devouring_wind

I'm detailing my car this weekend and bought Meguiar's smooth surface clay kit to try for the first time. I didn't realize that it came with their cleaner wax, so I bought some Meguiar's Tech-Wax seperately. I'm confused about whether or not I have to use the cleaner wax afterwards in order to finish the cleaning process properly, or if I can just use the Tech-Wax instead. From what I've read, it sounds like the Tech-Wax offers better protection, but I'm wondering if the cleaning properties of the cleaner wax are a necessary ingredient to getting the proper results from the clay kit. I'm also not sure whether or not I SHOULD use the cleaner wax since it apparently has abrasives, and some say to only use that for older neglected cars, while others say to use it as general maintanence. My car is 3 years old and has previously been waxed approximately once a year, if that helps (I know it needs it more often, that's what I'm trying to do here).

I recently planted a new perennial garden. Many of the plants were still dormant when I planted them, although a few were beginning to sprout. I know that it's healthy to mulch flower beds, and I plan to use recycled wood chip mulch to do it, but I'm not sure about how safe it is to do this when many of the plants are still dormant. I'm finding conflicting information - some places say to do it right away, others say to place mulch around the plants, but not cover the plants. The problem is that although I know the basic vicinity that I planted each plant, I don't remember the exact placement, so I'm concerned that the plants that haven't sprouted yet might not sprout at all if I mulch over them. But at the same time, I've read that it's much healthier for them to be mulched right away. What should I do?

I recently planted some elephant ear plants in large planters. When I recieved the plants, they appeared healthy and each had two or three leaves on them. The day after I planted them we had extremely high winds, and I came home to find that the leaf stems had been snapped because of them. I cut the damaged leaves off at the break. Is there any hope that they will recover, and if so is there anything that I can do to help speed it along aside from keeping them watered and sunny?

I know that paint can be made from boiling animal fat and mixing it with pigments, but I can't find information on how the fat should be boiled, what method should be used and how long it should be boiled for. Does anyone know?

I have whatever the latest version is. It starts up with no problem, but once it's up and running, if I right-click on anything in messenger the whole thing closes immediately. If I have a message window open and I do anything other than type messages and send them (i.e. click on a link a friend sends, try to change the fonts or anything) it immediately shuts down. When I start it back up, it always tells me that Yahoo messenger quit unexpectedly. Well, duh. I've already tried uninstalling, redownloading and reinstalling several times. It starts up fine and allows me to send messages, but any right-clicking or any action other than typing or sending in a chat window makes it immediately crash. What's going on?

A few months ago I adopted a new cat. I am not a new cat owner, but I've never seen a cat act like this. He is very loving and social, uses the litter box, etc, but he is constantly naughty in ways that would be small, but combined make him nerve-wracking to deal with. He compulsively eats anything and everything. I had to stop feeding my cats dry food because he would just sit and eat the entire day's worth for both him and my other cat. He steals my other cat's food at every opportunity. He tries to eat practically ANYTHING - garbage, plastic, houseplants, his toys, etc. He bothers my other cat to play, doesn't back off when my other cat hisses at him, and chases him around the house. He gets into EVERYTHING - nothing is safe from being eaten or played with in my house, he opens cupboards to get things out, I give him play time every day but it doesn't curb him. I feel like I spend half my home life chasing this cat away from eating something bad or terrorizing my other pets.

I have two cats, one who has always maintained a normal weight with free feeding, and a newer one who came to me skinny, but has become fat because he eats constantly. My original cat is losing weight because he's skittish and while the new cat isn't mean about it, if he hears the older cat eating he tries to get in on it and the older cat leaves before he's had his fill. We've tried seperating the cats while they eat, but while this works for the older cat eating, the new cat just eats all his food and then finishes the older cat's food when he's let out. The problem as I see it is that my partner doesn't want to stop free feeding the cats, and believes that cats need to free feed. I say that feeding on a schedule won't hurt anything, and will solve the problem of weight gain in the new cat while letting the other cat get enough to eat because they will be seperated during feedings. Can I get some knowledgable opinions on this?

About once a month, iTunes decides to delete my entire library. This is done with no prompting by me. I simply open iTunes one day to find all my songs gone. I have TuneJack, so I CAN get my songs back on iTunes without having to re-rip every single CD I own, but it takes forever and I would really just rather be able to stop the problem at the source. What's going on?

I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of Christians on here saying "Because it's the only one that's correct" or "The only one that matters" or so on. Go ahead and waste your time, because that's not what I'm asking. Here's the question:

Many times, I have been asked by Christians whether or not I've actually read the Bible, tried to go to Church and so on. As someone asked here just recently, did I decide against Christianity after honest research, or because of things that had nothing to do with it? And yet, no one asks if they researched Paganism, Hinduism, Voudoun, Shinto, Atheism, Buddhism, Satanism or whatever else before deciding not to follow those beliefs. It's as if Christianity is assumed to be the default religious choice, and if you want to go outside that, you must constantly verify to everyone that yes, you studied it and decided it wasn't right for you. Meanwhile these same people rarely educate themselves on anything else. Why is that?

Christians seem very concerned with the fate of everyone else's souls. It seems to be their highest concern to convince others to do what they believe they must to get to heaven. As an Aztec priest, I've never believed in this myself, and never really thought of preaching to anyone. But you know, Christianity has been a successful religion, so maybe there's something to this. I don't really believe my religion is the only way, but since many people seem convinced that their beliefs (whether Christian, atheist or whatever) are the best or only way, maybe that's the only way to communicate with people about religious ideas.

I just wanted to let you all know that the only way to get to heaven is to be sacrificed, or die during a flowery war for the glory of the gods. Since no flowery wars are currently being waged to the Aztec gods, your only chance of paradise is to be sacrificed. Are you ready to undertake the selfless act of sacrifice to recieve heaven the glory of the gods?

I have three cories in a 30 gallon tank. The only other fish in the tank right now are neons and otos, and the stocking density is light. Two of the cories act perfectly normal. One originally did, but within the last week or so has taken to swimming frantically up and down the glass. I've never seen a fish swim so frantically in my life. I've tested practically every water parameter known to man (Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphorus, iron, CO2, pH, gH, kH...), and they are all perfectly fine. The tank is heavily planted with live plans and DIY CO2, but the CO2 is supposedly in the low range (lower than it should be for the plants) and all the other fish are acting perfectly normal. The other cories are as laid back as can be, and I can see nothing physically wrong with this fish. Occassionally he calms down and stops pacing, but he seems to spend the majority of his time doing this. Any idea what's going on?

Personally, I find myself most bothered by people who are ignorant of their own religion, whether it be their religion's theology, scriptures, or history. I believe that people should study all three, that knowledge is power and that the more knowledge you have of your religion the stronger and more genuine your faith. You don't have to have the equivalent of a Masters degree in it, but doesn't it behoove you to know something about your religion beyond the basics of "Jesus saves" or "An it harm none"? As a Pagan, I've seen a lot of fellow Pagans who really have never learned anything beyond a Wicca 101 book, or claim to worship the deities of X culture but have never picked up a book on that culture or its' religion. Meanwhile, they criticize Christians for not understanding their own religion. I find nothing more fascinating than studying religion, but I especially want to know about my own. Shouldn't we have at least some detailed knowledge of that which we allegedly have faith in?

I mean, think about it. It's either the short, cutesy, helpful Keebler elf or Harry Potter house elf stereotype, or it's the long, slender, sexy Legolas elf stereotype. Is there no room for medium-height, averagely looking, mildly overweight elves?

The options for reviews are Local, Games, Shopping and Travel. Why is the logical option, Movies, absent? Most of the people we meet on the internet don't live anywhere near us, so Local isn't very useful. More people watch movies than play video games. Shopping and travel are pretty much the same. I don't think any of those categories should be removed from our Yahoo 360 reviews, but it just seems odd that movie reviews aren't a part of it. Why not add them?

If so, then he set up the situation knowing that Adam and Eve would fail that test. Meaning that he set up the entire situation of "original sin" from the beginning, knowing what it would result in. How is God good if he, from the beginning, created a system in which millions of souls would end up being tortured for eternity for a mistake their forebears made? Free will does not adequately answer this question, so please do not simply answer with "because he wanted us to love him by choice." That does not adequately address the question of the system of setting up Adam and Eve, knowing that the result would be original sin that he would claim all their descendents to be equally responsible for.

Some religious groups like to hand out pamphlets to random people - I'm sure we've all seen this. So, the question is, does anyone actually decide to convert based on recieving a tiny and simplistic pamphlet with a salvation prayer on the back? I could see it happening perhaps if the situation was desperate, but all people I've seen who have converted to another religion can usually fit their reason into one of three categories: 1. They actively decided they wanted to convert after personally seeking out information on that religion, not after passively recieving a pamphlet on a religion they previously had no interest in. 2. They converted because the person they were romantically interested in practiced that religion. 3. After being dissatisfied with their current religion they wandered to another relatively random one in hopes that it would fulfill their needs.

And if pamphlets annoy people so much, don't you think it will drive them away from your religion instead of towards it?

Twice now at work I have had customers hand me born again Baptist pamphlets at work. I'm a cashier so basically, I ring these people up, they pay and then they hand me a pamphlet. There is nothing about my appearance, demeanor or manner of dress at work that screams "SINNER" as far as I'm aware. In fact, there is no way that they could be sure, not knowing me at all, that I am not a born again Baptist. Yet no one else at my work has been handed a pamphlet on the job. So my question is this, to anyone out there who hands out religious pamphlets: do you carry a lot with you and hand them out to any convenient person, or do you only carry a few and pick out people that seem like godless heathens based on appearance?

Literal or metaphorical polytheism, either way I'd like to know.

Only serious answers, please. No religions you made up yourself or anything like "Jedi" unless you can explain why you consider yourself that in a way that sounds serious. If your religion is so uncommon that most people wouldn't recognize the name of it, please put a brief explanation of it if you can. I'm interested in hearing from people who are not part of the Abrahamic paradigm (i.e. not Christians, Jews or Muslims).