While our lawyers were hard at work trying to relate the legal and copyright issues we thought we would put it in straight English. It's really important stuff. It could save you from hearing from our attorneys and from a worse fate of prosecution.

Here's the terms:

We run this site so that people like you (and people you like) from all over the world, can use it for information, education, personal entertainment, communication, and cyberfacts. Go ahead and browse around as you like. You can even download stuff from the site but only for non-commercial, personal use. If you do, don't fool around with the copyright and other notices written all over this stuff. They're there for a really good reason. And don't even think about distributing, modifying, transmitting, reusing, selling re-posting, or anything else that is so uncool with any of our content, including, text, images, audio, and video, for public or commercial purposes unless we give you expressed written permission.

If you visit our site, you're legally obligated to the terms and conditions listed below and any other law or regulations that applies to the site, the Internet, and the World Wide Web, or Houston, Texas. You shouldn't access or browse the site if you have any problem with that, because once you start, there's no turning back -- you are bound by the terms and conditions.

Further terms

1. While we try to include accurate information on the site. We assume no liability or responsibility for errors or omissions on the site.

2. We and anybody else who helped us create, produce, or deliver the site are not liable for any damages you suffer when you use it. In particular, the lawyers want you to know that our disclaimer includes "direct, incidental, consequential, indirect, or punitive damages arising out of your access to , or use of , the site. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the site is provided to you 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY, FITNESS, FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. Please note that some jurisdictions may not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you. Check your local law for any restrictions or limitations regarding the exclusion of implied warranties. Ugh! What a mouthful from the mouthpieces. We put all of that in quotes because we couldn't figure out any other way to say it that the lawyers would accept. But here's the bottom line -- we're not responsible if you're browsing around and the site damages you or your computer or infects it with any nasty viruses. We sure hope that doesn't happen, but if it does, don't call us.

3. If you don't want the world to know something, don't post if on the site in any bulletin board or anyplace else. That's because anything you disclose to us is ours. That's right -- ours. So we can do anything we want with the stuff you post. We can reproduce it, disclose it, transmit it, publish it, broadcast it, and post it someplace else. We can even send it to your mother (as soon as we find her address). Not only that, we can even use any ideas, concepts, know-hows, or techniques, you post any way we want to, including developing, manufacturing, and marketing products or other stuff using the information you post.

4. Pictures of people or places shown on the site are either our property we're using with their permission. No matter what, it's definitely not your property. You or any of your net-friends can't use it unless we said you can on this page or somewhere else on the site. So guess what -- we won't say yes. So be careful because unauthorized use may violate all sorts of nasty laws. Be smart, keep the stuff you download to yourself.

5. There's also a lot of trademarks, logos, and service marks on the site, including ones like [insert names of trademarks] that either we own or we're using with some one else's permission. So don't think you have any kind of license or right to use them, because you don't and we're not about to give you one. If you don't leave them alone and mess with the trademarks, logos, and service marks on our site, we'll probably go ballistic -- so will the companies that own the other trademarks, logos, and service marks. That means we are likely to sue you or to ask a prosecutor to come after you for messing around with our property or the property of others.

6. You'll probably notice we've linked our site to a lot of others. While that's cool, it doesn't mean we've looked at all those sites, much less checked them out periodically to see what's going on. So don't blame us if some site we link to is bad or has stuff on it that offends you or your pets. Go ahead and go to the link, but remember you're doing it at your risk.

7. That brings us to what you do on our own site. While we occasionally listen in on chat groups, or look at all the postings in our discussion groups or on bulletin boards, we take no responsibility and assume no liability for the content of those locations or for any mistakes, defamation, libel, slander, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, pornographic, nasty, mean, or profane material or any material that law enforcement types, may consider a criminal offense, get someone in court on a civil lawsuit, or for that matter violate any law -- anywhere, anytime. While we certainly respect your privacy, we have no choice but to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court that asks us who might have posted nasty stuff on our site.

8. We're allowed to change this page or anything else on the site any time we want to. That's because it's ours and we have the programmers who can do it. If we do change the page, then your bound by [read: stuck with] those changes, too, whenever you visit our site.

9. If this all sounds kind of mean and undiplomatic, you should have seen what the lawyers gave us in the first place. We had to remind them that human torture and sacrifice was outlawed in the United States. Boy, did they look disappointed!