Forum posts made by sprite

Thought I would say a few words, as it appears a certain person has dropped me in it *makes eyes at Sprite*

Can you eat a vegetarian?

yes... if you prepare them properly ;)

I wanted to use this symbol, everyone knows what a thumbs up means, and I don't care if FB think they own it. It's universally understood, and they can't copyright a hand action (behave!):

http://upload.lushstories.com/346-thumbs-up.jpg

The check reminds me of school too.


oh, yeah, throw me to the wolves, that's right. yeah, that's my new job description: sacrificial lamb.

i'm curious. is England considered a desert island? because, if it is, all i really need is a clean pair of knickers and a weeks supply of gin and tonics. :)

Hope she does it quickly and relatively painlessly then ;) I was just adding my 2cents hopefully i'll be spared the wrath!

it's never quick and painless - it usually involves hard labor and denied orgasms and believe me when i say, if i'm going down, i'm taking people with me, Brooke.

Oh I believe it was the intent :-)! Maybe it comes down to cultural differences then or taste. The medal I understood and invited me to read a story before I knew it was recommended or what the symbol meant by the standards of lush. The V amongst the other stories on the front page doesn't do that to me and gives me a different association. As I said before it is just an opinion. I am sure you all have looked at the other options and pros and cons, hence the question if I could hide it or else I would have suggested a new symbol ;-)

http://us.cdn3.123rf.com/168nwm/pepj/pepj1206/pepj120600010/13912249-recommended-grunge-stamp-in-english-language.jpg

there are actually about a dozen or so designs that we discussed, and each one had a few variations, such as color, shading, shape, etc - also, to give credit, our very own Liz designed all of them. ones, like the thumbs up, were thrown out immediately for the reasons mentioned. some clashed with the color scheme of the site (i was really pushing hot pink, personally) and some were just not quite what people had in mind. there is actually a version of the check/v that is looks like it's on a little flag, not unlike the medal you saw before, that i thought looked nice as well. there was also a star at one point, but it looked a bit 'military' and a 'lip imprint that i thought was a bit tacky, to be honest... btw, i just had another idea... (did i mention Nic was going to kill me already?) :)

BTW, who gives the stories these badges?

the story mods do. unlike the EP, which are nominated by a story mod and then given to a committee to vote on, the Recommended stories can be handed out by a single mod. it's as simple as this, if one of us reads something that we think is top notch, we can hand it out - btw, it's possible for a story to then be nominated as an EP, but even if it isn't awarded one, it will still keep it's recommended award. oh, and since it's new, it is retroactive - we're all kind of combing thru older stories occasionally and handing them out to stuff that might have been passed over in the past. :)

this is nice for us - i've been able to hand out some for writers who've gone somewhat unrecognized but are deserving - one of the stories i gave one to had a total of 4 votes and i think it's an amazing piece. hopefully, this encourages lesser known writers to keep at it and gives the readers a chance to discover some over looked gems. :)

yeah that makes sense, I love that this site, unlike some similar sites, is soooo NOT a facebook clone! But I agree that the medal was much classier!

as i said, nothing's set in stone (Nic is going to kill me for this, btw, just so you guys know) :)

btw, the thumbs up symbol was rejected for it's similarity to face book.

LOL! Nice spin Sprite!

Yes I guessed the vote right! but am secretly hoping for Gav's magical trick to make it an option to hide from the profile page

hit him up, seriously - it might not go to the top of the list, but if it looks like it's something people want, i am sure it can be done - that said, not really sure there will be a huge surge of people feeling strongly about it? but then again, i could be wrong. :)

btw, that wasn't really spin, that truly was the intent. :)

I just noticed that the lovely recommended black medals are replaced by these blue V's

Uhm, my first association was to be back in high school to get an approved on an essay (no high grade just a sufficient summier approved), 2nd association is my To do or work checklist, though very efficient I am not a list fetishist!

Maybe it is done because of the resemblance of the editor's pick but I really think the black medal suits the style of the site better and is more appealing!
It was a symbol of specialty like a recommendation is intended, a V in my opinion is a symbol of according to standard, (good yes but not special). In addition it could imply that the other work is not.

There was probably a collective vote behind this and I don't want to go against that just giving my opinion but would it be possible to make it invisible on your profile page, to turn it off?

Btw love the other new features Gav! You know you rock


it was based on a collective vote; it was discussed it for a long time before picking that particular symbol. As for turning it off? i don't know if that's an option, i am guessing no. btw, nothing is set in stone, and if, at some point, it's decided that it should be changed, it probably will - for now, tho, we like that one a lot. :)

oh, and it's a check, not a V - as in; check this one out, it's awesome. :)

seeing a sneak preview of Star Trek wednesday - ask me again afterwards :D

Amazingly perceptive review, Sprite.

The only thing I can think to add is that so many of the extreme, often computer generated, camera moves and perspectives of the first half seemed intent on making the movie into some kind of 3D roller coaster ride. If anyone actually saw the 3D version, I'd love to hear how you thought it worked. In 2D, like Sprite says, it was a chore to watch.

i saw it in 2d - there were several times when it was obvious that there was a 3d scene in it, which is always a little distracting. i have issues, at time, with 3d movies so i tend to avoid them.

I was reading a published poem "When I'm away from you" by Saltine9001 and about have way through poem i got a line of options (contact us, Help, privacy options, disclaimer, mobile, lush gold) and then again at the end of the poem. Didnt seem right


thank you for point that out :) i've fixed it so it reads as intended now - not sure what happened - a bug of sorts, perhaps.

what a great review, too, Alan - congratulations

First thing that comes to my mind is that it's two separate words and not all in caps...

Call me picky

rather call you Mazza, but if you insist... Picky. :)

You need to utter sweet nothings in GAV's ear.

he told ME to send naked pics! really? i could have just said nice stuff? damn.

WOW! That is like spot on and super in depth! Loved your take on the first and second halves of the movie . I actually enjoyed a lot of the cinematography, but then I'm really interested in the use of those sorts of devices, its not for everyone. And oh! we're going to have to talk about Ironman 3! What a movie, but don't get me started thats an entirely different thread!

and like i said, i think he did this on purpose, showing us two worlds thru Gatsby's eyes - the shallow vapidness of those born into wealth and the deepness that believed was the love that he and Daisy shared which was, in the end, as shallow as the rest. it was a fantasy, one he'd fooled himself into believing, also one that neither Daisy nor reality could ever live up to. in the end, i think that it was mercy that his last thought was that that it was Daisy on the other end of the call, that his physical death was kinder than the death he would have felt at finding out his dreams were just that; dreams, as empty and shallow as the reality that he looked down upon from the windows of his mansion.

i'm against it - i'd rather see the kid starve to death than to see a glimpse of the horrible awful bewb. what is wrong with people? those things are disgusting!

oh, btw, the entire PURPOSE of the breast is to supply children with milk. no, really guys, they're not there just to ogle, or squeeze, they have a purpose. and guess what, like it or not, a lot of you were raised sucking milk from a teat.

I agree. That is why I asked. How do you plant to defend yourself when you are in a dangerous situation? For example: #.UZBGVnco46Y

depends on the situation. hopefully, i'm smart enough to know when to fight and when not to, when to use what i have available and when not to. i carry pepper spray, i have some martial arts training, i have my brain, and, when at home, i know where the baseball bat is kept, the knives, and other things that can double as weapons. i also am always aware of escape routes and i pay attention to my surroundings, which is a defense in inself. simply put, i do not put myself in dangerous situations as much as possible.

- your link didn't work, so i don't know what you were referring to in specific. :)

btw, i am on record as stating, over and over in these threads, that i have no issue with someone keeping rifles, shotguns, or handguns in their homes for protection. i have chosen not to, but if someone else chooses to do so, than that is their legal right.

I get a kick out of people who defend the Washington petty dictators who are trying to change our country into a wonderland like nazi Germany or China. What happen is a government agency at the orders of the leader behaved like a state secret police agency. If you are a leftist and think "Big deal." think what would happen if things were run by another bunch of petty two bit dicators who didn't want any gays, or liberals, or if they (which they are now) run by big buisness and wanted anyone who owned a small business forced out, or if they wanted all unions, etc. Look at history. The old saying about Nazi Germany and Communists Russia. First they go after this group, that was ok, I didn't belong to that group. Then they go after another group. That is ok, I don't belong to that group. Then the go after my group. Now I complain?


hmm.... pretty sure we're not rounding up random groups of people and tossing them in jail. for the record, my stance was, this needs to be addressed and let's make sure not to simply fire anyone who has involved in any sort of why - if someone needs to be held accountable, let's make sure it's the person or people actively being discriminatory.

for the record, despite actively campaigning for Mr Obama and have a liberal stance, there are many things on his record that i have an issue with, starting with Guantanemo Bay, and reaching into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some things he's done, or tried to do, i am 100% behind. Other things i'm deeply disappointed. Not as disappointed as i am about some of the current republican party's policies, but disappointed nonetheless.

by the way, i am very aware of how certain groups are targeted. i'm a woman. i'm gay. i grew up in a predominately black neighborhood, and my wife is a minority, Mexican-Filipino American on one side of her family - she could easily pass for Latino. :) trust me when i say that i have been very aware and active in regards to equal rights for most of my adult life. :)




sprite, you have to realize you are the type of individual who is willing to sell themselves into slavery by putting their head in the sand and saying "It won't happen to me. So what difference does it make? " First Washington has taken freedom of the press, working on taking freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, and now they intend to punish anyone who they believe is an enemy of the State. Not the Constitution or the people, but political enemies against letting them have a free hand. They want to be royalty and all others to be serfs. There is no difference between a Tsar and a Comazar or a Chairman and an Emperor or a commie, nazi, dictator of any type and a Middle Ages King. They all believe that the people do not have any rights.

But as long as people say "Well it won't happen to me, or it won't happen to my group." It Will.

obviously, you don't know me very well. we'll just leave it at that. :)

quick movie review time. just got back, went with friends who wanted to see it. first off, we all agreed that the soyngs worked. Yes, they were anachronistic, but they weren't up there in your face so. some of them are beautiful - love is blindness by Jack White was especially moving to me. The Lana Del Rey song, however was the only one i didn't care for (the lone dissenter among 6, bw).

ok, on to the movie. not everyone is going to like this maybe most aren't. it uses a device, that, while i understand why it was used, makes the first part of the movie a chore. it comes across as fake, plastic, very music video looking. exaggerated expressions, colors, in your face camera work, over the top choreography (not just talking about dance, but about the movement of actors, props, everything seemed very staged.). it was beautiful but empty and i came close to falling asleep... and then...

that the thing, it's two movies. the first, is fake, empty, pretty but shallow, and it's all a device. when Daisy and Gatsby come together, it becomes a different movie. all the emptiness is left behind and it becomes incredibly intimate. i loved the second movie. it's brilliant, despite the fact that you know it's going to break your heart - and i think it succeeds because the first half is how it is... i found myself reduced to tears, quite honestly, drained by the beauty of it's tragedy, and i think it does the book justice.

it's meant to be like that, i think - Luhrman took a huge risk, but really, it's as if you're seeing it all thru Gatsby's eyes - nothing matters except his fantasy of Daisy, and it is a fantasy. he has this perfect vision, it's all a lie, but it's a beautiful lie and we are let into it for a time, sharing it until it all goes up in smoke and the harsh light of reality returns...

will i recommend it? hard to do. some people are just not going to like it. out of 6, i was the only one who really truly loved it. everyone else was more along the lines of: it wasn't bad. be warned that it really is a hard movie to love, but the more i talk and think about it, the more amazing i think it was. just be warned, the first half may have you wanting to sneak into another theater and catch ironman 3. :)

The IRS really dropped the ball all the way around on this one. The apology was good but every employee taking part in that conspiracy should be fired. It is an outrage that they have not been.

No group whatsoever should be singled out for such action whether they be conservative, liberal, or middle of the pack. The Federal government should do its due diligence to purge the IRS or any other government agency of anyone who would do such a thing.

And for that matter conservative groups have the same right as liberal groups to apply for tax-exempt status and deserve the same consideration. Anything else would be total discrimination. Discrimination comes from bigotry! Bigotry can work from either the right or the left! Bigotry should not be tolerated in any form! Unless stopped bigotry begets itself, grows into a cultural monster and you get something like the Spanish Inquisition, The Third Reich, or The Cultural Revolution. Freedom thrives in a culture of tolerance.

no. the ones who were an active part of it, perhaps, but not the poor guy who's told. hey, take a look into this file. that would be a restaraunt owner buying dog meat and serving it as hamburgers and then firing the waitress who brought the meal to the table. :)

"Need" has nothing to do with it. When the government gets to dictate what private citizens can purchase based on "need" then everybody will be driving around in Yugos and eating Ramen noodles for dinner. Because why would you "need" a car with more than 84 horsepower? And why would you "need" a Porterhouse Steak?

one) can't really recall the last time someone used a porterhouse steak to kill mass quantities of school children (tho, i could easily make the argument, being a vegetarian, that thousands of people die annually as a result of eating too much meat, and i won't even go into the inhumane treatment of cattle in order to obtain your steak).

two) are you really suggesting that the government is going to somehow create legislation that forces people to eat only ramen noodles? you do realize how... ok, i was going to say paranoid, but i think i'll go with crazy instead... that sounds? :)

three) same argument for cars on both counts. not usually the go to weapon for theatre shootings, etc. andy yeah, pretty sure no one's putting a bill thru outlawing SUVs any time soon, either.

So what do you think about agents of our government "stomping on people's rights?"

i assume that's a retorical question? if you want a real answer, what happened was wrong. the IRS admitted it was wrong. an apology when out. an IRS spokeswoman said Friday that no disciplinary action had been taken. yet. pending, i am assuming, further investigation. i am not defending them. if the government had tried to cover this up, that would be one thing. obviously, they didn't. next.

Good God, y ou'd have to be a total, bloomin' idiot to not be able to understand the link between one person saying that the government won't ever infringe on a person's rights, and a rebuttal post showing the government doing just that. Are you a total, bloomin' idiot , Mon? if you are... well, they shoot horses, don't they ?

lol - i really should delete this post, seeing as it broke your own rules - really, name calling? threatening to shoot monocle? damn, where's KirstinD when you need her - oh, right, she's a hypocrite, so she gets censored. got it.

I didn't bring it up. I guess this one's aimed at you, Sprite.

don't look at me - i didn't bring it up - i had the same question as monocle.

Nah, sorry Beautiful. I've already gone way too far into my personal life as it is. You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't. Choice is yours.

thought we already had this conversation. it's sprite. i'm not a lap dog to be patted in the head and called "beautiful". it's demeaning in my eyes.

oh, and ok, too personal. ok, how about if you cite how you perceive the writer of the editorial was discriminated against due to his pro-gun stance?

Both those rifles can hold a "large magazine". Your "thirty rounds a minute" figure is bogus - they each fire one shot for each pull of the trigger. You can't legally modify either one to become fully automatic - if you do and you're found out, it earns you a lengthy stretch in the Federal slammer. Neither one is for "taking down mass targets", because neither one orients itself, aims itself at mass targets, or pulls its own trigger. They're tools, nothing more. It's already illegal to use them for "taking down mass targets", just as it's illegal to use a car, a knife, or a bomb. Passing another law won't get rid of them - Pandora's box is already opened. You can't shut it again. Not when any decent machinist with access to even a poorly equipped shop can physically construct a fully automatic machine gun in a matter of hours. You would have to take civilization back to the bronze age (or farther) to achieve your goal.



Unlike their military cousins — which have three-round burst settings — commercially available AR-15 type rifles like Bushmaster’s are semiautomatic, meaning one bullet per trigger pull. But a little searching on YouTube turns up numerous videos showing how quickly AR-15 type rifles can unload dozens of rounds and even one example of how to turn a “semi-auto into a full-auto machine using a household rubberband.”

if someone plans on shooting people, i doubt they'll be concerned with breaking a law modifying a gun. how about if we just make it a little more difficult to kill large numbers of people? is that really such an issue with you?



And "need" really has nothing to do with it.


ok, so it's all about want? I "want" to be able to drive my truck down the freeway at 100mph. but i don't. why? it's dangerous and it's against the law.


And FWIW, see this link. The IRS has formally apologized for targeting groups for investigation based entirely on the fact that those groups happened to have the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their name. How long before the IRS targets groups with "gay" or "pride" in their name? And gee... who do you suppose could have ordered the IRS to take such actions? I'm hardly a tin-foil hatter, but this kinda makes me go "Hmmmmmm."

i have NO ideas what any of the above has to do with gun control. as for the IRS targeting groups with 'gay' or 'pride' in their names, to be quite honest, i'm not so paranoid to think that it will be an issue. i'm more concerned with getting shot by intolerant bigots than i am about being unfairly taxed, quite honestly.

I never said I've had rights denied. I've said that I've been discriminated against.

specifics please: events of discrimination based on your pro-gun stance. to help you out:

1. Bias or prejudice resulting in denial of opportunity, or unfair treatment regarding selection, promotion, or transfer. Discrimination is practiced commonly on the grounds of age, disability, ethnicity, origin, political belief, race, religion, sex, etc. factors which are irrelevant to a person's competence or suitability.

2. Unequal treatment provided to one or more parties on the basis of a mutual accord or some other logical or illogical reason.

3. Differences in two rates not explainable or justifiable by economic considerations such as costs.