anonemouse

There are a lot of people on this site that have lost their weight very quickly. Check out Ousooner, for example. He lost a LOT of weight and reached his goal weight within 9 months. And the majority of people that I've seen that HAVE been able to do that did it without complications. Don't forget, the "average bandster weightloss" includes folks that don't lose diddly.

To be honest, if I could have had my absolute pick of doctors and still have insurance pay for it, I'd go to Mexico, too. Put quite simply, the most experienced band surgeons in North America are in Mexico. Right now, if I didn't know it would cause a fuss within my family, I'd be paying for a band that I'd get in Mexico. Hell, even though insurance is going to pay some of my costs, I'm still going to be paying thousands of dollars. To me, it makes a heck of a lot more sense for me to pay thousands of dollars and have surgery performed by a surgeon that's done several thousand bands than to pay thousands of dollars and have surgery performed by a surgeon that's done a couple of hundred bands at most. But, my family would freak, so the surgeon with a few hundred at most wins.

To me, it's a little bit different taste than fresh fruit. But it isn't like raisins, either. You know, the kind of gritty texture that raisins get? None of the ones I tried had a texture like that. (Well, other than the pears, and that was just because pears are naturally gritty.) The apples have a really neat texture to me, sort of foamy, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I liked them. The Angelino plums and the peaches are REALLY good. The cantaloupe is pretty good, too, once you get past the initial texture (to me, it had the texture of gummy fruit slices, sort of crunchy at the beginning and then soft). Everything is much sweeter than when they are fresh, though. I am satisfied with just eating a piece or two of it at a time.

But, they can't "just drop it off like dry cleaning and not have to deal with it any longer." In those states, that's called abandonment and it's illegal. You may be able to legally give a child up in those states, but I'll bet it's not as easy as it sounds. Otherwise, those other states wouldn't have needed safe havens.

That's true, but ultimately has no bearing. We are not discussing the killing of the already born, we are discussing the killing of the unborn. Two totally different topics. And you can feel free to believe that. Other people have the right to believe otherwise. Yes, you do. And I have the right to band together with those that feel that the only people who should decide a woman's health care are herself and her doctor. Not necessarily. There is a vast ideological and scientific difference between an abortion that results in the death of a viable fetus and an abortion that results in the death of a non-viable fetus. One may be outlawed, but the other will never be, at least not while there is disagreement about when life begins. And no matter how hard you wish it were otherwise, abortion IS facing the responsibility of being pregnant. It may not be the decision that YOU wish people would make, but they ARE taking responsibility. Should people that don't want children just never experience the closeness of sex with someone they care about? I know that you'll say that those women should make sure that they're sterilized, but as I think Green would be happy to explain to you, it isn't that easy.

Not in all states. Women in Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nebraska are just shit out of luck.

Exactly. Adoption costs so much today that the vast majority of people just aren't willing to spend the money to adopt a severely deformed or mentally handicapped or ill child, which would eventually cost them an incredible amount of money in extra expenses. As sad as it is, people aren't that altruistic.

And if the child is horribly deformed or severely retarded or facing other massive problems, the probability that he or she will be adopted is extremely remote. People don't want the healthy kids that are currently available in foster care because they are the wrong race or are too old. Do you honestly think that the vast majority of kids facing massive deformation or defect would have a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted? Please. They'd live out their lives in foster care (if they were lucky), group homes (again, if they're lucky), or institutions.

I think it is taro. If it isn't , I have no idea. I think the yellowish chips are the squash.

Go to your control panel, click on edit options, then go to the email notification option.

Thanks, that's what I'll do!

I also agree that it should be cut and dry. If the fetus is not viable, it shouldn't be considered murder. Period. And until the technology is available to pass a fetus from one womb to another, I don't think one person's standards of morality should be used as a legal requirement of what other people should do.

Well, to be honest, it wouldn't be a huge loss. My brother and I have never been close, mostly because he was abusive to me when we were children. Our relationship is better than it used to be (actually, I can't think of any way it could be worse than what it used to be), but it still can't be called anywhere near "close." It's one of those situations where you love someone because they are family, but you don't remotely like them.

At my old apartment, they decided to replace the roof on the whole building. It was one of those L-shaped buildings with one floor. Of course, they decided to start in the center of the "L." And of course, that was exactly where my apartment was at. We knew nothing about the planned re-roofing, so you can probably imagine how I woke up when they started hammering above my head at 6 AM. Oh, I was pissed. And I nearly pissed my bed, too, when it first started. I don't wake up easily. When I wake up in a hurry, it freaks me out, because I have no idea what's going on. All I could hear was "boom, boom, boom."

I do love the guy, but if the relationship doesn't work, I'm not going to lie to him either, and tell him that I really thought it would work. How would that be loving or supportive? But yeah, like faithmd said, I probably wouldn't tell him, "I told you so," to his face, but I can guarantee that I would be gloating on the inside. Hell, that's what happened with my former roommate. She married a guy that she really (supposedly) loved, but it was a guy that I thought needed to grow up (he was super immature). Guess what, they separated within six months and were divorced within a year of marriage because the guy refused to get a job or go to his classes. I said the requisite "I'm sorry" when she emailed me the news, but inside, I was saying, 'Damn it, I could have saved you a shitload of money and time." He's 28, but the chick he's marrying is 23. Hell, she's younger than I am. And to be honest, I kind of have to wonder if this is how she planned to catch him. When my family met her and her parents (just two weeks ago, the night before we found out that she was pregnant), her mother made a comment about how the girl had told her when the relationship first started that she'd be married before the end of the year. And all of a sudden, chickie turns up pregnant less than 5 months after they started dating. Little bit suspicious, no? If you knew my brother, you'd know why this is a surprise. The last three relationships that he's had lasted for several years each. He even lived with the last two. With the third, he bought a house. Yet, as long as he was with each of those women, there were no pregnancies.

Very true. We can only watch and then say, "I told you so."

I think that it would be obvious that sometimes, pardon my French, shit happens. You just have a better chance of avoiding the cow-patties if you research your surgeon beforehand. Yes, you could have complications with any surgeon. But some surgeons DO have higher rates of complications than others.

Well, I sent Bellsouth's customer service an email, and they told me that they would put me on their DNC list. Hopefully, that will take care of it. They were REALLY irritating, because all they would leave as a message would be a really shrill beeping/buzzing tone that would last for about 5 minutes (making it impossible to ignore).

Congratulations!

You'd be a good candidate for the toll-free number service. It's service that you sign up for, and if you are ever in an accident, the doctors would call the number and get your entire medical history.

Maybe reserve all (or the majority of) the options for contributing members. Don't restrict the site or anything, but give the perks to the people willing to support it.

Good luck! The band certainly wouldn't hurt you, I don't think, so go for it.

I think I'd be too busy gagging to flirt.

True. A product of our religious background, I guess. Those lovely Pilgrims!

Oh my god, you're going to make me vomit all over my keyboard. Nothing about that was appetizing. Blue cheese? Yack. Olives? Ick. Vodka martini? Double ick. That makes me gag just thinking about it. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE salt. I'd much rather eat salty stuff than sweet stuff. But there is just something about olives that is completely disgusting to me. I don't even like the smell of them.