From the mind of littlewolf! It's the end of January, and some folks might feel they're in a rut ...but I hope you can break free and give a response!

Οh no not in a rut at all right now -- biting my nails and watching the first election results from Greece!

I saw a blurb about that in the online headlines. I haven't read any articles yet, but a couple of headlines made it sound as if the elections were an impromptu thing -- as if someone said, "Hey, I'm bored...let's have a national election right now!" I'm sure that's not the case, but I found it funny that it was made out to look like that!

Hee hee, no, they were early elections, but it was because parliament could not agree on a new president of the republic (head of state, elected by the parliament). According to the constitution, parliament has to call elections. I don't want to "politicise" the debate here, but the election results show a huge change in politics in Greece -- hopefully for the best!

Yeah, it's better if we kept as much of the politics out of this forum as possible. I'll just say that, based on what I've read about the results so far, I hope that the European (as well as the global) economy comes through this okay.

Ahem...I'm stopping my political speechifying otherwise we'll be in this rut until next week!

Good luck DT. Growing up in the US with its entirely scheduled elections, when I moved to Canada, it blew my mind that there could be elections "called" when the ruling party wants them (within limits) and that a minority government can end up with elections being forced prematurely.

Jason looked forlornly at the front of his Nissan. The unusually wet weather - he was so sick of snow- had left the area with numerous potholes. But this pothole was, in fact, the giant rut from Hell that was half a foot deep and ran across the entire east bound side of the road. It had tried to eat his car and succeeded in snapping the A-frame on his driver's side front tire in addition to flattening it. Talk about being in a rut...

Becky -- Ugh! I just had a flashback to a time when Dad had a rural paper route when he'd been laid off...nothing quite like the thrill of seeing the front hubcaps fly up over the top of the car! ========== It was the late-afternoon dead time at the Snack J as the Science Ninja Team hung out. Jun set aside the rag she'd been using to wipe down the tables and leaned against the bar; it seemed she was about to rub a hole in a few places. Jinpei sat at a booth as he paged through a new book. Nobody else knew what exactly he'd picked up, just that it had something to do with nature. Ken seemed devoted to watching the ice cubes melt in his soda while Joe was concealed behind a newspaper. Ryu sat in the usual corner, his mind at his favorite fishing spot. "Well," Joe finally said as he folded the newspaper, "while this place has been a real hotbed of activity, I've got a date in a couple of hours --" "Are you going to be rutting, Joe aniki?" Jinpei called from his spot. "What?" Joe's voice had taken on the tone of the distant thunder of an oncoming storm. "You see," Jinpei said as he traced the line he read in the book, "it says: 'Rutting is a recurrent period of reproductive activity in certain male ruminants that corresponds to estrus in females' ." "Joe's not a ruminant." Ryu chimed in. When he got a blank stare from Jinpei, he added, "They're animals, like goats..." "Oh!" Jinpei cried. "So, are you rutting tonight, Joe?"

Becky - Joe could sue the council for cost of repairs..... EW - like it was going to sound any better the second time Jinpei asked.....

Becky: Poor Jason, will take him a while to live that one down EW: Yikes! Flying hubcaps! And Jinpei certainly knows how to wake people up. *snicker*

That's good on, EW! I hope Jinpei is running, fast...

Becky, this is exactly the kind of problem the Condor would have... expected but tedious. EW, I have to admit, that was my first thought when I saw the prompt word as well....

[unrecoverable text]

Hmmmm.... the glee at having all of the bills paid makes it seem like Ken... but how could he afford that? The comment about 'a completely different wardrobe to anything he would be seen in at work' feels very Nambu to me. I suspect that if it were one of the team, they wouldn't think of 'being seen at work'. They would think something more along the lines of, 'a completely different wardrobe from anything he would normally wear'.

I want to say Nambu, too, but it could be Katse or Kentaro or someone we're entirely not expecting ... can't wait to see