I'll be back to fill this out. just creating a placeholder for now.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...hp?cl=11884833

http://bagit.reelthing.us/

I voted yesterday at the annex and I'm glad to get it over with. I'm happy with my choices and didn't want to fight the craziness of the Tuesday. Present outside the polling place were the Dems with the Big Blue Bus and the republicans with a big blue tent. There was a cutout of Obama in front of the Bus but the mccain that I've seen at the victory center was nowhere to be seen. I went over to say hello to the guys manning the blue tent and offered a little levity with the suggestion that it would be kind of fun to get our two carbboard guys and place then side by side on the annex steps as if they had met there.

There were two men working the tent, a younger, affable fellow, and older, surly looking guy who looked like his nose had been on the losing end of a fistfight(s), acne, or something else. The younger guy indicated that we'd need to wait till 4:30 when the polls closed. I realized my gaffe and agreed. The old guy indicated that we should separate them on the stairs and anyone who came out and went to the Obama one "we should shoot them". Needless to say, I was taken aback, and indicated to the ugly guy that he had just assaulted me. He then proceeded to ask me if I liked to hunt. No. Do I like to Fish? No. I think these were qualifiers of why in his mind I was voting for Obama.

The younger fellow asked why I had made a decision to vote Obama, and I indicated that ever since I have been of voting age, we have been presented with a...

Kind of like the chicken and the egg, depending on what boards one frequents. There are those out there on the internets that have trolls follow them from board to board. Luckily for us there's really no other board like TheTM Sowal. But we definitely get our share of whackjobs. Either they're whacked before they get here and start stirring things up from the getgo, or they make some off the wall post that to them seems normal( the voices are telling them it's a rational post), and some poor schlub posts a response that sets them off, and it's all downhill from there, till being banned.

It goes something like this:
<1> Someone new arrives at Sowal and in short order gets into all manner of pissing contests, arguments, rantings, etc. with and/or targeted towards a broad variety of people

<2> The new arrival rants about individual Sowalers' intolerance, bigotry, etc., how the new arrival feels persecuted for simply voicing his/her opinion (never mind the oh-so-important how the new arrival voices his/her opinion)

<3> The new arrival blames all of Sowal, collectively, for the new arrival's poor experience here

<4> The new arrival refuses to accept any responsibility for contributing to the escalating pissing contests, arguments, relentless rantings, and general descension into the depths of asshattery, even though the only common denominator in -all- of these instances is (yes, you guessed it)...

Oh my!! It seems that many of us Americans have forgotten what we were taught a few years ago with regard to common English. It is confusing to me how some think a sentence such as "Santa Rosa Beach Club isn't too much of an option, seeing as there brunch ends at 1pm." would be correct. That quote was lifted from these very pages, more as a convenience than anything(and not to put the poster in the spotlight, it's just one that I remember too well). But, this common mistake is repeated all over the internets.

So, just to set things back on course, let me state that in relation to the title subject:
they're means 'they are'. They, a group, are in the process of doing something.
their means that which they own, individual or group ownership. A family or a corporation owns their things.
there means simply, a place, such as over there.

I want to say here and now, that my writing is far from perfect. I'm a fan of not using caps on a regular basis, my spelling may be off from time to time(I do use www.merriam-webster.com more than I care to admit), and my punctuation may not always be accurate. But, the misuse of there, they're, and their just screams at me from the screen and has me wanting to shake the offender like you're not supposed to shake a baby.

There are even groups that have formed because of stuff like this:

"Your awesome."

"I'll meet you at they're house."...

The emoticon celebrated it's 25th birthday on Sept. 25th of this year. The emoticon/smiley is a good thing within the internets. It gives the writer the ability to add feeling to what can be a pretty dry medium. Sarcasm is a great friend of the smiley. Many companies make many dollars selling "premium" smilies to the hapless. It's akin to buying porn. Although, if you have to, you really don't know your way around. "But they're fun and cute, and really let me show how cool I am when posting on bulletin boards", Not.

What gets me though, is those that feel that (almost)every sentence must be punctuated with an(as many as they can squeeze in) emoticon(s). Some even fall victim to actually using them as words. It is quite disturbing to watch this happen, and painful to read. Eventually, I just skip posts from the offender to save my sanity. But, as with any trainwreck, I can't turn away, it's too good not to watch. So, I spiral into a virtual catch-22 which I make every attempt to break away from. Luckily, most times it works.

So, if you think this may be describing you, it's probably true, and you must make every attempt to come back to reality and use actual words. Everyone who reads you will be silently praising you for doing so. If you think this is about you, and you take offense to these words, please feel free to embrace and use this one within your tirade back at me. ...