  nigel and i quarrelled our way through an iphos question in 1.5 hours, no thanks to his extensive probing with calculus. and the cord question also. in fact the cord one has been kind of bugging us for half a week already, but i did get a reasonable looking two step solution. which goes to show that even though you've already learned the entire a maths syllabus by the first semester of upper secondary school, like our nigel has, you may never be able to do even three puzzle questions correctly with calculus and all.
although the word "fuck" is in fact considered to be slang, i do wish to point out that the first recorded use of the word was slightly before 1500, which was before or after columbus found america (1492), but certainly the english speaking american population needs more than just a few years to first adapt the european english before utterly murdering it beyond reason. and to alice's slightly evangelistic lines, i can only say one thing: i am an urlLink agnostic , but given that one must never be so sure of absolutely everything (which does include agnosticism; despite it being its central idea), i am always open to your evangelism provided they don't come too thick and fast to utterly confuse me, because i am quite a stupid person.
but i refrain from discussing too much about agnosticism for the simple reason that it is obvious and a progression of the natural sciences' instinct to be curious and inquisitive. i am not anti-american. saying that about me would be absolute nonsense. similarly, a pro-american is not urlLink someone who gets repeatedly cheated by american companies , knows it, grins and bears it. that kind of tolerance is admirable. that ability to turn an eye knowing full well one is being cheated shows that tolerance.
it's like conceiving a son, knowing for sure (maybe you were given a subtle divine clue) that when you are eighty he will just leave you to rot alive in an old folks' home. and obviously, that's why i like a girl like alice: so womanly, so nice, so tolerant. sometimes she's *quite* aggressive, but that happens to all girls routinely. although if we ever have such a demon for a child, at least she has only me when we both get feasted on by maggots at the neighbourhood old folks' home when we're eighty and bony and skinny. 
