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My girlfriend is a bit...unconventional. And i'm trying to buy a gift for her...but basically, I know for a fact that she would love an album filled with old photographs from the 1800s-early 1900s. Any recommendations as to where I could find these types of things? Online, or in store, doesn't really matter. But obviously, the more, the merrier! Thanks

I'm having what I think is a bit of a speaker problem. But I'm not sure. I just received a sansui 4000 receiver today, and connected it to my turntable, an Elac Miracord 750, and then connected two speakers (Fisher, "bookshelf" style, looks like they're from the 80s--came with the MC-712 audio component system) into the whole thing. One of the speakers works fine, but the other speaker is barely making a sound. When I first turned on the receiver, I really had the volume blasting, so much that it shut down the whole speaker system and cause the Sansui to go into "protection" mode. I fixed that problem and kept the volume reasonable, but as a result that second speaker was barely making any noise. I plugged the same speaker into the MC-712 and it was doing the same. The other day, both speakers were just fine in the MC-712. Do you think I damaged that second speaker? It still technically makes the faintest sound, but in comparison to the first speaker, it's shot. Any suggestions? Just bite the bullet and get some new, decent speakers?

I just bought an Elac Miracord 750 turntable yesterday...and I want to play records on it. Nothing else, really...just simply for playing records. I've heard to really get the most bang for your buck, you want a receiver. Can anyone recommend an appropriate one, or any advice to help me make this happen? Thanks!

Last night I went on the best date of my life. This girl and I had an amazing time. Our conversation was refreshingly bright and exciting, her eyes were gorgeous, and at the end of the date we kissed. And it's hard to explain, but her kisses were unlike anything I've ever experienced. It was completely electric, and it honestly felt like some sort of Hollywood romantic movie.

So I wake up this morning, and it's all I can think about. I can't wait to see her again, and I can't wait to touch her lips with mine again. We loosely planned to meet up later in the week, possibly saturday, and she said that she'd call me. I'm really tempted to drive over to her (she's an hour away) and see her earlier, and I'm also super tempted to just call her and talk to her as much as possible until we meet again. But I don't want to blow this, and I have a tendency to get overly excited when these types of moments happen. So what would you advise that I do in terms of contacting her? She's at med school, her life is non-stop busy, so I don't want to oversaturate. But on the other hand, I have no interest in playing any sort of game with her. I can feel that she's special, and I want to see her again badly. What should I do?

I'm planning to buy some binoculars for astronomy, as I gradually prepare to purchase a telescope down the road. I've narrowed it down to three choices. Just some extra info: I wear glasses, but am 26 and generally have ok vision, weight is not a factor, price is not a factor for these three choices, and I'm looking to focus mostly on nearby objects such as the moon, Jupiter's moons, Saturn...but at the same time I'd like the option to be able to see galaxies, star clusters, Messier objects, and a bit more. Given all of that, which of these do you recommend?

1) Nikon 7218 action 10x50 Bino's

2) Orion Scenix 10x50 Bino's

3) Meade 9x63 Astronomy Bino's

So I was at the bank earlier, and I was chatting with a teller, and we seemed to really hit it off well. It's hard to explain, but it just felt like a chemistry thing. And we got to talking and we seemed to have very similar interests, like complicated movies (like Primer) and books. At one point she mentioned that the frustrating thing about those types of books is that there isn't anyone to talk about them with.

At the end, she asked if there was anything else she could help me with, and like a total wimp I indirectly asked for her card. She said she was only interning so she didn't have one, and I said, again, very unsmoothly, "Cuz I could call you and we could talk about Primer." She then responded that she didn't have a card so she was sorry, and we left it at that.

She seemed like a nerdy type of girl, so I was thinking that maybe she just was awkward and didn't pick up on my cue that I was asking for her number. But on the other hand, I know I totally butchered it. I was going to go back tomorrow to ask for her number, but I wanted to ask, do you think there's anything there? Or am I reading into it the wrong way? Any advice would be appreciated!

I have a series of names for my daughter. And I just wanted to hear your opinions on as many or as few as you're willing to give! Thanks

Margot/Margeaux

Audrey

Autumn

Cadence

Nova

Hazel

Pannonica

Lisa

Parseca

So I just finished writing a book, and I'm now in the publishing phase. I need to be able to categorize my book into only a few words...something very succinct, for the sake of the potential publishers. Problem is, the book covers many genres...but I know that publishers don't want to hear something like, "Well, it's a romantic young adult fantasy historical thriller." So let me give you a very rough overview of the story. I'd very much appreciate your feedback regarding its categorization. Thank you!

The book revolves around the theme of nature vs. nuture. My two main characters are time-travel scientists, both of whom have had rough childhoods. I tell about their early lives, as well as the peaks and troughs of their relationship. Also, I get into the idea of "randomness" in the universe, and make the connection through a few chapters about baseball. So in a nutshell: time-travel, baseball, genetics vs. environment.

Hey, I'm writing a book, and just wanted to give a little sample and see what you guys think! Any comments are welcome!

It started with an exhale, and followed with a tenser one. Another shaky breath, and she could hear her own vulnerability. Her abs flexed, her lungs bobbed, her mouth and nose sucked in spurts of the atmosphere. She initially gasped in rhythm, but the inhales sped up and lost coherence. And with suddenness, the noises stopped. It all went up to her face, contorted and clenched in a wide smile full of sadness. Her eyes were barely open, and if it weren't for the road they would have been shut. She finally inhaled, the silence popped with a coarse howl of pity, and faded in magnitude with the same sound.

And then the whole process repeated itself, each wave of sadness distinct from the previous. She couldn't help it, and grew tired of the repetition, at one point slamming her fist into the dashboard. She wished for an old wives concoction, a spoonful of sugar, a lemon wedge, something to put an end to it all.

Her eyes were exhausted and chafed as she wiped the constant stream of tears and mucus with her loose-threaded undershirt.

Stop, please just stop, she thought.

She watched the windows as the glass began to warp and melt into the wipers. The speedometer snapped into two and took the fuel gauge down with it. The sky seemed to be falling, crumbling even, as were the cars in front of her. They disintegrated in a puff, the only signs of their existence were outlines of residual shards, still outlining the shapes of the cars themselves. The shards collapsed inward, into a singularity, and vanished with a flash. The sunlight, whatever there once was of it, was dimming, everything turning to shadow, to even darker shadows, the entire world around her collapsing and narrowing, and the only thing that seemed clear anymore was her incoherence of emotions inside.

Hey, there's this particular video I've been looking for on the inernet for years. Let me be as detailed as possible, in the hopes that someone knows what I'm talking about, and where to find it!

It is a music video of a group of musicians playing Rhapsody In Blue, by Gershwin. It is entirely in black and white. However, that is intentional. It is not a very old video. I'd date it somewhere between the 80's and 90's. Among other things happening in the video, the band is walking around in a bar while the music plays. Also, a balloon pops at one point. The pianist is female, I believe with curly hair.

The only time that I've ever seen this thing was on the tv show Classic Arts Showcase. I saw it multiple times on there, but in no other context.

I've dug through the depths of the internet for this thing, so please don't link me to youtube or anything like that. I'm just hoping that someone out there knows what I'm talking about, and can give me ANY sort of info related to the performance. Thank you!!

I've had two recurring dreams for the last 8 years or so. The whole debate of whether dreams are meaningful or not is a whole 'nother thing, but for those who entertain the possibility, would you interpret what these dreams mean?

1) It involves this one girl. Short, pixie-like, blonde-dyed hair, white. Every time my dream picks up from the previous one. I met her a long time ago, and since then, in each dream I'm running into her again by chance and we catch up. It's platonic in the dreams, but there's major sexual tension between us. But the major thing that keeps happening is we get disconnected again, and for some reason cannot get a hold of each other. It's happened 3 times

2) This one involves a theme. There's always something, like an egg, or a plant, or an animal, that is poorly treated and then stashed away in some place like a storage room, closet, or basement. Then in the dream, years pass. Many years. That basement or door is opened up, and the thing that was kept in there this whole time has turned into this horrible monster that proceeds to then terrorize myself and the town that we are in. This one has happened at least 6 times

Any thoughts?

I'm working on a novel, and I just wanted to give a sample of it, so you get a sense of my style. Any feedback, positive or negative, would be appreciated! Thanks

In a way, it was helpful that she was only 14 years old. Jacking a 1985 Volkswagen station wagon should have been very daunting. If chance was more reality than illusion, her aunt's neighbor could have returned any second. Or the Volkswagen could have been shot. It really should have been. Digestion of concentrated dinosaur remnants is not meant to persist for almost a century. A wire, crossed with the wrong wire...A wire, merely cut the wrong way...And at the same time there was so much that she didn't know about the situation. That neighbor, obsessed with all things vintage, had saved the wagon from metallic building-block status multiple times in its seasoned life. No police, gendarme more accurately, hovered within a 5 minute radius of the alley she was in. Unaware of the man two stories directly above, peaking at her every move, stomach firmly intimate with the glass window of his apartment. Unaware that as she bent down and began identifying wires, the man started doing the same. But he only had one, and you wouldn't exactly call it "identifying"...

I'm havin this sort of chicken v. egg dilemma involving physics, and I may just be misunderstanding it all, so I was hoping for some help. Why is it that at the quantum level, we have to use the wavefunction to describe the quantum states of particles? I think I understand that, when we use the wavefunction, we can't exactly describe the momentum of an electron, for example. Rather, we can only describe it in terms of a probability. It's more likely to have a momentum of this value x, or less likely to have a momentum of this value y. Only when we collapse the wave function, do we pinpoint that value. But then, the other value, position in this case, gets compromised.

My dilemma is that I feel I understand that this WILL happen when you decide to use the wavefunction to 'paint a picture' of the quantum world. What I'm wondering, is why we have to use that wavefunction to describe the quantum world in the first place? What is going on fundamentally with particles at the quantum level that forces us to use something like the wavefunction to accurately describe it. And do you think there is potentially something BETTER than the wavefunction that can be used to describe what's going on at the quantum level?

Ok I just had this absolutely ridiculous dream, and I'm wondering if you think there's any underlying meaning to it.

In my dream I had just moved into a new apartment. It was a really sweet place and I was loving it. The first day I moved in, I bumped into this girl down in the laundry room. She was gorgeous, had this really sweet accent (I think she said she was from Ukraine). We hit it off instantly, and in the dream I was pretty much convinced that I found "the one." That same day, I was walking outside to get a sense of the area, and a dog came up to me. It was this medium sized grayish dog, and it was instantly incredibly affectionate. It didn't have any tags on it, and was so loving so I decided to keep it since at the time it didn't seem like it had just wandered from its owner's house. I wandered down to the car dealership, where my car was being fixed up. They fixed it up, and it was in perfect shape, ready to go. Here's where my dream took a turn...

On the way back from the dealership I stopped to get some coffee and do a little people watching. As I was sitting there, in front of the coffee shop, I met this dude who was homeless. He was limping severly, and he asked me if he could get a ride about 5 blocks down to this area near a bridge underpass. Normally I don't think I'd do this, but in my dream I said yes and let him hitch a ride. On the way driving there, he started pissing himself. I was like, "duuuude wtf," and as I was distracted by all the pissing, I crashed into a telephone pole. He hopped out and left the scene. He also left a POOL of piss in the seat. Like, the entire front foot area of both the passenger and driver seats was just filled to the brim.

Then the police get there, and I explained what happened. This seemed to go on for a looooong time, and eventually they told me that they would have to confiscate the car because the piss in it was evidence in the "crime." I thought it made no sense, but they insisted they had to take the car. So I walked home, pissed off, and slightly injured. I made it back to the Ukranian girl, who somehow magically was now my girlfriend, and I started to realize something. She started saying some of the absolute dumbest **** I've ever heard. For example, while we were talking she started eating an cigarette. EATING it. I was wondering why on Earth she was doing that, and she basically told me, "Oh, I learned from my grandmother that it was good to have a cigarette every once and a while." Over the next couple hours she started doing other ridiculous things, like putting forks in the microwave, and eating laundry detergent. I then basically realized that this girl was not this mysterious worldly european girl, but basicallly a semi-retarded person whose stupidity was masked by her accent and mannerisms.

After this the dog came back to me, and it started pissing every time it would hug me. It was uncontrollable. Later on, I ran into the homeless guy, who for some reason was dressed up in a suit at this house party, and was apologetic about what happened. I gave him the hardest stare down I could, and basically didn't even think about talking to him because I was on the edge of just beating the **** out of this guy.

Then I woke up. What on Earth could that dream mean?

So I'm about to meet a girl in a few days who is a friend of some friends of mine. Apparently they've been trying to set me up with this girl for months, but the scheduling of stuff just hasn't worked out, until now. I think I'll be fine once the conversation gets going, but I'm not really sure what I should say to her when I'm introduced to her. Any suggestions?

Why is life so hard? I'm so depressed. I'm sick of life. I feel it's just way too hard to succeed at. I truly try my hardest to be happy, to project a positive aura. But in the end no matter what I do, I just don't feel truly happy on the inside. I'm lonely, and even though I feel I've been gifted with a lot of brain power, I feel that it's completely useless because life is an absolute struggle for me. I lack an identity, I lack true friendship, and I lack true love from anyone. I'm alone, and I'm so tired of trying to succeed at life. I am 24 yrs old, and I feel at this point, I should have figured out something. But I haven't.

Don't get me wrong, I've done stuff, and I've had experiences that were great. But in the end, I feel that deep down inside, I'm unhappy. And no matter what I do to try to change that, I can't do anything to make any significant impact. I'm drained, and I feel that I'm out of options. What do i do?

...of the song "Rhapsody in Blue" where it has this sort of film noir type of vibe to it. There's a female pianist, with curly hair, and a brass section that is literally playing the song in a bar, and they move around throughout the video. I'm trying to find it online but I can't seem to find anyone who has it. Any ideas?

I have a new smartphone and I'd like to get your feedback. Which website, in your opinion, sells better cell phone skins: skinit.com, or uniqueskins.com. Thanks in advance!

I am a house-to-house private tutor. It's my main source of income. It's not for a company, but completely my own system where I charge parents a set rate and go to their house to tutor their kids. However, I do not have my own apartment, but rather I live with my parents. They are not claiming me as a dependent (24 yrs old), so my question is, can I file taxes as a self-employed worker (independent contractor)? Similarly, will I be able to deduct my mileage that I drive to my students' homes when I file my taxes, since my "office" is the house where I live with my parents? Thanks in advance