The last time I flew BA was 4 years ago, but I think I would nominate it as the best airline I've been on. The food wasn't particularly memorable (from what I hear, their long distance flights - Seattle to London, say - have significantly better food than their short flights - like London to Aberdeen) but it wasn't bad either. I'm not particualrly picky about food, though. I've never been on a BA plane at 4 P.M. GMT so I have no clue about the tea. There weren't individual screens, but then this was four years ago. The only individual screens I've found in coach-class seats were on JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic.

BA seems to excel at long-distance flights, as mentioned previously. They certainly have enough of them, maybe it's a side-effect of colonialism. They had movies/shows that were the right length (not too long, so you miss something, not too short, so there's huge stretches of boredom -- though they did serve dinner during the first movie so I missed part of it and couldn't follow the rest). The flight attendants came around fairly frequently with trays of water and orange juice, which really helped me avoid getting dehydrated, because I always forget to take water. They brought around little ice cream bars in the middle of the night and the breakfast in the morning was actually food. They were nice even to a stupid backpacker girl like me and managed to find an aisle seat for me when I checked in.

I met a girlfriend for dinner the other night and she was wearing this exact skirt. Frightening, but it looked fabulous on her. *shakes fist* Damn you, 1987!


For the longest time, I thought Joe Boxer only made shorts. I didn't realize they were actually Boxers despite the, um, obvious name.

Mama Tiger, I was on a few times in '88, and on Ben Stein twice in '98, and it's so true. I didn't realize I was a bundle of ridiculously self-conscious mannerisms, for some weird reason I lowered my voice, which is already deep, to a low baritone on both shows, and I can't seem to find a place to keep my hands when I'm standing. It's friggin painful, I tell you, I'm just glad I have my money to keep me warm. Hee. Great consolation prize for you though; when I finally lost on the third show in '88, I got some junky watches. Had it been a trip to Ireland, I might have adjusted my betting accordingly.

BTW, Shrek 2 is ogre-ific, though much more geared for the adults than the kids! I know what you all mean about that great bit in the credits. I would have missed it, if we hadn't stayed behind looking for my son's sweatshirt.

I've found that requesting the vegetarian meal is often the way to go--they provide you with much higher quality food...at least this was true on Iberia and American Airlines...

That bit in the credits was the best part of Shrek2. Days later I'm still randomly saying "Look at my little mutant babies!" I loved the movie. Loved. It. And I wasn't actually a huge fan of the first one. Loved all the tweaks at Disney, and that the anti-standards-of-beauty message applied to both the male and female characters for a change. Needless to say the 10-year-old ExJr loved it too, although there were definitely some bits that (thankfully) went right over his head.

Oh, and saw a preview for the new Pixar movie, "The Incredibles" that looks highly entertaining. I don't think Pixar has had a dud yet, come to think of it. AND an awesome HP3 preview (mmm...Snape), so it was a good movie day except for the 200 commercials we had to sit through before we even got to the previews. Is there anyone who actually enjoys commercials at the movies? Why do they think this is a good idea? It makes me far more likely to hate and avoid a product when I've had to sit through a 90-second larger-than-life movie-mercial for, say, Revlon. Grrr.

Yeah, I know. Really, I was just kidding. But we did always try to get my little brother to try it when we were kids--just to see what would happen.

for your listening pleasure...and to reflect on the 80's and 90's (mostly)

Movie audio quotes

Suga I can't believe that the candy finally made it. I hope you enjoy everything. I still don't get the Yorkie Bar thing. It makes no sense, I mean it's not like secret or something that strong enough for a man but made for a woman. Did it make it there in one piece?

I was going to give you the picture of us together, but it is officially the worst picture of me ever taken, and I didn't want you to lose your appetite.

Oh, jenex, I hear you and affirm you. I've been in love with Alan Rickman since he destroyed all my defenses by playing Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility. "Give me something to do, or I shall run mad." Sigh. Swoon.

Oh, WORD. When I saw him in Private Lives in Broadway a few years ago, whereverthesister pretty much had to tie me down to my seat to keep me from diving on the stage and professing my undying EEEEEEEEE! for him.

*swoooon... thud.*

I found Yorkie Bars at our local Cost Plus World Market recently and tried one, and I have to admit I don't get it, either. It was just a chocolate bar with lots of air bubbles or something in it, and a rather mediocre one at that compared to all the great chocolate folks like Cadbury's make.

Oh my, whereverthefk, I admire your fortitude. In the same theater, breathing the same air? I might have had the vapors. I don't know why he completely bowled me over, but bowled I was, and remain.

Because he's Alan Rickman. Just because of that. Though, I think his sexiest quality is his voice. I'm hoping that he and Jason Isaacs have a scene together someday in one of the Harry Potter movies - that would be the best moment ever.

And then my 11-year-old wonders why his stepmom has melted into a big puddle of goo onto the theater floor. Siiigh. He was freaked enough when I kidnapped his Snape action figure last Christmas and set him up in a nice little tableau with Giles from Buffy on top of my computer monitor. (Ok, maybe that part was a little weird.)

I do think a big part of it with Rickman is the voice. Just the opening bit of the HP3 preview, he stalks up the aisle and tells them to open their books to page whatever, and it's sexy. Which is so the wrong way to feel about Snape, but whatever.

And how cool is this?: We are going to see Prisoner of Azkaban on the 4th at the IMAX. My mom discovered that the theater at the Henry Ford museum is showing it and since my parents are members, it won't cost us any more than a regular old movie. I think I am quite possibly even more excited than ExJr. about this, if possible.

Oh, and another thing: J.K. Rowling has recently updated her website, and it is so very nifty now, with all sort of hidden bits. Quite distracting when one is supposed to be cataloging 19th century French drama ... oh well.

Wow, I didn't even know that she had an offical website. Heh, my reading it would be considered homework. For other HP fans, there is an article in this week's Newsweek with pictures.

Hmmm. That's a fascinating site. How does one find the hidden bits? I'm never very good at that. (Might explain why it took me so long to get married, now wouldn't it?)

Hum and hum. I couldn't get through the door with the do not disturb sign on it. I also couldn't catch the butterfly or the fly. Neat, neat site, though.
Hildy just mose over the desk--some items will have tags attached to them, and others will move or otherwise indicate that they're links. You do need to have Flash, though.

Rabrab, I can't get in the door either...and I've been wasting my whole afternoon trying. I'm giving up now, hoping that a fresh start will help me tomorrow.

I finally found three hidden bits, but since I don't know how many there are, I don't know if that's good or bad. I also can't figure out the door and really need to get back to work. I was hoping someone here had figured it out.

I found three hidden bits too, but I can't get through the damn door either. Boy, where did the afternoon go?

I think the door has something to do with the eraser on the bulletin board page...if you move the eraser on the paper tacked to the board, it shows four clues. I can get three of them...but not the leaves!

Hildy, snerk. The hidden bits are rather important in that case. At least my husband seems to think so.

I have not got through the door yet, but I figured out the phone. I decided if I posted the link someone smart would figure it out for me! Alas, now, we seem to have broken the site, damnit. I can't get back to it, anyway.

eta: ok, auntlada, for the phone, remember in book 5 how they had to go into the phone booth and dial a certain number to gain admittance into the Ministry of Magic?

I couldn't figure out the phone. I got the eraser thing, though, and it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the door. Maybe you can't get through the door until you find all the other hidden bits. GRBecca, you're going to smack yourself in the head when you see the leaves. Hint (spoilered in case you don't want it): Look up on the bulletin board.

JenEx, I knew there must be a phone significance somewhere, but all I could remember was Arthur Weasley trying to call Harry at the Dursleys. I feel stupid now.

ETA: Phone: I guess I'll have to go home and look it up. The number I found on the Internet isn't working.

ETA again: I tried it again and it worked. Don't know why.

Wow. I had missed way more than I thought I had. Did anybody else play with the light switch? I don't think it did anything....

There are 2 light switches - one on the desk next to the phone, one by the do not disturb door and an on switch for the radio next to the bulletin board. They must do something, but darned if I can figure it out.

The radio switch turns the radio on, although it seems to go on and off by itself also. The light switches turn lights on and off. I don't know if they have any significance.

I have four bits now and still can't get through the door. But I think it might be time to go home.

Heh. I've sucked you all into my obsession. Whoever gets through the door first wins! (Er, wins what, I don't know. The joy of clueing the rest of us in? I think I'll sic stepson on it tonight. He'll probably figure it out in two seconds.)

HEE. This is totally cracking me up, because it reminds me of when whereverthebestfriend first bought the DVD of the first HP movie and we were trying to figure out some of the secret passageways and tricks to get to cooler features. It was totally tragic, because we spent like 2 hours messing with it and we just COULD. NOT. DO. IT. 14 collective years of higher education, and we were completely stumped by the stupid freaking DVD that a 6 year old would have blasted through in about a minute.

Humble pie, anyone? LAWD.

[ETA: We did actually figure it out when we went back to it the next day. (And when I say "we," I actually mean "I," because I'm clearly, um, well... less dumb, I guess.) And all the "cool" stuff we found? Not really all that cool. Yeah, we're jackasses. Retarded, time-wasting stubborn jackasses.]

I learned long ago to leave the video game-type stuff to the Young Tigers, since I was all grown up before they even came out with Pong and I never COULD make that idiot Mario jump AND run at the same time. I did discover that I was truly brilliant at Nintendo Tetris, but retired and rested on my laurels when I finally found ONE game I could beat them at.

Even today, now that THEY are all grown up, I sit there and listen to their conversations about games in utter bewilderment. It's like they speak a different language, you know?

Well, I never, ever would have found the eraser stuff by myself, b/c stupid me, I thought the arrow always turns into a hand when something was movable.
I got two of the clues in the eraser page, but can't get the spider and the beaker. Help!
Also, hints for other hidden bits? SItes with keys? Please feel free to send my way. I have very little patience and tolerance for puzzles like this and this is making me NUTS!

ETA: EEEE! I found all the hidden bits! Yes, of course I had help, but I did find a couple all by myself. There's hope for me yet!

Oh, and also: this

YAY! I'm not as dumb as I thought! I must have picked up the leaves a long time ago without noticing it, because I've got all four bits in my scrapbook. I thought I must have been going mad...because there were no leaves anywhere! Hmm...I wonder how I picked them up without noticing....

ETA: I just found on another board that the "door opening" version of that page is not up yet...but will be, and some techie from Harry Potter Fan Land has gone scouring on that site's flash content, and found this this interesting page that shows the door opening and an open book behind it on a desk...with latin writing inside.

Yay me, I finally found the hidden bits! Are we sure that there are only four? I can't find anything else that seems to point toward any. And how cool is the window beside the do not disturb door? Did anyone else get Peeves-ed? I don't know what I did, but there was a gust of wind that blew over the pen cup on the main page and then a nasty buggy little thing went skittering across. I tried to catch it but I couldn't.

Of course! Peeves! That's what that was. I got the same thing you did, Rabrab, and didn't know what happened. I was playing with the phone at the time and missed what happened until it was too late. Then I kept trying to recreate what I'd done, but apparently it had nothing to do with it.

I have an idea for the door, but I'm on dial-up now and it doesn't seem to be working well at all. My husband suggested typing in "alohomora." Or is it "alohamora" or "alahomora"? I'd look it up, but the books are in the basement and I'm a little scared to go downstairs by myself at night since reading Caleb Carr's "Angel of Darkness." I get a creepy feeling up my spine when I turn the light out, turn around and go upstairs. Anyway, I told him there's no dialogue box to type into, but he said you can make those 1 pixel by 1 pixel so you can't actually see them and I guess you could make it so if someone started typing it would automatically go there. I'll have to wait until tomorrow though.

ETA: Never mind. I finally got through (slowly) and it didn't work. Dang.

Hello, all! I got addicted to Miss Alli's recaps with the Apprentice, and someone on the boards there said to come over to TAR, so, hi! (waves a little shyly)

I'm a 27-year-old mother of the cutest baby boy ever (he's 7 months, and (harking back to many, many pages ago) his pre-natal name was Kronk. As in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove ). In my spare time (laughing hysterically) I teach a class or two at the state college down the road. In my other spare time I'm trying to finish my master's thesis--I only have until August until I have to start taking classes again (ugh!). But I'm a major procrastinator (which may explain my presence on these boards), so...well, we'll see.

And that Harry Potter website is NOT helping matters. Okay, so I got the leaves, the feather, the beaker, but how do you capture the spider? And what is that scroll thing in the links page? (I spoilered in case anyone wants to try it out all on their own.)

Anyway, I'm VERY much looking forward to TAR5. It'll be my first TAR! I love to travel (although not while pregnant and not on long trips with a baby!), so I get my (vicarious) fixes out of the TV, usually. Hopefully I can get my husband in on it, so we can snark and anxiously wait for Miss Alli's recaps together.

Welcome, kt7byu! It's great to see a familiar face (uh, name) from The Apprentice boards. If you liked hanging out over at TA, you're going to love it here at TAR. Major snark going on! Hope the little one is doing well.

kt7byu, I don't see a scroll on the links page -- do you mean the one on the fan site page? If so, it opens when you click on the "Newest Winner" cup in the center of the page. Now, what's with the empty medal holder on the top shelf of the fan page? I can't find anything to move into it. And the fly, the spider and the butterfly are still baffling me.

This JK Rowling website may be what keeps me sane until TAR appears again!

This is a silly question, but what color is the butterfly on your monitor? On mine, it's blue, but on my husband's laptop it was brown.

ETA: Huh. I guess it probably is a moth. It looks like a pretty blue butterfly on my computer.

Ooops, Joywalker, you're right about which page the scroll was on. I'm baffled, but intrigued. This is fun!

With Mr. kt7byu at work all day, (and although baby Kronk is the cutest and smartest baby ever, he's not much for conversation), getting to know all you TAR fans (TARflies?) is such a blessing. New friends, yay!

Auntlada, it was brown on my laptop monitor. I actually thought it was a moth.

You can also get Peeve'd on the page with the 'do not disturb' sign; if you leave that on your monitor long enough (like, 5-10 minutes,) something knocks over the vase of flowers, a mist appears on the mirror, and Peeves writes 'peeves waz ere' (I may not have the spelling absolutely correct there.)
The key to getting Peeved, as far as I can tell, is actually just letting the page sit on your monitor, untouched. After all, "patience is key," as the thingie says.
Oh, and thel atin text in the book in the room behind the door is just placeholder text commonly used by publishers, graphic designers, etc. It doesn't mean anything. I used to see the same dummy text all the time when we were doing layout for the magazine.
The spider on the front page is catchable, you just need to be fast and click on him. You can't catch the fly and butterflies. I actually think there are two, a blue butterfly and a brown moth.

ETA: Welcome, kt7byu! What are you doing your master's in?

Regarding getting the spider---all I'll say is that you need to pay close attention to the drawing of it. The fly and the butterflies move when your cursor touches them, so you can't catch them. (Although you can put the eraser on the fly on the bulletin board page. It doesn't affect him though.) If you want more, e-mail me. And the butterfly is blue/green on some pages and brown on others.

Hi, kt7byu! and welcome to our playground.

why can't I get the kj rwlings site to open?

I'm using netscape...but I'll try explorer

labral, what browser are you using? On my husband's laptop, Mozilla wouldn't open it, but IE would. With Mozilla, I just kept getting an error.

some poeple also have luck with trying .co.uk rather than .com (at least, I THINK it's .co.uk. Some help I am.)
Also, have you guys found all the Dark Marks that indicate spoilers? I've only found one, but there must be more.

I've found two - one on the scroll and one in the FAQs (poll).

labral do you have Flash 7 loaded? Is it set to run in Mozilla as well as IE? It opened for me in Mozilla, but on Mr Rabrab's computer (he's got the good speakers) I had to upgrade Flash first and during the installation it asked which browsers I wanted it to run under, and I had to specify that I wanted Mozilla.

I've only found those two Dark Marks as well, PButtercup.

That site is addictive! I still can't get through the door, but I am determined to figure it out!

Hildy, I'm a geologist (any others out there?), and I'm studying a 30-million-year-old volcanic rock in the middle of nowhere (i.e., eastern Nevada and western Utah). Oh, the stories I can tell about my field work! The best involves 4 flat tires in one week, coyotes, hitch-hiking, and my (at the time) 16-year-old sister.

Rachel I think it was you, that was complaining about the lack of good mexican in Toronto. This wass in the Toronto Star today, in case you missed it.

kt7byu -- And you're going to leave us hanging like that without telling us the story? How could you!?

JK-related: The pencil cup on the main page fell over, after I left the browser there for a while, but it doesn't seem to have activated anything new. And the darn spider is still eluding me....

Joywalker, I think when the cup fell over, you had been visited by Peeves! Congratulations (or something). But I agree, having Peeves come by doesn't seem to have done anything. And that blasted spider is eluding me, too. First time I've ever wanted a spider to appear.

And about that story...well, one of the rules at the university decreed no one should do field work alone (fine with me!), but I couldn't afford a field assistant, and my thesis advisor couldn't be out in the field with me all the time (or alone, for that matter, seeing as he's male and I'm female and my school is very conservative!). So my 16-year-old sister took a week of her summer break and came up to be my "assistant". The story begins on the third day of field work. We were about 90 miles from the nearest town, on a series of bad dirt roads, in a giant geology van (16 passenger). Of course, we got a flat. I was so proud of myself for putting the spare on (it took me two hours, but who cares?), when my sister says, "Look at the tire!" Sure enough, the spare was flat.

So now it's five in the afternoon, we're out of cell phone range, we're supposed to meet my uncle that evening so everyone knew we were safe, and we are stuck. So we decide to hike out to the nearby paved road, which is 5 miles away, in the hopes of getting a cell signal. By then, it's nearly dark, and we can hear the coyotes and see them (at least we thought we could) in the distance. (You need to know I HATE wild dogs.) I was a wreck; tired, nervous, and scared. So my little sister takes control, and we flag down a car, and get a ride into a little community, 90 miles away, (still no coverage), and use a sweet old lady's phone to call my uncle.

The third flat tire happened the next day as we were trying to retrieve the van, the fourth three days later, and (I forgot, there was one more), happened two days after that. What a week! Now I am known as "Tire Slayer" in my department. I think I must have forgotten to tip a tire seller sometime in a previous existence.

Ok, you guys sucked me into the website and hidden clues. Damn you all! But...I couldn't even find this blackboard that you are all speaking of. Nor could I find the spoilers with the "Dark Marks" (wa-huh?). I figured out the door thing since I checked a message board, but what are these spoiler dark mark thingies? Do tell.