NationStates Jolt Archive

A thread for the free exchange of ideas, no matter how abstract.
*creates room to move*

A thread for the free exchange of ideas, no matter how abstract.
*creates room to move*

Why do they give deodorant odd smells and names like 'cool rush' and 'sport powder'? Why don't they make deodorants that smell like bubble gum and pizza? :?

First on the list, bubblegum/pizza scented deodorant, tis a good start for a perfect world, you can stay Goof.
*hands him life pass*

Why don't they make deodorants that smell like bubble gum and pizza? :?

Food tends to be the last thing I wish to think of when contemplating products for the armpit. Pizza flavored toothpaste, however, would rock. Pizza made from toothpaste would not. Toothpaste made from pizza would defeat the purpose.

*gathers toothpaste and pizza for 'the testing'*

Why don't they make deodorants that smell like bubble gum and pizza? :?

Food tends to be the last thing I wish to think of when contemplating products for the armpit. Pizza flavored toothpaste, however, would rock. Pizza made from toothpaste would not. Toothpaste made from pizza would defeat the purpose.

What about pizza made from toothpaste made from pizza? :?

While I'm thinking weird thoughts...

...when are we going to get those insta-hydrator ovens like in 'Back to the Future' and 'The Fifth Element?' I want instant tacos!!

I honestly thought, back in the mid-nineties, that hoverboards would be everywhere by the turn of the century, as well as holographic street signs....not to be though, apparently.
2004: A Wait Odyssey.

What about pizza made from toothpaste made from pizza? :?


*thinks about it, but gets stuck in an infinite loop, slumping backwards staring blankly at the ceiling*

*starts looking for designs and images in the popcorn ceiling*

<homer simpson voice> mmmmmmm....popcorn </voice>

I once saw a shirt that said "Dig deep into your soul, and play from the heart." So I asked the girl "What type of shovel would one use to dig into their soul?"

I personally would use a Shaolin Spade from the Monkhood of Mt. Song. Those kick some serious ass. I'd need a kick-ass shovel to dig into my soul.

Then I randomly thought of different ways you could hallow out a human heart and turn it into a woodwind instrument.

....It'd be so cool..

*plays C major ascending on a nearby heart*
It's in E.
*pun*

I once saw a shirt that said "Dig deep into your soul, and play from the heart." So I asked the girl "What type of shovel would one use to dig into their soul?"

I personally would use a Shaolin Spade from the Monkhood of Mt. Song. Those kick some serious ass. I'd need a kick-ass shovel to dig into my soul.

Then I randomly thought of different ways you could hallow out a human heart and turn it into a woodwind instrument.

....It'd be so cool..

I'm lazy. I'd use a backhoe.

if you take enough acid and like, hold the blue ball, the pink pony may appear to you.

Love, peace and rock & roll.

*rides by on a pink pony singing a medley of Gilbert & Sullivan favourites*

"A wandering minstrel I..."

Hey, do you like my potato? I own this one you know!

Sometimes a cool rain and breeze feels groovy. Other times, it's like being slapped about the head and neck by an irate ex-girlfriend. :?

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

sry for the double post


now sorry for thr tripple :lol:

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

You would create the first anti-gravity machine. Unfortunately, to work properly, you'd have to stick it in your pants. Not exactly the safest place to keep an ornery cat. :o

My thoughts, exactly, LG.

Why are lethal injection needles sterilized?

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg

I saw a cat fall from a telephone pole once....landed on its back.

Why are lethal injection needles sterilized?


Because dirty wounds promote infection, infection in dead tissue promotes rapid and exceptionally nasty decay, and because no one wants to have to deal with said situation.

That or its just because IV needles come pre-sterilized.

(EDIT: for more information on the wonders of death and decay, I recommend the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Fascinating stuff, funny (in a totally respectful way) too.)

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

You would create the first anti-gravity machine. Unfortunately, to work properly, you'd have to stick it in your pants. Not exactly the safest place to keep an ornery cat. :o

I was politely asked to not attend high school after I wrote this sitting for a preliminary HSC exam in 2000, it may seem off topic, but to me, I was always sorry I ripped off the buttered cat idea and didn't give credit to the nameless beast that is the Internet. I laughed though...


Section 1 - Reading Task

Cairo

Cairo is a seething, breathing monster of a city that swallows new arrivals and consumes those who return. All are destined to be captured and captivated in some small way by its incredible past and vibrant present. There are few, if any, cities in the world where the clash between old and new, modern and traditional, and east and west is more evident. Tall, gleaming hotels and office buildings overlook streets where cars and buses rumble and weave past donkey carts and their stubborn drivers. Less than one kilometre from a computer store and supermarket in central Cairo there are mud-brick houses where goats still wander through 'living rooms' and water is obtained from taps down the street.

Cairo is still the heart of Egypt and is called the Mother of the World. Since its rise in the 9th century under Ibn Tulun, Egyptians have known Cairo as Al-Qahira, which means 'the victorious', and Misr (or Masr); which also mean Egypt. For Egyptians it is the centre of the country and had been attracting them in increasni numbers for centuries. No one is sure how many people have been drawn in from the countryside, even over the past few years, but the city is bursting at the seams. Some 62 slums and squatter settlements such as Dar-al-Salam and Sayyoda Zeinab, are home to about five million people. And there are countless numbers of people living in the ancient cemetaries known as the Cities of the Dead. In total, Greater Cairo's population is estimated at between 18 and 22 million - roughly a quarter of Egypt's total.

The massive and continual increase in the number of people has overwhelmed the city. Housing shortages are rife; buses are packed to the hilt; snarled traffic paralyses life in the city; and broken pipes spew water and sewage into the streets. Everything is discoloured - buildings, buses and foothpaths are brown and grey from smog and desert dust.


San Jose

San Jose was not really vicious, but only superficially so. And yet I felt excluded from the serious, peaceable life of the city; it made my stay here seem odder than what I had experienced in Limon. It was odd in any case to be a traveller in a place where people were busily occupied: going to the dentist, buying curtains, searching for motor spares, taking their children to school, leading their lives in dedicated and innocent ways. The Costa Rican with his satchel of groceries and his young son, entering the government office to pay his electric light bill; he was everything that I was not. The red-necks were simply a fragment of the foreground. As a traveller in this settled society I was an intruder, a stranger watching people go through familiar motions that I could not affect or enter into. I had no business here, but it was worse when I noticed how closely their lives resembled the one I had left at home.What about my family? My car? My light bill? My teeth? In San Jose, the orderliness was a reproach; I had a sense ofhaving deserted my responsibilities. I saw a young couple picking out a vacuum cleaner, and I felt guilty and homesick. Nothing was more unconsoling to me in all of Central America than the sight of this couple proudly carrying their new vacuum cleaner out of the San Jose store. I think I began to understand then why I was always happier in a backwater, why the strangeness of Santa Ana had charmed me, and why I had sought the outlandish parts of Guatemala or the wastes of Mexico. Perhaps this explained my need to seek out the inscrutable magnetisms of the exotic: in the wildest place everyone looked so marginal, so temporary, so uncomfortable, so hungry and tired, it was possible as a traveller to be anonymous or even, paradoxically, to fit in, in the same temporary way.

a) What main point is the writer making about Cairo? Give THREE examples to support your answer.
b) What main point is the writer making about San Jose? Give THREE examples to support your answer.
c) Identify the intended audience in each passage. State what features of language help you identify each audience.
d) Compare the two passages. Discuss which one you think more effectively describes the city. Give your reasons. In your answer, you might refer to such features as imagery, word choice, tone, sentence structure, organisation and any other relevant techniques.

a) In the given text, the writer is obviously trying to get a point across, and this point is about the subject matter - Cairo. The writer believes that Cairo is one of the few places on Earth where different cultres/classes still live in the same area. The writer shows this with quotes such as 'There are few, if any, cities in the world where the clash between old and new, modern and traditional, and east and west is more evident.'
The writer uses comparisons between the old/traditional/east and the new/modern/west to show how different they really are. This is illustrated in such quotes as 'Less than one kilometre from a computer store...goats still wander through living rooms'
Another proof discussed in the poem is the line '...cars and buses rumble and weave past donkey carts...' This quote is probably the strongest comparison between the two extremes mentioned throughout the poem. By showing that cars and donkeys are both together in the same place doing the same thing, the writer shows that neither old nor new is the correct way, just that they are both different ways.

b) In passage B, the writer is trying to explain how underneath the mask of viciousness that has shrouded San Jose, it is really very similar to all the other places in the world. The first evidence of the writer's theme is the line '...going to the dentist, buying curtains, searching for motor spares, taking their children to school...' The writer uses those everyday activities as proof that people in San Jose do the same thing as people in other places.
The second evidence in the text is '...a young couple picking out a vacuum cleaner...' Once again an everyday task is shown to be a universal one as well, one that brings unity to all suburban people - whether they see it or not.
The final evidence used in the text is a midget in a bikini, riding a cock horse to bunbury cross spewing lava and licorice sweet from every major orifice. -
The Matrix has you...

c) The intended audience for the first text is obviously a 12th Grade student sitting for his Half-Yearly 2 unit General English Examination.The evidence given includes poor use of rhyme to attempt to create confusion on part of the student's lack of confidence. ('seething, breathing') Another evidence in the exam is the writer's sense of rushed information, cramming the first paragraph with comparisons, then stopping...



....and starting something completely different like the time Grandma got her breast caught in the mangle. (The history of Egypt.) The final evidence I will use involves the use of pointless statistics, only used to take up space on the page. (see paragraph 2 of this essay) These pointless statistics take up approximately 2/9s of the text, much more than the approved rate of 1/8 per annum.
The second text is once again intended to reach a 12th Grade student sitting for his Half-Yearly 2 unit General English Examination. Evidence to my point is as written below.
1) The over use of (deleted) repetition. (The daily tasks listed)
2) The over use of (deleted) repetition.*
and finally
3) The fact that both texts were printed in a 12th Grade student's Half-Yearly 2 unit General English Examination points out that they were probably intended to be read by a 12th Grade student sitting for his Half-Yearly 2 unit General English Examination.

d) Having never been to Cairo, I cannot be sure on the following statement, but I can only imagine that Cairo is not a city filled with paradoxes and opposites, such as the writer explains. If this were true, we would surely see water fountains burnt to death by fire-breathing fire extinguishers and a giant buttered cat array,** easily linking Cairo with Prague through a giant monorail.

*The over use of (deleted) repetition
**Buttered toast falls buttered side down, whereas cats land on their feet. I propose we strap buttered toast to the back of a cat, the two will hover inches off the ground


Section 2 - Topic Area: Discovery

To what extent do individuals alter their perspective and path with discoveries?
Discuss with reference to you set text and a variety of supplementary materials.

While reading the novel "Looking For Alibrandi" by Melina Marchetta, I realised that people alter their perspective and path with discoveries. To realise this, I had to think about the book I was reading, while doing this I thought perhaps I could skip an entire chapter without missing much of the basic plot. So I skipped a chapter here, and a chapter there, and when I finished the book, I discovered something very important, the book wasn't as unimportant as I'd previously thought. By missing chapters that were vital to the story, I'd blown my chance at answering the the question in this very exam. Therefore, in my next set text for English, I will read it thoroughly before attempting the exam.

Disclaimer
This story may or may not have taken place
The author acknowledges the contribution of Melina Marchetta - without her this would not be possible
No animals were injured in the writing of this essay
This essay also available in paperback
Don't start forest fires



Section 3 - Literature: Poetry


In what ways do Bruce Dawe's poems satirise Australian life? In your answer refer to the 'not so good earth' and 'enter without so much as knocking.'

Bruce Dawe's poetry is written as a satire. A satire on Australian life. In the following lines I will refer to the Dawe poems 'not so good earth' and 'enter without so much as knocking'. These are two poems which I studied in great detail several months ago.
To satirise Australian life Bruce Dawe uses many poetic devices including metaphors, similes, hyperboles and most importantly, irony. The ironic thing about this last point is that I do not remember how he uses irony in his poetry, perhaps he never used it at all, you'd think I'd remember that wouldn't you? Perhaps the only ironic thing in the poems is that Bruce Dawe attempts to use humourous irony to prove a point, but his poems are so bad that it makes us laugh. This is possibly the most ironic thing that there ever was, and ever will be, unless, of course, that this sentence is incorrect, then it would the most ironic thing ever.
Perhaps I was a little harsh. Maybe Bruce Dawe's poetry isn't bad at all. Perhaps they are so well written that they are impossible to comprehend. Now that's ironic. Perhaps Bruce Dawe is such an amazing poet that I could never begin to fathom what he has written. This is probably the most likely scenario considering I am only a teenager, but, if that were the case, then this whole essay would be false, this creating the MOST IRONIC THING EVER.
Who knows?
I don't understand.

Disclaimer
The writer mean no offense to Bruce Dawe and/or Bruce Dawe related activities
This is to be taken as an example not an attack on Australia's poets
Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer

You wrote that in an exam? What mark did you get?

I saw a cat fall from a telephone pole once....landed on its back.

Was it dead? Before it fell that is.

I got two points, out of sixty.
But I showed them, now I DRIVE the schoolbus.
*doesn't really*

You wrote that in an exam? What mark did you get?

I saw a cat fall from a telephone pole once....landed on its back.

Was it dead? Before it fell that is.

Nope, alive and well. Dont know how well it was afterwards, but I know it lived.

I think a more prescient question about deodorants would be: Why don't they make a deodorant with no odor? Oh...it already exists. You can make it at home out of baking soda. Baking soda has no patent, although Arm & Hammer is probably the leading brand in the world. So because it has no patent, it is not in the best interests of corporations to promote a product that anyone can make. This is why many home remedies from yesteryear have been pushed to the fringe of naturopaths. Corporations cannot make LOTS of money off of something anyone can sell. So collodial silver, herbs and vitamins, and other natural medicines don't get taken seriously by scientific researchers who want the big grants. ~ Michael.

They have toothpaste for dogs that's flavored with garlic.

Honest! Dogs love it; otherwise they won't let you mess around inside the mouth.

So next question: how does brushing help freshen their doggy breath?

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

You would create the first anti-gravity machine.

*covers self from head to toe in buttered toast, unbuttered side out, and floats around the room*

http://www.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/11/888.jpg

* Gives Merineris a spin and laughs while he uncontrolably spins around the room. hahaah

* Gives Merineris a spin and laughs while he uncontrolably spins around the room. hahaah

*pulls a rapidly spinning bicycle wheel from pocket and takes advantage of its amazing gyrostabilization properties to retain control*

*sound of bicycle horn*

If a picture is worth a thousand words, and Helen was the face that launched a thousand ships, would a picture of Helen's face be worth 10,000 ships?

"... It's one of mother earth's creatures"

That's right, right? I am right, right?

Good...
I love the Simpsons... and coffee... and walks in the park.... But keep me away from those damned jelly-fish...

What the hell is a jelly fish anyway? ... Does it even classify as an animal?

HOW?

Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK with a magic bullet.

Help me!

The picture of Helen would be worth only a thousand words still, but the thousand words would all just be "ship."

And i dont know how a jelly fish counts as an animal...does it have live babies? and when it does would it just look like chuncks of it are falling off? maybe they are the 6th state of animality; there are mamals, birds, fish, amphibian, reptile, and jelly.

Since a cat always lands on its feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down, what would happen if you strapped toast to the back of a cat and dropped it?

*respond*

*post*

*waits for response*

Sweet!
Craziness abounds in here, carry on.

We are large vessels of chemicals that are the products of intelligent molecular activity guiding everything in an effort to survive. Reproductive evolution begins with bacteria. All things smarter than human beings have learned to be quiet.

That's all I remember from 1968, the next 4 years are a blank. When I woke up I was in a field of tall grass swaying in a gentle breeze.

"Jesus", I said.

And I heard an answer, "Shut up".

Ahhh.
From the days before the regime.