� Answers �
Every Wednesday I become the Answer person. If you need advice or need the answer to something, click on this � advice link and I will do my best to express.
Jen left for England this morning at about 4am. She couldn't get a cab because Providence Cab Companies can't be bothered for short rides in the early morning so I drove her. Then when I woke back up I felt like total hell so I called into work.
Bad johnpowers. Very Bad.
ask johnpowers
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name:
m0ok
email:
url: http://m0ok.diaryland.com/
question:
I seem
to have been talked into doing a sponsored firewalk for charity next
month. The organizers tell me that walking twenty feet across hot coals is
actually perfectly safe. Are they lying to
me?
answer:
A mundane explanation as to why fire walking is possible is the scientific phenomenon
known as the Leidenfrost effect. Feet hurrying through burning embers are not burned
to a crisp for the same reason that drops of water 'dance' on a hot surface. A thin,
protective vapor layer forms, supplied by the evaporation of the water drop.
Presumably, the sweat of the firewalker's feet provides this same margin of safety as
you cross the hot embers.
However, do you really want to find out how sweaty
your feet are by fire walking?
I don't know. What's the worse that could happen?
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name: yet another rebellious
teenager
email:
url:
question:
i've recently purchased my first
pack of cigarettes (in europe, unbeknownst to my parents, obviously) and i
was just wondering what would be the best way to conceal my consumption of
the cancer sticks. because you are presumably a seasoned smoker, i decided
to ask you. if you don't want to answer because i'm being illegal and you
don't want to influence me, w/e w/e but it was worth a shot. so my
question is this - how can i smoke without my parents finding out? how can
i conceal the smell? and this probably sounds ridiculous, but would my
doctor be able to tell that i've started
smoking?
answer:
If you don't smoke before you go to your doctor, he won't be able to tell.
I just want to make it clear that I hate the fact that I smoke. I hate the way it
makes my breath smell, I hate the way my clothes are always tinged with the stuff.
There are times I can't smoke and the cravings drive me nuts. They're expensive and
the couple thousand dollars a year I spend on cigarettes could easily pay for a cruise
or a trip or a new computer once a year. Not to mention that it is going to kill me
and I really don't like that.
Your parents will find out that you smoke, and the only way for someone to not smell
them is to wait a while and give the stench time to fade. Breath mints - etc, right
after a butt will only make your breath smell like minty cigarettes.
---------------
name:
Raq
email: [email protected]
url: http://raq.diaryland.com/
question:
First I
must say I finally have somethin to ask you! I've wanted to ask you
something for a long time. Ok anyway. Here's the question. I looked at my
sitemeter hits - and noticed that
http://www.gotpoetry.com/poets/tops/index.html was a referral site. I went
there and my site is not listed but someone else's is in the window. I
went back and notice dit was someone elses. Now, the top of the page says
somethin about erotica and porn, and the first few sites *did* have
somethin to do w/ sex. But my page doesnt have any sex on it. I dont think
so anyhow. So how'd I come to get linked? I dont mind :) Hits are hits.
But I"m curious. Plus another person I know got linked from there and she
spazzed out. Thanks!
answer:
GotPoetry lets people
create their own poet pages. Anyone can create a page and do what they want with it.
I just stipulate that I won't put you in the directory if your page doesn't have
poetry or poetic prose on it.
That person uses the name TOPS and put in a bogus email address and hasn't responded
to my emails of "What the Fuck you doin?" so I locked them out and am about to ban
their IP address because he seems to think running his/her (its probably a guy) page
on constant band width sucking refresh is somehow useful.
I got a few emails from people freaking out and perhaps your friend is one of them.
If so let her know it's taken care of.
---------------
name:
Piper
email: [email protected]
url: http://white-rook.diaryland.com/
question:
Is
there anywhere online where you can find old episodes of "Saved By the
Bell"? I am going through Mark-Paul Gosselaar
withdrawl!
answer:
Music City runs Morpheus. It's the new decentralized napster equivalent and there are a great many people sharing TV shows through it. You can download it from Cnet. While I didn't see any SBTB shows on it, I also didn't search very long. You might also want to check out 'planet replay'.
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name:
AraAspasia
email: [email protected]
url: http://ara-aspasia.diaryland.com/
question:
Oh...
and another question to add on to my last question... why do they call it
"tossing
salad"???
answer:
Because the food goes in semi sorted and come back up mixed.
---------------
name:
AraAspasia
email: [email protected]
url: http://ara-aspasia.diaryland.com/
question:
I
was bored, so I looked you up on google. This:
http://www.chezdesiree.com/openmike/jpowers/ was one of the links I found,
so I clicked in... and found a link that downloaded you reading some of
your poems. You sounded different than I had imagined. Your voice was less
hard and raspy than I had expected... which brings me to my question...
What is it in our brain that makes us assume or imagine something we've
never seen or heard in a certain way? Why did I expect you to have a
cigarette induced scratch to your voice? What the
hell?
answer:
Figurative language, imagination and consciousness are all interrelated. Both the
conscious and unconscious processes produce and interpret �seeing things� a certain
way. Imagination, perception and cognition processes all create and constrain the
imagination, so it would be very difficult to explain just why you assumed my voice
sounded like a throat cancer patient.
I do talk about smoking and quitting smoking a lot, so that is probably why you
assumed I sounded like an old smoker.
You can also hear me at
Got Poetry and on MP3.com if you're
interested.
---------------
name:
me
email:
url: http://
question:
Dear
johnpowers- If going to work makes you think over and over again of
horrible analogies comparing work to bad relationships, does this mean you
should quit said bad
job?
answer:
Yes. For mental sanity, you should find another job and quit. You spend almost as
much time at work as you do sleeping. Why spend almost 1/3 of your life miserable?
