The “Why Is Prostitution Illegal” column ( http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000114.html ) ends with the comment
What changed? Was there some information added or corrected or was there something in the original column that was judged inappropriate for the web site?
“Drink your coffee! Remember, there are people sleeping in China.”
Dennis Matheson — dennis@mountaindiver.com
Hike, Dive, Ski, Climb — www.mountaindiver.com
Jill answered this in the ninth response of http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000438.html
I’ve noticed that elsewhere. In his follow-up syndicated column on Rollen Stewart (the Rainbow Man), Cecil started the column with, “Yikes!” In his book Triumph of SD, he starts it with “Yowsah.” Personally, I prefer “Yikes!”, but I also revise what I write for clarity and concision, so I understand his discomfort with deadlines.
I wasn’t ignoring you, Pers, it just took me a while to get back over here.
Well, I use the names mostly to protect their privacy. The Cat and Bonzo both look in on the SDMB from time to time (Bonzo is fascinated by the way people are allowed to say “fuck” in the Pit). And I assume The Cat at least has probably told some of her friends about this place (they are SO grownup…) So, just kind of “because”.
The names just express their personalities. There aren’t any specific stories that go with them. The Cat Who Walks Alone is a rather solitary, self-sufficient creature. Even as a baby, she never minded being “parked” in her infant seat while Mommy washed dishes or something. (The other two just HATED that. Washing dishes with a baby on your hip is so much fun.) As a two-year-old she was always perfectly happy to play by herself, private little games that involved stacking cans of tomato paste from the pantry that nobody could figure out.
Bonzo is the family goof, definitely. He’s the one with the funny mouth noises that make us “splort” our creamed spinach all over the dinner table. He’s the one who finds incredibly obscene yet hilarious things to do with Barbie and Ken and a bucket of Beast Wars Transformers action figures. He’s the one who came up with Barney’s Evil Twin Bernard, and Clarence the Jackalope (family stories, only funny to us, sorry).
La Principessa is the imperious Princess, with wild and passionate mood swings. With her, it’s always either “the greatest thing since sliced bread” or “the end of civilization as we know it”. There’s no middle ground. She’s our resident bi-polar depressive. “Get her some lithium!” we shout from the living room, as Madame races up and down the stairs, frantically searching for the lost shoe that will of course turn up right next to where the first shoe was. She’s the one who comes home from school and plays School, with chalkboard and all the dolls lined up on the couch. She played School nearly every day last summer, all summer. I see her as Grace Kelly, the new schoolmarm, teaching school for a few years and then marrying Prince Harry.
And the Better Half is just that, my Better Half. Actually, I first read the term in some book or other, applied to a wife, so I can’t take credit for it.
Anyway, thank you for asking. 
Good Lord, Ducky, are you trying for the ward of “Non-sequiter of the Year”? 
That’s award, not “ward”. Sheesh.
mad mad mad mad mad
:mad:
Arnold, I absolutely refuse to take responsibility for this. I am POSITIVE that I was working in the Reply window for Persephone’s “It’s been so long since I cared” MPSIMS thread. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=52393
And I never work with multiple thread windows open, because it slows Juno down to a crawl–the cursor plods along like molasses in January. If I want to look something up on Google while I’m posting in a Reply window, I open a new window so I keep the Reply window open, but I close the Google window as soon as I’m done with it.
This is so irritating. I can look stupid all by myself–I don’t need the Internet or vB to help me. :mad:
Can you just delete this? I checked the other thread–it turned up there all right.
I have NO IDEA why it would bump a two-post thread from last January. I wasn’t looking at this thread; I wasn’t doing a Search for anything that’s contained in this thread. I wasn’t Searching for posts by Tanstaafl or John Rush or anything on prostitution.
Also, I notice that here in the Reply window, with the thread appearing upside down and backwards, the post by John Rush doesn’t appear at all, just Tanstaafl’s OP. I think we’re looking at a major software burp. Can we blame HAARP for this?
'Cause it sure wasn’t me. :mad:
Also, the link that John Rush provides doesn’t go anywhere except to the main forums page.
And his comment doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the OP; it seems to be answering a question about the use of the word “Yikes” or “Yowsah”.
DDG, you were at …newreply&threadid=52393 but you actually replied to threadid=523. I’m guessing you accidentally lopped off the last two digits in the address box. This sort of thing happens to the best of us. Welcome to the wonderful world of computing.
John Rush’s link doesn’t work because the thread is from the bad old days. JillGat’s comment is here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=5656#post5656
Note to self: Don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact…
[caressing Grandpa’s shotgun meaningfully]
I was not the one who “lopped off the last two digits in the address box.” I was working in the regular Reply window for Persephone’s MPSIMS thread, responding to her question about my kids–all that requires is clicking on “Post Reply” and then “Submit”, which I did as usual, and it’s the computer who lopped off the last two digits. I do not work with multiple SDMB threads open at the same time, not only because it slows my cursor down to a feeble crawl, but also because someone pointed out last spring, during the chronic board slowdowns, that it just increases the pressure on the server, each person who does it thus being responsible for twice as much loading. So I don’t.
But thank you for pointing out exactly what the computer must have done.
Nice weapon, ain’t it? They don’t make 'em like this anymore, you know…
DDG,
For Debugging purposes, did you go back and re-post the message to Persephone’s thread? This would make a difference in whatever sort of bug report someone has to fill out. If hte posting software took your reply and double posted it, then something’s wrong with the software of the message board. If you re-posted it to the same place and it worked the second time I would guess the problem was more of a momentary glitch and while it needs to be watched, would not be a valid bug report yet.
-Doug
As one of the computer science teachers told me in school - Computers do exactly what you tell them to. Duck Duck Goose, suck it up and accept responsibility! What kind of example re you showing your children? :eek:
Too late to delete the post now, there have been too many comments on your “interesting” response to tanstaafl’s post. I suppose we shall keep it here, and provide a link for DDG when she shows signs of conceit about her vBulletin coding prowess in another thread.
Answer: No. I did NOT accidentally post it to this thread, realize, “oops!”, and then go back and re-post it to Persephone’s thread. Nor did I post it twice to Persephone’s thread. I am a seasoned Doper and poster; I know better than to Re-Submit. I only posted it the one time, and that was to Persephone’s thread, and I didn’t use Copy and Paste to get the URL into the address window, because I was using the standard procedures of Reply and Submit. As far as I remember, it showed up just fine, to Persephone’s thread.
The posting software took my reply and double posted it.
No, I’m sorry, Arnold, I am not going to suck it up. I didn’t do it, and I’m not just blowing smoke. Lord knows, I’ve screwed up my share of UBB and vB coding since last March, and I’m always the first to admit it and ask a moderator to fix it, but this time it wasn’t me. Seriously. :mad:
And I double dutch dare you to show the world a place where I ever boasted about my vB coding prowess. I’m the one that goes and hides in the broom closet whenever the tech discussions start to heat up, remember? I can get a link to make, most of the time, and I can do quotes and bolding, and that’s about it.
Humph. [insert emoticon for combination of extreme irritation at the lack of justice in the world and humiliated rage at being laughed at for vB ineptitude]
I don’t really care whether you delete this stuff or not, although I do feel bad that this thread is taking up valuable space in the Forum–after all, we hardly have room in Comments for the threads that we DO want [extreme sarcasm], let alone stray dogs that sneaked in through the cat door.
And Anthra, it’s nonsequitur, not “nonsequiter.”
Well, OK. It’s “Anthracite” or “Una”, not “Anthra” then.
Nyyyyaaa!
whitetho, I should have followed your advice! :eek: Now I’m being double dutch dared, whatever that is. (I’m not sure I want to find out.) Anyway, it looks like bibliophage has answered the question in the OP, so maybe I’ll close the thread now before I get in more trouble.
(Note to DDG - there there. It’s OK. This too shall pass.)
moderator, «Comments on Cecil’s Columns»