953

Balázs Bernát:
I'll play "find the wet spot" with my fat bela any day you can bet on it!
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 3:43:26 pm)

:
I don't know if she'll be as inclinded to play find the breakfast sausage with you.
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 3:50:08 pm)

Balázs Bernát:
I'm her dream boy and she told me so. We have an international love intrique!
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 3:51:42 pm)

Decoy:
Look at 'em go! Whoop.
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 4:19:07 pm)

(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 6:02:22 pm)

Myk Murphy:
the soft boys tonight!! looks like only one of my pals can attend tonight's festivities, but that's ok.
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 7:22:22 pm)

Queenie:
Please post full report in BSDR!
(Wed Mar 21, 2001 - 7:31:50 pm)

Queenie:
Making a movie is hard.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 2:00:22 am)

theo:
What kind of movie?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 2:04:58 am)

theo:
um Frank..?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 2:05:52 am)

Mrs Dr GB:
How glad am I that I lfet when I did. What the holy crap is this flying fiery thing?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 4:46:09 am)

orange:
looks like Mir to me. If you see it, wave goodbye. Hope it comes my way, or i'll just have to put my hopes in the bombers.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 5:03:29 am)

Mrs Dr GB:
Sodding typical. Today is the first day in months my hair looks half-decent, and now there's a chance a bloody aged space station will fall on me and mess it all up. Tsk.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 6:16:39 am)

This just in ...:
In the "Birmingham Sunday Mercury" (7th Jan 2001):
WORKER DEAD AT DESK FOR 5 DAYS
Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for FIVE DAYS before anyone asked if he was feeling okay. George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was still working during the weekend.

His boss Elliot Wachiaski said: "George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn't say anything. "He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself." A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary. Ironically, George was proof-reading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally. And the moral of the story: Don't work too hard. Nobody notices anyway.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 11:15:06 am)

Mrs Dr GB:
Quite so. And also: Dick Cheney says that nuclear power plants "have no adverse effect on the environment".
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 11:15:51 am)

Decoy:
You're all scaredy-cat. You can't burn sheep as fuel forever, you know.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:19:39 pm)

Mrs Dr GB:
How about that. All afternoon, the loneliness, then just as I'm about to go, someone turns up. The owner, no less. Hey ho. Nice to see you. Fleetingly. G'bye.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:23:27 pm)

Decoy:
Yah. where is everyone? Awww well... strap on your helmet, GB. Have a good evening.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:30:39 pm)

rOb!:
I'm here. Just busy watching the MIR....
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:34:41 pm)

rOb!:
Ah, just noticed the time on the Post/Refresh bar. Nice touch.....handy, too.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:37:44 pm)

Decoy:
So we know when we last checked on the ever changing content of the lounge.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:40:28 pm)

Decoy:
So is MIR now coming down tomorrow? 1.25am EST they say on CNN.com
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:43:20 pm)

rOb!:
I wonder if I can see the flaming wreckage in the skies from my vantage point on the east coast?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 12:49:53 pm)

rOb!:
So, is that tonight at 1.25 AM? Or is it tomorrow night at 1.25 AM? Coz, tonight at 1.25 AM is technically tomorrow........oh, geez.....I'm so confused.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 1:00:41 pm)

Decoy:
Tomorrow 1.25am is IMMEDIATELY following today at midnight, Moscow time and EST. Presumably.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 1:21:13 pm)

Decoy:
MAKE IT STOP!!!

(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 1:21:41 pm)

Queenie:
A turn around on Phelps

ANN ARBOR, MI - When the Reverend Fred Phelps came to town, the gay community here decided not to get mad. They decided to get rich. Among the Ann Arbor locales the Kansas-based Phelps and his band elected to picket was the /aut/ BAR, a gay-owned restaurant, bar and community gathering place. When co-owner Keith Orr heard that his establishment was being targeted, he wanted to respond constructively. He and his partner, Martin Contreras, did not want to promote a counter-demonstration, feeling that Phelps gains the most attention - and hence is most effective - when he provokes anger and outrage from his opponents. Rather, Orr decided to use his Phelps visit to the community's advantage.

Phelps's plans to picket the bar came to light only two days prior to his scheduled February 17, 2001 demonstration. With little time, Orr used the Internet to organize a unique fundraising scheme. In an email message to customers, supporters, and friends, he proposed that people pledge money to the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project (WRAP), a local gay advocacy group and community center, for every minute that Phelps picketed the bar. In this way, Orr explained, the longer Phelps stayed to spew hate, the more money he would raise for WRAP. He and Contrera kicked off the drive by pledging$1 per minute.

Contreras explained why he felt it was important to organize a response to Phelps. "When I was first coming out fifteen years ago people told me, 'You've got to watch out for this so-called reverend from Kansas named Phelps. He's out to wage war against the gay community.' He had been showing up at funerals of people who had died of AIDS with signs claimingthat gay people would burn in hell. At the time he was just a blip on the radar screen. But when he protested at Matthew Shepherd's funeral he became a national menace."

At the same time, Orr continued, "I didn't want to give Phelps what he wanted," meaning a counter-demonstration. "But just ignoring him seemed wrong."

Only two minutes after Orr sent out his email message pledges began to pour in, not only from Ann Arbor, but from as far away as New Hampshire, Texas and California. The pledge drive gained such momentum that by the day of Phelps's demonstration - only 48 hours after Orr and Contreras kicked offthe drive - friends and supporters of Ann Arbor's gay community had promised to contribute a total of $107 for every minute Phelps picketed the bar.

"When I began the pledge drive I wasn't necessarily expecting anything big," Orr said. "I just wanted to give people an opportunity to turn Phelps's message of hate into something positive for our community."

Even so, the size and speed of the response surprised him. "Normally a fundraising event of this magnitude takes months of planning and a lot of up-front costs. In 48 hours we raised over $6000 without spending a dime. I was astonished."

Pledges arrived in diverse amounts and from a wide range of sources. They varied in amount from as little as 10 cents per minute to as much as 5 dollars per minute. "The great thing about this kind of fundraiser is that no one is excluded. People can participate at any economic level," said Orr. The range of contributors included neighboring Business owners, a highschool Gay/Straight Alliance and individual members of the Ann Arbor police force.

On February 17, the day of the protest, Phelps's band numbered only four adults and two small children. Instead of confronting the hate-mongerers and giving them the attention they craved, over one hundred community members and supporters gathered in the bar on a Saturday afternoon,celebrating while they counted the minutes that Phelps's cronies stood outside raising money for Ann Arbor's gay community.

That afternoon WRAP Board member Linda Lombardini received one notable pledge. "A father and his young son were driving past the bar and saw the protesters out front," she explained. "The son asked his father who they were and what they were doing there. The father stopped the car and broughthis son into the restaurant to demonstrate to him that gay people are no different from anyone else. When he realized that we were holding a fundraiser he handed his son a ten-dollar bill to give to me."

"We view this as a form of economic containment," Orr said. "Phelps is free to spread his message, however perverse we find it, wherever he wants. The First Amendment protects his right to do that. But we turned what could have been a negative into a positive. This has been an incredible community-building experience for us.

"We hope that cities and towns across the country will do this everywhere he goes. I get a charge thinking that every time he hits the road he will help us build our communities and fund our organizations."
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 1:58:49 pm)

Decoy:
How do you think we got Voltaic to stay away from Decoy's Lounge?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 2:22:38 pm)

Decoy:
Its not quite the same, I guess.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 2:23:46 pm)

I guess.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 3:12:17 pm)

:
we are all one in the arms of ghotinda, the loving god
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 3:59:03 pm)

Decoy:
Such tiny little hands and feet.
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 4:49:27 pm)

Chewing Wax:
I just found a plutonium 138 power pack with Russian letters on it in a smoldering crater in my back yard. What do I do?
(Thu Mar 22, 2001 - 6:31:20 pm)