Pick up lines? You got to be kidding me.

Pick up lines are as fake as they can be. If you think for a moment that a lady is dumb enough not to see them when they pass by, you're just fooling yourself.

How about being real? How about just being yourself?

I love digital art. Allow me to show you one of my earlier ones, when I was feeling my way around and just starting to get the hang of it.



*edit*

Resized image after finding it to big for the forum format.

when you're younger, age has more to do with things. When you get older, my experience is it doesn't matter so much. It matters more who you are.

My lady was 10 years my junior. We had 16 wonderful years together. She would no more leave me than I would her. Liver cancer took her. I would have wished for another 20 years with her. But such is life and no one can turn back the clock.

Age was never an issue between us. We got along well.

Geeze I read all that... are we preparing for a civil war or something? Has society really dropped that low that all these steps are necessary for a safe meeting?

Lady, I don't what type of men you attract but dang, that's a whole lot of caution for the ability to just say hello. If I meet a lady, she's not going to have to worry about a stalker, or me being a murderer, or whatever. It's a cup of coffee, not a war engagement.

If I don't like her, why would I bother her again? No sense in that. If I do like her, how about some trust that I won't do anything to damage that possibility? I mean a stalk isn't exactly leading in a trust direction is it?

As far as pictures go, you work with what you have. I was never blessed with being great looking and you know, I'm ok with that. We are who we are. I don't have issues with not being a hunk but I am happy and comfortable with who I am.

Many of us have reasons for a beard and facial hair. I do. It's nothing ugly and it's not hiding anything ugly. I don't have a problem with your personal preferences, there are other ladies who do prefer a beard. Accept this is your personal tastes and move on.

Gas pipelines are all over the eastern US from the south to the north. It's how you get the natural gas to heat your homes and cook your food.

Places I've been they were required to inspect the pipeline visually, at least every month. So they'd hire a blimp, fly over the line to satisfy that requirement. Finding the line was easy. A large right of way was purchased for the line, it was required it be kept clean, as in grass height for underbrush. There was never a problem identifying where a pipeline was, even if you walked up on it in the woods, not at a road crossing. At road crossings, were the typical warning signs, notifying them of such a line buried in the ground.

Most of these lines have areas where a pressure relief is set up where no one could get injured should they activate. They are there for the sole reason of should a blockage occur, it will not allow ruptures or any other type damage to occur. Even better they are not the primary protection, they are secondaries which are tested once a month as a requirement by federal law. The primaries are at the compressor stations. The pressure in these lines drop over distance. Every so often along the distance will be these stations that boost the pressure back up to ensure the gas moves.

I see this a lot at various places. Mostly to me it seems to be the younger crowd that does this but it's not just limited to them. Seems there are asshats everywhere, the anonymity of the internet makes them bold.

What you would never hear face to face somehow becomes acceptable. Like they never learned manners or how to deal with people socially. I guess some just don't care and feed on the negative responses to gauge how upset they made someone and take delight from that.

When it's the typical of some guy dumping on a woman, I've always wondered why? Other than the trolling behaviour, what do they expect to get out of it? They are surely not going for impressing a woman.

It seems to have no other purpose than to drive women away from contact with men. Sure makes the ladies mighty leery when you approach one out of the blue. Most ladies have already had contact with some idiot like the ones talked about here. They are on the lookout for the next idiot in line. It's far worse than it used to be.

I guess some people got nothing else to do.

Can say I didn't. I only watch about 2 to 3 hours of TV a month. Have totally gotten out of the couch potato thing.

One of the things I do usually is make my own rubs, sauces, and marinades. Here's one of my favourites.

Jalapeno BBQ Sauce

1 tbs canola oil
1 yellow onion, large, fine chop
4 jalapenos, large, fine chop
6 cloves, garlic, minced
1 tbs peppercorns, ground
1 tbs cumin, ground
1 tbs red pepper, ground
1 1/2 tbs paprika
1 tsp oregano, crushed
4 tbs Mexican chilies, ground
3 tbs mustard, ground
1 c cider vinegar
12 oz beer
28 oz ketchup
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c molasses
2 tbs pepper sauce
1 lime, juice
1 1/2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tbs salt

Saute onions, garlic, and jalapenos until soft. Add all dry spices, continue to saute for around 3 minutes. Make sure and scrape the bottom while sauteing.

Deglaze pan with the vinegar.

Add remaining ingredients except for 1/4 cup molasses. Set aside molasses that is reserved.

Simmer over low heat for around 2 hours. After sauce cools, add reserved molasses and stir well.

<:>:<:>

The sauce will keep in the fridge well.

You can tell I'm not on the ball Cat.

News will always be this way. It's what sells. Even worse, the video types, such as TV and national media will get you all wrapped up in how they want to present it, what sort of bias they want to throw in it, and of course, since there are only 4 major corporate owners all all major news outlets in the US, whatever benefits them.

I've learned to read my news. There's less of all this emotional impact of just how bad things are. In the process I've discovered there are still great people out there to meet, the world isn't coming to an end by our fellow humans as evil doers, and allowed, we get along just fine.

Do you know it's been 2 years since I last had dealings with a cop? Before that it was 8 years. That's hardly the hot bed of crime ya know?

I live in a one horse town the horse got up and left. I used to love to visit used book stores. Now I live in a town that doesn't have one.

At one time it did, my lovely lady felt much the same as catinidaho, she wanted the books to feel the pages as she turned them. Only the town is too small and the store closed from lack of business. So I bought her a Kindle Fire hoping she would find it a good replacement for what she couldn't get anymore. I was lucky in that she took to it like a duck to water. She was a reader and that was her chosen past time.

I bought her a new battery for it, it's still in it's packaging. She died of liver cancer before it was time to replace it.

What stunned me was after her passing. Her favourite author was Stephen King. He'd write a new book, she'd hear of it on the net, and would be on the look out after that for it to show up in some store before we moved here. She'd eventually find it on a book shelf. She'd look at it, come back, and never say anything about getting it. I'd know though and would tell her go get it, since I knew how much they meant to her.

During some of the clean out of her things, I found some of her hard back books I'd bought her. I chanced to open one and inside on the fly, was a little drawing she'd made of a flower and a thank you note for buying it for her. To this day, I have no clue how she knew I'd look there. I never bothered her things, they were hers and she deserved the right to privacy as all of us do.

I know this thread is not current but it occurs to me an answer should be given.

One of the reasons I fell out with TV is it's news cycles and shows such as the ones mentioned by catinidaho.

If you listen to the news, their motto is pretty much if it bleeds it leads. Listen to it long enough and you will believe where ever you live, you are in the centre of a hot bed of the worse of humanity that exists.

Yes it's awful to hear of some weirded out individual that acted anything less than that of a man with principles and manners. You have to remember there are always those less than well adjusted out there in the world. They are not just glued to dating apps but are anywhere in the world. Not only anywhere in the world but at most times in history. Jack the ripper ring a bell as an example? Trust me, he wasn't doing dating apps.

Thing is soon or later if you seek the one to be your only, you do have to take that chance of a face to face. How else are you going to get going on it? No amount of chatting through apps is going to replace that.

The percentage chance you are going to met someone with the idea of doing you bodily harm is very, very, low. Almost down to a nothing.

Worry about real things, imaginings will lead you all sorts of places but having them actually happen?

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” ~ Mark Twain

Never was much into country. Then I started DJing and had to have in the library. So now I play a bit here and there.

So I'll name Cledus T. Judd and The Judds.

Best wishes your surgery goes well, Greenerpastures.

Shrimp!!!

Back in my youth, yeah used to.

Then came the days of urinalysis and I had to decide which I wanted more, the job or the dope. I chose the job. Never for a moment did I think there was anyway to fool it and never tried.

That's been a long time ago. Never went back to it.

Hair analysis is supposed to be the way to determine long term. Mine would be clean.

Nacho Grande

This one is a sort of rip off of Taco Bell's Nacho Supreme without the taco shell. I've made it over and over and still enjoy it.



1 lb hamburger
1 onion, chopped
16 oz can kidney beans
16 oz can refried beans
tortilla chips, thick ones are better
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 c jalapenos, pickled and sliced
1/4 c black olives, sliced
8-10 oz cheese shredded
2-3 green onions, chopped. Seperate tops from bottoms.
1/4 c cilantro, chopped
1 tbs brown sugar
1-2 tsp cumin
2-3 tbs chili powder
black pepper to taste
1/4 can of water

In a large skillet, brown hamburger. Add chopped onion part way through browning process. Add salt, cumin, chili powder, and black pepper while hamburger browns. Once browned, drain grease.

Add kidney beans and refried beans, stir into browned hamburger. Add 1/4 can of water. Stir ingredients until well mixed. Add brown sugar and additional cumin and chili powder. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes.

While this is going on, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take a large baking pan, (I usually coat with foil for easy clean up) and spread the tortilla chips over it. Spoon and sprinkle the meat mixture from the skillet onto the chips. Try to cover them all.

Now sprinkle the diced tomatoes on top. Follow that with sprinkling the jalapenos, the black olives, and the bottoms fo the green onions. Now sprinkle the cheese over the top of all this.

Slide baking sheet into the hot oven. Bake approximately 15 minutes, till nachos are heated through and cheese is melted.

Pull out of oven, sprinkle with the tops of the green onions and the cilantro.

Serve with sour cream, salsa, or guacamole. Best eaten while hot.

<:>:<:>

Naturally, recipes are guidelines, not blueprints. It's your money, your time, and your tastebuds. Put on them what you like and for the most part leave out what you don't like. That doesn't always work but most of the time it will.

*edit*

Still figuring out what works for formatting and what doesn't.

Why not, she looks like a lively and humorous lady.

I see them fine too Real5

Welcome to mingle2 Adam, nice to see you. Come on in and make yourself at home.

Marinade? No.

All cheese seems to help. Often I take burgers put slices of jalapeno on top of the near cooked burger, add cheese over the top. Let the cheese melt and pepper heat is gone.