A song about a person sitting in a diner and describing everything in excruciating detail. Ugh.

>> ^laura:
I can't help it. I have to say it. This is one of the dumbest things I've seen in a long time, and I've seen a helluva lot of dumb things for a long time now.

The banality of youtube can be absolutely excruciating, which is why this short is so refreshing. You can't help but laugh at the commentary of the two waffles as they go through the shared spectrum of emotions, blind and deaf to eachother's presence until they ultimately find themselves together in a waffle stack.

The woman was searched when asked for her driver's license, and was seized when stopped and prevented from going about her business. Although Fourth Amendment law is riddled with inconsistencies, you can bet that the terms "search" and "seized" have been gone over many times in excruciating detail. The Supreme Court case Brendlin v. California (2007) is relevant here in that it summarizes and defines those terms for Fourth Amendment law: someone is "seized" when the police display a "show of authority", or the person would not feel free to go.

One has to remember that the Fourth Amendment was written at a time when the only way to gather information was to physically seize papers; inventions such as the telephone, automobile, through-wall radar, etc were not foreseen. The Supreme Court has to interpret the Fourth Amendment in light of modern developments. For example, in Katz v. US (1968) the Supreme Court decided that the Fourth Amendment protects people and privacy, not only papers and places, and that telephone conversations were subject to protection, even though nothing was physically "searched" or "seized". To find otherwise would effectively nullify the Fourth Amendment in this modern world.

Hence, one must interpret the Fourth Amendment in terms of the case law and Supreme Court rulings, which are the law of the land, in addition to the actual original text of the Fourth Amendment to fully comprehend its meaning.

Another good example is the exclusionary rule, where evidence obtained illegally is not allowed to be used in court. This rule was adopted because of a logical argument; if police are allowed to break in and gather evidence illegally and then use it in court to convict someone, the Fourth Amendment is rendered null and void. So, the bottom line is that one has to look at more than the explicit words of the amendment to the intent and implications as well, when considering Fourth Amendment protections.

The theory behind the tasting menu lies in the observation that after about 3 or 4 bites of something, you can't taste it properly anymore. If you've ever tried seasoning a soup and it wasn't right so you added something, but it still wasn't right so you added a bit more, and so on, for more than a few times, you'll discover that suddenly after about 3 or 4 times... you can't taste it anymore. All the subtlety is gone. Your senses are immune to all but the most drastic adjustments.

So, if this is the case then any more than a few bites and all the extra effort that you spent making something the absolute best possible flavour has gone to waste. If you serve portions that are larger, the nuance, the elegance, the speciality is gone.

Instead of wasting your effort and your guests' time, why not give them only these first few almost excruciatingly exquisite bites?

The upshot of this is that you can set up a flow, a poetry, almost a storyline of flavours as the meal progresses. A tasting menu is very similar to a DJ set. Any half decent DJ can create a set that flows, but the very best create a journey that his audience will never forget. The best chef's tasting menu should be the same.

Just to let you know, I've never created more than 9 courses for a menu, but I feel like I have at least a rudimentary idea of the concepts. Certainly in a broad sense anyway. I hope to be able to try 24 at Alinea or the French Laundry or 31 at El Bulli sometime. I'm sure that an experience like that would help my career greatly.

Look how close that glass came to getting smashed into his face when he fell.

When I was a 13 my classmates and I were walking back from church to school one day. (I went to a Catholic school, and we went to church once a week during school hours.) The church was less than a block away from school, but it was winter and the sidewalks were icy. One kid came sliding up behind me and deliberately pushed me. Not having any idea what was happening, when he pushed me I slipped and fell face forward, landing square on my front teeth. My top incisors both broke at the roots, so my front teeth were basically hanging by the nerves. I was scheduled to get braces in a few months, but that had to be pushed up on an emergency basis. I had to see a dentist first, who basically just jammed my top incisors back into my gums with his bare hands (which was excruciatingly painful), then jammed a huge wad of cotton in my mouth, then told me to bite down and not release, and then sent me to the orthodontist to wire up my front teeth so that my incisors wouldn't fall out of my face. Thankfully neither of my incisors were lost. Did I mention that while all this was happening I wasn't laughing, not once?

That's also what could have happened to this guy. All things considered it could have been a lot worse. If a "friend" played this prank on me he would no longer be my friend afterward, ESPECIALLY after he posted a video of the incident on the internet.

In reply to this comment by thepinky:

Taxpayers (including single mothers) pay for government waste, pointless wars, and yes, the occasional freeloader. We pay for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina, for transit centers for minor league baseball teams, for halls of fame and a million other ridiculous things. Wouldn't t be better to fund those sorts of things at a more local level instead of wasting so much money on overhead?

So, basically you think that the idea of taxes and providing a good social network should be thrown out because the current government isn't doing it right? No government is going to get it 100% correct, but the idea is sound, and the public has to vote in, and then lobby, governments to use the money in their best interest. You can't leave it all up to local areas to handle, because that means the small cities/towns will never have much money and slowly die, while the large cities get more and more money as everyone has to move to them as they're the only places with amenities because no-one was there to spread the country's wealth around to all the areas that need it. You need to have everyone pitching in, and then people that have been voted in, supposedly because the voters thought they were the best people to handle it, fairly divvy up the proceeds.

The problem with not having taxes, and having everyone supposedly giving money to where they think the money should go is that it never works... even the most good hearted of people will have times when they go "I just can't afford to give $x to Y, I need that money now for a, b and c"... but if you already have that money taken out of their wage, then they seem to get by just fine without it, and the money can be put to good use.

And that's assuming that everyone is good hearted in the first place... which is not the case, and the wanting to give money to others seems to decrease with one's wealth usually, such that the majority of the rich would keep all their money for themselves.

It would never, ever, in a million years, work.

Yes governments need to handle the money better... for one thing stop spending so darn much on the military, spend more on renewable electricity generation and electric cars (I mean, come on, we could ALREADY be powering ourselves via renewables and driving electric cars... humph)... but just because they're not doing things right now, doesn't mean the answer is to stop taxes altogether.


I don't care about Joe Shmoe's birth control. It is not a neccesity. I don't care how good his sex is. I intend to use birth control pills. I never had my teeth straightened. I still have my wisdom teeth. I'm not complaining about my quality of life. A vasectomy is a luxury, plain and simple.
Hmmm, so you plan to use the pill after you've had kids, all the way until menopause? I think you may wish to look into the health issues with that. The pill does some pretty bad things to a woman, and the longer you use it, the worse it gets. here, here and many other places besides.

And thinking of a vasectomy as a luxury is dead wrong. Having the state pay for it SAVES the country money. You avoid many, many unplanned pregnancies that lead to more social welfare and other problems. By the cheap, safe, effective vasectomy, you eliminate a whole host of costs associated with extra, unplanned/unwanted kids.

Also, not having your wisdom teeth out... come on... for many people (like myself), they were causing excruciating pain and problems in my mouth... you think it's a luxury to have that pain stopped do you? You're falling into the trap again of 'well, I didn't use X service, why should I fund it?'... well, I'm sure you have used many services I would never use, why should I fund them? It's a case of "We all chip in so that everyone can afford the things they need".

"If you can manage the thought of dieing, or have no care about dieing with your secrets then you would have no problem with this. "

That someone not afraid to die for their country for not compromise secret information would have no problem being waterboarded is absolutely untrue. A suicidal person would not be able to endure excruciating torture, for example, just because they don't want to live.

This technique will make anyone try to stop it as much as they can, **to some extent**.

This person might blow their brain out at the drop of a hat, but most certainly would be unable to resist an unresistable feeling like acute pain or drowning.

I'm not saying that it's impossible for someone to resist giving out secrets. I just think that it takes a particularly extraordinary person to be able to withstand months/years of torture without cracking. It's just not that simple.

The US version of Thomas the Tank engine is an absolute travesty, and the movie is excruciating.

The proper series is a charming little show all wrapped up in the model world of the trains. To then do this weird melding of 'real' people and the 'fantastical' world of Thomas completely misses the point of the show.

It's yet another case of Americans deciding they need to change something that was never broken.

Yessir, karaoke can be one of the most excruciating experiences in the wrong hands....a dangerous thing-

>> ^choggie:
short means short..as in
midgets
to the point
not excruciatingly long
glad it's no longer
sussinck
LoLcats under 10 sec.
anything under 10 sec.
sharpshock

"ephemeral"

short means short..as in
*midgets
*to the point
*not excruciatingly long
*glad it's no longer
*sussinck
*LoLcats under 10 sec.
*anything under 10 sec.
*sharpshock

>> ^asynchronice:
And I'm sorry it's flat out irresponsible to imply that " Doctors LOVE to use the term 'baby in distress' to force people into have a caesar or force things along with drugs, or using suction or forceps or the like... because they know that without any other knowledge, if you suggest to parent's to be that their unborn baby might be in danger, you'll leap." Great idea, let's cause everyone to second guess their doctor on the assumption they want you OUT of the hospital more than they want a safe birth. That will end great. (on that note, anyone who works at a hospital knows what happens when a nurse tries to correct a doctor)

But experience with us, and many, many other mothers that we know and have read about time and time again here in Australia and overseas bears this to be true in far, far too many cases. It's not something you can just do if you have no support... you don't have the medical training to know otherwise, and they DO prey on that, we have many friends who have been forced down the path of intervention for no good, sound, medical reason. These types of doctors may think that they are doing what's best, but they're coming from the point of view of putting intervention being preferable to nature. Midwives take take the point of view of letter nature do its best, and ONLY if necessary intervene.

Absolutely there are cases that require intervention, but the figures bear out that intervention is far, far higher than it needs to be, ESPECIALLY in the private medical sector. In Australia we have public and private hospitals, and intervention and caesar rates are FAR higher in the private sector... just as an example, vaginal birth for public patients 72.6%, in private 49.7%, both numbers are far, far lower than they should be, but this study tried to remove all factors to do with actual risk (they were low risk births) and yet, look at that whopping difference in figures. There is NO NEED for so many interventions, it's bad for the mother, it's bad for the baby, but it's what doctors schooled in a particular way want because it's predictable. Not better, just predictable, they don't like the uncertain wait, it's more effort.


However, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see the options laid out in front of you. C-section is less painful; is it right ? Well, up to you, the long term effects are minimally debatable. And my wife can attest the VAST majority of women who want no drugs and to have a natural birth are SCREAMING for drugs and threatening lawsuits if they don't get them come push-time.
Ahh, but you're looking at things in the wrong way, far too much the current society is moving towards 'why have pain if you don't have to'? Well, because it's not pointless pain, it's pain which women are built for, and as much as you'll probably scoff, it's amazingly empowering for a woman to give birth with no medical assistance. The feeling of power to be able to do that, to push through the pain, to give birth ALL ON THEIR own is something which stays with women for life. Take that away from them, repeatedly offer them drugs or an operation and deprive them of that experience is such a horribly narrow/short sighted vision on childbirth. The women who start on the natural path and opt for the drugs in almost all cases have a number of things against them:
* Ill prepared for the pain: My wife and I went to natural childbirthing classes where the pain is explained in full is not shied away from, but also prepared for. You are really shown how to get through it and grow from it (I almost guarantee you're rolling your eyes at this point at the 'new ageness' of all this).
* Ill prepared for the medical system: During our first birth which wasn't in a family birth centre (who are more geared towards natural births) due to the nature of our first born's heart condition, we had a doctor who would continually pop his head in and ask if she wanted an epidural. This constant dangling of 'you want the pain to go away' is enough to wear down the most ardent of natural birth advocates if you don't have others who instead of offering the drug relief offer other ways such as walking around, hot showers, back rubs, ice... etc. etc. Yes it hurts, yes it's excruciating, but after three natural births with no drugs, my wife for one wouldn't have had it any other way.
Poor support team: If you have people around you who aren't prepared to see you in pain and support you through it and help you, but are getting more worked up than you and are suggesting you take the easy way out, it's just such a hard battle. You need people who are in it with you who are there to support the natural method.

It shouldn't be that hard to have a natural birth, but unfortunately you need to come so, so forearmed these days because of how against it the medical system is, and that's a sad, sad indictment on the system as it stands.


And the health care system, ya it's flawed, but that's a whole other documentary. And besides, isn't a midwife working for profit in this system as well ? Does making less than a doctor make them more noble or even better ?

The midwife is working for profit in this model, well in our model because we had an independent one, but that's only because the vast majority of the free midwives provided in the free system are far too pro drugs, pro intervention. In New Zealand for example, you can claim the cost of your independent midwife and home birth costs, and they have much, much lower intervention rates than Australia. If the system provided training with natural being the first and best option over intervention instead of the other way round, then people like us wouldn't have to pay for a good midwife.

The bottom line is that intervention rates in countries like Australia and the US are far, far above what they should be, and countries where natural birth has a higher focus bear this out to be true. If a woman can give birth with NO intervention (not drugs, not surgery, not forceps or suction) then she should be given ALL and EVERY opportunity to do so, for if she does it will make her a much, much stronger woman. To be able to know that you, alone, gave birth to your children, rather than having that taken away from you and given to the doctors is the way it should be, and sadly isn't for so many women...

and by now he's out on parole. i've seen the video on the updated cars, very funny the rage they fly into when the car suddenly dies and the doors lock and they realize they're trapped in the act.

Next step in the evolution of the bait car: doors lock, engine dies, brakes bring the car to a halt, canister on steering column releases lethal gas. personally i'd like the last step to be - spring loaded knife shoots up thru seat, impaled perp writhes in excruciating agony for several minutes before expiring, but y'know, that'd be so messy to clean up

definitely a good candidate for the terrible channel.

wow. excruciating.

The first ten seconds are an excruciating "DON'T DO IT!!!"