catch! My very best friend Will you lend me a hand To walk beside you on this land? You are all I ever need And I am so grateful for you

Episodes. Like depression is a sitcom with a fun punch line each time. Or a TV box set loaded with cliffhangers. The only cliffhanger in my life is "Will I ever get rid of this shit?" and believe me, it gets pretty monotonous.

Fix a house, Iris said. It’ll be fun, she said. What a load of bullshit.

Or maybe you’re referring to the sex. Sex is always fun, right? It’s been so fucking goddamn fun trying to reach you the only way I can, making love to you while you can’t even look me in the eyes, and trying to collect all the little bones you throw at me without ever truly having you. It’s been loads of fun waking up every morning to an empty bed with my sheets reeking of you, mocking me with the reminder that you’re not there. And it’s been especially fun having to uproot my whole life because I care about you so damn much, I can’t bear to keep watching you suffer.

I know how to have fun. It’s just been a little while since I actually did, though that’s through no fault of my own. When the course load piles up, I tend to neglect that part of my life and a few others, like my mental health. Not the best practice, but when academic validation is my drug of choice, I can’t stop the addiction.

What people are saying about WAR EAGLES ​5 out of 5 stars! WW2 with a dash of fantasy! I really enjoyed stepping back in time as the race for air travel was developing. One could truly feel the passion these pilots and engineers had for these magnificent machines. The twist of stepping back into a land of Vikings and dinosaurs was very well executed. Well done to both the author and the narrator. ​ Reminiscent of Golden Age Sci Fi This audio book reminded me of some of the 40's and 50's era tales, but what it happens to be is an alternative timeline World War II era fun adventure story. Think of a weird mash-up of a screw-up Captain America wanna-be mixed with the Land of the Lost mixed with Avatar where Hitler is the real villain and you might come close. At any rate, it's load of good fun and non stop action. But don't get distracted for a minute or you'll miss something! There are american pilots, Polish spies, Vikings, giant prehistoric eagles and, of course, Nazis! What more could you ask for to while away an afternoon? Our hero even gets the (Viking) girl! Put your feet up an get lost in what might have been.... 4 out of 5 stars! it's Amelia Earnhart meets WWII This is not an accurate historical fiction book, but rather an action-packed book set an historical time. I normally listen to my books at a higher speed, however the amount of drama and action in this book I had to slow it down. I like the storyline and the narrator however, the sound effects throughout the book did kind of throw me since I'm not used to that and most audible books. still I would recommend this is a good read.​ 5 out of 5 stars! I Would Like to See this on the Silver Screen Back in the late 1930s, the director of King Kong started planning War Eagles as his next block buster film. Then World War II intervened and the project languished for decades. It helps to know this background to fully appreciate this novel. It’s a big cinematic adventure waiting to find the screen. The heroes are larger than life, but more importantly, the images are bigger and more vivid than the mighty King Kong who reinvented the silver screen. And what are those images you may ask? Nazis developing super-science weapons for a sneak attack on America, Viking warriors riding gargantuan eagles in a time-forgotten land of dinosaurs, and of course, those same Vikings fighting Nazis over the skyline of New York City. This book is a heck of a lot of fun. It starts a little bit slow but once the Vikings enter the story it chugs along at a heroic pace. There is a ton of action and colorful confrontations. Narrator William L. Hahn pulls out all the stops adding theatrical sound effects to his wide repertoire of voices which adds a completely appropriate cinematic feel to the entire story. If you’re looking for some genuinely heroic fantasy, you should try War Eagles. Wonderful story War Eagles is a really good adventure story. ​5 out of 5 stars!

You’re loads of fun. Being ourselves individually isn’t the problem. How to be ourselves as a couple—that’s the hard thing.

I’m not an amateur, so I grab the mixing bowl full of brownie batter and make a break for it. Except…I’m not moving. My socked feet are gliding on the hardwood but going absolutely nowhere. Who put a treadmill in this floor?! I look over my shoulder and see Nathan has the back of my shirt pinched between his fingers. And now I’m being slid backward, closer to him. That large hand reaches over my shoulder, and I watch it dip—his whole entire hand—into the bowl of brownie mix I’m clutching tightly in front of me. There’s nothing for me to do but close my eyes as he slowly presses a blob of sticky batter onto the right side of my face. Hair and all. That’s going to be fun to get out. Can I just say, this is the weirdest, slowest food fight anyone has ever witnessed? And oddly, it’s making me super hot and tingly. I spin around to face him, and it’s my turn now. I take a dip of batter then smear it across both of his eyebrows. He looks like Eugene Levy now, and I have to press my fist to my mouth to keep from laughing. With a subtle grin, he loads up his finger then uses the batter to paint brown lipstick across my lips—really…freaking…slowly. Oh.

I like to explain stability using an analogy from my favorite sport, auto racing. A few years ago I drove to a racetrack in Southern California to spend a couple of days training with my coach. To warm up, I took a few “sedan laps” in my street car at the time, a modified BMW M3 coupe with a powerful 460+ HP engine. After months of creeping along on clogged Southern California freeways, it was hugely fun to dive into the corners and fly down the straightaways. Then I switched to the track car we had rented, basically a stripped-down, race-worthy version of the popular BMW 325i. Although this vehicle’s engine produced only about one-third as much power (165 HP) as my street car, my lap times in it were several seconds faster, which is an eternity in auto racing. What made the difference? The track car’s 20 percent lighter weight played a part, but far more important were its tighter chassis and its stickier, race-grade tires. Together, these transmitted more of the engine’s force to the road, allowing this car to go much faster through the corners. Though my street car was quicker in the long straights, it was much slower overall because it could not corner as efficiently. The track car was faster because it had better stability. Without stability, my street car’s more powerful engine was not much use. If I attempted to drive it through the curves as fast as I drove the track car, I’d end up spinning into the dirt. In the context of the gym, my street car is the guy with huge muscles who loads the bar with plates but who always seems to be getting injured (and can’t do much else besides lift weights in the gym). The track car is the unassuming-looking dude who can deadlift twice his body weight, hit a fast serve in tennis, and then go run up a mountain the next day. He doesn’t necessarily look strong. But because he has trained for stability as well as strength, his muscles can transmit much more force across his entire body, from his shoulders to his feet, while protecting his vulnerable back and knee joints. He is like a track-ready race car: strong, fast, stable—and healthy, because his superior stability allows him to do all these things while rarely, if ever, getting injured.

Grateful For You A gratitude poem from a Mother to her miracle child You are a wonderful treasure My love for you I cannot measure In you, God gave me an Angel Through you, I was blessed by the Heavens An answered prayer of way back Just when I thought it was over My precious gift from Above, you showed up! Filled with your bright smile and loads of fun You make me so fine Oh, what a privilege in life! Of being given such a sense of pride As I call you my child While you chose to be mine You are so kind You bring me hope every time I could go through heavy tides With you by my side I always rise You help me to make many strides I cannot drown, not even once You give me a better chance To become a daring Mom I have peace, even in the storm Because you teach me to stay strong So glad you came along And never left me all alone What an honour to be your Mother! My perfect match Such a great catch! My very best friend Will you lend me a hand To walk beside you on this land? You are all I ever need And I am so grateful for you

Yeah,” said Alex excitedly. “We’ve read all the Seth the Elf and Captain Cowman comics that we have, and we finished Diary of a Skateboarding Cowman, so we thought we’d write a comic of our own.” “Gosh, how fun,” said Porkins, “what’s it called?” “The Legend of Carl the Creeper,” said Carl. “It’s the true story of all my awesome adventures.” Dave picked up one of the pages. On the page was a crudely drawn picture of Carl fighting a big green squid. Above the picture of Carl was a speech bubble: Taek that craken! Itz creepa tiem! And above the picture of the squid was another speech bubble: O no Carl the creepa, u hav defeeted me! “Um, there are a few spelling errors,” said Dave. “No one cares about spelling errors,” said Carl, “it’s all about the epic story.” “Wait a minute,” said Dave, looking at the picture again, “is this meant to be you defeating the kraken? Are you punching it in the face?” “I’ve changed some of the stories to make them a bit more exciting,” shrugged Carl. Dave picked up another page. This one showed Carl and Alex both beating up a big black monster with tentacles. There was a speech bubble above Alex’s head: Taek that endabrin! Did sumbuddy orda the Alex? “Um, and I suppose this is you two defeating Enderbrine?” said Dave. “And what is this thing you’re saying Alex — ‘did somebody order the Alex?’” “Yeah,” grinned Alex. “Captain cowman’s catchphrase is ‘did somebody order the beef?’. So, my catchphrase is ‘did somebody order the Alex?’” “These are all early drafts,” said Carl. “Once we bring it to a publisher and they pay us a load of emeralds, we’ll get our secretary to rewrite it all.” Dave picked up another page. This one showed Carl punching Herobrine and Herobrine’s head exploding. “Right,” said Dave, putting the page back down, “um, it looks great so far.

The goal of flavor creation is to reach the seven-year-old inside the forty-seven-year-old," Brian explains of their instant connection with customers. While other ice cream start-ups in the city- and there have been plenty launches since Ample Hills, including Oddfellows (2013), Morgenstern's (2014), and Ice & Vice (2015), to name a few- have found their success in offbeat flavors like avocado, extra virgin olive oil, red bean, and chorizo caramel, they aren't made in the same spirit of evoking the fun and play of childhood that Brian finds essential. It's a different brand of creativity. Even though it inevitably meant waiting in a long line, I loved being the one to go to Ample Hills to pick up a pint because it also meant sampling the flavors. Each one is sweet and creamy, über-rich, and totally original. They're loaded with so many ingredients you never tire of taste testing them. There's Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, a full-flavor vanilla that's studded with chunks of rich, dense Saint Louis-style cake; The Munchies, a salty-sweet pretzel-infused ice cream chock-full of Ritz crackers, potato chips, M&M's, and more pretzels; Nonna D's Oatmeal Lace is brown-sugar-and-cinnamon ice cream chunked with homemade oatmeal cookies; and their signature flavor, Salted Crack Caramel, which involves caramelizing large amounts of sugar on the stove top until it's nearly burnt, giving it a bitterness that distinguishes their version from all the other salted caramels out there.

Mothers who have gone to college, they found, enroll their children in far more organized activities—in large part for the same reasons the best-paid men work so much. These mothers, too, believe that the opportunity cost of not enrolling their children in loads of extracurriculars is too great. It’s the problematic psychology of any arms race: the participants would love not to play, but not playing, in their minds, is the same as falling behind.

So passed a day in the life of a P.I. Not exactly a typical day but not totally untypical either. What makes a man stay with it nobody knows. You don't get rich, you don't often have much fun. Sometimes you get beaten up or shot at or tossed into the jailhouse. Once in a long while you get dead. Every other month you decide to give it up and find some sensible occupation while you can still walk without shaking your head. Then the door buzzer rings and you open the inner door to the waiting room and there stands a new face with a new problem, a new load a grief, and a small piece of money.

drums songs weren’t for fun. In a noisy battle, the officers couldn’t just shout out their orders; their voices would be drowned out by the explosions. It was those different rat, tat, tats that told the men which way to turn, how fast to march, when to load their muskets, and when to shoot.

The dramatic interplay was more in Lester’s wheelhouse, particularly the scene where Billy Bob contemplates suicide. Wracked with guilt over disappointing his coach (and, in retrospect, possibly suffering from post-concussion syndrome), Billy Bob sits on the back of his pickup with his football trophies, a bottle of tequila, and a Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun when he’s confronted by Mox. “Championship trophy. Steelers. We were 9. Remember this shit? Playing Pee Wee?” “Yeah,” Mox says. “It was fun.” “No, it wasn’t. I remember being yelled at.” Billy Bob throws the trophy. “Too fat, Billy Bob!” Bang! “Too slow and dumb!” He pulls the pump handle. Bang! “It was great,” Robbins, the director, says. “I remember that night shooting that scene, and you don’t do that once, you do it over and over again from different angles. And he was just able to deliver that performance over and over again, and those were real tears and real emotion coming out of him.” Lester drew on pain from his personal life, thinking of his late father and his sister Linda, who died at 35. He also pulled from his own struggles with suicide. Inconsolable after Linda passed, he had put a loaded gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. “God,” he says, is the only explanation. “I actually have the bullet, still. It’s not a dud; it’s live. It just didn’t go off,” Lester says. “I was kind of dreading [that scene] because I knew where I’d go. But I’m an actor and I’m making a commitment to the character. To do that, you have to go 100 percent and just hope you pull yourself out of it.

Life Will Never Be Perfect... But Give It A Chance, It Can Be Loads Of Fun!

Who is the best actor ever?” “Ah… Antony Hopkins?” “Wrong!” Seymour roared. “It’s death. Nothing can out act death acting life. Pretending there is nothing but the current moment and the breath we are taking. Death has persuaded itself it is alive and even made her fear itself,” Seymour explained. “And it did that because it was bored. Bored with peace. Life is merely a disturbance in death, which built a stage to act something fun. And that fun has turned into a loaded gun that will fire.” Emanuel was nodding. Johnny wondered if the poor guy had any idea what Seymour was talking about. He looked so lost. Yet a man intending to take his own life should look exactly like that.