Oh, that was around the time she stopped talking to me… 
I guess I was a little obnoxious, too; while going around backwards in a circle I kept giving her these wide-eyed, open-mouthed amazed looks like I myself couldn’t believe this wondrous occurrence that was taking place right now, right here, in this very parking lot. I believe the last words out of her mouth were “I’m never coming to Finland again.” Ah, what a pity.
: getting an idea :
Um, Shagnasty, have you ever been to Finland, by any chance?
My brother has a tendency to need to be right. He graduated from college with a double major in theology and philosophy, so needless to say, he likes to argue. I learned long ago to simply say “You’re right. You’re always right” and then walk calmly from the room. He’d turn bright red and scream “No I’m not!” and then continue arguing his same point. Always good for a laugh, my brother.
By any chance was that Jessica Simpson?
My father is afflicted with this problem. Once he takes a position on any topic, he will not back down, no matter what. No legions of proof, hauling out of encyclopedias, etc. will do. Nope…if he said it, it’s true.
This is why he still maintains, to this very day, that 6-legged spiders are far more poisonous than 8-legged spiders.
Yeah, I know. :rolleyes:
This reminds me of a bizarre belief that my father holds in spite of all evidence to the contrary: Earwigs do not really exist.
What those creepy little bugs, which he has actually seen many times, are, I’m not certain. But are they earwigs? No. No such thing.
Dad’s idea on this comes from a Roald Dahl short story, where (apologies to the squeamish) an earwig gets into someone’s ear and burrows its way straight through his brain. Since earwigs don’t really do this, earwigs themselves must be fictional creatures made up by Dahl.
The last time we talked about this, I pointed out that this is like saying that storks aren’t real because they don’t really deliver babies, but he remains firmly convinced of earwigs’ non-existence.
so what does he think when he sees one of those little bug with pinchers?
Oooh, I have just the story to tell for this topic.
It was senior year, and a bunch of us would hang around a staircase in a quiet part of the school during lunch. We were pretty open. If people wanted to chill with us (although I don’t know why) they were welcome to. There was this girl who wasn’t well liked. She was a little-miss-know-it-all and pretty much irritated a lot of us. I can’t think of anyone who had anything nice to say about her. Nonetheless we put up with her because we couldn’t exactly ditch her.
Like I said, the most irritiating thing was that she thought she knew everything. She was pretty rude when it came to arguing a point too. There was not much my friends could say because they weren’t as quick as her. One day, for some reason, we were talking about movies, and I mentioned how I thought it was ridiculous that of all things, water was the thing to drive them away.
And of all the things she could have said to tell me why my reason was faulty, she had to say “Well, it makes sense because water is acidic.”
That rang some bells because I loved chemistry. Of all the science courses I had taken (which were physics and biology too) chem was my best science course. I also knew that she had only taken grade 11 chem, and our system here doesn’t teach acid/base until grade 12, which my teacher had spent two months covering.
The fact that water is neutral was pretty much what the acid/base unit was based on. So, I said so.
“No. It’s acidic.”
“Nuh-uh. It has a pH of 7, which means it’s neutral.”
“It’s acidic. pH is just a number scientists made up. Besides, it’s a fact that when a formula has a “H” in it, it’s acidic.” (Refering to H2O)
(My mind is about to explode by now)“Wtf?! If my teacher heard you say that, he’d have a heart attack. There are plenty of chemical formulas that have an H that are not acidic.” I rattle a couple of them off. “Plus, if you dissociate the forumla, it becomes H+ and OH-, and yes, H+ is acidic, but OH- is basic, so they ‘cancel’ each other out, thus nuetral.”
She shakes her head, unable to deal with the fact that just this once, she won’t win. “It’s acidic! It’s acidic!”
“Nope. And it won’t turn acidic just because you say so.”
Then, I could see her eyes light up as she finally thought of an argument. “Rain is acidic. They’re always talking about acidic rain.”
I went into a explaination of pollution, and the atmosphere and how water combined with the greenhouse gasses to produce acidic rain, but water itself is not acidic.
Still wouldn’t accept it. “Water is acidic.”
Finally, to end this tiring argument that was going nowhere with her because she was an irritating brat, I pulled a “Hey, face it, I know more about this than you because I took grade 12 chem, while you only took grade 11, where you don’t even learn about acids and bases. So just accept it and shut up.”
She kept shaking her head, and people started laughing at her. Boy did that feel good.
Err, 7 up yours -
your friend may not have been completely off base. Although you are correct that pure water is neutral, I was told in my chemistry class that water is a polar molecule, and therefore individual water molecules change to hydroxyl ions and could be considered weakly acidic.
FWIW.
Regards,
Shodan
Surely some verbiage is missing here – water drives movies away? 
Those are the six legged spiders, silly.
I just threatened my pile of DVDs with a 10 oz. glass of water. They didn’t flinch.
:smack: :smack: I meant, we were talking about movies, and the movie, Signs came up. Them = the aliens. :smack:
Maybe they’re foreign films and didn’t understand you?
mine pee on my leg when I try that.
Does this mean there are no movies that are rated ‘R’ in the U.S. either? Are those R’s just for show? 
I had a friend who refused to believe that Switzerland has an army. He asked me for a cite and I showed him a National Geographic with pictures. He said “National Geographic can be wrong.” UUggh!
Wait, are you saying NG can’t be wrong? I absolutely refuse to believe that!
Just had to say that this thread has given me more laughs than I’ve had in along time. Roomie must think I’ve gone crazy.
Holy crap, I do the exact same thing. It really gets on peoples’ nerves, doesn’t it? I’ve done it to both my sister and The Cody on several occasions.
For example, in the “water is acidic” post above, I would’ve gone and stuck my hand under a water fountain and stared in amazement as my hand refused to melt.
Unfortunatly, I have no Stubborn People stories to share. Drats.
I think he once called them “scorpion bugs.”
Whatever they are, they aren’t earwigs. Can’t be. Even the dictionary has not convinced him. (Unicorns and mermaids are in the dictionary too, you see, so that doesn’t prove anything.)