Be Excellent To Each Other

This is what the forum is about dear, its not personal. The next time Dudley says something that's a load of shit we'll hound him for a good 5 or 6 pages.

The moon landings were pretty comprehensively shown to be faked right here.

That made me laugh aloud, I love the clangers. You just don't see them anymore

That is ace.

I think the daily horroscopes are utterly meaningless but I do sometimes think there's something in the general character outlines for the star signs.

Maybe a bit, but that's just labelling though.

No-one is going to indulge you when you are wrong.

If you go through them all, you'll find something in every one that describes some aspect of you.

I bought my first girlfriend a clanger once. It made the noise when you squeezed it and everything.

Can someone pull up a character assasination, er I mean 'outline' of someone for the 20th December to see how it fits me? A well known/trusted one if anyone knows of such a place that has one for free on the net? Just as a test.

Are you familiar with the term Barnum statements? They're comments which everyone thinks were written for them personally, but are actually so general they could fit anybody.

"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. At times you have serious doubts whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing."

Hey, don't lump me in with your hippy lot. I only said a small part (very tiny).

Science uber alles for most things.

You like bees and the undead. It says here.

Yes - someone I may have mentioned to honest - let's call him Baron Down - gave twenty people a personal 'reading' and they all but one said it fit them exactly - literally described them perfectly. They were of course all exactly the same.

The reading was a mixture of wild generalisations and flattery.

Bollocks. I don't give a fuck what YOU or anybody else thinks about me, whereas I think I'm awesome. My personality is the manifestation of perfection and I use it with terminal efficiency. I never once question a decision because I'm always fucking right and you're a cunt.

I agree but there are aspects supposedly unique to each one. I can't really see it in myself but I have to accept at least the possibility that knowing that my star sign is Libra and always identifying the little pair of weighing scales as the icon associated with my birthday might have at some stage had some effect on my developing personality. I wasn't but I imagine that if someone is raised around people who do fervently believe then this labelling would inevitably have an effect.

At least half of that applies to me. The other half I couldn't be arsed to read, because I've read it all before.

I'm not what they'd call a sagittarius. Or even the same 'element'.

As a sagittarius, I barely got through the first few paragraphs of that before giving up.

Oh dear.

How amazing would it be to see that printed in a magazine?

Unfortunately, Barnum statements rarely work on gibbering lunatics.

This works for me too, and I'm a Taurus...

No. The fact that they are wrong makes them wrong.

ComicalGnome, a fixated loon, can be quite angry, and resistant to the existance of others. Life conspires to piss you off and throws problems at you so that you might smash through them with a wall of pure anger. When confronted with an unreasonable demand you stop playing 'which one will I kill first?' in your head and just go with whatever feels natural. The more people tell you what to do, the most inclined you are to do the opposite. ComicalGnomes are naturally right, but like to be tested when they encounter a person of considerable intelligence. You will occasionally work hard on things that matter to you personally, before for everything else you couldn't give a flying fuck.

Works for me too, and I'm an Aries.

Cheers Shin

So:

Mutable, change-loving Sagittarius governs long-distance travel, matters of the higher mind (philosophy, religion and the law), cultural pursuits – and having a good time! It is a fire sign, so Sagittarians are positive, forthright communicators who love travelling – although you do tend to be restless and hate to take orders.

The Sun in Sagittarius favours social status, the higher mind and travel, especially in pursuit of idealistic aims in faraway places. Sagittarians are idealists and usually much in demand socially, because you are like a breath of fresh air.
Search for Truth and Knowledge

OK, so I have never traveled outside of teh UK and have been about five places IN the UK. I have never really wanted to travel, I am a homebody



(I have cut a lot out as it is very repetitive about travel)

You readily adapt to change and home is where you hang your hat. This is both a strength, because it is a survival mechanism, and a weakness because it makes you vulnerable to the demands and influence of others. Frank Sagittarius does not hesitate to give an honest opinion, which can seem tactless at times – although it is rarely your intention to be cruel. You have a ready wit and appreciate the humour in even the grimmest situations.

I like to be settled in one place, I like to feel at home and it takes a long time for me to feel at home in a place, so that isn't very me, either. I also try very hard to be tactful (I may not always succeed but I would say I am far from 'tactless')

Energy and Enthusiasm

Needless to say, you much prefer to be the boss in any situation and must constantly watch your tongue in the unhappy event that you find yourself (temporarily!!) in the position of an underling. Before you assess the practicality or worth of what you are doing, before you sort out your true emotions, and before you take time to reason things out intellectually, you have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. Communication-oriented Sagittarians are forever bubbling with energy and enthusiasm. Independent and hard to pin down for long, this is the sign of the bachelor, but even married Sagittarians seek to maintain some aspect of personal independence.

This isn't me at all, either. I like to be part of a partnership.

Jupiter, the benefic planet of fortune and good luck, endows a generous nature with a friendly, optimistic disposition. A natural politician, you like knowing everyone and going everywhere,
I actually liek to stay in my comfort zone and know relatively few people, but the people I DO know I know very well and love immensely, which I guess is teh opposite of what it is saying here.

Enthusiastic Sagittarius has a passion for sports. Physically challenging endeavours of all kinds, including archery, jogging, hang gliding, sailing, and fishing (especially for big game fish) are favourite activities. One big challenge to overcome may be the battle of the bulge, when your fondness for food, glorious food and a good drop finally catches up with you. A natural gambler and risk-taker, you usually come out on the winning side, especially when you try your luck at horse or dog racing. You love music, art, dance, and drama and have considerable talent in these areas.

This bit is quite close. I used to be quite sporty but became too tall to become a gymnast, and I studied drama and dance. The sports mentioned, however, do not interest me in the slightest. I do not like gambling (though the poker thing kind of undermines me saying this - I would rather not play for money, but I enjoy the game and see it as a game to play for 60p a week. Er, I hadn't played before, me winning and coming second a number of times is purely coincidental

Well, for me, most things here are actually the opposite of my character, but then they'd be bang on for some folks, like any description I guess.

... that applies to quite literally everyone in the universe.

"you don't like imposed changes" - nobody does, by definition.

"you are averse to blah blah spanner in the works" - again, by definition, of course you're averse to things that fuck everything up. Everyone is.

"when confronted with unreasonable demands blah blah you rebel" - once again, absolutely everyone, when confronted with something they find unreasonable, will rebel somehow.

"like to test things for themselves, but, once convinced, become firm in their determination to see things through" - sorry, how is this revealing anything, exactly? It's saying "once you're convinced by something, you act as though you're convinced by it". Utterly bloody redundant.

"Anyone who wants to get on side with you needs to see what must be done and share the load without being asked." - ie: to get in your good books, people have to agree with you and help you. Well fucking DUH.

Seriously, break it down and look at it.

One of the wonderful things about the human brain is to be able to believe in two different, mutually exclusive realities while knowing that they're both mutually exclusive.

For example, I am hardcore sceptic who believes science has the only answers in terms of everything that happens. I also believe, as I said, that other dimensions of strange beasts and beings of all kinds can intermingle can and do intermingle with our own reality.

Obviously the first of those is true and the second I simply believe because I choose to, despite there not being any scientific evidence for it whatsoever. (And, indeed, quite a lot of evidence that it doesn't actually happen.)

One worldview is testable, verifiable, useful and should be taught in schools, the other is a personal fancy which I believe or disbelieve depending on what I want to believe on any given day.

I can quite happily believe that faeries are real, that London is alive and that the ground underneath knows me and has a connection to me that goes back millennia, while also believing that all that's absolute rubbish.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I believe in a base-level reality, which is shown to us through the scientific method. I also believe in another level of... well, "reality" is very much the wrong word, maybe "existence", which is personal, but possibly not completely internal. It's important to note that I use the word "real" for the scientific level and not the other level, but language really isn't set up very well to express my beliefs fully and I know anyone reading this far will just think I believe in faeries in the same way someone else might believe in a god or gods, which isn't true at all. (Because believers in a god often confuse the two levels of belief. I'm quite happy slotting my beliefs into the appropriate layer.)

Hmm. Okay, how's this? I believe fully in both fact and fiction, see that one is common and real, but also believe that fictions have a life of their own and may be older than the first human to invent them... but not really, obviously. Except, you know, sort of. Just, of course, not.

No, see, that doesn't work.

I just don't know how to explain myself, but I quite genuinely would not be surprised if characters I wrote about in my fiction turned up at my front door one day. I wouldn't be surprised if other people could also see and interact with them. But I'd be very, very surprised if you could capture them on camera or take DNA samples.

I also know, of course, that this would never happen, because it's not in any way possible.

There's just at least two levels of belief and knowledge about the universe, one real, one fictional, both valid. (Fictional is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one.) And I think that's true for every single person in the world. I think it's part of the human mind. The trouble comes when people are unable or unwilling to realise this and act as if their fictional universe is objectively, measurably out there. It may well be out there, but it's not fucking real. You're still nothing but worm food when you die, there's no heaven and you'll never, ever be able to take a faerie to a scientist for examination. (And not just because they're smarter than you, though they are.)

Or there are multiple realities where everything that could possibly exist, exists.

Can anyone tell I've been watching Sliders lately?

Yeah, it's pretty-much a definitive collection of Barnum statements.

I liked the ones they used to put in The Onion -

Sagittarius November 22 - December 21
By the end of the week, you'll be the nation's foremost expert on muskrat attacks, industrial glue mishaps, and rare Egyptian curses.

"I've made up my mind - don't confuse me with the facts!"

My life is controlled entirely by the flying spaghetti monster. That guy is an owner.

Hammerzeit is probably my favourite picture of all-time ever. I wish I had a poster of it.

Well, we Taureans are known for being predictable...

From experience, when an astronomer does any kind of public outreach about 20% of people will confuse them with an Astrologer.

As Astronomers want to publicise the wonderful world they get to work in they need to address that issue.

EDIT: 5 pages! Wow. I slept a long time!