Seinen Wakichou

I have a 2003 Subaru Imrezza with 150,000 miles with a manual transmission. When the engine is at 2,900 RPM and I step on the accelerator, the RPMs shoot up to 3,900 and then back down to 3,000 before I start accelerating. No burst of speed or anything, just a burst of RPMs at about 2,900. I am planning on taking her into a transmission shop next week, but wanted to guess what the mechanic will tell me.

I think it's an odd response to running a high temperature. Why do I get the chills sometimes and not others when I run a fever?

I am looking for examples of well known authors who wrote in English but whose native language wasn't originally English. Off the top of my head, I can think of Joseph Conrad. Kazuo Ishiguro comes to mind, but then he moved to England as a child.

My friend has an aunt in her late 70s with mobility problems. She traveled to the East Coast to visit her family, but has now taken ill and will not be able to travel home for a few weeks or months while she recovers from a heart attack. The relatives have decided that she should stay with my friend, although he does not have an apartment set up for her. I was thinking of installing those bars by the bathtub and toilet so that she can get in and out of the shower without falling. However, I am wondering if there are other things that I could do help get his apartment ready for when she is released from the hospital next week.

I need to get up off the couch and get downtown to meet my boyfriend, but I would rather spend the afternoon answering the relationship questions of complete strangers. Do I need therapy or can this relationship be saved?

When I watch a TV show or movie set in a hospital, the OR and the ICU are quite loud, as are the rooms of patients in recovery. There are lots of gadgets and machines. The heart monitor is actually quite loud. (Beep. Beep...Beep...Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee). I have never actually been in a hospital ICU. Are those places really that loud, or are the sound effects people enhancing noises to increase the drama.

My nephew is 13 and my niece is 11. Would it be o.k. for me to stop giving them gifts at Christmas if I said that I no longer wish to receive them? I never receive a thank you note or a verbal thank you. Instead, I get complaints and obnoxious behavior. Each year, I call my sister and my mother to obtain lists and buy gifts from those lists. But something always seems to go wrong and I am made to feel that I have somehow "messed things up."

This year, I bought my nephew a video game. Unfortunately, someone had given him cash and he went and bought the video game himself the day before I arrived. I would have offered to return my gift, but then he complained very vocally and constantly that I always mess up the gifts, so I decided to let my sister and brother in law figure out what to do.

Three years ago, I bought my brother-in-law a CD. Again, this was a CD that HE asked for. Apparently, after my sister caught my niece and nephew listening to it a few months later, she decided that it was not appropriate for children and called to give me an earful about it. But it wasn't a gift to the children. I figure if you don't want someone to buy you something, don't put it on a list...

Ever since the "CD" incident, my gifts have been received with verbal assault. "I wonder what he bought THIS year..." as a running joke. Well, the joke is a little old.

I don't feel much like continuing to buy gifts if I am going to be mocked for doing so. And after this Christmas, I don't much feel like giving cash or gift certificates either. My brother in law and my nephew both insulted my mother over the gifts she had bought them (gifts that they had asked for, but that they really didn't want. In all honesty, the insult to my mother was the last straw.) In fact, I think I would rather stay at home for Christmas and not drive 12 hours to be with my sister's family.

Should I opt out verbally, or should I make excuses next year as to why I am "busy."

Are they tuned or played differently?

My friend texted me this morning with a confession. He has been dating someone for about 4 months in a long-distance relationship. He likes the guy...but...this weekend they could not get together. On Sunday he met with friends for brunch and after brunch went back to a friends place to spend some time and they, well, ya' know, did ... stuff. This friend of his has been an occasional hook-up for my friend in the past, but they have never dated. I am not going to pretend that this was an "accident." But my friend is feeling quite guilty and I promised to call him tonight to discuss this. So, what should I advise him to do? Confess to the boyfriend? Never go to brunch again? What would you say to a guilty friend?

MP: On a scale of 1 to 10, rate my friend's transgression...where 1 = no infraction and 10 = capital felony.

"Undies in an uproar", "Panties in a twist"...both good ways we have to dismiss the anger of the uptight. But I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment...I need a phrase to dismiss that hammy self-righteousness when expressed by someone who wears neither panties or undies.

I could go on and on about this again and again. I'm stuck on this and return to it over and over....But as LPs have disappeared, what shall replace them in our language to describe unnecessary repetition? Broken CDs or MP3s just aren't the same.

The actors are all adults, but dress like school children. The teacher is a very large woman with a huge black wig who hits the kids with her ruler whenever they misbehave - which is about every minute of the show.

Its from the theme music to the Jollibee fast food chain. I assume it is in Tagalog or Filippino.

Tomorrow? 2010? 2012? 2000012? How much time do I have?

The cow goes....Moooooo

Listen to the duck....Wack wack wack

Here is the turkey....Gobble gooble....

Had a arrow that the child pointed to a picture of an animal.

If a person is named as the sole beneficiary of a will or a life insurance policy but the person has murdered the bequestor, is the person still entitled to receive the estate? If there are no other beneficiaries, does the state simply keep the funds?

I'm not planning anything, but my friend and I were wondering whatever happened to the estate that the Menendez brothers killed their parents for.

Was watching a Japanese show about two college roommates who just received a notice that their rent was going up. They discussed moving out and into a "1DK House". What might that be?

I have recieved a document that I am correcting. The author used the word "updation". I googled the term and found many documents using it. Is this an emerging word, or one that I should safely correct?