Well, I did it.

[edieparks 2]

Laurend,

I guess this is where I should post this comment (don't attack me lol)

but I like you because you are opinionated and outspoken. You're a firecracker Laurend.

I just know you are gonna kick ass with your band.

The voyeur in me can't wait for your band. Just think what your body will be like in 6 months!

edie

[susannah 2]

Hey Lauren, You are appreciated here for being an articulate person who is passionate in her views. I find some of the posters on OH to be of the insipid and passive agressive variety.

Anybody noticed that some bandsters can be the meanest and nastiest jerks? I certainly have.

Man screw them.

Susannah

[mrspruett 0]

Laurend,

I guess this is where I should post this comment (don't attack me lol)

but I like you because you are opinionated and outspoken. You're a firecracker Laurend.

edie

Lauren,

I actually noticed that you were much less out-spoken on OH (probably because of the constant threat of an unwarranted attack). It wasn't as though you were discussing a heated issue or anything. You were attacked for trying to participate in a discussion. You made no controversial statements, at least in MHO. This was just my impression and I am not trying to put words in your mouth. You really seemed to me to reel in your highly opinionated and very intelligent personality(which I love by the way). :high5: I don't always agree with you but I respect your opinions.

For those of you who are not familiar with OH, it is a VERY INFORMATIVE BOARD. I feel that due to the fact that they have no forum like our R&R,

discussions, arguments, debates, and HUGE differences of opinions are all over the board. A thread may start out as a question from a newbie and end up in an all out war between 2 posters about an unrelated topic or something that was said in another thread. No board is perfect although LBT is close:heh:.

I enjoy reading posts over there because there is a lot of valuable info. I guess the "walking on eggshells" kind of feeling if you choose to post is just unavoidable. It is a trade off I guess.

[green 6]

Great to hear that I'm not the only one who has a talking Lap band .

It keeps saying "Go ahead eat the ice cream m y precious, him wants more ice cream"

Bwahahaha. Maybe we Rant/Ravers should mount a wholesale invasion of de site claiming that we wants to get obese and we wants to know the recipe because we needs de help. :heh: (We could claim that we need de recipe because we live Africa and Bono's aid money isn't filtering through the corrupt dictatorships.....or is that too twisted?....?) :rolleyes

[green 6]

And as for the wonderful laurend, as I have said before, you are one of the finest dragon-slayers whom I have met on-line, grrl. You will continue to do what you have to do with respect to the dragons and you will continue to keep those of us who have ears to hear educated and up to date (as much as we layfolk are able) on the latest in your arena of scientific research.

Speaking personally, I find your dispatches as a scientist and an atheist from the land of the Bible Belt and the home of creationism to be most interesting. This is foreign terrain for me and is, quite frankly speaking, a kind of topsy-turvy land. All that seems normal and that is taken for granted where I live is challenged where you live and, I guess, is vice versa.

Let me explain. I am almost 58 years old but evolutionary theory was taught as the norm when I was a kid. And although my parents, a Jew who was an atheist and a Christian who hadn't troubled to get herself confirmed until she was in her late 20s, had me and my brothers baptised Anglican/Episcopalian this was primarily in order to satisfy the social conventions of the the time. During the 1950s everyone was supposed to have a religion. Why, they even asked for this on employment applications at the time.

Though my parents were not at all religious I did spend a bunch of years consigned to an Anglo-Catholic boarding school but this was because I was a wild child and because, I suspect, my father had social pretensions. Certainly I paid them back for my exile. I went through a six month period of religious passion and I hassled them with promises of their torment in Hell if they didn't shape up and listen to me. I also brought serious disgrace upon them when I was summarily expelled in my final year for smoking marijuana, something which the daughter of an Anglican prelate had taught me. I should mention that this kid, a kid who came from a family bristling with clerical types, had been expelled from a number of schools before she washed up as a student in my school....

At the end of my street is a Catholic church which serves the Portuguese Catholic community. On important holidays the street is jammed with cars and sometimes there are parades of folk which walk up this street. I find these displays of devotion interesting and not at all threatening for they are also displays of a community and its culture. For me it is a cheap and charming trip to the streets of Portugal.

Around the corner from this church is a storefront mosque and this doesn't bother me either. The street is certainly clotted with worshippers on Friday but this storefront mosque is on a business street and it has had the effect of calming down the neighbourhood.

One block down from the storefront mosque is a Baptist church which has been there forever. In fact this church had long ago built a highrise retirement home in order to house their ageing population. They came to a point after some years where they ran out of Baptists and this was when they opened this home to other Christians. And then to other old people. Now Baptist towers houses a number of young kids who are going to university and who need a place to stay. I read about this in one of the local newspapers. The reporter said that the kids and the old people find value in each other. This is a splendid thing.

I tell you these stories in order to stress that my environment is one which is kinda loosey-goosey with respect to the question of one's belief or disbelief. There is this polite, possibly typically Canadian assumption that you believe or disbelieve in whatever and I will do the same. Indeed, when it comes to our pamphlet people, the way the business of conversion Canadian-style works is that they wave their material in front of your face and when you smile and respectfully tell them that it is not for you they smile, apologise, and withdraw.

I suspect that we figure that there are multiple ways to get to Heaven and multiple ways to avoid it, too. This is why we/I find your tales so interesting. Keep on posting, you dragon-slayer.

[anonemouse 1]

You guys are exactly why I love LBT so much. While OH can be a great resource (if you can wade through the horrid format), it always made me nervous. It really reminded me of a high school. People were friends one day and enemies the next. One minute, they'd be posting about how much they appreciated someone, and the next, there'd be a mob of folks bashing one or two people. Whenever I posted there, I really wondered whether I should duck and cover, because other than a few people, I never knew how everyone's moods were swinging that day.

I never really understood just how beneficial and stress-relieving LBT is for me. Yes, you can fight and bitch to your heart's content here, but you know that almost everyone that you are fighting with or bitching with (or at, in some cases, especially when I've been under some extreme stress in RL) is still your friend. At the end of the day, even if they disagree with your beliefs, they are still wonderful support and great friends.

So, I want everyone here to know just how much I appreciate them. You guys really are the best.

[jewel 0]

I know you're coming to Memphis for surgery. (I would PM you, but wasn't able to). I work in Memphis an live nearby if you need anything.

Good luck! I've heard good things about Dr. Weaver.

Jewel

[anonemouse 1]

I know you're coming to Memphis for surgery. (I would PM you, but wasn't able to). I work in Memphis an live nearby if you need anything.

Good luck! I've heard good things about Dr. Weaver.

Jewel

Hi! It'll be nice to know some more folks in the area.