I would add that this is why internet speak does not bother me. Although I'm never going to be the kind of person who says "lol" unironically, all that matters is that we all understand it.

So whenever I see people freaking out over the use of "fail," "win," and "THIS," as expressions of sentiment, I kind of get a little upset. The people using these phrases are not necessarily stupid. It's playful and we know what it means.

That said, I greatly enjoy the Grammar Girl podcast. Thinking about and playing with language is fun.

I guess Splint Chesthair doesn't eat shoots, and leaves.

I'm all for language as a living, changing thing, but kids DO need to learn the rule before they start to PLAY AROUND with them. I don't consider myself a grammar nazi (at least not in practice) but the most important part of language is communication. If we don't all know what the rules are, how are we supposed to understand each other?

You'd be amazed, Gail, at just how common this problem is. It's chronic in some cases.

I see Neatorama is once again experiencing commenter identity crisis.

As per the clown... it sounds like it borders on harassment.

This is one of those cases where your mother asks if you would jump off a bridge if your friends did it. Seriously, three of them?

Not so sly.

I have renewed faith in the commenters at this site.

Come on, Alex. You can do better.

Kind of neat. The duct tape thing is actually part of a contest that the company holds every year.

My only snarky comment would be: would it kill her to stand up straight when she's being interviewed for a television news segment? I don't get it. What's so wrong with good posture?

My family was very poor growing up, but there were always a ton of books around. I don't know if that made me a better student or not. I think I'm pretty average. But when I was 8 or 9 I tried to teach my cat to read.

Results were mixed.

It's neat, but I've learned that the quirkier a label on a bottle of alcohol, the worse it probably is.

It usually means they're trying to compensate for poor quality with good personality. =/

lol@people who don't understand scientific studies.

My mom would send me to my room, wait for me to calm down, and then come and talk to me. We'd talk about why I was in trouble, and she'd encourage me to see things from her perspective. By the time I was ten and I got caught by a police officer for sneaking out in the middle of the night (I really don't know why I thought that was a good idea) I punished myself with two months of grounding, and wrote 200 lines about why what I did was wrong, before my parents ever had the chance to pass judgement, at which point they were stunned because I was much harder on myself than they intended to be. I certainly never did it again.

To this day, what my mom thinks of what I do matters greatly to me.

I haven't eaten there since I was twelve. I used to eat a ton of big macs. My mom would bring them home to me after work. I just got really sick of them (literally and figuratively). But ah... to be twelve again and eat whatever you want without gaining an ounce. =(

As per Super Size Me, it's worth nothing that Morgan Spurlock's most alarming changes weren't his weight, but in his overall health. Yes, he was eating around 5,000 calories a day, but how many people count calories? It's much easier to eat 5,000 calories than one might think, especially at fast food restaurants that don't list the caloric value of the food they serve, which is by and large deep fried in oil or processed to the point where it lacks any nutritive value (becoming "empty calories"). Most people know you shouldn't eat at McDonald's every day, but those weren't the people Spurlock hoped to reach.

And anyway, he still eats there, so... apparently he doesn't hate the place. =/

Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention the feng shui McDonald's in California. The article mistakenly suggests that the company is trying this out to boost sales. I'm pretty sure it was entirely the franchisee's decision.

All that matters is whether it's tasty. A machine can't taste the food to make sure (this is why Bender was always poisoning people) so I doubt machines will be replacing chefs any time soon.

It's still neat to see what we can make robots do.

I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly how bad he was, but I get the feeling he was just full of crap, like most kids, and trying to appear tough (likely more to his peers than anyone). Probably he learned to act this way to cope with the cruelty of the other children he lived with in Russia. But he sounds like dozens of kids I knew growing up, who bragged about things (arson, robbery, murder) that they obviously never did. The majority of them ended up normal.

In the end, of course, it's probably best that he's not with this family any more. They clearly couldn't handle him. I just hope he ends up somewhere where he gets the kind of counseling he probably needs, or this second abandonment could mess him up permanently.

So I herd you were turning 9...

Magic everywhere in this b****.