Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

We can do them if members (like yourself) want to, but our schedule is pretty full until around June.
We can schedule at least one of them for around then, and take it from there. :)

Any kind of blocking of anything always ends up causing an "underground" market for that item to develop.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I hear you. I think I already goofed on electronics and I still don't have anything for my nephew in spite of a weekend of walking through shops like a zombie."

I don't know what age he is, but a nice set of earphones / earbuds or headphones is always a nice thing to have a spare of (unless he already has 10 of them). Don't be fooled by the cheapies we used to have in the olden days - go ask for a good pair of Klipsch, Sony, Pioneer or Shure and you will see that indeed, one can pay a lot more for a lot better sound quality. If he's under 9 years old, a 'good' pair may be wasted on him (they're always losing/breaking them), but if he's over 6 or 7, he might still appreciate a cheapie.

Oops, this is the wrong thread for this. I guess I'll delete it later. :P

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Linda wrote: "¨Would you man up and help me over here?!¨"

ROFL. I'm not quite sure anybody's man enough for that! Despite the pain (to me as well as the dog, but definitely more the dog), porcupin..."

(view spoiler)[ GROSS! (hide spoiler)]
Well, so the friend should have been glad it was a dead skunk and not a live one... though I suspect that they store up that... er... musk? in sacs near the tail, so it would depend where the dog had gotten hold of it, ha ha ha.

I had a Weimaraner dog who always smelled a bit "different" but at some point she really started to smell weirdly bad (not that typical "doggy" flavor, though). You know dogs mark their territory, also via sacs near the tail, and hers not only smelled much worse than that of other dogs, but at a point her glands there became overproductive.

The vet said: "Just bring her over, we'll milk it out for you". Once I had the dog there and the vet smelled what she had in there, he coughingly suggested that he permanently remove the problem via surgery. I eagerly agreed. Not to want to have the dog suffer unnecessarily, but nobody could bear having her close with that pong, which I swear almost started to approach skunk territory.

Anyway, the incisions healed very quickly and we were happily re-united with our now bearable dog.

I'm glad to hear that Cecily! Due to last-minute Xmas shopping I might only get to see it on Wednesday, but that might be a good thing, since I'll sit in the cinema while others are getting crushed in the very last-minute shopping rush. >:D

I'm afraid I had miscalculated the time I'd need for Xmas shopping this year. Looks like the shopping list has shifted to having to buying electronic gifts, so my entire day has been wasted spent reading up reviews for gadgets on the internet, lest I commit the terrible mistake of buying the wrong product. Oh, the joys....

:D

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "It's an act of defiance. ..."

Yes! An act of defiance against repression. You have in your post 72 nicely articulated what I was trying to put my finger on why it feels so good to be giving attention to books that were not ALLOWED to see the light of day, even if only partly or temporarily.

It's not for someone else to decide what I may or may not hear, see or read. Sure, put a warning out for the sensitive and for children, (I feel warnings are fine, as long as that is where it remains) but do not dictate (especially not forcefully) to me and to others who want to experience the world fully as if we are little children, and as if the censoring authority somehow "knows better" grrr.

You know, in a way, I always feel, people who seek to control our thoughts and our minds are metaphorically raping us, and/or seeking to enslave us.

What I also find frightening, is the lengths some people will go to to try and make people think the way they want people to think; to the point of not only censure and imprisonment, but also torture and death.

For example, the medieval Catholics, dissidents in Soviet Russia, Communist China, North Korea and Cuba, or Francoist Spain, and.. well, take Raif Badawi, for example . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Ba...

It's absolutely wonderful, Amy!
...but it makes me feel so sad and a little angry too. A bit like working with dying people. It's wonderful work, and it's very good that some people are prepared to do it, but I always think it must be such saddening and even a bit depressing work. ... :(

I know I would get depressed doing it, or at least I feel sure I would...
So it's really wonderful that there are people doing such good work!

Linda wrote: "I'll tell you a friend's story about her dog and a skunk some day... .."

Ouch

:p

Indeed! If a sad one.. thanks Amy!

I think there's only the Charlton Heston one, but I mention it because the race in Phantom menace is such an obvious skit on the race in Ben Hur.

Oh, and I think Derek and Puddin will remember that I actually am the only person in the whole wide world who likes The Phantom Menace. Some good memories there.

BTW! Has anybody here seen the movie Ben Hur?

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "My dog is finally here! People have been warning me that the plane trip might seriously traumatize her. I swear she's worse after an hour in our car! She apparently found a dead fish to roll in at ..."

Ugh, gross about the fish. Where we used to live, we had roof rats, and if we poisoned them they'd go out in the yard to die. My dogs used to roll in their decomposing corpses, and I thought -that- was bad...
Anyway, I was wondering who was getting which dog (I know your one dog you posted pics of is deceased, but I couldn't remember who was getting the other one). Anyway, that's cool!

Re Star Wars: I was going to watch them all again with the kids, but my son elected to go watch them at a friend's house who was holding a SW sleepover marathon, so... I didn't feel like watching them alone. We'll see...

I've looked at your suppressed thread and think it's pretty cool, but nervous to post on it in case i mess the thread up?

Man, but are those examples sad!

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: " I'm wondering if we should go ahead and open a thread for those (maybe something like 'suppressed by private action'? Some of these weren't even officially challenged in any setting. (The examples I am looking at are Thomas Hardy, Perumal Murugan (the Indian author Jennifer linked above), and the suppression of the play Behzti by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti in the UK, which I put on the banned list by mistake and need to move somewhere. ) ..."

Sounds like a good idea, so why don't you go ahead and do it? ;)

Okay, okay, I will be patient until next week. :P

Anyone been to see Star Wars yet? Cinemas have been so packed that I decided to only go see it on Monday or so.

..but I'm curious: has it gone Disney? :P