Pirate1974

The Ziering Curse is a television phenomenon that basically states: In the cast of almost every long-running television show, there's one actor whose career is destined to die with the show. That actor is The Ziering. The curse is named for actor Ian Ziering, who starred as Steve Sanders through the entire 10-season run of "Beverly Hills, 90210." Since I never saw more than five minutes of that show ever, I have no idea who he is. Since "90210" left the air in 2000, Ziering's career has been limited to voice work in cartoons like "The Mighty Ducks." Some other famous Zierings: Philip Michael Thomas - Ricardo Tubbs on "Miami Vice" Joyce De Witt - Janet Wood on "Three's Company" Donny Most - Ralph Malph on "Happy Days" Tina Yothers - Jennifer Keaton on "Family Ties" Donna Douglas - Elly May Clampett on "The Beverly Hillbillies" The entire cast of "The Facts of Life" I'm sure you can think of others. This season, two long-running shows are calling it quits - "Frasier" and "Friends" - and for an unlucky few, Ziering status is inevitable. Who will disappear from sight only to turn up occasionally on made-for-tv movies on Lifetime? My vote would be Kelsey Grammer and Courtney Cox. Time will tell.

When I first got into the way, it was around the time of the "miraculous healing" of Howard Allen. I don't remember ever hearing what was supposed to have been wrong with him, but apparently he was snatched from the brink of certain death by the prayers of the faithful. This was held up time and time again as absolute proof of the power of twi and VP. Myth or fact? Anybody know any details?

Keep it away from any open flames. :)-->

At the peak of my comic reading days (1964-67), we knew what day the new issues would come into the store every month and we'd be there as soon as school go out that day. They were 12 cents each, so I'd take a dollar and buy eight of them: Spiderman, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Avengers, Daredevil, Thor, Captain America/Iron Man and Hulk/Dr. Strange. Kind of lost interest when I got to high school, but I saved every one of them until I was out of college and then I threw them all out. Who knew?

True enough, but VP claimed that he played for the Sheboygan Redskins, who were part of the National Basketball League, which later became the NBA. There are extensive records for the NBL, including league rosters for every team from 1937-1949. No Wierwille. I've never seen anything written about VP's basketball career except what he said himself. Show me some names, dates or even a picture of him holding a basketball and I might change my mind.

Yeah, right. I'm of the opinion that VP's entire basketball career was a myth, especially professionally. The internet has made it very easy to research this kind of stuff. There is a group called the Association for Professional Basketball Research that has records on every pro team that ever existed, going back to 1898. You can e-mail them a name and they will check to see if that person ever played professional basketball. The name "Wierwille" does not appear on the roster of any professional basketball team that ever existed in the United States. Now either he played under a different name, which is not entirely out of the realm of possibility, or the entire story is a crock. I know what I think.

I go back to '64 with the Fantastic Four and Ben Grimm may have threatened to make somebody or something into a grease spot at one time, but the "by midnight" part doesn't ring true. There's a rumor going around the internet that Michael Chiklis is going to play Grimm in the FF movie coming out in 2005.

My involvement was in the early 70s and I certainly don't consider myself a "victim" or a "controlled brainwashed zombie." I do consider myself to have been a chump to have wasted so much time and effort and money on this bunch. Of course, my only reason for ever getting into this and staying in it was to hold on to a relationship, so I probably bring a different perspective than most here. My only personal contact with Wierwille was to shake his hand twice at the ROA, and once during his one visit to North Carolina while I was in. You didn't have to be personally in his presence to see that it was always about him. I could see that from the first couple of months. He was "the man of God" and there can only be one, kind of like the Highlander. Now I admit I don't remember VP ever saying that about himself, but I sure heard others say it over and over and over again. If you think VP couldn't have put a stop to that with one word, you are living in the twilight zone. If he didn't believe it himself, he sure enjoyed having everybody else believe it. I took my mom to some twi thing that featured VP, I can't remember what now, but I sure remember what she said: "They seem to be worshipping a man, not God." Being a good little wayfer at the time, I said, "Oh, no. It's all about the Word." Yeah, right. It HAD to be all about VP, of course, because as we all know, God spoke to him audibly and told him He would teach him the Word like it hadn't been known since the first century. Also, twi's indoctrination course, pfal, was way too important to trust mere mortals to teach. It had to be VP on film. That sounds like it was written with V.P. Wierwille in mind. No comment on LCM. I was long gone by his time.

You obviously haven't met Mike, Master of PFAL

This one has been going around since at least 1999. Here's another version: Scam Alert! Warning! Please Read Immediately! This IS Serious!!! If you get an envelope from a company called the "Internal Revenue Service," DO NOT OPEN IT! This group operates a scam around this time every year. Their letter claims that you owe them money, which they will take and use to pay for the operation of essential functions of the United States government. This is untrue! The money the IRS collects is used to fund various inefficient and pointless social engineering projects. This organization has ties to another shady outfit called the Social Security Administration, who claim to take money from your regular paychecks and save it for your retirement. In truth, the SSA uses the money to pay for the same misguided make-work projects the IRS helps mastermind. These scam artists have bilked honest, hard working Americans out of billions of dollars. Don't be among them! Please copy this envelope in triplicate according to the guidelines of the "Paperwork Augmentation Act" of 1999 and then tear up all three of these envelopes a hundred pieces and send the pieces to the following address: IRS, "FORM 1040 - NOT EZ" Rejected Refunds Division Office 1600, Room 412, Cubicle 13, Desk 7, Filing Cabinet 6, Drawer 3, Space 62, Folder 5 Washington, DC 20000-0000 FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW

I wish I had been at a Bonnie Raitt concert that night too, excathie. ;)-->

I was never a wow either, but I did spend one summer doing WONC (Word Over North Carolina). An interesting experience, to say the least. Another guy and me and a married couple and their one-year old son, living in an apartment in a part of town where people were afraid to go after dark. The mother of the child didn't work, so she did all the cooking and cleaning, which was pretty nice. It was like having our own maid and she was a darn good cook. Their bedroom and mine shared a wall that was about as thick as a piece of cardboard so I heard some very interesting stuff at night. It was almost like being in the same room with them. Yick. The other guy clearly had no concept of what this program was supposed to be all about as his main focus was trying to get every female we witnessed to into bed, no matter what their age. He just up and left after the first month, stiffing us for his share of the rent. One of the things we were supposed to do was run every morning, which we did exactly once. Our "leader," the married guy, never got out of bed to make us do it again. We managed to run an audio class for three poor saps that kept us from the humiliation of being complete failures. I found out much later that one of them went on to graduate from the way corps. Hard to believe. The last night we were there, the night Nixon resigned, there was a shooting in the parking lot. Good times. That summer cured me of any desire I might have had to do the wow thing.

Has anybody else seen the video clips that they've posted of the musical performances from their Sunday night services? It's on their "Current News" page. If I couldn't see the big twi logo, I'd swear I was watching PTL, circa 1984.

Here's the link where you can search: Trademark Electronic Search System

I'm certainly no expert on trademark law, but I would think if they abandoned their trademark on "power for abundant living" that somebody else would be free to claim it. Maybe Mike would like to have it.

If you have some time to kill, check out the website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. You can search their data base to see if something has been trademarked. Apparently, twi has trademarked: THE WAY THE WAY INTERNATIONAL THE WAY CORPS DISCIPLES OF THE WAY OUTREACH PROGRAM THE WAY AMBASSADOR WOW THE WAY OF ABUNDANCE AND POWER THE WAY MAGAZINE and these tongue-twisters that apparently refer to their logos: THE PREVAILING WORD THE WAY INTERNATIONAL NEW KNOXVILLE OHIO EPHESIANS FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE GOD AND HIS WORD THE WAY MAGAZINE THE WAY CORPS IT IS WRITTEN APOSTLES PROPHETS EVANGELISTS PASTORS TEACHERS Interestingly, it looks like they let their trademark for POWER FOR ABUNDANT LIVING expire in March 1984, but they're still holding on to PFAL. Go figure.

I thought God was supposed to supply your need, not your greed. Anything more than a handful is a waste.

I gotta get me one of these: Trunk Monkey

Peanut butter on your privates??? Now that's an interesting idea.

Peanut butter & mayonnaise?? Peanut butter & pickle relish?? There oughta be a law against doing that to peanut butter. Peanut butter and honey is the only way that's decent and in order.

Every time I pick up the "mystery box" my @#$%&*@#&^%$!!! computer freezes.

Looking back from over 25 years of being out, I can't say that I ever experienced anything that I could classify as "evil." Stupid, yes. Lots and lots of stupid. Of course, I was never in any kind of leadership position at all. I was just the nut on the way tree. I had no contact with New Knoxville except for an hour wandering around the farm at the ROA. If I had to describe most of the people where I was, they would be "nerds." Except for a few exceptions, good little boys and girls who never stepped out a line, especially in anything involving twi, no matter how hard I tried to push them. I enjoyed the twig meetings and coffeehouses, but I hated the pressure to take classes and witness and go wow and do the colon cleanse. If you didn't do those things, you weren't walking the walk. If they had just left me alone to be the nut on the tree, I might have stayed longer, but probably not because of personal stuff. When I was in, we were all supposed to aspire to the Holy Grail of the Advanced Class. To reach that pinnacle of spiritual success, one had to complete something called "home studies" a fill-in-the blank exercise in way doctrine. I did the first one, got marked down for putting a comma in the wrong place, threw it in the trash and never did another one. No spritual perfection for you!!! The only way corps people I ever met were some passing through on their way to somewhere else,like Bo Reahard or Randy Anderson. I've been told I met Martindale, but he must not have made much of an impression on me, because I have no memory of it. Our leaders were all college kids my own age or a little older. Even the limb leader was in his 20s, and this was one of the twi "hot spots" Greenville, NC. Different times, different places, different experiences. When I first discovered Waydale, it was hard to connect the stories that I read there with the collection of dorks and twerps that I knew. When I heard that Rosalie was president, I almost fell out of my chair. When I knew her, she could barely run a twig. That was my experience. Doesn't mean I don't believe what happened to other people just because I never saw it.

A very unusual movie. It's billed as a comedy, and I guess you could call it that, but there are very few laugh out loud moments in it. Jim Carrey has proven that he can be a pretty decent actor in the right role and he's very good in this. The basic story is that Carrey's character breaks up with his girlfriend, Kate Winslet, and she has a medical procedure that erases him from her memory. Carrey decides to do the same thing to erase her from his memory. I can't blame him since Winslet's character is pretty annoying. At this point, you really have to pay attention because it's hard to tell if what you're seeing is real or a memory or a fake memory. It's an interesting premise and some of the visuals are pretty amazing. Quite different from most of what Hollywood churns out. It's worth a look.

What's a "diamond geezer?"

That is so wrong on so many different levels it's hard to know where to start. The people in charge of that Ohio nut house defintely need some medication. In suppository form A very large one