Commercials & The Extravagant Gift Senario aka Instant Sex in A Red Ribbon - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Randerolf · 12-19-2008, 08:15 PM

Commercials are funny; they tell you that if you give PRODUCT X, the recipient will love and cherish not only you -- but that moment for the rest of their life. In reality, if I received an expensive diamond or and white SUV rapped in a bow, I would strike down my loved one with a righteous and furious anger: "WE'RE IN AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, OH MY GO- mr blood vessel pops."

This is imputes behind the post.

While some of this is in jest, what is more wasteful -- a surprise, expensive diamond or an SUV? Are diamonds really just commodities like orange juice and bacon or are they special since they traditionally mark special events? Do you ever see an ad and think to yourself, "If I got that I would be ______."?

Though I don't know the details, I've heard that diamonds, slavery, and African exploitation are all connected -- all in the name of shiny. Yes, I believe that there are some places that don't have the luxury of choosing good jobs or bad jobs, but the product just holds no value for me. An SUV, while loathsome and expensive, is useful. I could use it as storage or drive around cutting people off. I could tow trucks and park really badly at Home Depot. It's has some utility and value. Rocks is rocks. With an SUV, I could haul a bunch of them (kinda) And yes, Ron Popeil would sell diamonds if he could.

murp0434 · 12-20-2008, 03:22 PM

I KNOW! I hate diamonds. what a colossal swindle and complete waste of money. two grand for a rock? kiss my ass De Beers

Glory's Sun · 12-20-2008, 03:41 PM

There are two thoughts when it comes to commercials.. one is that commercials are designed to sell a product. The other is that they are designed to put a message in front of a viewer.

I tend to follow the latter, it's not my job to sell you, it's my job to make you curious and subsequently go to the business.. and their job is to sell you.

So on to your main point, it's up to you to decide what you consider wasteful and what to spend your money on.

blahblah454 · 12-20-2008, 04:01 PM

I hate diamonds and the fact that society thinks I must pay thousands of dollars on a bloody rock to let that person know I love her.

RangerJoe · 12-20-2008, 04:31 PM

Just buy me a ring out of the quarter machine, thanks.

I'm not quite sure I would be upset if someone bought me diamonds. I'm not a huge fan, but (1) it IS my birthstone and (2) I've never really received a gift from anybody besides family, so I think I'll take what I can get.

ratbastid · 12-20-2008, 06:37 PM

In the words of Uncle Cecil, "Diamonds are a con, pure and simple."

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Straight Dope

Is a diamond's price a true measure of its value?
September 3, 2004

Dear Cecil:

I have heard that diamond prices are held at an artificially high price by the De Beers company and that many Africans live a life of despair and poverty while mining diamonds. What is the truth about the diamond market? Most important, can I use it as an excuse for not buying diamond gifts for my wife?

— Gregg Barr, Lenexa, Kansas

Far be it from me to get involved in family arguments, but I bet if your wife knew the real story she'd prefer her next gift to be a nice socket-wrench set. Diamonds are a con, pure and simple. The topic is vast, so we won't discuss worker exploitation or for that matter "blood diamonds" used to finance African wars. Instead I'll focus on whether diamonds are worth the exorbitant sums charged for them. Answer: Of course not. Prices are kept high by a cynical cartel that preys on vanity and stupidity.

More than 20 years ago journalist Edward Jay Epstein wrote the definitive expose of the diamond business, initially published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1982 and subsequently as a book, The Rise and Fall of Diamonds. Epstein, it must be said, is a conspiracy buff, but his research on diamonds is pretty credible. His central contention is that diamonds have little inherent value; their perennially high price is solely a function of clever promotion and ruthless manipulation of the market. You ask: Isn't that true of any high-value product? Nope. Take gold, a true commodity in the sense that it's fungible, as the economists say--like quantities of gold are freely interchangeable. Gold's purity can be readily assayed and it's indestructible for practical purposes, making it a reliable store of value. Even now that the world has abandoned the gold standard, gold's price has held up well on the open market.

Not so with diamonds. Despite the hype, diamonds aren't forever; they can be damaged or destroyed. The value of diamonds varies widely depending on grade and, despite efforts at standardization, is basically arbitrary--experts often disagree sharply on the worth of a particular gem. Sure, the same can be said of paintings or other collectibles. The difference is that the world diamond market is largely controlled by a single private enterprise, the South Africa-based De Beers cartel. The geniuses behind De Beers recognized early on that a stable, profitable diamond industry depended on controlling both supply and demand. De Beers rarely discovers new sources of diamonds; rather, it focuses on controlling existing ones, limiting production, and if necessary buying up surplus gems and stockpiling them to prop up the market. It sets prices arbitrarily and cuts off supplies to dealers who buy through unauthorized channels. On the marketing side, De Beers hired advertising firms, starting with N.W. Ayer in the late 1930s, to render axiomatic the idea that diamonds = true love. De Beers and Ayer didn't invent diamond engagement rings but did rescue a fading concept--in 1932 worldwide diamond sales had been only $100,000. Ayer's ploys ranged from planting news stories about newly betrothed celebrities flaunting big rocks to positioning diamonds as heirlooms, preventing the market from being flooded with secondhand goods. (The market for used diamonds is dismal, by the way.) The campaign worked--U.S. wholesale diamond sales increased from $23 million in 1939 to $2.1 billion in 1979. The J. Walter Thompson agency performed a similar miracle in Japan in the 1960s, essentially creating a tradition of diamond engagement rings out of thin air.

Throughout all this De Beers has successfully fended off threats due to political upheaval, competing producers, and even the U.S. justice department (the firm recently paid a $10 million fine to settle an antitrust case). The big challenge today is synthetic diamonds. In a widely noted article last fall, Wired magazine reported on two start-up firms, one in Florida and the other in Boston, that had begun manufacturing gem-quality artificial diamonds. Synthetic diamonds have been available since the 1950s and are commonly used in industrial abrasives, but till now have made little headway in the gem market due to prohibitive manufacturing expense. Supposedly the new artificial diamonds, particularly those made by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), are both cheap to produce and, unlike knockoffs such as cubic zirconium, virtually indistinguishable from natural diamonds even in the lab.

So, the jig's up for De Beers, right? Maybe, maybe not. The last chapter of The Rise and Fall of Diamonds, entitled "The Coming Crash of 1983," described a scenario in which a concatenation of factors, including a flood of diamonds from new mines in Australia, would trigger "the final collapse of world diamond prices." It didn't happen (although De Beers did lose market share), and Epstein has omitted the chapter from the online version of his book. De Beers has dodged plenty of disasters in its history, and I'd hesitate to write the final pages yet.

— Cecil Adams

little_tippler · 12-21-2008, 02:10 AM

Despite the connection to slavery, diamonds, with or without that baggage, are still beautiful. They may not be worth the crazy money jewelers charge for them, but they beat an SUV any day. But I guess if the money was just enough for one or the other, it makes sense to be practical.

They may be a rock, but not just any rock, and their "shiny" quality is comparable to no other. The prices may be artificial, but they are still rare, and even if the price was fair, would still command a reasonable sum.

I would like to wear something with diamonds one day, if only once.

lostgirl · 12-21-2008, 02:00 PM

Not a fan of diamonds, or any overpriced jewelery for that matter. It just seems like a big waste of money to me.

MSD · 12-22-2008, 05:36 PM

The idea that an engagement ring should cost two months' salary is the single most successful viral marketing campaign in history. It played on our natural greed and lust for material possessions for years, and managed to work its way into our culture so successfully that most of us accept it as a fact of life.

I would fall head-over-heels for a woman who challenged our cultural perceptions by proving that the diamond in a piece of jewelry would burn just like any other lump of carbon.

biznatch · 12-23-2008, 01:35 PM

I absolutely loathe it, the whole diamond ad campaign, and how many women have come to expect it as natural that men spend stupidly large sums of money on shiny rocks. I like nice stones, like turquoise, or lapis lazuli, but a diamond? I don't understand why it's not as good as a similar looking, less expensive stone like cubic zirconia.
And there is no way in hell that I'll spend a large amount of money(like the aforementioned 2 months' salary) instead of putting food on the table and buying stuff that we can use. I don't understand that romance always has to be irresponsible spending these days, there are much better ways to be a good husband.

smooth · 12-24-2008, 02:13 AM

If you think about it, "romance" is only related to commodification of love. We grow up thinking that romance is the precursor to love, and that it's an emotional attachment to our lovers. But if you think about it more, I think you'll agree that the things we do in order to perform romantic roles are very much tied to our wallets.

We examine how one dresses, what one drives, where one drives to, what one does on a date, that we even need to date to find love (whereas other cultures and history demonstrate love to be a growth that occurs more often than not after marriage, if at all), and pretty much summed up by the larger the expense, the greater the romance and best chances at obtaining one's affections.

There are different levels of what women find in men to be suitable expenditures; most are going to grow up believing that eating at nice restaurants and watching movies and afterward moonlight strolls on the beach are romantic and suitable dates. They definitely don't need to be whisked away in a limo and flown to Paris for that same moonlight stroll...but I'd be surprised to hear people argue that scenario doesn't top the list of romantic dates when we rifle through our catalog of thing that make us feel swoony.

It's fun to talk about life without those expectations and social interactions in theory on an internet forum, but in reality the diamond is but an extension of romantic love that is fairly unique to US culture and increasingly more relevant in the context of exporting our ideals along with global capitalism.

Daniel_ · 12-24-2008, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSD

The idea that an engagement ring should cost two months' salary is the single most successful viral marketing campaign in history. It played on our natural greed and lust for material possessions for years, and managed to work its way into our culture so successfully that most of us accept it as a fact of life.

I would fall head-over-heels for a woman who challenged our cultural perceptions by proving that the diamond in a piece of jewelry would burn just like any other lump of carbon.

Thankfully this idea is not current in the UK. I have bought 2 engagement rings over the years, and nether cost this much.

The first time I was a student so my income was nil.

The second time I needed my salary for paying the mortgage, but bought a ring that was attractive and fit.

dlish · 12-24-2008, 12:58 PM

we had xmas dinner last night. one of my best friends bought his wife a stone for xmas.

lets just say that he could have out a deposit on a house instead.

as much as it is an act of love by showing selflessness, in my eyes THAT was a waste, and i'm sure his wife thought that too!

However, i have no problem with people showing acts of love by giving things to each other. Irregardless of what it is. a car a diamond a t-shirt. all depending on what you can afford.

its the thought of giving something, and if someone thinks that giving something to somebody is a gesture of love, goodwill, friendship etc, then im all for it. i'm with Tippler on this one

i would still love to hear the voices of the men women of TFP who disagree with most people here. Apart from Tippler, and maybe Daniel here, everyone hates diamonds? i mean c'mon, it cant all be one way traffic can it?

MSD · 12-31-2008, 07:28 AM

Also, the Target Women segment reminds me of something. Commercials that are targeted at men tend to portray women as shallow and materialistic or overly emotional. Commercials targeted toward women portray men as idiots. Commercials that are for the whole family tend to be full of painfully obvious attempts to be diverse and politically correct. We buy all the crap they sell, anyway.

Bottom line: advertisers think we're all stupid, and they're right.

snowy · 12-31-2008, 10:26 AM

There's a billboard advertising for a local jeweler outside of town right now that says something about pretty shiny things "for girls", with a grown woman wearing jewelry next to the print. Personally, I find the connotation that only girls are attracted to shiny, pretty things sexist, and I don't like that they refer to grown women as "girls." There are similar issues present in other jewelry advertising that I find bothersome.

I'm immune to jewelry commercials. I like shiny pretty things, yes, and I like diamonds, but they're just too fraught with problems for me to desire one. If my SO someday masters his chemical vapor deposition skills and grows me one in a lab, that would make me happy, but the current human cost of a diamond is too much. That, and I would generally prefer that the money spent on such a thing be spent on something more practical--like a down payment on a house. I feel that way about any such extravagant purchase at this point in our lives--there are much better things to save for.

This isn't to say I haven't owned diamonds--I once had a pair of diamond earrings. I still have one of the earrings. They're impossibly tiny (like diamond pinpoints, seriously), hence why I lost one, and they were a hand-me-down from my mother. I've also borrowed some of her diamond jewelry for special occasions, like my graduation dinner.

karemick · 12-31-2008, 01:17 PM

I have a diamond necklace that my great-great grandfather gave my great-great grandmother when she gave birth to my great grandmother but other than that, I prefer the semi-precious stones. Someone mentioned lapis lazuli and turquoise, both are beautiful, much more beautiful than diamonds. I, myself, have quite a bit of amber that I find very beautiful.

So, I guess overall I am not much of a diamond fan. Oh, and I do resent the diamond commercials for targeting women, sooooo freakin sexist!!

Plan9 · 01-01-2009, 05:03 AM

I like being a cheap, practical bastard despite how society says I'm not romantic and unworthy of love and happiness.

I'd like to think my lady would prefer something better looking than something that could be mistaken for rock salt.

I think amber is much more cool than diamonds. Amber can have ancient water or dead bugs 'n stuff inside it.

But then I figure who am I to defy social conventions when everybody else is doing it and how can they be wrong?

...

How many scoffers on this thread have purchased diamonds, anyway?
-----Added 1/1/2009 at 08 : 05 : 53-----

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

a t-shirt

God, don't buy clothes for people who older than 12... worse than overpriced rocks.

ShaniFaye · 01-01-2009, 05:38 AM

Add me to the hate diamonds camp, I couldnt see myself wearing the down payment for a new house or car on my finger, plus they hold no beauty for me at all.

There IS a market for them, I remember when before I started my own wedding forum I was on one where many girls rejected their engagement rings because they were not big enough and couldnt understand the girls that laughed at them. There was also one case where the girls father was so offended by the tiny size of the one carat ring she got he took it back to the store and upgraded it then called the fiance in to tell him that he was now indebted to him and gave him a written payment plan to pay him back.

People like that should end up homeless for about a month just to see how stupid their thinking actually is

Plan9 · 01-01-2009, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaniFaye

People like that should end up homeless for about a month just to see how stupid their thinking actually is

Hah, that'll give 'em some clarity. (drum crash)

Suave · 01-01-2009, 04:09 PM

Synthetic all the way!

MSD: Just to be clear, are you saying that you want to purchase a diamond and then find a girl willing to set it alight for you? That's an expensive perceptual challenge.

12-19-2008, 08:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
Randerolf Fireball Location: ~	Commercials & The Extravagant Gift Senario aka Instant Sex in A Red Ribbon Commercials are funny; they tell you that if you give PRODUCT X, the recipient will love and cherish not only you -- but that moment for the rest of their life. In reality, if I received an expensive diamond or and white SUV rapped in a bow, I would strike down my loved one with a righteous and furious anger: "WE'RE IN AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, OH MY GO- mr blood vessel pops." This is imputes behind the post. While some of this is in jest, what is more wasteful -- a surprise, expensive diamond or an SUV? Are diamonds really just commodities like orange juice and bacon or are they special since they traditionally mark special events? Do you ever see an ad and think to yourself, "If I got that I would be ______."? Though I don't know the details, I've heard that diamonds, slavery, and African exploitation are all connected -- all in the name of shiny. Yes, I believe that there are some places that don't have the luxury of choosing good jobs or bad jobs, but the product just holds no value for me. An SUV, while loathsome and expensive, is useful. I could use it as storage or drive around cutting people off. I could tow trucks and park really badly at Home Depot. It's has some utility and value. Rocks is rocks. With an SUV, I could haul a bunch of them (kinda) And yes, Ron Popeil would sell diamonds if he could. Last edited by Randerolf; 12-19-2008 at 08:18 PM.. Reason: Video will not embed

12-20-2008, 03:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
murp0434 Crazy Location: East Texas	I KNOW! I hate diamonds. what a colossal swindle and complete waste of money. two grand for a rock? kiss my ass De Beers __________________ These are the good old days. How did I become upright?

12-21-2008, 02:10 AM	#7 (permalink)
little_tippler Leaning against the -Sun- Super Moderator Location: on the other side	Despite the connection to slavery, diamonds, with or without that baggage, are still beautiful. They may not be worth the crazy money jewelers charge for them, but they beat an SUV any day. But I guess if the money was just enough for one or the other, it makes sense to be practical. They may be a rock, but not just any rock, and their "shiny" quality is comparable to no other. The prices may be artificial, but they are still rare, and even if the price was fair, would still command a reasonable sum. I would like to wear something with diamonds one day, if only once. __________________ Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. Fernando Pessoa, 1918

12-23-2008, 01:35 PM	#10 (permalink)
biznatch Junkie Location: France	I absolutely loathe it, the whole diamond ad campaign, and how many women have come to expect it as natural that men spend stupidly large sums of money on shiny rocks. I like nice stones, like turquoise, or lapis lazuli, but a diamond? I don't understand why it's not as good as a similar looking, less expensive stone like cubic zirconia. And there is no way in hell that I'll spend a large amount of money(like the aforementioned 2 months' salary) instead of putting food on the table and buying stuff that we can use. I don't understand that romance always has to be irresponsible spending these days, there are much better ways to be a good husband. __________________ Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread

12-24-2008, 02:13 AM	#11 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	If you think about it, "romance" is only related to commodification of love. We grow up thinking that romance is the precursor to love, and that it's an emotional attachment to our lovers. But if you think about it more, I think you'll agree that the things we do in order to perform romantic roles are very much tied to our wallets. We examine how one dresses, what one drives, where one drives to, what one does on a date, that we even need to date to find love (whereas other cultures and history demonstrate love to be a growth that occurs more often than not after marriage, if at all), and pretty much summed up by the larger the expense, the greater the romance and best chances at obtaining one's affections. There are different levels of what women find in men to be suitable expenditures; most are going to grow up believing that eating at nice restaurants and watching movies and afterward moonlight strolls on the beach are romantic and suitable dates. They definitely don't need to be whisked away in a limo and flown to Paris for that same moonlight stroll...but I'd be surprised to hear people argue that scenario doesn't top the list of romantic dates when we rifle through our catalog of thing that make us feel swoony. It's fun to talk about life without those expectations and social interactions in theory on an internet forum, but in reality the diamond is but an extension of romantic love that is fairly unique to US culture and increasingly more relevant in the context of exporting our ideals along with global capitalism. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

12-20-2008, 03:41 PM	#3 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	There are two thoughts when it comes to commercials.. one is that commercials are designed to sell a product. The other is that they are designed to put a message in front of a viewer. I tend to follow the latter, it's not my job to sell you, it's my job to make you curious and subsequently go to the business.. and their job is to sell you. So on to your main point, it's up to you to decide what you consider wasteful and what to spend your money on.

12-20-2008, 04:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
blahblah454 Let's put a smile on that face Location: On the road...	I hate diamonds and the fact that society thinks I must pay thousands of dollars on a bloody rock to let that person know I love her.

12-20-2008, 04:31 PM	#5 (permalink)
RangerJoe Addict	Just buy me a ring out of the quarter machine, thanks. I'm not quite sure I would be upset if someone bought me diamonds. I'm not a huge fan, but (1) it IS my birthstone and (2) I've never really received a gift from anybody besides family, so I think I'll take what I can get.

12-21-2008, 02:00 PM	#8 (permalink)
lostgirl lightform Location: Edge of the deep green sea	Not a fan of diamonds, or any overpriced jewelery for that matter. It just seems like a big waste of money to me.

12-22-2008, 05:36 PM	#9 (permalink)
MSD The sky calls to us ... Super Moderator Location: CT	The idea that an engagement ring should cost two months' salary is the single most successful viral marketing campaign in history. It played on our natural greed and lust for material possessions for years, and managed to work its way into our culture so successfully that most of us accept it as a fact of life. I would fall head-over-heels for a woman who challenged our cultural perceptions by proving that the diamond in a piece of jewelry would burn just like any other lump of carbon.

12-24-2008, 12:58 PM	#13 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	we had xmas dinner last night. one of my best friends bought his wife a stone for xmas. lets just say that he could have out a deposit on a house instead. as much as it is an act of love by showing selflessness, in my eyes THAT was a waste, and i'm sure his wife thought that too! However, i have no problem with people showing acts of love by giving things to each other. Irregardless of what it is. a car a diamond a t-shirt. all depending on what you can afford. its the thought of giving something, and if someone thinks that giving something to somebody is a gesture of love, goodwill, friendship etc, then im all for it. i'm with Tippler on this one i would still love to hear the voices of the men women of TFP who disagree with most people here. Apart from Tippler, and maybe Daniel here, everyone hates diamonds? i mean c'mon, it cant all be one way traffic can it? __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

12-31-2008, 07:28 AM	#14 (permalink)
MSD The sky calls to us ... Super Moderator Location: CT	Also, the Target Women segment reminds me of something. Commercials that are targeted at men tend to portray women as shallow and materialistic or overly emotional. Commercials targeted toward women portray men as idiots. Commercials that are for the whole family tend to be full of painfully obvious attempts to be diverse and politically correct. We buy all the crap they sell, anyway. Bottom line: advertisers think we're all stupid, and they're right.

12-31-2008, 10:26 AM	#15 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	There's a billboard advertising for a local jeweler outside of town right now that says something about pretty shiny things "for girls", with a grown woman wearing jewelry next to the print. Personally, I find the connotation that only girls are attracted to shiny, pretty things sexist, and I don't like that they refer to grown women as "girls." There are similar issues present in other jewelry advertising that I find bothersome. I'm immune to jewelry commercials. I like shiny pretty things, yes, and I like diamonds, but they're just too fraught with problems for me to desire one. If my SO someday masters his chemical vapor deposition skills and grows me one in a lab, that would make me happy, but the current human cost of a diamond is too much. That, and I would generally prefer that the money spent on such a thing be spent on something more practical--like a down payment on a house. I feel that way about any such extravagant purchase at this point in our lives--there are much better things to save for. This isn't to say I haven't owned diamonds--I once had a pair of diamond earrings. I still have one of the earrings. They're impossibly tiny (like diamond pinpoints, seriously), hence why I lost one, and they were a hand-me-down from my mother. I've also borrowed some of her diamond jewelry for special occasions, like my graduation dinner. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

12-31-2008, 01:17 PM	#16 (permalink)
karemick Upright Location: Philadelphia, PA	I have a diamond necklace that my great-great grandfather gave my great-great grandmother when she gave birth to my great grandmother but other than that, I prefer the semi-precious stones. Someone mentioned lapis lazuli and turquoise, both are beautiful, much more beautiful than diamonds. I, myself, have quite a bit of amber that I find very beautiful. So, I guess overall I am not much of a diamond fan. Oh, and I do resent the diamond commercials for targeting women, sooooo freakin sexist!!

01-01-2009, 05:38 AM	#18 (permalink)
ShaniFaye Submit to me, you know you want to Location: Lilburn, Ga	Add me to the hate diamonds camp, I couldnt see myself wearing the down payment for a new house or car on my finger, plus they hold no beauty for me at all. There IS a market for them, I remember when before I started my own wedding forum I was on one where many girls rejected their engagement rings because they were not big enough and couldnt understand the girls that laughed at them. There was also one case where the girls father was so offended by the tiny size of the one carat ring she got he took it back to the store and upgraded it then called the fiance in to tell him that he was now indebted to him and gave him a written payment plan to pay him back. People like that should end up homeless for about a month just to see how stupid their thinking actually is __________________ *I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!*

01-01-2009, 04:09 PM	#20 (permalink)
Suave Twitterpated Location: My own little world (also Canada)	Synthetic all the way! MSD: Just to be clear, are you saying that you want to purchase a diamond and then find a girl willing to set it alight for you? That's an expensive perceptual challenge. __________________ "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato