childsprawl

A widespread phenomenon which occurs when (usually) a couple will buy a house based on it's expansive lawn and one story layout because they have, or intend to have, two or more children.
One of the leading causes of suburban sprawl, childsprawl typically involves a ranch house set back from the street with a large open (read-a homogenously treeless lawn) back yard (which is often used to build another room onto the back, since zoning won't allow the front yard to be built on no matter how deep it is).
Dog Sprawl is similar to, and oftentimes accompanied by, dogsprawl, except that rather than use a public baseball diamond or other playing field, they use the yard for this purpose (which, in turn, compacts the soil and renders it unproductive.)

One need only watch HGTV to see the process of childsprawl in action.

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yuppie scum

Yuppie scum comes in many forms. They tend to be separated from philistines by a greater income, a higher intelligence, higher education, and a greater appreciation of the arts. But any amongst these is not always the case.
But like the philistine, people who are yuppie scum are big time conformists and often times care little for the environment (unless they somehow feel that their momentary gain is significantly worth their efforts.) They are very materialistic, constantly overconsuming that which takes relatively little time to get tossed in the trash. Yuppie Scum buy, or build, a newer, larger house every two or three years or so, with little concern for the effect this has on the land (see McMansion.) They love, and are a driving force behind many of the demolition, renovation and anti "clutter" shows on such channels as TLC, HGTV, and sometimes even the Discovery Channel among others. If an older house exists that they buy, they will either tear it down to build a newer, larger house, or destroy anything that makes it distinctive (or as they see it, "dated".) They will also tear out bushes and trees that have been growing there for decades, generations even, and are still perfectly healthy! Yuppie scum typically care little for historic preservation. In fact, yuppie scum have done great damage by tearing down aeons old buildings in places like Nantucket, and replacing them with Tennis Courts etc. They can do whatever they want, they're rich.
Yuppie scum have a tendency to wear dull, conservative, buisinesslike attire. To see how yuppie scum like to dress, just watch Stacy and Clinton on What Not to Wear. They often drive large, pretentious, gas guzzling vehicles like Hummers.
Yuppie Scum is a varied and diverse group. They are usually
nouveau riche but can also be bluebloods.
Among them can be found many different groups, among them are:

Middle aged baby boomer men who diorced their 1st wives for a much younger trophy wife (see the Donald)

Soccer Moms (who are often trophy wives themselves) who drive up the price of gasoline with their huge SUVs, and somtimes breed like rabbits

"Homebuilders", real estate or property Developers and others who gain instant gratification and wealth from the rape of the land.

Anyone who lives by "Curb Appeal," "What Not to Wear," "Designed to Sell" and other similar programs.

Anyone on the wealthy side who is upwardly mobile and has only limited concern for those less fortunate or well off than themselves (except when an act somehow selfishly has an advantageous effect on themselves.)

Honda Elements may "fit" into the compact spaces in a parking lot, but they're not exactly compacts. Grr. How many times have I had to squeeze out of the door of my actual compact because an SUV has been parked too close to me by some yuppie scum?

-excerpt from a blog that I found

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Edge City

1)A book written in 1991 by Joel Garreau

2)A "Suburb" with a large commercial district that takes on the identity of the metropolitan center, along with all others within a particular MSA/CMSA

3)A place which is dependent on the automobile, usually growing up around a mall, freeway exit, and several office parks

4)A place which often was nothing but forest and or farmland prior to 1965, or at most a small town

5)A place where there are often surface parking lots as far as the eye can see

6)The setting of the 1994 Jim Carey box office feature presentation "The Mask." A city plagued by crime and pollution

7)A nationally-syndicated comic strip created by Terry and Patty LeBan about a Jewish American family "juggling relationships, careers and traditions at the fast pace of modern life"

The edge city as Garreau describes it is fundamentally impossible without the automobile. It was not until automobile ownership surged in the 1950s, after four decades of fast steady growth, that the edge city became truly possible. Whereas virtually every American central business district (CBD) or secondary downtown that developed around non-motorized transportation or the streetcar has a pedestrian-friendly grid pattern of relatively narrow streets, most edge cities instead have a hierarchical street arrangement centered around pedestrian-hostile arterial roads.

-Fom a certain popular online encyclopedia which anyone can edit

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Gun Fu

Gun fu is the style of sophisticated close-quarters gunplay seen in Hong Kong action cinema and in Western films influenced by it. It often resembles a martial arts battle played out with firearms instead of traditional weapons.

The focus of gun fu is style, and the usage of firearms in ways that they were not designed to be used. Shooting a gun from each hand, shots from behind the back, as well as the use of guns as melee weapons are all common. Other moves can involve shotguns, Uzis, rocket launchers, and just about anything else that can be worked into a cinematic shot. It is often mixed with hand-to-hand combat maneuvers.

"Gun fu" has become a staple factor in modern action films due to its visually appealing nature (regardless of its actual practicality in a real-life combat situation). This is a contrast to American action movies of the 1980s which focused more on heavy weaponry and outright brute-force in firearm-based combat.

Before 1986, Hong Kong cinema was firmly rooted in two genres: the martial arts film and the comedy. Gunplay was not terribly popular because audiences had considered it boring, compared to fancy kung-fu moves or graceful swordplay of the wu shu epics. What moviegoers needed was a new way to present gunplay-- to show it as a skill that could be honed, integrating the acrobatics and grace of the traditional martial arts. And that's exactly what John Woo did. Using all of the visual techniques available to him (tracking shots, dolly-ins, slo-mo), Woo created beautifully surrealistic action sequences that were a 'guilty pleasure' to watch. There is also intimacy found in the gunplay-- typically, his protagonists and antagonists will have a profound understanding of one another and will meet face-to-face, in a tense Mexican standoff where they each point their weapons at one another and trade words.

The popularity of John Woo's films, and the heroic bloodshed genre in general, in the West helped give the gun fu style greater visibility. Film-makers like Robert Rodriguez were inspired to create action sequences modelled on the Hong Kong style. One of the first to demonstrate this was Rodriguez's Desperado (1995). The Matrix (1999) played a part in making "gun fu" the most popular form of firearm-based combat in cinema worldwide; since then, the style has become a staple of modern Western action films.

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Alien Abductee

A person with repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.

We really should cut the "alien abductee"s some slack after all they've been through, delusional as they may be.

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Newburyport

An ancient, clustered, European style harbor town in northern Essex County Massachusetts at the mouth of the Merrimack River (on the south bank.)

Known for clipper ship construction two centuries ago, it has a very long history of prosperity and decline and figured prominently in the HPL story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" among other literary works.

In the last half century it has gone from slum to a wealthy place dominated by yuppies, and has some of the best preserved early 19th century urban architecture anywhere in North America.

But as someone already said, it has it's secrets... has had them for centuries.

More towns should be designed like Newburyport.

Newburyport has a long and rich history. Located on the south bank of the Merrimack River before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean, the area was originally inhabited by the Pawtucket Indians. It was settled in the 1630’s by European immigrants who founded the city of Newbury. The small port of Newbury was quickly settled and became a fishing and trading center with the rest of Newbury turning to agricultural pursuits.

By 1764, the port was so prosperous and densely settled that it broke off from Newbury to become Newburyport. Maritime trade fueled the city’s economy, sparking extraordinary building activity in the decades following.

In 1811, a catastrophic fire leveled the downtown. That event, coupled with restrictive federal trading policies and embargoes implemented in response to the War of 1812 and the national financial panic of 1816, resulted in the city’s economic downfall...

-From the C. of C. website

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Two-Thousands

AKA Two Thousands, 2000s, 2XXXs, 2-Thousands, 2 Thousands etc.
The period between January 1st of the year 2000 and December 31st of the year 2999.

With all the transformations our planet, it's cultures, government, geography, technology, language, music, the way we dress etc are likely to go through, it is highly unlikely that we will get through the Two-Thousands with a world as closely resembling our own as that shown on the cartoon "Futurama."

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