This is stupid, how is Cactaur #10 on the top 100 posters list when he doesn't post?

[Ihaman]

Something is fishy.

[Ihaman]

...and I intend to get to the bottom of it!


(and up my post count by seperating my thoughts into seperate posts)

[Isle]

he's not the only one...

[Isle]

i just had a horrible thought.

one day i might actually have the most posts on netphoria.

[Ihaman]

Originally posted by Isle
i just had a horrible thought.

one day i might actually have the most posts on netphoria.

You'll probably be the only Netphorian when that happens.

[Isle]

Originally posted by Ihaman



You'll probably be the only Netphorian when that happens.

much in the same way that only the cockroach will survive nuclear armageddon.

[Ihaman]

Originally posted by Isle


much in the same way that only the cockroach will survive nuclear armageddon.

Nope, only 1/7th of the cockroach population will survive.

[Isle]

wow i'm learning alot today

[Ihaman]

Yep, cockroaches only spend about 6 days a week metabolizing, that way if there were every a nuclear haulocaust across the globe, 1/7th of them would survive because their bodies aren't really doing anything that would make radiation bother them.


I learnt it somewhere!

[Winnipeg_creg]

Originally posted by Ihaman
Something is fishy.

why do you have a black womán in your avatar? if i was a slightly more paranoid individual i would suspect that you have some kind of affection for negroes.

[Ihaman]

Originally posted by Winnipeg_creg


why do you have a black wom�n in your avatar? if i was a slightly more paranoid individual i would suspect that you have some kind of affection for negroes.

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA whoawhoawhoa, did you say "affection"?

[Ihaman]

Oh wait.


Yeah I love Negroes, you got a problem with it honky?

[Ihaman]

"Wow, Ziba," says the staggeringly thin Shira as she pins down eye contact with me. I resist the urge to rant the same litany that I spewed at the Hare Krishna lady on the phone. Wow is one of those loaded words which, if not followed by an immediate explanation, makes me think the person is responding to a nipple hanging out.

"Hi She-ra." Princess of Power, I think to myself, from that childhood cartoon. "I didn't know you and Faraz were going to be here." I don't add, how nice to see you.

The restaurant is dim and faintly sinister in its decoration: huge, heavy antiques and brooding oil paintings make it feel like the perfect place to…plan a hit. I know stereotypes aren't fair, but as someone who gets her own share of pigeonholing, I'm compelled occasionally to give a little back.

I glance over at Marjan, who is flashing the bigger diamond at her girlfriends (the upgrade, as I call it, which Jackson Browne surprised her with on their anniversary). Gonzalo gets up, dressed stiffly in clothes that seem heavy on the starch, poor on the ironing and reaches for my hand tentatively, as if he can smell irritation on me

"Didn't expect you," I say, slowly withdrawing my fingers from his grip. Gonzalo is not a trophy man; he is not meant for public display at all. He is best suited to the contained boudoir of my private life, my bedroom. I had no intention of making him 'part of the family' and the minute he sees my eyes, he seems nervous by what he reads in them. I hate that look of mopey sadness that comes over his face though. Plus, the chances of Josh getting in a fraternally protective dig on his behalf at work tomorrow increase in proportion to how I treat him tonight. I squeeze one of his meaty biceps in an attempt at affection and then plant myself in the chair that Shira has proffered.

Faraz hasn't even said hello to me.

"Did your father tell you about Thanksgiving?" Shira pronounces it Faw-thah and I remember him mentioning that she's from the East Coast. No shit.

"Uh, yeah," I twiddle with my napkin and try to look away from her compelling, six-year-younger-than-my-own face. Why does Faraz insist on humiliating himself this way? He might as well wear a sign that says: "I am a dirty old man."

"And…have you thawt abouddit?"

Oh how her accent dances on my last nerve.

"Still am thinking about it. Got a few weeks, don't we?"

Shira's curly ringlets bounce as she moves her head slightly. A faint tinkle can also be heard coming from her somewhere, like when you shake a burned-out light bulb. She's pretty in a Christina Aguilera kind of way, as if she's trying too hard to compensate for a lack in some other department.

"I havta make res-uh-vay-shuns befaw the twelfth," she says, despair creeping into her voice.

I'm not sure if somewhere inside of me is the capacity for compassion for this girl, but it isn't handy if it exists at all.

"Well then, we've got nine days. I'll call you."

Shira clenches her lips and I let my eyes linger in an irritated half-lidded stare for a second longer, just to let her know that I'm still older, smarter and potentially more manipulative than she. She might be banging my father (eeewww) and she might be trying really hard to make friends with me (Marjan was easy), but I've got history on my side and I have yet to like one of Faraz's chicks. Faraz and Marjan are chatting in hushed tones (about me, I can't help but speculate) and Marjan's four girlfriends, whom I internally refer to as Buffy, Muffy, Cindy and Mindy. They are all part of the sorority that Marjan belonged to in college. I should technically be able to remember them since I lived with my sister still at that time, though our lives were going in opposite directions.

College is where Marjan and I finally parted with the me-and-my-shadow routine. The cult of cool went with her to San Francisco State and the dark cloud of disappointment followed me to the Santa Rosa Junior College (I have an Associates degree in Archaeology) right up through my 'apprenticeship' in the mechanics business. Those who believe Hollywood is a place where you have to sleep your way to the top should try being a nineteen year old girl in the car-fixin' biz. Fortunately I only slept with those I wanted to, but I must admit, it did help jumpstart my career. It was a nasty time trying to explain to my sister what I loved about working with cars, and getting a few dates out of it might have been the only saving grace in her eyes.

"It's like being a surgeon, without all the blood and gore," I remember saying to her.

She'd rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose in the manner I find so irksome and said, "People will think you're gay," as if this was the worse thing possible.

Realistically, only Faraz harbored that suspicion and Marjan simply had to stay satisfied with my answer: "I like to know how things tick, and how to make them work again if they stop working. Does that make me gay?"

Unfortunately, despite attending different schools and having vastly different interests, Marjan and I still shared an apartment then, both of us commuting in opposite directions. I have lucid and painful memories of Buffy and Mindy et al, trotting off to Emmaline's Craftibles on the weekends. They returned with puffy paint and fabric letters and got busy hot gluing Kappa Beta Theta, or whatever, on sweatshirt after sweatshirt as presents for each other. I believe in supporting my sisters, in the whole sisterhood concept in theory, but one sorority mixer is enough to make the most warmhearted feminist think twice. I just don't find drunken girls cheapening themselves for drunken boys to be a soul-making endeavor. Neither do I think anyone should find a husband or wife in college and puffy paint surely causes cancer.

Gonzalo is looking glum, but he's seated next to Muffy and her frenetic energy of bounce-and-gesture seems to at least have him distracted from what a terrible "girlfriend" I am. Shira has recovered from my non-committal attitude toward Turkey Day. She leans in confidentially and whispers, "So, do you really work on cars?"

I've had few stock lines to this question over the years, some designed to shock, such as "yeah, but just until I have enough money for the sex change" or others that just express my irritation, like "yeah, and how 'bout them 'Niners?" But Shira is wide-eyed and sweet in a way that makes it difficult to be mean to her. It also makes me think that Faraz is a bit sick in the head. Will he keep going younger and younger until we all have to politely clear our throats when some young girlfriend announces that she just turned eighteen?

"All the rumors are true," I say, then quickly retract. "Well, not all."

"That's so cool," she says. "I used to play with cars as a little girl instead of Barbies and stuff."

Here we go, I think. The leap. Because I work on cars, I am a tomboy. Therefore I must never have undertaken girlish pursuits or enjoyed female activities. And now she thinks she's going to join with me? Now she thinks we have something in common just because we both had a Tonka truck? My pride wins out.

"I preferred the Barbies," I say.

Poor Shira, she just can't win. I want for a moment to tell her that it's not her fault, that I'm just bitter, but then Faraz lifts a massive arm and puts it around her shoulder, pulling her in for a snuggle and a snog. Any woman who would sleep with my macho father—who happens to have a pessimistic sermon for every topic and a devil's advocate style of conversation and who refuses to admit that he had any part in my mother leaving—well, any woman who wants that in a man will never be my friend.

To distract myself, I nuzzle Gonzalo's thigh with my left hand and find relief in the fact that everyone is now ordering food, which means soon we'll all be too busy eating to talk. I order angel-hair pasta with Portobello mushrooms and spicy sausage. My hand has strayed from his thigh up the long seam of his pants and I am pleased to find him erect under my cupped palm in seconds. I enjoy knowing that I have this influence over him. Maybe I'm sick in the head too.

A handsome Italian waiter leans in to refresh our drinks.

"I'd love a glass of Pinot Grigio," I say. I choose the wine because I like the way the words roll off my tongue.

Everyone at the table who knows me looks as if I've just asked for some hashish brownies.

"You don't drink," Marjan says with a clipped tone of surprise in her voice.

"Sometimes I do," I say in my own defense. Marjan is too smart for that. It's true that I don't drink, actually. I'm a cheap drunk for one, and one can never tell when I will drink just a sip too much and reach the throw-up zone. She doesn't know that I'm drinking because I'm uncomfortable, because I didn't expect this crowd, Gonzalo or the glamour girls (hand-selected to send me some kind of message, perhaps?) Marjan doesn't ever appear to experience guilt though, she feels either entitled or angry. If it was an ambush, she'll never 'fess up.

Once my wine arrives, looking very much like blood, I can tell by the suddenly omnipresent eyes on me that I'm going to be monitored the rest of the night to see how much I put away. My petulant inner rebel thinks: too bad you can't do anything about it, sis.

Jackson Browne's eyes sparkle, I notice, when Marjan and I share tension; he's been glancing my direction discretely since I arrived. I wonder if Marjan is right and that I should wear the color turquoise more often, although if it's guaranteed to net me other people's fiancés, maybe not.

My wine arrives before the food and I drink it down as fast as I can, avoiding looking at Marjan who is giving me the death-stare the whole time. Faraz still hasn't spoken a word to me, not even hello, and a bad feeling is brewing.

When everyone's glass is full (or slowly being emptied), Jackson Browne stands up looking smug and a little blotchy from the beers he's put away.

"Thanks for coming, all of you," he says.

I can't help but picture him addressing a hall full of stockbrokers with a cigar in hand. The guy smacks of money and longing for power.

"The lovely Marjan and I have finally set a date for the long-anticipated wedding. On April 12th I will finally make her my wife."

The suckers at the table all clap, including a couple sitting near our table who have apparently been eavesdropping. I find public clapping to be excruciating.

The wine has gone to my head already and I look Jackson up and down, lingering on the down, knowing full well that he's watching, if only peripherally. Things are making sense to me. The man who couldn't pick a wedding date for two years suddenly firms one up two days after groping his future sister-in-law.

"Wow, Jackson," I say in a tone that doesn't quite resemble my normal voice. "Suddenly ready to make an honest woman out of her, are you?"

Jackson's blotches now join together to form a full patina of red and Marjan's olive skin darkens into a simmering green. I don't need psychic-twin radio to tell that I've got a sisterly bawling-out in the near future.

Shira giggles nervously and Gonzalo simply sips from his beer. The tension hangs for another second and then our salads arrive and everyone is free once again to pretend that nothing is going on under the surface.

I eat my way through spinach salad with Gorgonzola, candied pecans and peach slices, a hefty portion of pasta, five pieces of buttered bread and four glasses of wine.

Yep, four.

If Marjan were sitting next to me, I probably couldn't have gotten away with this; she would have farmed out my glasses of wine already, or discretely sipped from them herself. But I am wedged between Shira, quite the heavyweight herself and Gonzalo, who wouldn't stop me from drinking cyanide if I told him that it was my will.

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom during an interval when Jackson is nuzzling Marjan's neck and talking sweetly (if not a little grossly) into her ear; I know she won't follow me. The path to the bathroom sways and lurches in my vision and I realize that despite all the food that should ideally have soaked up the liquor, I am sloshed. Trashed. Shitfaced.

I grope inside my bag to turn on the tape recorder and record the sound of myself peeing (why not?).

"Jackson doesn't trust himself," I tell the recorder. My voice echoes off the stall. "Jackson is worried about what he might do with his sister-in-law," I singsong.

I squirt pink soap all over the sink before I manage to wash up and stumble out into the hallway, irritated and surprised to see Faraz standing there, alone.

"Hey there pops."

His face swims in my vision, a kaleidoscope version of my father, looking like one of those postcard pictures of Shiva, multi-limbed.

"Ziba, behave yourself," he says through clenched teeth.

I look around and then down at myself just to make sure I haven't done a naked striptease.

"What do you mean?" I whisper, since he is whispering.

"You're a grown woman and it's time for you to act like it."

Nice girls don't work on cars, he might as well have said.

"You're right. Compared to your new girlfriend who probably doesn't even have pubic hair yet, I am a woman," I slur, vaguely aware that I am crossing a new and tenuous line with my father.

"What did you say?" He grips my arm very tightly.

"Ow, let go."

"If you don't get your act together, you'll be very sorry."

Where does he get his lines? From James Bond movies?

"What exactly does getting my act together look like, Faraz?"

"Don’t call me that. I'm your father."

"Well what should I call you? What does Shira call you? Big daddy? Sugar daddy? Would you prefer that? Or how about Oh-Venerable-One?"

Beads of sweat have soaked through his silk shirt and are making Rorschach-like patterns near his armpits.

"Stop being such a little brat," he says, now shaking my arm like he's flinging bugs off of it.

"Ow, you're hurting me, let me go!"

"You won't find your mother, you know," he says with all the venom he can muster.

"You don't know that!" I say, my voice careening above a whisper and tears beading up in my eyes like perspiration. Does he?

"I know a lot more than you do, daughter."

"Well tell me then," I beg. A sob steals its way up my throat and I want to strangle myself just to stop from having my father see me cry. "Just give me a grain, something to go on."

"If you would just figure out your life, if you would show us that you are doing something with your future, I'd tell you something," he says, now letting go of my arm.

"What exactly do you want me to do with my life?"

"Look at Marjan's life. It is good. She has a good job, a steady man and she has ambitions. Take a lesson. You're getting old not to have babies in mind, marriage."

My heart has just turned as hard and sharp as a prison shank and I'm wishing I could use its razor edge to slice that self-righteous smile right out of his face. They want me to be a baby-maker, a homemaker. They want me to find a man to support me so I can sit at home on my ass and justify some stupid set of beliefs they hold.

"Yes, Father," I say obediently with my fingers crossed in my mind. "I'll do better."

Faraz seems a bit surprised at my easy acquiescence but he accepts it. "Good," he says, as if we've finalized some contract.

I walk back to the table. I am teetering and he is doing nothing to help steady me. Marjan looks the closest thing to guilty I've ever seen, because of course she told Faraz about my plan to hunt down Marion. She couldn't resist. She must have figured that I'd listen to his fatherly voice of reason over her advice. What is it about family that makes them so unwilling to let one of the clan be different? I'm not hurting anyone, I make a good income; I get laid fairly regularly even if it's nor for the purposes of propagating my 'seed'.

Faraz sits down but I remain standing.

"Well folks, it's been real," I say, kicking Gonzalo's shin to stand up with me. I shake Buffy, Muffy, Cindy and whatever-the-fuck's hands and nod at my sister. "Congratulations," I tell her and then lean down as if to plant a sisterly kiss on Jackson Browne's cheek, and instead give him a dead-on squishy lip-to-lip kind of kiss that even makes a juicy smacking sound. "Congratulations to you too…brother."

He couldn't turn a more delicious embarrassed shade of red.

"Oh, listen She-ra, I can't come to Thanksgiving, so go ahead and make your reservations without me. I'll be out of town that week…on a road trip." I turn and make eye contact with my father just to make perfectly sure he gets my meaning. Everyone looks embarrassed or shocked, like I've just announced that I'm a prostitute and couldn't be happier. Faraz looks ready to karate chop the table in half. I drag Gonzalo after me, not even leaving money for my food.

Out in the cold night I walk forcefully down the street, Gonzalo trailing behind, probably afraid of me. I can't see very well and my head is pounding and my tongue feels strangely thick in my mouth. I start to run, slipping a little in my boots with their flat gripless heels. I run and run until I skid in front of the gym and land on the sidewalk, my right knee and palm turned instantly into flaming bloody meat-patties. And now I am really crying and it's clear that Gonzalo thinks its because I've hurt myself. "Gotta be careful sweetheart," he says.

Late night exercisers stare down at me under halogen lights with looks of embarrassed pity. He lifts me up like I'm a forty-pound child and puts me in his car, drives me home and brings me in past Sid who is at the living room table with a couple of guys wearing white shirts and ties. They look up in awe at me like I am Mary Magdalene incarnate. "She'll be okay," Gonzalo mumbles, as if they all leapt from the table in alarm. He peroxides my wounds despite my protests and even finds a first-aid kit that Marjan must have tucked away in my cabinet, since obviously she thinks I can't take care of myself. Finally when I am wrapped in gauze, smeared in the salt of my own tears and the slime of my own mucous, Gonzalo tucks me into bed and curls up behind me, rocking me to sleep.

[Winnipeg_creg]

Originally posted by Ihaman
Oh wait.


Yeah I love Negroes, you got a problem with it honky?

well i thought we were striving to reach some kind of solution to the current "situation" on the board, that more and more posters turn out to be a bit less "white" than "we" find "appropriate".

[Ihaman]

"Oh".

[souvenir]

Can't scorpions also resist some heavy radiations ?

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally posted by souvenir
Can't scorpions also resist some heavy radiations ?

They didn't even survive the 80's

[souvenir]

Originally posted by Nimrod's Son
They didn't even survive the 80's

[alexthestampede]

i read that whole thing :erm

[Liquid-J]

that guy always creeped me out

[Toby]

Originally posted by Liquid-J
that guy always creeped me out

I enjoyed his zaniness (is that a word?)

[blackfaerie]

Originally posted by alexthestampede
i read that whole thing :erm

me too, where'd you get that?

[mirrar]

i just want the damn orange stars.

[Toby]

Originally posted by Mirror_Untrue
i just want the damn orange stars.

62 more posts with you BRAND NEW COMPUTER!

[mirrar]

Originally posted by Toby
62 more posts with you BRAND NEW COMPUTER!

im at work currently.

[Toby]

Originally posted by Mirror_Untrue
im at work currently.

me too, until 5pm, but I might stay a few extra hours since I was 3 hours late for work today

[mirrar]

Originally posted by Toby
me too, until 5pm, but I might stay a few extra hours since I was 3 hours late for work today

my boss wants me to come in for office games day on thursday, and i wouldn't even be paid

[Toby]

what the shit is office games?!

[mirrar]

i dunno like board games like LIFE and shit. duck duck goose. so bad.

[Toby]

fuck that.