Mike P

Back home in Australia when I wanted to start up our barbeque (what Americans call an "outdoor grill") you used to start them up by placing a few "firelighters" under the piled up briquettes and setting them alight. They would burn for several minutes igniting the charcoal.

Here's a link to the sort of thing -

http://www.pental.com.au/our-brands/fire-needs/jif...

So far I have been unable to find these things in the USA. I really would love to know if I can get them because I'm very unhappy with the "squirt lighter fluid all over the charcoal" method people use here - not only because I find it a bit messy, but because I'm a terrible judge of how much to use and I always end up either incinerating the briquettes or having to repeat the process because all the fluid burns off before the bricks ignite.

If you had to spell the sound a fart makes, how would you spell it?

I've been watching The Pacific on HBO and have been enjoying it very much, which got me thinking - I haven't watched many war movies since being married because they aren't really the sort of thing the wife would be watching with me.

I'm going to check out Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers. Can anyone suggest some others I may have missed?

Will my old wireless adapter

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

Work on this motherboard -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

I haven't had a motherboard upgrade in ages so I am not really sure about the new boards and what sort of cards fit into which. I bought a SATA controller card a while ago that wouldn't fit into my old board so I am concerned I will have the reverse situation with a new board and the old wireless adapter. PS - I know network adapters cost next to nothing, but if this one that's only a couple of years will still work I don't see the point of buying a new one.

What is the answer to this problem? I know the vertical lines mean absolute value and that Evaluate 5! = 5x4x3x2x1.

Is evaluate |5| simply asking me the value of the 5 in this case, which would be 5?

If this is the case would Evaluate evaluate |-5| also be 5?

I've been watching all the disappointment (and in some cases outrage - Chicago 2016 Facebook group) at Chicago missing out on the Olympics in 2016 to Rio.

Am I really the only one who would have thought it was outrageous for a US city to host the Olympics again so soon after Atlanta?

I mean c'mon, the US has hosted the summer games on what, four occasions? A couple of other nations have had two, then a bunch with one and a heckuva lot with zero.

Part of the magic for me is the sharing around and seeing different places as a backdrop to the Olympics

So - I pose the question, should there be some sort of minimum time between olympic hosting for each nation?

Does anyone know of any recipe where I can use English Breakfast Sausages as the meat base. Perhaps cut up and cooked with something.

They are the only meat I have in the house right now and I want to do something exciting with them.

Every recipe I find online for interesting dishes seems to be taking about American breakfast "sausage" or the stuff they call "Italian Sausage" in the US, both of which are entirely different entities.

Hi everyone,

I'm scouring the net to find this for my dad. He owns it on a record somewhere and used to listen to this story as a little boy. His father (my grandfather) passed away this week (at the age of 93) this week and I'm trying to gather up some old memories.

I'm happy to download from somewhere I have to pay a few bucks, but im not interested in buying a record or cd, I just want an audio file.

The story is called "The Golden Palomino" and is narrated by "Carlton Warren".

If anyone's googling or audio finding is better than mine (I've been at it for a while now), I'd appreciate the info.

Speaking as a non US citizen teaching in Nevada, where teachers and govt employees face up to a 16% pay cut thanks to the state of the NV budget, I have to wonder why some form of compulsory school fee isn't introduced to help cover costs?

I mean, everyone gets up in arms the minute you breathe a word about national health care, but no one seems bothered that the K12 education system is fully socialized.

What is the difference between education and health-care? Surely these are both critical commodities? Why is it OK to socialize the one but not the other?

I'm a teacher who recently moved to the US and to cut a long story short I am absolutely appalled with the discipline problems and self centredness of many of the students.

Our school has seen dozens of expulsions and has a virtual revolving door in and out of behaviour school. Kids talk at full volume during instruction and grades are terrible (and I teach in the good part of town!).

What has happened to the days when "the bad kid" was the one quietly passing notes or whispering to a friend and if someone got suspended (much less expelled) it became a near legend it was so unheard of?

What is it like in other countries? Is it worse in the US?

Things sure have changed.

I've been diagnosed with acute bronchitis and have been all over the web checking symptoms, but everything is a bit general and vague.

On Monday afternoon when I got home from work I felt quite tired so I had an early night. When my alarm woke me the next morning I felt like I hadn't slept a wink. I took a shower and was about to get dressed for work when I realised it wasn't going to work. I called in sick and have been out for the last three days so far.

I feel like a battery-operated toy with dead batteries - There's a bit of wheezing and coughing, but mostly I just feel extreme fatigue and general "wrongness" - I can't get comfortable no matter what and I keep having OCD-like half dreams as I drift in and out of sleep (like being unable to get a song out of my head etc).

Then all of a sudden I'll wake up and feel a bit weak but basically fine, ill get up, get some food into me and watch TV for a few hours and then WHAM!!!! It all starts over again - I can barely walk, feel like crap etc. These "feeling OK" periods seem to last about 3-4 hours. I feel OK right now, but I am dreading the return of the sickness.

Has anyone else had similar symptoms with bronchitis? It's all a bit scary.

|-3| + |4| = 7

|-5| > |4|

What exactly are the vertical lines denoting? I can't recall having come across them in my school days.

I've noticed at schools here that many of the students of Mexican heritage tend to be "still in Mexico" or "gone" from school for periods ranging from days to weeks after school vacations like Spring Break or Winter Break. (and sometimes the weeks leading into a holiday).

When I went to school it would be unthinkable to miss more than a day or two of school for non-essential matters.

Is this common everywhere in the US or is it just a Nevada thing?

It always weirds me out when I'm in a discussion with a picture of an infant. I've noticed lots of people do this.

Just reading about this horrible "Santa shooter" in California.

Every time there's a massacre people cop out and use the excuse that a knife/screwdriver/car etc could kill people as well.

Am I the only one who'd much rather go up in a crowded room against a maniac with a Swiss Army Knife than an Armalite?

As a resident alien (from Australia) I came here understanding the difference in gun culture in the USA and have done my best not to make too many waves, but seeing shooting after shooting (particularly in schools) I'm starting to wonder how long until the penny drops and people realise that the ready availability of the world's most efficient portable killing implement is somehow connected to the high frequency of massacres in The United States.

I don't advocate a blanket ban (or a total ban on semi automatics as we have in Australia), but as an outsider coming in, the situation and desensitization to firearms here is borderline frightning.

The question is - what to do? There's clearly a problem.

So here in Las Vegas it is currently snowing like crazy. We don't usually get snow that sticks in the Valley, but it's already looking pretty white outside and it's predicted to keep up all night long.

In a city that isn't used to snow, I shudder to think what the roads will be like in the morning?

What are the factors that go into consideration when school gets canceled due to a "snow day"?

Ok this is a pretty long description of my problem, so bear with me and read carefully.

I have a Linksys wireless router with two computers on the network. One is a Dell Laptop and the other is a custom built midi tower PC.

We initially get on the network fine, but a few times in an evening one of the following will happen.

1. We still seem to be connected to the router but the Internet completely dies for some reason and only unplugging and replugging the router fixes this. This problem is OFTEN caused by something as simple as one of us getting up from the computer. If my wife or I simply stand up and walk away, it often causes the net to die.

2. We still seem to be connected to the router but the WEB completely dies - online gaming, voice chat, yahoo messenger etc all still seem to work. Unplugging and replugging the router fixes the problem every time.

3. The Laptop loses connection to the network and reconnects - causing the net to die in the meantime.

-

Now, I figured since we live in an apartment complex and over the street from some businesses/shops with wifi perhaps a move from the default channel 6 would help, so I switched to channel 11 - I also changed some stack size from 1500 to 1492 as suggested on some other forum.

This seemed to help to an extent - the Laptop experienced no random DC's, but the Internet did die once or twice in the following 24 hours - requiring an unplug and replug of the router.

Tonight when we came home we couldn't even SEE the network - it would pop up on very low signal (even though it is about 2 feet from the laptop and 6 feet from the PC). Eventually we were able to get briefly connected and change back to channel 6 and now everything seems OK, although I'm now back to square 1.

I'm wondering if channel 11 would be any better or if there's something Im missing here becuase I am totally at my wits end.

Lately my mouse keeps failing - sometimes the optical light goes out - sometimes it doesnt. Either way it wont let me move my pointer when this happens.

This is always solved by unplugging and replugging the mouse - it doesnt matter which of my USB ports I put it in, it keeps happening.

Im hoping this is just the mouse dying rather than something to do with the motherboard or USB controllers - anyone have any idea what might be causing this?

Why would a replug fix it?

Ok, so a few months ago we went for a drive on a bit of unsealed road and ever since the car has sort of vibrated a bit if we try to go anything over about 60MPH.

We had the wheel's re-aligned (I assumed alignment is the cause) and new tires put on, but still it seems to struggle to go over 60 and it just gets more and more shaky the faster we go.

Now, I know we have a bent tie rod that needs fixing, but would this cause a shake straight after the wheels were aligned?

Could this be engine related?

I have no idea about mechanics so any ideas would be helpful.

I'm currently in a long term substituting position in a middle school class for students with learning disabilities. In science I'm currently teaching them aboht the solar system which is good as planetary science was one of my electives at university.

The lessons usually consist of some group reading and working through some questions related to that reading, followed by some related visual like a video for the last bit of the period.

I tried to show bits of BBC's "The Planets" documentary series as I remembered it being sensational, unfortunately it's pretty clearly over their heads. There's many lengthy sections about the history of certain discoveries and the events leading up to them and long monologues from scientists. These sections completely lose their attention.

What I need is something that suits the needs of these students, perhaps more of an elementary school level with lots of imagery rather than scientific mumbo jumbo and history.

Does anyone have any ideas of any programs or series' that might suit this situation?