Phaedrus

Congratulations, Cato! Long may your contributions continue!

Congratulations, Isabella! Looking forward to many more...

Wow. Congrats, RG. What happens when you run out of songs?

That must have been quite a while back. I'd heard they were replaced by Various Irritating Agencies of Governmental Religious Authority.

I think you'll have to get in the queue behind Malika...

I've heard some disturbing rumors that Fat Bastards BBM has been having some problems with a shadowy organization known only as the Horribly Argumentative Religious Demagogues - Ontario North. Is there any truth to this?

Awesome job, Mia! Keep 'em coming!

Congratulations, Ava!

And also, headline of the day: Man accused of having sex with pool raft had also violated inflatable pumpkin

Okay, so I'm late... but congratulations on the landmark, Erin. I always look forward to seeing what you have to say!

Congratulations, Shymale!

Congratulations, Samantha. Congratulations, WIT. You're both richly deserving of the awards this time around, regardless of the shitstorm that I seem to have missed while I was offline :) I'm proud to be part of the same community as you guys.

I like Steve because he's always got something interesting and worthwhile to say.

as he deserved

Except that if this is protected under the first amendment, then the law criminalizing it would itself be unconstitutional and would be struck down, and the acts would then be legal. Bwhahahahahaha..... I'm kinda hoping someone pushes this, if only to see the legal system tie itself in knots :)

...but there's still a record of the transaction; it could still be proven that $$$ changed hands. That may be off-putting, for some. So, a thought on this... would it be acceptable for a lady who was considering a trip to contact people who had previously requested that she visit and see if they want to book? It could perhaps help her decide on the timing, if it turns out to make a difference. Or would that fall foul of CERB's solicitation rules? My thinking is that if I've asked someone when they're going to visit or requested that they do so then I've already initiated contact with them, but I don't know if everyone else will agree. It might be an idea to have some official guidance on that...

I mostly use it to keep tabs on things that I've come across online that will (hopefully) be amusing, and that I'll probably post in the future, or may want to post again.

Thanks for starting a thread on this, redmachine. It's not really something I'd thought about, but kind of an obvious thing if you do think for a moment. If using someone else's pics is stealing their looks, then using someone else's words is stealing their personality - and that's worse, I think. It's also more insidious; it's harder than it is with pics to work out who originally wrote the text. It's quite easy to say "you don't look like the pics, and she does, so you must have stolen them from her", but much harder with words. Finally, I have no sympathy with the 'maybe she's not fluent in English/French" possibility. I'm in no position to criticize anyone's linguistic abilities (I'm not exactly multi-lingual myself) but I like to be able to have a conversation with whoever I go to see without there being too much of a language barrier to work around. If I end up in an awkward situation because of false advertizing... well, I'm not going to be happy about it.

Congratulations, Emily!

Stuff kittens. TIGER CUBS! They have a webcam, too...

Congratulations, WIT. I'm in awe of the sheer *usefulness* of what you bring to the board - whether it's keeping the rest of us honest on some of our more outrageous claims, or providing the facts relevant to a debate, or smoothing ruffled feathers where required. Much respect, sir. Keep it up!

Happy birthday, Nicki!

Of course, even if you're happily couple-d up, this process doesn't stop. Because couples have kids, and unless they have kids of the same sex at about the same time, they'll probably find it harder and harder to keep up, because there seems to come a point for many parents when their circle of friends is almost entirely the parents of their children's friends. The real thing here is that having a relationship and kids means your priorities change; you're no longer doing what *you* want to do all the time, but having to incorporate the desires of firstly one other person, and then other small but very demanding and unreasonable ones. And you end up hanging out with people whose own priorities are similar...