Enzora

Haha, It's not often that I meet fellow Latin geeks. Between high school and college, I took six semesters of the mother tongue, and still can't speak the language worth a crap, but it has given me a great appreciation for the Roman culture and society as well as a love of etymology.

Tangential relation: It was around the time of tape-recording piracy that Deejays started the annoying habit of talking over the intro and end of songs, in order to stop piracy by degrading the product. Unfortunately, as they really like to hear themselves talk, this nasty habit has kept up well after the days of the audio cassette. adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie. . . aaaaaaand I don't remember the rest. Oh well, I always was more of an Ave Maria man anyway. And finally, to Mustang: I feel ya, man. I know a lot of people who think it's a good idea to get engaged and married before they're out of college. My girlfriend's roommate got engaged this year, in one of the funniest ways I've ever heard. Her boyfriend took her out to a romantic dinner, great time to propose right? Nah. So they get home, and they're on the couch, and i guess they started to fool around (I didn't ask for details) and she jokingly said "you just want me to be my sex slave." His reply: "No, I want you to be my wife. But there's one question you have to answer first." But wait, it gets better. At time of proposal, he didn't have a ring. Not that big a deal, they are both college students, not exactly rich on cash, so he promises to get her one later. But he does get her World of Warcraft character a virtual ring as a token of his undying devotion. He also decided that due to human rights/environmental reasons, he wanted to get her a synthetic diamond. Of course, they're also much less expensive, so we all think he's just being cheap. And as of right now (about 6 months after the fact) he still hasn't gotten her a ring, but you'll be happy to know that he has gotten the upgrade pack to World of Warcraft.

Cars have just kind of taken a back seat (pun intended) to other things in life, so I haven't gotten around to coming here as often.

Really? What brought your brother down to my neck of the woods? (for that matter, what the hell does that phrase mean?)

Here's me, doing my best James Dean/Fiona Apple/anime character impersonation.

In my little town I grew up believ--ing God keeps his eye on us all And he used to lean upon me As I pledged allegiance to the wall Lord I recall My little town Coming home after school Flying my bike past the gates Of the factories My mom doing the laundry Hanging our shirts In the dirty breeze And after it rains Theres a rainbow And all of the colors are black Its not that the colors arent there Its just imagin-ation they lack Everythings the same Back in my little town Nothing but the dead and dying Back in my little town Nothing but the dead and dying Back in my little town In my little town I never meant nothin I was just my fathers son Saving my money Dreaming of glory Twitching like a finger On the trigger of a gun Leaving nothing but the dead and dying Back in my little town Repeat and fade: Nothing but the dead and dying Back in my little town

Home: Dunn, North Carolina, your basic rural southern town. A very conservative atmosphere, where religion is a very important aspect of life (I would pass 8 churches every day on my way to school, and that was just on the main road) big domestic trucks are everywhere, and Bush/Cheney bumper stickers abound. College: Chapel Hill, baby! Your archetypal college town, with a healthy blend of rich WASPs, unbathed hippies living in their communes in neighboring Carrboro, and the poor labor force. Orange County has the highest level of inequality of any county in North Carolina. The atmosphere is definitely liberal, with a bizarre number of Dennis Kucinich bumper stickers on people's mostly foreign cars. Honestly, after spending months away at college, it can be quite a culture shock going home. But I've really come to appreciate it, as it gives me a much broader perspective than many of my peers, who have been liberal for their whole lives.

Check out the Toyota knockoff logo in the "Brera" photo (right beside the Suzuki logo.) Does anyone know what automaker that is?

You should definitely become a poet. We've identified your muse.

I'd love to see him rip into Diamond Dave, but somehow I don't see Cowell being nearly as ballsy towards Lemmy as he is to a bunch of pop star wannabes. Seriously, would you be rude to this guy?

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/1...80.2006.01829.x Like this?

After just briefly looking on google scholar, I see a lot of stuff on consumer ethnocentrism, which is pretty closely related to this idea. Blackwell-synergy.com might also have some good articles on that, but you'll probably have to subscribe to read them. But I assume that subscribing to a website isn't that big of a deal in an experiment of this scale. Good luck on this experiment. I'm interested to see what you can find, especially since a friend who drives a Camry said that she'll probably always drive a Camry, because they're just the best cars out there. It was a very depressing moment for me.

Come on, Nicholas Cage is the undisputed king of movies that look like they should be terrible yet somehow manage to be incredibly entertaining. I think it's because he understands his limits and knows how to just get out of the way and let the action sequences speak for themselves.

Wow . . . never would've pegged FOG as a psyc major.

Except that a lot of groups are at a much higher risk not due to the fact that they are more promiscuous than others, but because often the pool of potential mates is a lot smaller. I.E. inner city blacks and gays, compared to white heterosexuals in America. In other words, even if they're all equally promiscuous, a white heterosexual is statistically less likely to get AIDS than their counterparts in other demographics. Still, in any case, the need to act responsibly is important. Just some food for thought.

Happy Solstice. May the gods be pleased by your animal sacrifices and rain blessings upon you so that your crops will be bountiful in the coming year.

Nah, there's more entertainment to be found by setting $h! on fire than can ever be made by driving a Sunfire.

Google is your friend. For example, you can correct major misconceptions of major issues in less than five minutes, by finding articles with valuable information. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Aug25.html As I said before, there are good AND bad results of immigration. The Good: They contribute a LOT to our economy. Unless you like the idea of more expensive products or having to pay twice as much for any given construction project. Illegal immigration is a key part of how our economy works right now. And yes, they do pay taxes. Most can't get jobs without fake documents, so they do pay some, miniscule as it may be. The Bad: Jobs and burdens to our system. And it's not that they use our welfare systems much, but how they use them. A huge issue is the problem with hospitals, where they use the emergency room, where costs are so much higher, because they can't afford medical treatment any other way. This has especially been a big problem in the southwest, where many hospitals have had to close down for this reason. Of course, this is as much an indictment of how our medical system is set up as it is about immigration. The Ugly: Similar to the good, actually. Instead of getting any real improvement, both America and Mexico (and other countries, illegal immigrants do come from other places, ya know) become heavily entrenched into a flawed system that creates a lots of long-term economic problems. As Blu said, what we really need is for these other countries to develop their own economies, but that's highly unlikely as long as we continue to use them in this manner. Am I necessarily for immigration? No. But as I've said before, it's a complex issue, and one that sure as hell isn't going to be solved by saying "go back home and close your legs." Blaming a poor immigrant looking for a better life, especially given the fact that the immigration quotas are RIDICULOUSLY low when compared to the amount of jobs available to would-be immigrants, is just a waste of time. Edit: 21, college student (sociology major ) family's middle-class in a rural area where there are lots of illegal immigrants for farming.

Once again . . . most illegal immigrants DO pay taxes to the US. Illegal immigration has plenty of good and bad effects for our country; it's just that since our economy's not as strong right now, the negatives are felt more strongly than before. Everybody's gotta have a scapegoat.

And people in general only whine when they finish last. I definitely think it has more to do with strength/assertiveness than being nice or being an asshole. Balancing that means knowing how to be nice, while knowing that sometimes it's necessary to be a dick.

Pillarless hardtops are a lot like gas mileage vs power. We started out with the cool pillarless hardtops with gas-guzzling V8s under the hoods. Then the standards were changed so that safety and gas mileage were more important. So what do we do, we get creative and engineer cars that can meet these new standards while still being able to return to the coolness that we love. Then the standards for safety and gas mileage increase again (we're seeing this with gas mileage, although hardtops are only in the comeback phase) and the cycle repeats itself. I'll leave it to you guys to figure out how this applies to the future of automobiles.

Meh, religious displays in the government are mostly for show anyway, a way to appease the masses. Personally, I'd rather see them all swear an oath upon the Constitution, since that's the religion I'm expecting them to uphold.

Nice. Trujillo really adds some much-needed life to the old band. Hopefully James has enough creative gas left in the tank to use this and make one last good album.

Well, if we're getting into unfortunately-named dorms, I have to include UNC's two all-female residence halls. Manly and Aycock.

What, you wouldn't want to be confused for one of these?