I got five, also. My guess for #8 was cucumber, though I'm sure it is eaten in other ways.

Also, this isn't really a sport, but for #1 all I could think of was staring contests, heh.

@Leyla: Yes, and I don't mind at all. =)

Thank you for giving JoCo the love he deserves!

My fiancé recently did an interview with the creator of that site on his blog here. =)

I once heard about a woman who turned on the oven, and a few minutes later it exploded. Apparently her husband had thought it was a good place to store his gun collection.

I don't generally care what an author's gender is, unless it's particularly relevant to the content of the post. I appreciate the variety of male and female bloggers whose posts I read every day, on all sorts of topics. I don't find that women are being marginalized in the blogosphere. The nature of the Internet provides the opportunity for everyone's opinions to be heard, and if you have something to say and say it well, people will listen and respond no matter who you are. Certainly I think it's a FAR more balanced forum than any traditional media.

He sounds like a bitter spelling bee loser to me.

@Jean: Haha, that's fantastic.

I stumbled upon these pictures a few days ago and fell in love. The cake is so awesome. And yes, the people on the left are TIE Fighters.

It scares me far less that people commit "copycat crimes" based on video games than it does how reactionary the response is to the crimes. OMG! HE PLAYED VIDEO GAMES! LET'S BAN THEM ALL! Or, you know, you could think about it for five seconds and realize how many millions of video games are sold each year and how few violent crimes are committed in relation to them (not to say caused by them — but that the perpetrator even claims to have been influenced by the game).

I grew up playing Mario, I don't run around busting my head into bricks and jumping on turtles. If I did, I'd clearly have far bigger problems than enjoying a medium that brings in $10 BILLION in sales a year.

Wow, these comments got controversial fast.

I for one enjoyed the article. Whether it's all 100% factual or not, I certainly hadn't heard much of the information included. Take it with a grain of salt like you should with any article you read on the Internet, folks.

@Putzfactor: Most people dislike when sites don't render properly. If you aren't using web standards, your site is less likely to look or function correctly cross-browser or OS. You think people couldn't care less about valid code, but they definitely care if a site works or not.

You might be able to create a half-decent layout with tables, but you will never make something as dynamic, robust, or customizable as you can with CSS. So why use a tool that's so much weaker?

Monroe, I think the 5 1/2 hours refers to time in the studio with the choreographers. They have the remaining days in between that and the performance to practice on their own time with their partner.

It really is a fantastic show. I wish people would be more open-minded about it, but then most people really don't understand the difficulty and complexity of dance.

Joe: The fact that you think it's A-OK to go around shooting monkeys (or any other animal) pretty much speaks for itself.

FetishForPerception, I agree. It's very disheartening to see that the majority of people (Americans, at least) seem to feel this way.

I love my stuff, but I can't even imagine in my wildest dreams taking someone's life for it. I would miss the [large] piece of my soul I'd have to give up much more than any material objects I might lose.

He was absolutely not justified. The dispatcher specifically told him to do nothing, yet he did anyway (and by that I don't just mean he was "disobeying," but that he premeditated and made a deliberate decision). It was certainly not self-defense, as he was at no personal risk. If he was going to shoot them, there's no reason he had to kill them. Shoot them in the knee (if he's a good shot) or the butt to disable them until the cops get there, but the back? Come on. So not necessary.

I also don't really see what the huge deal is. I think it's interesting, and was clever of Mr. Beatie to retain his female reproductive organs so as to be able to do this, but there's nothing super miraculous or bizarre about it any moreso than if they were to have some random unrelated woman be a surrogate mother. If anything, *that* would be bizarre (yet totally accepted).

As filangieri mentioned, sex and gender are two very different things, a fact of which most people seem to be blissfully unaware. It's really not that complicated, though. Nor is it that hard to respect those whose sex and gender may not overlap exactly perfectly as you think they should.