Newest charge is a little non-native birdlet. S/he is not a happy bird, and knows s/he’s a bird and does NOT believe that I am actually a Provider of the Food.
“What if the bodies are in conveniently-sized pieces?
(3-D packing problem)”
In “Kraken”, Goss and Subby find a solution by folding a victim through an extra dimension.
— — — — —
Still no SAMMICHES! Me hungry! Now bring!
Vilém Saptarsays
Hello!
Eesh, why’s there so much hair in the lounge…
cicely, thanks, I don’t do that, but I save a chunk at a time and earmark it for whatever I want to give.
Ogvorbis Oh, sorry about your son and sorry things seem to’ve gotten worse for you. Hope he recovers soon.
Alethea, great to hear! You go!
Caine,They grow up so fast! And rest your back as much as you can.
kristinc,I’m sure that birdie would thank you if it could :)
Tony, dysomniak and TLC, ah finally something I can relate to with some people here. Batman:The animated Series and Batman of the future were amaazing and my faves as a kid, too.
David Marjanović, okay. Good to hear Jules is doing better!
Vilém Saptarsays
cicely, thanks Oh. I don’t do that, but I save a chunk at a time and earmark some of it for whatever I want to give it to, when I want to.
Thats better. Weird. That “thanks” slipped in and I came off as being dismissive, without meaning to, sorry.
So, for anyone who’s keeping score on Audley’s personal life front (and I know you all are!), my asshole sister is still being an asshole. It’s actually getting to the point where Mr Darkheart and I are considering moving (she’s my downstairs neighbor) just so I can get away from her shit.
Hell, I’ve been fucking kind to her this entire time– taking every single one of her criticisms of me and my doctors (and there’s been a lot, trust me) with a smile and a reminder that we’re all different, when all I really want to do is tell her to fuck off and drop dead.
*sigh* I’m going to take Tony’s advice and write her a letter, I think. At least that way I’m less likely to stick my foot in my mouth.
Sorry ’bout the rant. :(
Janine: Fucking Dyke Of Rage Mountainsays
No need to apologize, Audley.
It is probably a good idea to get away from her just so that your child does not have to witness this bullshit everyday from her aunt, if not for your own sake.
Matt Penfoldsays
*sigh* I’m going to take Tony’s advice and write her a letter, I think. At least that way I’m less likely to stick my foot in my mouth.
JT had some good advice in a post on his blog in the last day or so. Write the letter, get everything of your chest, then tear it up and start again.
I just feel like she’s pushing me away and I don’t know why and I feel like there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And above all else, it’s frustrating, you know?
HI there
Just returned from an awesome day trip with David and Jules to the natural museum. Lots of dinosaurs to squee at.
So far, everything went fine (although it is an adventure to do such a trip by train and everything with 2 kids, especially if big cities overload your system already).
Had a rather sad experience changing trains in Frankfurt. There was a woman on the train with us who was clearly mentally ill. Probably mostly harmless, but she took to the girls a lot, worried about them a lot, tried to care for them and kind of bothered me.
So I was glad when we got off the train in Frankfurt. Since we had time we went to a stall to buy a drink and a pretzel and a coffee and while I waited there she turned up again.
Well, I said mostly harmless, but I was afraid that she might be one of those people who will totally harmlessly wander off with your kid because she thinks she has to do something for them.
Well, as I was busy herding the kids and making sure they stay with me, the woman at the stall didn’t bother to hand me my change, which I only noticed on the next train. And I’d paid with a 50€ note :(
Audley
Sorry to hear that your sister is still an asshole.
Can you tell her to STFU about your pregnancy if she cares to keep in contact with you?
Rick Warren is doing an other forum with presidential candidates.
He explained that the purpose of the forum is “to promote social civility so that people with major disagreements (can) talk without beating each other up.”
This, coming from a person with connections to Scott Lively and Uganda’s Kill The Gays bill. Let us talk respectfully about if people we do not approve of should be imprisoned and killed.
Giliell,
Jealous about David and Jules! Not so jealous about the train experience. :(
Can you tell her to STFU about your pregnancy if she cares to keep in contact with you?
Since my computers are down at work, I’m working on that right now. I’m trying not to be too blunt (‘cos lord knows she’ll twist it so she’s the victim in all of this), but I’m trying to be very clear in my letter that she’s hurt me and that where our relationship goes is entirely up to her.
Paulsays
Found myself wondering today: are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region? Not asking for addresses or anything, but I find myself feeling a bit isolated in a rather conservative area.
Louissays
1) Audley, your sister, oy vay! I recommend sewing some prawns into the hems of her curtains while she’s out. Nothing says “I disapprove” like the smell of a 2 week old rotting prawn. ;-)
2) [TRIGGER WARNING FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE]
How the fuck did I get to this part of Youtube? Okay so it’s a video from a UK charity (watch the whole thing) that I donate to, but when it popped up in my recommended videos thingy I nearly shat a kidney. This is not what I want to view…and then the penny dropped, it’s a charity advert…have you any idea how hard it is to resituate a kidney? Using only a spork?
Louis
Richard Austinsays
Paul: we’ve got peeps in the bay area, and a few of us coastal or in SoCal. I don’t know of any specifically in the Central Valley (Sacmo or such).
Though I’ve driven through there plenty of times, heading either to Guerneville or to Portland.
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of Penn’s skepticism. After his outburst on twitter, I pretty much lost all remaining respect for him.
Pfffffffft. I lost all respect for Penn before it was cool.
When the Sb comments come back, there’s a thread from 2009 or 2010 with several people asking me omg why are you being so mean to Penn Jillette.
Louis:
Hmmmmmmm, I do have keys to her house and I did offer to water her plants the next time she goes on vacation… ;)
Paulsays
Paul: we’ve got peeps in the bay area, and a few of us coastal or in SoCal.
Well, I guess I’d qualify as coastal. I don’t know how people refer to these areas normally, being at heart a SoCal native (don’t make my way down there very much anymore, though, always so busy).
are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region? Not asking for addresses or anything
The fact of you not asking for addresses would have told us that you are not asking for addresses already. You stressing that you are not asking for addresses, however, makes me think you were hoping for addresses.
But then, I’m uncharitable and overly suspicious anyway.
but I find myself feeling a bit isolated in a rather conservative area.
You mean the USA ?
Musesays
Randomly – if folks are interested in Secular Judaism and are free the first week of August, there is a conference going on in the SF area of CA. It’s J-West. I know the folk involved in putting it on (I’m related to some of them) and if work didn’t have me all over the place I’d be going myself.
Paulsays
The fact of you not asking for addresses would have told us that you are not asking for addresses already. You stressing that you are not asking for addresses, however, makes me think you were hoping for addresses.
Actually, getting them would creep me the hell out. I probably should have said “cities” or “exact locations”, I don’t know how much people generally share about their physical locations outside of “country of origin”. It just seemed like an odd request even to myself, so I wanted to qualify it a bit.
You mean the USA ?
Yes, the USA is one big monolith. The culture in San Francisco is an exact match for that in rural Louisiana.
Do I want to know what the Bullshit! episode about wheelchair ramps was about?
If it’s the one I’m thinking of (was ADA in general), the bottom line they kept hammering in is “if we legislate people needing to accomodate the handicapped, that means there’s no room to do it out of the kindness of our hearts anymore. People having legislated requirements will hate the handicapped so much they won’t even bother holding doors open for them anymore, and the world will be a worse place for it”.
Yes you do. Its about the Americans With Disablities act and how handicap spots are bullshit worth addressing. Foricng buisnesses to accomodat eis bullshit because no one can accomondate a man wheeled around in an iron lung.
Richard Austinsays
Paul:
Well, I guess I’d qualify as coastal. I don’t know how people refer to these areas normally, being at heart a SoCal native (don’t make my way down there very much anymore, though, always so busy).
I assume by that you’re north of the bay area? I’ve got a friend who runs a pub (and is starting a brewery) in Sebastapol if you need an escape and it’s nearby.
If it’s the one I’m thinking of (was ADA in general), the bottom line they kept hammering in is “if we legislate people needing to accomodate the handicapped, that means there’s no room to do it out of the kindness of our hearts anymore. People having legislated requirements will hate the handicapped so much they won’t even bother holding doors open for them anymore, and the world will be a worse place for it”.
Yes you do. Its about the Americans With Disablities act and how handicap spots are bullshit worth addressing. Foricng buisnesses to accomodat eis bullshit because no one can accomondate a man wheeled around in an iron lung.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.
And yet, I am not surprised. Fucking Penn.
Pteryxxsays
(warning for Tosh-related sickening)
I don’t remember who linked the Fem2pt0 essay on Tosh misusing his comedic platform, but it’s excellent; and this is disturbing to know:
This is particularly true in Tosh’s case. It’s safe to assume he didn’t actually want five men in his audience to show him how hilarious it would be if they took him up on his gang-bang challenge. Yet even with that benefit of the doubt it wouldn’t have been completely unpredictable if one or more of them had taken him up on his suggestion. This is hardly hyperbole: Tosh enjoys a weekly cause-and-effect relationship with his fans. On “Tosh.0” he regularly encourages his millions of young male viewers to film themselves doing all manner of stupid, silly, embarrassing things – and they dutifully upload the results on YouTube in the hope that he’ll play their clips on air.
(It gets worse…)
Back in April, for example, “Tosh.0” sparked what comedy site Splitsider called a “disgusting, awful movement” of men posting “vaguely rapey” videos after the host announced that “I need you to film yourselves lightly touching women’s stomachs while they’re sitting down.” The body-shaming goal was malicious enough (“Make sure she’s aware that you are in fact feeling a roll”), but his warning could have come off of a black-market bottle of Roofies: “But be careful because they like to pretend that they don’t love it.” One kid even did this to his English teacher, who was so upset she threatened to have him suspended—so he harassed his language teacher instead, and the proof lives on Comedy Central’s website.
That’s just the beginning. The dissection of his shtick just gets worse and worse… I haven’t been able to finish reading it yet.
Pozner recommends calling on Comedy Central and Viacom, not because of what Tosh said at an unrelated standup venue, but because they’re accountable for what he says and does ON HIS SHOW.
Nah, that’s why I started out with “Central California”. The bay is decidedly north. I’m about an hour north of Santa Barbara.
Are iron lungs really a thing nowadays?
No, but that was P&T’s money shot. I had actually forgotten about it. They demonstrated how not one of the places they looked at could accommodate an iron lung, therefore the ADA is fundamentally flawed and thus we should count on charity and individual kindness to ensure those with disabilities can meaningfully participate in society. Otherwise, they’ll take their ball and go home, or only accommodate the handicapped to the minimum letter of the law and no more. Typical rich white guy libertarian blackmail.
There’s a lot of good posts on that blog in general. Especially Abigail Collazo’s. She’s the editor. We started following each other on Twitter after I got harassed by the RadFem2012 crowd. That’s how I discovered that blog.
Yes, the USA is one big monolith. The culture in San Francisco is an exact match for that in rural Louisiana.
There are a lot of non-US posters on this blog. Louisiana or San Francisco has its issues, so does Copenhagen or Melbourne or Vienna. We get it. And we also get that the US actually is one big monolith leaning in the wrong direction when it comes to conservatism, equality and health issues, science and education, and it really is much much worse than any of those other places.
Pteryxxsays
holy crap, Caine fell? Gah, Caine, I hope you’re okay! (And that carpet of rats should all grow up and surround you as a living fuzzy shield of cute.)
There are a lot of non-US posters on this blog. Louisiana or San Francisco has its issues, so does Copenhagen or Melbourne or Vienna. We get it. And we also get that the US actually is one big monolith leaning in the wrong direction when it comes to conservatism, equality and health issues, science and education, and it really is much much worse than any of those other places.
Yes, I am familiar with this blog. I’ve lurked and participated on and off for years.
What does this have to do with me noting that I live in a pocket of excess conservativism in the US? I didn’t make it out to be unique or different, so don’t give me the lecture about other places having their own issues or disliking the US direction as a whole. I don’t, either. And this has fuck-all to do with my original post, so I’d appreciate if you quit trolling me over nothing or lecturing me for living in the US and looking for possible like-minded people in the local area.
so I’d appreciate if you quit trolling me over nothing or lecturing me for living in the US and looking for possible like-minded people in the local area.
No worries at all ! Good night.
Richard Austinsays
Paul:
I’m about an hour north of Santa Barbara.
Ah. I drove through Santa Maria and SLO on my Highway 1 trip over Memorial Day Weekend. I don’t think we’ve got anyone near there, but others will correct me if I’m wrong. I do have a friend who hits the dunes at Pismo fairly often, but it’s a bit of a haul.
Okay, I’ve now written two drafts of the letter to my asshole sister. It’s been really tough to get my point across without sinking into passive-agressiveness.
:-/
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Katherine:
This is the book I’ve been trying to write for 15 years.
Awesome!
Your excitement is literally pouring off the page.
I’m happy for you!
When/how did you come up with the concept for your story?
(I’m not a writer, but the creative process is interesting. Where do people get their ideas for stories from? Why do they choose to write in a particular style? How does one develop a voice for their characters? How does one weave a central theme throughout a story? How do you include enough exposition so readers understand the world you’ve created, but not so much that it gets bogged down? *)
*I’m not asking you these questions. These are just many of the things I think of when it comes to writing.
So now we have a black man running the Investigative Unit.
A black man playing a lead role is one of the many reasons I like the FOX show, Fringe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Reddick
Reddick plays Phillip Broyles, the head of an FBI department investigating paranormal activities. Reddick described the hard-driving character as “a real ass. But he’s also one of the good guys.”
I didn’t care much for his character during the first season, but over the next few, he has really grown on me to the point that I love his presence on the show. I also thought the Walternate version of Broyles was even better developed.
~~
birgerjohanssen:
Did someone say SAMMICHES ?!!!!!!
(starts drooling)
Louis did.
Something about how he was wearing ass-less chaps while fixing sammies for everyone…
Unfortunately, considering your cat is a narrow-headed siamese, it’s likely genetically screwed up. :/
Yes, I know. And my whole life in America I only had rescued cats but my girlfriend is obsessed with having very expensive cats. Russians are now capitalists and they want to show off as much as possible.
My first two years here I was horrified at the overt ostentation but now I’ve gotten (somewhat) used to it (no, it still upsets me). There is no “being humble” here because everyone was humble for decades and now that they have something? They talk about it constantly. To me, it’s a little like children talking about their better-than-yours! expensive toys.
Unfortunately, this (for my gf) carries on into animals. I am not happy about having purebreds because they always have problems. Plus, it’s gross, to be frank. There are plenty of homeless cats on the streets.
Also unfortunately, Tosha, my Siamese boy, loves me and is on me every second of the day I’m home and has such a sweet personality. It’s neither his nor my fault he’s here. I just have to take care of him now that he is.
(I don’t mean to paint my gf as anti-animal. She monetarily supports many homeless shelters for animals here in SPb but she doesn’t see that her support of the “kitten mill” is abuse. Baby steps.)
I’m okay, I’m glad that I like girls, my friends don’t care, and it shouldn’t have a negative effect on my career. I may just wait until the next time they start talking about me meeting a nice boy, and then casually let them know that it’s a lot more likely that I’ll meet a nice girl.
That sounds sensible. I’ve had many friends who didn’t come out until their 40’s or 50’s so there’s no time limit and everyone just has to do what feels right for them.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Vilem Saptar:
Eesh, why’s there so much hair in the lounge…
Hey, don’t look at me. I shave in the shower. I’d rather clog the drains then reveal to everyone the process by which I become PoC Mr. Clean.
, ah finally something I can relate to with some people here. Batman:The animated Series and Batman of the future were amaazing and my faves as a kid, too.
What’s funny to me is Time Warner/DC Comics is lightyears ahead of Marvel with their animation, but the opposite is true of the live actions movies (well not lightyears, perhaps. DC is trailing Marvel with quality movies. I don’t discount how fantastic the Batman movies have been, but that’s almost all of DC’s live action movies in the 00s). From Batman: TAS through Justice League Unlimited (which takes place in the same animated universe and includes Justice League, Static Shock, Superman:TAS & Batman Beyond), DC’s animation shines. Marvel, OTOH has had lackluster success, IMHO. Yes, the X-Men cartoon from the 90s was cool, but the animation was subpar. So too were the various Spider-Man animated series in the 90s. The sole exception, IMO, to this Marvel=lackluster animation rule was the MTV Spider-Man series, which lasted all of 1 season
The CGI version of Marvel’s popular superhero features the voice talents of Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Lisa Loeb as Mary Jane, and Ian Ziering as Harry Osborn. Peter has graduated from high school and is attending Empire State University (although in the films he attends Columbia University).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_The_New_Animated_Series
I thought the animation was superb. The show skewed a little darker in tone as well, and I’d say it was probably a PG-13 type show. The writing was also of higher quality than the X-Men show and the other Spider-Man shows (the show was meant to fit into the continuity of the movies, taking place at some vague point after the first Spider-Man movie, but before the second). In fact, I thought the writing and atmosphere were comparable to Batman: TAS. Marvel also created a few direct to DVD animated movies, based on some iterations of the Avengers (two of them were adaptations of the some of Mark Millar’s reimagining of the team in the Ultimate Universe comic, The Ultimates; the Avengers live action movie borrows heavily from Millar’s reimagining of the team).
Today, Disney XD puts out a quality show in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The animation still isn’t *quite* my preferred style, but it’s *far* better than any of their 90s output.
And I hope that is enough to qualify me for the Lifetime Geek Award…
Audley Z. Darkheart (aka Maudley Pee Darkfart) @5 –
I feel you on the sister thing. I always felt my little sister was on my side. She repeated the right platitudes, anyway.
Last year she really showed her stripes when I would email and Skype her about the gay marriage struggle.
“Be happy you can’t marry. You can’t go through divorce.” That sort of thing.
I countered, “At least you’re considered an adult and can get married.”
“You’ll be an adult when you have a baby.” Ah! I see.
The fact that her first two children were allocated to their father’s care because she’s not a stable human doesn’t matter. She at least HAD babies. Phew! And now she’s had another baby!
Not to make it all about me (obviously I am, as that’s the only viewpoint I know for sure) but I miss her. I miss the sister I thought she was when she was on best behavior, I guess. But I axed this incarnation (maybe the real her?) out of my life and feel much better for it (not to mention, I’m saving a lot of money because she just would not work).
Really, I’m trying to say I feel for you. It really, really sucks to lose a sister you so want to have a close relationship with (especially if she’s just downstairs). I feel that same void.
I doubt I’ll be able to get through to my sister, but it might just be better to give it a try and then, depending on her response, let the relationship go.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Audley:
So, for anyone who’s keeping score on Audley’s personal life front (and I know you all are!), my asshole sister is still being an asshole.
Damn. I was rather hoping her pregnancy would have mellowed her assholishness out. Does she just pick random things to pester you about, or does she have some sort of point?
Hell, I’ve been fucking kind to her this entire time– taking every single one of her criticisms of me and my doctors (and there’s been a lot, trust me)
Oh, she suffers from “IANAD in real life, but I like to play armchair doc”. Like the armchair psychologist, these docs really need to stop administering their unsolicited and often uneducated opinions.
~~
Matt:
Write the letter, get everything of your chest, then tear it up and start again.
You know, that could work too. I know for me that all my ideas run throughout my head in a non-linear fashion, so I almost always forget important things to talk about when I’m dealing with a situation similar to Audley’s. Just the act of writing things down (even w/out the intent of showing the written material to anyone) can work to iron out all the details in a coherent fashion.
In other news, à propos of nothing, my gf loves to travel and is often paid to travel–she’s a well-known blogger and photographer– but she hates flying. (I’m usually also paid to go with her, to translate and accompany–my gf has epilepsy so I’m her medical aide as well as her gf.)
If you’ve ever seen that one person freaking out on the plane? It’s my gf. Any turbulence sends her into panic.
Yet, every night, she searches out airplane horror movies and watches dramatizations of airplane crashes. Why?!
Does she just pick random things to pester you about, or does she have some sort of point?
Well, it’s all been related to my pregnancy and what she sees as “wrong”. So, take your pick: one day it will be about my swollen ankles, the next it will be about my size. She has told me that I shouldn’t be experiencing heartburn (???) and that I also shouldn’t have any back pain*. She’s told me that I should be looking for new doctors because mine haven’t referred me to a genetic councilor and they haven’t been performing ultrasounds once a month.
It’s like she has some unreasonable expectation of my pregnancy and she’s mad that I haven’t lived up to her standards. Despite the fact that I’m generally happy and so healthy that Dr Jen has said that I’m her easiest patient.
*Despite the fact that, yeah, I had heartburn and sciatic nerve pain before I became pregnant.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Giliell:
Just returned from an awesome day trip with David and Jules to the natural museum. Lots of dinosaurs to squee at.
OOOOOOH!
Dinos!
I just realized for all that I love dinosaurs, I’ve never been to a museum to see any fossils…
I did watch the supremely awful Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief movie. It had a fossil…
I wonder if any creationists have been to an actual museum. Seems to me that if you see how powerful and predatory many dinosaurs were you’d start to wonder how early humanity could have defended themselves from creatures who could shit you to death.
Did you say anything to the annoying woman? Or did you just keep one watchful eye on her?
~~
rorschach:
are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region? Not asking for addresses or anything
The fact of you not asking for addresses would have told us that you are not asking for addresses already. You stressing that you are not asking for addresses, however, makes me think you were hoping for addresses.
I didn’t take it that way.
I saw it as making sure people knew there was no inquiry about actual addresses. I think some people would interpret the question “are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region?” as specifically asking for addresses. So why not err on the side of caution?
~~
Paul:
Actually, getting them would creep me the hell out. I probably should have said “cities” or “exact locations”, I don’t know how much people generally share about their physical locations outside of “country of origin”. It just seemed like an odd request even to myself, so I wanted to qualify it a bit.
I think the amount of sharing [re: personal info] depends on the individual. I’ve mentioned a few times where I live. Others, for reasons of their own, choose to have more anonymity (and I do not at all begrudge anyone choosing to do so).
Yes, the USA is one big monolith. The culture in San Francisco is an exact match for that in rural Louisiana.
LOL.
Imagine if that were true.
Think of the Gay Pride celebrations bringing in tens of thousands of people…to Louisiana.
Oh, and Audley. To be a perfect platitude, sometimes it just takes time.
My mother was appallingly on my sister’s side until I sent her the Straight Privilege Checklist. To my great surprise, the very next day my mom apologized to me. It only took thirty years.
I sincerely hope your sister can rise to meet you before then.
In a previous post I noted Michelle Bachmann’s latest conspiracy theory, namely that muslim extremists are infiltrating the government of the USA. Now we see that the result of her nutbaggery has consequences when it comes to international diplomacy. (Shades of how right wing nuttery affected Uganda’s anti-gay campaign.)
The story below is related to Hillary Clinton’s latest diplomatic efforts in Egypt.
… Robert Mackey explained that the demonstrators “appear to have been inspired by fears that the Obama administration harbors a secret, pro-Islamist agenda which originated with American conservatives.”
As my colleague Kareem Fahim reported on Sunday, some political opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt claim that the United States even plotted to install the Islamist party’s presidential candidate in office. “Although wildly counterintuitive,” my colleagues David Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh observed on Saturday, “that conspiracy theory has tapped into the deep popular distrust here of the United States.”
The strength of that belief was on full display on Saturday in Cairo, as hundreds rallied outside Mrs. Clinton’s hotel, waving placards that read: “Stop U.S. funding of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Of course, the United States isn’t funding the Muslim Brotherhood. So why have these folks taken to the streets to complain about?
It’s amusing in an unsettling sort of way. The protestors believe the United States is too much in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they believe this because they saw reports online from Michele Bachmann, Frank Gaffney, and other American extremists who peddle strange conspiracy theories — including absurdities about the Muslim Brotherhood “infiltrating” the American government.
But the people on the streets of Cairo don’t realize that Bachmann, Gaffney, and their cohorts are ridiculous, so they’re taking the strange “news” they’re finding on the Internet seriously.
Congratulations, far-right activists, your nonsense now has a global reach.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Pteryxx (from your quoted material @28):
It’s safe to assume he didn’t actually want five men in his audience to show him how hilarious it would be if they took him up on his gang-bang challenge.
I don’t think it’s safe to assume that. Rape is far too prevalent in society. Too many people dismiss women when they speak up, using the “oh, it wasn’t PIV, so it wasn’t rape”. I’m not saying to assume that Tosh was asking his audience to do that, but based on his comments, he doesn’t take the problem of rape seriously.
~~
Paul:
They demonstrated how not one of the places they looked at could accommodate an iron lung, therefore the ADA is fundamentally flawed and thus we should count on charity and individual kindness to ensure those with disabilities can meaningfully participate in society.
So they’re saying they should ditch the ADA and rely solely on the kindness of others? What version of the United States do they live in? Yes, there are a *lot* of compassionate, generous people in the US (and across the world), but there a lot of shitheads out there too. If someone in a wheelchair requires assistance, how are they supposed to know who to ask for help? Are people going to be required to wear Assistance Badges? Those who don’t want to help have to wear Douchebag Badges? What if you’re around people that don’t know how to assist you? What if you’re going to a restaurant and all the guests are busy eating and don’t have the time to help you?
None of that takes into account how often disable individuals are treated as if they’re invisible.
~~
Audley:
Okay, I’ve now written two drafts of the letter to my asshole sister. It’s been really tough to get my point across without sinking into passive-agressiveness.
:-/
If you keep it to expressions of how *you* feel, rather than guessing your sisters’ intent, that may make things more palatable to her.
Also if you’re worried about passive agressiveness, you could try reading it aloud to hear how it sounds. Better yet *if* there is someone you trust enough, perhaps you could read the letter to them to get their reaction.
Gah, Caine, I hope you’re okay! (And that carpet of rats should all grow up and surround you as a living fuzzy shield of cute.)
Doing better, *highly* medicated. Hee, my carpet of rats! Love the imagery, thank you. ♥
Jadzia:
What happened Caine? Hope you’re all right.
A perfect storm of stupid happened, helped along by 120 lbs of exquisite stupidity, goes by the name of Jayne. (Monster dog, gives stupid a bad name, he’s really *that* stupid.)
Audley, seems to me that it’s your sister who keeps trying to torch any bridges in the vicinity. Why should you turn your life upside down in an attempt to keep quiet about her assholery? Tell her to fuck off and to stay fucked off until she can figure out how not to be a compleat douchecanoe.
I am highly medicated, so take all that with the requisite truckload of salt.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Krasnaya:
Unfortunately, this (for my gf) carries on into animals. I am not happy about having purebreds because they always have problems. Plus, it’s gross, to be frank.
Ignorant question here:
What type of problems do purebreds have?
Why is it gross?
.
.
I do agree that adopting cats off the streets (via an organization that spays/neuters them and gives them shots, natch) is the infinitely preferable way to adopt a cat (that’s how I got *all* my feline and canine companions)
~~
Audley:
I doubt I’ll be able to get through to my sister, but it might just be better to give it a try and then, depending on her response, let the relationship go.
I hope she responds as a compassionate human being who cares about her sisters’ feelings.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Richard @57:
Doh! Forgot about that.
I may have been thinking of spreading the Gay Luv across the entire state. Why should NOLA get all the pseudo-love?
ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐsays
Ignorant question here:
What type of problems do purebreds have?
Why is it gross?
Differs based on breed. Almost/all purebreds have a suite of known problems due to lack of genetic diversity.
It can range to hip problems, lung problems, breathing issues, cardiac issues, neurological etc etc.
Such problems IIRC are a big reason why Puggles started getting pushed heavily. Pug breathing problems were getting too great so they had to introduce greater snout length into the population.
Also since there was some talk about comics and BTAS, I hope you don’t mind if I blogwhore for someone I know. They’re setting up a project after hearing friends complain about the New 52 to see if it works at appealing to new readers. She being completely new to comics is going to try to read the first 5 of the initial launch and blog thoughts on it.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
So a friend of mine posted about religion on Facebook. One of the responses was from someone who said she was “a follower of Jesus, but not religious”.
How does that work?
It means they’re protestant it’s a fundamentalist meme from the 2000s and late 90s
birgerjohanssonsays
Must-remember quote
“Islam is such a perfect religion for dickheads! Is it the reason for the high rate of conversions to Islam?”
— — — — — — —
“A new Islamic sex guide” http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2012/07/17/a-new-islamic-sex-guide/
— — — — —
I have tried hard to come up with film titles to recommend to the humanist festival mentioned elsewhere in Pharyngula, but a lot of the best films are only known to me by their Swedish titles, the original titles in Engish, French or German can be completely different. Darn.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
ING:
Post away on that.
I can’t see that appealing to me, as I’m massively anti-DCnU, but someone else might like to hear about that stuff.
Caine:
Oh noes! I missed that you had posted about falling. Ouch ouch ouch (and *loves*).
You never see that in dog food commercials, do you? It’s always “dog: the faithful companion” and never “dog: the monster that tests your patience, but you still love”.
Tony:
I hope she responds as a compassionate human being who cares about her sisters’ feelings.
That would be nice, but knowing how my sister rolls, I don’t have high hopes for that. At this point, my goal is to make my feelings known without being painted as the villain in this drama.
*Best descriptor of how I’m moving about at the moment.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ing:
as am I but I found the blog interesting for picking up on stuff that, I as someone who has read a comic, wouldn’t even notice or question.
So far it’s on Batgirl….I imagine humor will come when she reaches Voodoo or Catwoman.
Even as I said it wouldn’t appeal to me, I clicked on your link anyway (it was probably close minded of me to no at least give it a glance) and found exactly what you saw: an analysis of the material in a way that I’m unfamiliar with. The feminist perspective of the author is a welcome voice, especially in the male dominated field of American comics (not sure how it is with other countries). I may actually check it out from time to time.
That said, I wish she would have picked a different character than Batgirl. I’m still friggin’ pissed that they took away such a valuable character in Oracle, one who had a unique role and mission within the DCU and just happened to be disabled.*
*by that, I mean her disability wasn’t the focus of her character. It played a role, sure, but she was almost always presented as a well rounded character. It’s the same notion as having a gay character versus having a character who happens to be gay.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ing:
*faxes “Get Well Soon Card” To Caine*
I’ll see your fax, and raise you a telepathic get well message to Caine.
Beat that!
I got a very very hostile response when I asked if I could scan it and e-mail it.
Paulsays
Tony:
So they’re saying they should ditch the ADA and rely solely on the kindness of others? What version of the United States do they live in?
Ayn Rand Funland. Everything goes well if we just leave people to their own devices, with the government backing the hell off. We need to check the Feds before they decide to Go Galt.
The odd part is, they’re well-off enough that they must have realized the real end-goal. They’re Winston Smith. O’Brien would have administered some severe punishment if they said “rich people don’t want the ADA because that way they get to help people with special needs out of the Goodness of their hearts instead of just to conform to some cold and impersonal law, and they’d make sure they were just as helped without the laws anyway”. They are intelligent and connected enough to know the real motive is control, and making sure they are not being coerced into spending their hard-earned money just to accommodate handicapped people when it would cost them money to do so and they could just as easily cater to those without special needs.
I liked Bullshit! until that episode. I know that doesn’t speak particularly well of me, but that at least was enough.
So a friend of mine posted about religion on Facebook. One of the responses was from someone who said she was “a follower of Jesus, but not religious”.
How does that work?
Old Protestant meme. The idea is that you’re not following some religion, you just have a personal relationship with Jesus. He’s your BFF, future husband, etc. The fact that they still tend to officially take the Bible as gospel is just incidental, surely.
Richard Austinsays
Ing:
Btw I believe I borrowed a time machine from someone here to go back to 1995 to get a fax…do you still want it returned by yesterday?
There was a young woman from Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She left home one way
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
I like to think I have a personal relationship with Jesus…specifically he’s the little clingy kid from school that we let hang around because of his willingness to eat bugs and dog poo on a dare.
Bullshit has the big problem of dishonesty via cherry picking your opponents. Even when they’re right they do score cheap points by often picking the easiest representatives of the other side to knock down. No one could ever say honestly that it’s a fair investigation of any issue. It very much runs on similar principles to creationism IMO; they have a narrative per-decided and then go looking for the facts and interviews that will build support for their conclusion.
Sounds like that guy wasn’t thinking rationally. If you really *were* a vile human being, I don’t think you would have shown him any sympathy.
Well, he was a troll.
Thanks, btw, for the compliment on my “sticky” post on Dreamwidth. Also, I’m getting a 403 (forbidden) error when I try to look at Kayta’s photo.
By “gross,” I think Krasnaya Koshka meant “disgusting” in a metaphorical sense.
Gnumann:
Because nested comments are worse than Alisa RozenbaumRebecca Watson.
FTFY.
Myself, I’m partial to the way LiveJournal and its various clones nest comments and permit expansion and collapse of subthreads. But that could just be because I’m used to them.
Kristin:
I admit that a certain geeky and gross fascination with yanked-out hairs plays into my preference for waxing and my relative lack of minding the trouble it takes.
I had electrolysis done years ago, to get rid of a light ‘stache and also some chin hairs. The former hasn’t come back, but, due to age and hormonal changes, the latter have. Plucking them encourages them, but I will admit to finding it satisfying in the same way picking a scab is satisfying.
Also, pretty birdie.
Caine: Ow, I hope your back and neck feel better soon. And, eeeeee, new ratlets!!!
Also, medication regardless, I agree with you about Audley’s sister.
Birger: About four or five years ago, a Canadian friend of mine mentioned that the Inuit had begun to see robins around the Arctic Circle. “What are these birds? We’ve never seen them before.”
But, yeah, Al Gore made up anthropogenic global warming in order to buy another mansion. /fuxnooz
Janine, I remember the “vile bitch” in your handle. I was lurking at the time.
Ogvorbis, hope your son feels better soon.
Audley: Sorry to hear your sister is still being a shit to you. If you & Mr. D. can afford to move, move. You don’t need the aggro, and Janine has a good point too.
Oh, and since we’re talking about disability in the thread right now, here’s an article about a disability services agency in California that discriminated against a disabled job candidate.
That said I think Bullshit should be seen as the best thing for skepticism ever.
Because you go through thinking “FUCK YEAH! GO YOU GUYS! TOTALLY STICK IT TO THEM” until they hit something you disagree on or know more about and then suddenly BAM DAN BROWNED and you see how unfair and straw manning they are in crystal clarity. Then ideally you look back and think “wow! Look how easily I was taken in by utter Bullshit!” and learn an important lesson about being taken in by a charismatic figure telling you what you want to hear….and also how huge an ass Penn is.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Apropos of nothing with a smattering of TMI:
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This damned hemorrhoid is on my fucking nerves. This is the only time I’ve been happy to not have a sex life. I wonder if they’re genetic for some people. I seem to get one or two a year. It makes walking very awkward.
(have no health insurance, so casually seeing a doctor isn’t practical; preparation H over a few days has proven the perfect remedy; still, I’d like to not get them at all)
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
… We’re not behind the times at all. Nuh huh. No siree
Hey now!
Some of us *are* behind the times :)
I’ve never owned an MP3 player or an Ipod.
Last night I did find an old Ipod Nano that I guess belonged to M. I don’t have a charger for it though, but I guess I’ll keep it.
Because you go through thinking “FUCK YEAH! GO YOU GUYS! TOTALLY STICK IT TO THEM” until they hit something you disagree on or know more about and then suddenly BAM DAN BROWNED and you see how unfair and straw manning they are in crystal clarity.
Truer words have never been said. Well, maybe they have at some point. But not a lot of them.
Although even once or twice on issues where I agreed with them I kind of wanted to facepalm because of the set-em-up, knock-em-down quality of some of their arguments. I mean they’re pretty shameless.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Why is Kiara, T’s dog, sniffing my crotch? It’s creepy.
It’s basically a ‘magic trick’ of giving the illusion of giving the opposing side a fair chance to make their case.
Paulsays
That said I think Bullshit should be seen as the best thing for skepticism ever.
If it wasn’t for some of Penn’s recent positions and behavior towards Ophelia and others, I could almost think that Bullshit! was intended to give that whole experience of realizing that even you get taken in by bullshit as long as it’s something you want to hear (whether it’s because you have Randian tendencies, they’re arguing a trivial point that should be obvious, or what have you), and if you go back afterwards after being disillusioned by the source you see in stark contrast how poor the arguments were in the first place. But no, it seems more likely that they just like to be high-fived at how well they school everyone with positions differing from theirs.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ms Daisy:
Also, I’m getting a 403 (forbidden) error when I try to look at Kayta’s photo.
Maybe I didn’t set it up right.
I uploaded the pic to my computer from my phone. From there I copy/pasted the URL for the pic onto my comment here. Is that the correct way to do that?
Audley: Sorry to hear your sister is still being a shit to you. If you & Mr. D. can afford to move, move. You don’t need the aggro, and Janine has a good point too.
Thanks.
Not surprisingly, this isn’t an easy decision. In order to afford moving expenses and not downgrade to a smaller apartment, I would definitely have to go back to work full time as soon as my disability payments run out after DarkFetus is born* and that was definitely not my plan.
We had started working on a budget so I could quit my job a couple of weeks before my due-date. I planned not to work few months after DF’s arrival and after Xmas or so, I was going to look for something part-time. With our current apartment, we can definitely make this work by cutting out a lot of our “luxuries” (cable tv and whatnot) and trimming back on other expenses (as cliched as it sounds, we’ve already switched car insurance companies and managed to save a few dollars every month).
Now, who knows? Because we don’t pay “market value” for our apartment, we are so fucking screwed. We can either stay here and deal with my asshole sister (and roll with our original plan), move to a one bedroom 1/3 of the size of this place (and roll with our original budget), or look for something comparable size-wise (and I would have to go back to work full time immediately).
I hate feeling stuck. :(
*New York oh-so generously pays for 6 weeks of disability.
Richard Austinsays
I just realized for all that I love dinosaurs, I’ve never been to a museum to see any fossils…
WHAT
WHAT
I second that, but that may be a privilege thing – we’ve got decent museums (and tar pits!) here.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Bah, hello.
I’m too lazy to comment today, it seems.
How does anybody follow all these threads? Patience? Practice?
johnfreethought has certainly crawled so far up my ass that he’s nibbling on the inside of my tits. I cannot stand the coopting of people’s actual struggle with mental illness or depression for a fucking gotcha game.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Huh…?
I can’t get this to work.
I was able to post a link to the picture of Krystal a while back, but now I can’t seem to do that for Kayta. Drat.
Last night I did find an old Ipod Nano that I guess belonged to M. I don’t have a charger for it though, but I guess I’ll keep it.
I would. You’ll find someone who has a charger, trust me. ;)
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
How does anybody follow all these threads? Patience? Practice?
Both, and also obsessiveness.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Oh and also:
Meeting all of ya makes me realize how well-off I am.
I’m sitting on a couch doing nearly nothing all day, living in a not-bad house, with plenty of luxuries (at least for now).
I’d love to contribute to a proposed general fund…
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Audley:
Ouch, tough choices.
Hope ya figure out a way to make it work. *hugs and help if needed*
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
David:
I just realized for all that I love dinosaurs, I’ve never been to a museum to see any fossils…
WHAT
WHAT
I just knew you were going to say something :)
I haven’t been here long, but from what the others say about you (when they’re not talking about how awesome you are…something that I’m starting to see), I get the impression you know a thing or two about fossils.
I’ve been to a museum once or twice in my life, and both times it was at a point where I didn’t care about art or history. Now that I’ve come to appreciate history a bit more, and science a whole lot more, I think museums would be fun to go to. Now I just have to get over this anxiety I feel about going new places by myself (this is the reason I haven’t been to the Creation Store yet, or on a cruise, or to another country [I have been to Canada, but tada, it was with someone], or on a vacation somewhere by myself that I’ve never been to). This is one of the things (among so much more) that I miss about M being alive. He and I went *everywhere*. I think maybe it’s like Linus and his blanket. The comfort of knowing that I’m somewhere strange with someone that I know and trust is incredibly important to me. Additionally, I like having someone to *talk* to and experience things with. There are days I feel like life is passing me by, but I just don’t see the fun in experiencing things by myself.
I just realized for all that I love dinosaurs, I’ve never been to a museum to see any fossils…
WHAT
WHAT
Dammit, I’m spoiled rotten. I believe when I was slightly younger, I used to go the the Field Museum at least once a month. Add to that MSI and the Adler, and that went to once a week. Jaded me isn’t that fascinated though.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Dagnabbit, blockquote fail!
Therrinsays
How does anybody follow all these threads? Patience? Practice?
Audley, I imagine you’ll want the room once DF has arrived, being more cramped is not going to help in any way and you need that time off, too. Sooner or later, you have a draw a line with asshole sister.
Richard Austinsays
Doesn’t the nano use the same charger as the normal iPod? Should be easy to get if it does.
Okay, just confirmed with my mom – it’s the standard iPod cable. So, should be $20 at a store if you don’t have a friend with an extra (I seem to have several dozen (slightly kidding)).
Richard Austinsays
I think iPod cables, like USB cables, reproduce by mitosis in the dark. Put one in a drawer, and next time you look there’ll be two in there.
How does anybody follow all these threads? Patience? Practice?
I can only speak for myself but in my case it has to do with waking up feeling like I have a hangover (despite not having had the fun of getting drunk) and deciding fuckit I will ditch everything and sit in front of the intertube for the day.
Which is not to say that I only keep company with the Horde when I am too sick to avoid them! Just that it’s the only way I can actually keep up with the Horde.
Sooner or later, you have a draw a line with asshole sister.
You’re absolutely right. And I will long before DF is born, whether or not we decide to move in the meantime.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Richard:
I second that, but that may be a privilege thing – we’ve got decent museums (and tar pits!) here.
Yeah, not so much with the privilege here.
I’ve lived in Pensacola, FL for the last 9 years, and prior to that, I lived in Huntsville, AL for 15 years. The latter has the Space and Rocket Center, but I wasn’t interested in anything like that when I lived there. Pensacola has, well the Creation Store and a lot of nice beaches, if that tells you where this city’s priorities are.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Richard:
Thanks for the Nano Info!
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Audley:
You’re absolutely right. And I will long before DF is born, whether or not we decide to move in the meantime.
Do you and Mr. Darkheart plan to keep the “dark” theme running once the little one is born?
Darknewborn
Darkinfant
Darktoddler
etc.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
(You knew that “but” was coming, didn’t you?)
A good ‘but’ is hard to find…
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantussays
I think iPod cables, like USB cables, reproduce by mitosis in the dark. Put one in a drawer, and next time you look there’ll be two in there.
True, but one that fits the item that you have will become two that don’t fit anything that you have.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
ok, I’ve taken up way too much of this thread. I’m heading to the gym to try and create another hemrrhoid :)
Ignorant question here:
What type of problems do purebreds have?
Why is it gross?
Purebreds (in my limited experience) have problems being normal animals. I’ve had a purebred dog (who had to have surgery three times) and three purebred cats–one who died not so long ago because his fangs were so big he was forced to be bulimic. He could not eat normally so he rapidly snarfed what he could and then purged because it was not chewed properly.
It’s gross (to me) because there are so many healthy, “normal” cats (and dogs!) everywhere on the street so I don’t understand why people need to use animals as status symbols. (To be clear, I’ve never seen homeless cats in Russia but I’ve seen MANY homeless dogs.)
“Gross” was a lack of eloquence on my part at that moment.
All these purebreds are because my girlfriends wanted them.
I’d be happy picking a kitten up from Cadiz and taking it home. If it were only so easy.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Krasnaya:
I got a “404 page not found” for your Cadiz link.
Audley, as far as moving goes, if you talk to your landlord/management person, would it be possible for you to move to a same size apartment farther away in the complex from asshole sister?
Oh! I should have put a warning up. So many cats had no eyes in Cadiz, Spain and there were so many kittens. There was the Cat-Man of Cadiz, who fed them all, and therein lies the conundrum. Is he doing them a favor or not?
I say they’re already alive so he is doing them a favor. In Turkey and in the Ukraine (I can’t remember where else) they fix stray animals and put them back out with tags on their ears.
In Scandinavia and Finland I never saw stray animals. Not once. And I lived in Finland in a cabin on a lake for five months (lovely people, the Finnish).
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Koshka:
Well, me russian isn’t completely gone. Nice cats.
I’m talking about animals that have passports. That have their entire ancestry laid out in paper. I can see when my kitten’s great-great-grandmother had her shots for various things.
When animals are severely inter-bred — horrible.
Pedigreed? Is that the word I want? (Do I want to know this word?)
Wait, I think PZ already posted a video about this.
Ing: Gerund of Death – I’m entirely agreeing with you. Plus, you said something really hilarious on another thread that I wanted to praise you for but my internet died at that moment.
Crap, I wish I could remember. (I don’t think it was on Pharyngula.)
Though you’ve made me laugh many times.
Anyway, despite my faulty memory and faulty connection, thank you.
… would it be possible for you to move to a same size apartment farther away in the complex from asshole sister?
My apartment is the top two floors of a historic brownstone and it’s my landlord’s only rental property. If we did live in a complex, I imagine this would be hella easier.
*sigh* I’m just not going to let this bother me any more tonight ‘cos my night just went whoa into the shitter.
I went to buy my tickets for The Dark Knight Rises and Mr Darkheart just now decided to inform me that he can’t take Friday off, so no Thursday midnight showing for us. To add insult to injury, everything else this coming weekend is sold out, unless I want to drive about an hour to a shitty mall theater.
So, yeah. I’ve been excited for this movie for years, I guess I can wait another week or two. :(
Yes, yes it is. Jayne is…special. In a shortbus sense. You can see him here and here. He’s the bigger one, with the spotted black tongue. In the second link, he’s the one who doesn’t know how water works. *sigh*
Ing: Gerund of Death @140 – Our last cat, recently deceased, was free of charge because he had been abused and had half his tail chopped off (in a door, was the story) and had humongous fangs.
He was sabre cat. He also had no control of his mighty sphincter so he just trailed poo everywhere. Not his fault, the fault of “pedigree” breeders. Poor guy.
I’m not a fan of breeding, at all.
I’ve told my gf I love birds and now I’m quite afraid she’s going to bring home an African Grey. I don’t want a bird in a rather small flat with cats. But I do love birds.
“Today I saw the most beautiful parrot and I almost bought it for you,” (this sentence sounds extremely sexy in Russian) but I said, “Thank you for NOT buying it. Think of the bird.”
I sometimes regret NOT breeding one dog because she has such good motherly instincts and as a large example of her breed could probably have a low risk litter…but I am very happy with her and wouldn’t want to put her at any risk.
rather than actually seeking out a purebreed or anything. I worked in a pet store and was very very sad about the state of pets there. :(
Of course. Criminy, here in Russia there are rows and rows of monkeys in Le’Murr stores. I’m surprised I don’t leave with all of them, if I could afford it.
I just can’t go into those stores anymore.
carliesays
I did watch the supremely awful Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief movie.
God, wasn’t that terrible? My son and I were looking forward to it SO MUCH, and then it was that trainwreck.
Luckily The Hunger Games movie made up for the “books are shit turned into movies” vibe we were starting.
*soft hugs* for Caine. Falling down the stairs is for shit. Fucking stairs.
Audley, you shouldn’t have to have that much upheaval just to deal with your sister. Tell her your pregnancy is off-limits for conversation, and every time she says something you’ll just walk away. Or something like that.
Caine, have you ever read the Hyperbole and a Half posts about her special dog? Dog 1
My heart was utterly broken after I spent a week nursing a pug with a kennel cough only to have it sent back to “supplier” probably for disposal.
carliesays
Audley – i just realized that sentence sounded awful. I wasn’t trying to say that dealing with your sister shouldn’t be difficult, i meant that you shouldn’t have to get to the point of needing to move to get her to stop. :(
If you’re already depressed, don’t read. Seriously!
My step-father died in May 2004. My youngest brother died in December 2004. My mother got a new puppy, Lady Phoebe Puddle-Jumper, in January 2005. Only to have her die the next month of parvo.
But my mother was not devastated. She was born in 1946 in Germany and had already experienced much worse.
This is not meant as “my story is more terrible than yours”. It’s actually meant as “my mom is so amazing”. I don’t know if she’s a statue or not but my mother is a rock.
I’ve wondered about her intelligence ever since I adopted her and subsequently discovered that she was unable to figure out how stairs worked.
Omg, thank you, Carlie! One of the first things we found about Jayne was that he didn’t know how stairs worked and refused to have anything to do with them. This was problematic, seeing as both the front and back decks have stairs.
When I lived else where we had big indoor steps and Gypsy being a tiny tiny dog was terrified of them. I had to train her to go up on her own one step at a time by putting popcorn on the stairs just out of her reach
Then I found out I had to do the same for going DOWN stairs
Later with current dog, he was really really tiny as a puppy so it was a big accomplishment when he learned how to hop the one step we have (a slight rise to the bathroom). Later when he found real steps he’d hop up one and act confused as to why he wasn’t at the top.
Jayne was 7 months old and 100 lbs when we adopted him. He’ll sort of do stairs now. Outside, he just jumps the steps, rather than actually step on them. Inside, he sort of slides down the stairs and crashes into the wall at the bottom.
Russians clearly have mastered depression and developed a cultural immunity to it.
What? I’m going to be self-centered and think you said this about me. How could you have concluded that from what I said?
Okay, всё равно. It’s all the same.
For the record, (as I have to say every fucking day,) I am not Russian. (How I wish I was so I wouldn’t have to spend so much time with beastly Immigration “humans” in spangly Russian outfits).
My night is looking up:
I HAVE ACHIEVED DARK KNIGHT RISES TICKETS!
Not where I wanted to see it, mind, but in a little, rundown, half-closed suburban mall not far from here. I had to actually go there in person to buy the tickets (no online ordering, boo!), but I had a nice chat with the assistant manager AND they still had showings available on Friday night.
Bonus: The tickets were $3 cheaper than my usual theater.
Do you know what happens in Russia if you’re depressed? You call your work and say, “I’m too depressed to come into work today.”
That’s it. Okay. I hope you feel better. Это всё. That’s it.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ing:
Later when he found real steps he’d hop up one and act confused as to why he wasn’t at the top.
This makes for the funniest image in my head. :)
re: pugs-
I think they’re the most adorable little canines. In the future, when I look for another dog (we’re talking way down the line), pugs are at the top of the list. I love Krystal (and I miss Max), but my next dog will be a small, indoor dog
~~
Krasnaya:
I don’t know if she’s a statue or not but my mother is a rock.
From what you’ve said, it sounds like she’s strong as heck. That’s admirable.
Did you pick that trait up as well?
~~
watching something called ‘Wild Japan’, which reminds me of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (which I watched any time I could when I was a child). It appears to focus on the growing population of Japan as it encroaches on the habitats of various animals (I didn’t know how many islands Japan was made up of; nor did I know that the population was so massive, and fits into a country the size of Montana!)
re: pugs-
I think they’re the most adorable little canines. In the future, when I look for another dog (we’re talking way down the line), pugs are at the top of the list. I love Krystal (and I miss Max), but my next dog will be a small, indoor dog
I do love pugs, my coffee mug is my pug mug. That’s why it made me so sad. If you do want a pug please consider the pug rescue and adoption sites!
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Krasnaya:
Is that a paid day off?
And why no SPCA?
watching something called ‘Wild Japan’, which reminds me of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (which I watched any time I could when I was a child). It appears to focus on the growing population of Japan as it encroaches on the habitats of various animals (I didn’t know how many islands Japan was made up of; nor did I know that the population was so massive, and fits into a country the size of Montana!)
My favorite bit of Japanese nature is their giant hornets. They’re definitive proof that if there is a god it actively hates people and wants them away from it’s sacred nature spots
I was playing off the US trope that Russian literature is very very dark. The joke goes that the difference between a Russian comedy and tragedy is that in the end of a comedy everyone is dead…but they’re happy about it!
Ing: Gerund of Death @ 158- Okay, and I have* to live here so I was being far too serious, probably.
.
*I don’t have to live here. I do because I love my girlfriend and we both have built great businesses here.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
So I’m reading about pedigree dogs, and I just remembered that my roomie E, got his dog Sham from breeders. He’s an American Bulldog. Is anyone aware of problems they face as they grow?
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Krasnaya:
Cats with no eyes??
:::eyes unable to blink through sheer shock:::
I’ve never heard of those kind of felines.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Whew, weather by the Lake can be interesting. At 7:00 pm, 95 ºF at both the lake and inland stations, wind from the south. At 7:30 pm, wind had shifted around to come from the north, and the station near the lake was showing 82 ºF while the inland station still showed 95 ºF. at 8:00 pm, both stations were showing 79 ºF. Sometimes I wish I had a map that shows isotherms.
I’m going to check because last time I went off the cuff I said the opposite of what was right but I believe hip and elbow problems are the biggie
some health problems in American bulldogs are often found within certain genetic lines, and are not common to the entire breed, while others, such as neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL), Ichthyosis, disorders of the kidney and thyroid, ACL tears, hip dysplasia, cherry eye, elbow dysplasia, entropion, ectropion, and bone cancer are more common to the general population of American Bulldogs.
Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoysays
Bulldogs have lots of problems :( Breathing, ’cause of the face, and skin issues with the folds, and hip/back problems.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ing:
If you do want a pug please consider the pug rescue and adoption sites!
Those are pretty much the only places I would look for a pet. Every one of my cats has been from the Humane Society, and my first dog-Max-was as well. Krystal was a strange situation of me being in the right place at the right time. I guess I sort of rescued her too, as I have no idea what a vet’s office would have done with her.
~~
running commentary on Wild Japan:
Uh, the Japanese Giant Salamander is enormous. It’s remained relatively unchanged for millions of years to boot?
See, *proof* evolution isn’t true :)
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Ing, Cipher:
Those issue with bulldogs…would crossbreeding eliminate some of them?
~~
The Indian Mongoose is kinda cute. The little noses are so adorable.
Crossbreading provides vigor and in many cases does eliminate or dilute issues. The problem is limited breeding. Intentionally breeding with lines that do not have those problems is pretty much the way to save the breeds. Pugs for example pretty much NEED longer snouts, hence why puggles started to show up all of a sudden.
Ing, my idea of Russian humor is Zoshchenko although Russians hate him.
Two have told me, when prodded, that they found Bulgakov hilarious. They seem to prefer ironic humor.
Total anecdata: I have never met a Russian yet (and I teach a LOT of Russians) that didn’t love The Bodyguard and Pretty Woman. These are two staples of Russian cinema.
I have never seen either one so I am a lousy American.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] @ 168 – Because fishermen hook their eyes, is what the cat-man said. (I know enough Spanish to have understood that. Though I think most of them lose their eyes to fighting. There are SO many cats on that small bank.)
Ing- Ah, Gogol. I’ve never heard a Russian in Russia speak of Gogol. Maybe I run in humorless circles. I joke.
No, there’s a Gogol Festival going on right now at the “Buff” theater on one of the streets where I teach (I never know street names as I always take the Metro).
It’s fairly close to Russkie Samosvyeti and Okei so I could walk there from my work.
But! My friends find those who seek out “buff” to be stupid.
Living in a foreign country is SO difficult. And wonderful.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Koshka:
Actually, one of my few reasons for not being in Russia is avoiding the draft.
It seems that not only do they have a hard time accepting new residents, they have a hard time letting go.
Owlmirrorsays
(To be clear, I’ve never seen homeless cats in Russia but I’ve seen MANY homeless dogs.)
Response before reading link. Not surprised at navigating a metro system but not stairs. I can’t imagine there was too much incentive for a predator like wolves to develop too much concepts of 3D navigation/space.
The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] ” 163 –
In Soviet times they all say you just had to show up in the morning and then everyone went home.
They called the people who actually worked “Duraki”. Idiots. If you punched in you could go back later and punch out. Or have your friend punch you in and punch you out. Take turns.
Of course there were many people in government jobs who couldn’t do this. In the universities and in labs you could not do this, of course.
There is a huge uprising of “Bring back communism!” I see every day on the streets. It’s mainly fronted by old people who were promised something their whole lives and then were unceremoniously dumped. I have scads of their paraphernalia.
It’s fairly volatile here but I’ve mainly been adored for being American (we’re still cool!) and was only spit on once. That was gross.
carliesays
So we have a set of windows that are tall and thin, and can open either from the bottom up (as usual) or the top down. We’ve always opened them from the bottom up, but the cat managed to knock out one of the screens in her excitement once (the bottom of the window is close to the floor). So ever since we’ve been opening them from the top down, which puts the opening four feet from the floor. I just heard a noise, and looked over to find her dangling by her paws from the top of the opening. What the hell, cat????
Owlmirrorsays
(Hm, does this work?)
Also: PDF about Moscow dogs.
The draft. In Saint Petersburg, it’s no longer necessary. If you can pay $3000 you can get out of it. (I don’t know of any young men going into the draft here.)
So it is elitism. You have to have money. A really craptastic system, granted, but we’ve all seen stories of new recruits being harvested for their organs. This is on the news nearly every day.
I think the (Putin-owned) networks are all trying to rake in money. It’s not advertised, but it is commonly known. And the young men who don’t have $3000? Fuck them. It’s so awful. I have a hard time not lapsing into Russian but the words for “poor guys” feels and sounds so much better in Russian.
I’ve found a new, fun way to indulge in masochism. Just read forum discussions about the race of ancient Egyptians.
Why did I subject myself to such painful ignorance and frothing racism? I really don’t know.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitternesssays
The Puggle Wiki page is so sad. =(
Owlmirrorsays
Looks like wordpress really does not like metrodog dot ru (posts disappeared into spamtrap, I guess)
ImaginesABeachsays
Terry Gross interviewed Sister Pat Farrell of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (American nuns) and asked her about the fact that the bishops are going after the nuns for spending too much time helping people rather than talking about abortion and teh Gheys but protect priests who rape children (that summary compresses a 38 minute chat into one sentence, with the child rape bit at 34:20 )
Puggle crossbreeds were first bred in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, where dog breeder Wallace Haven experimented with various crossbreeds in the 1980s.[1] Haven was the first person to register a dog called a Puggle with the American Canine Hybrid Club, a non-credited group that registers designer crossbreeds for a fee.[2] Haven is also credited with creating the name Puggle. Haven began commercially breeding Puggles on a large scale in 2000. He later came under fire for operating a large scale puppy mill housing more than 1100 animals. Havens was suspended by the American Kennel Club for ten years for refusing kennel inspections, and in 2008 his operation was shut down by the Wisconsin Humane Society.[3] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has repeatedly cited him for inadequate care of animal,
D: Goddamn I hate everyone.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
Is anyone here looking to volunteer for a secular organization? Because I’m looking for people to fill my committee at Secular Woman and you all are generally pretty cool.
We have probably more pets than is wise (5 cats and a dog) specifically because of the way they have of appearing and needing help, with no one else stepping up to provide that help.
I had some weirdass jerk on pandagon once accuse me of using animals to feed my savior complex, and running an unregulated shelter full of dangerous dogs (as I mentioned, I have exactly one dog, but for the next week I amused myself by referring to her as “all of you”).
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
So I’m watching JUNO for the first time right now…
I *love* the dialogue. Very snappy. It flows off the tongue well, and most importantly sounds like the way people actually speak.
This whole episode just gets more bizarre with each new development.
Nutmegsays
Hey, StarStuff! I think I’m in the wrong country to be on your committee, but I’m glad to see you around here again!
Wowbagger, Deputy Vice-President (Silencing)says
Good grief, that’s some serious html fail on my part. And apologies that the link goes to my comment rather than the top of the page; should have checked before pasting…
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Starstuff:
First, I should join it.
:p
If you’re willing to take me though, sure. *doesn’t get hopes up*
ipod nano, ipod regular & ipads all charge with the same cable. (iphone too maybe?)
Tony, don’t you mean “a hard ‘but’ is good to find”?
Our last 2 cats died of a genetic disorder that is, I’m told, extremely common among Persians. They were rescue kittens who looked like ordinary shorthaired tabbies, though – they didn’t look at all Persian.
The defects come about because some people like the look of specific types of animals – and breed for them regardless of consequences to the animal. Hence why the Persian has lost its muzzle over the last 60 years and can no longer eat or breathe properly; why the Siamese has become elongated to deformity; and why the cartilage disorder responsible for the scottish fold is becoming more common; and why there is even such a thing as a twisty cat and a munchkin cat. Horrors of breeders. I’m sure some breeders are OK, but a lot seem to care nothing for the animal’s welfare and everything for its looks.
Because you go through thinking “FUCK YEAH! GO YOU GUYS! TOTALLY STICK IT TO THEM” until they hit something you disagree on or know more about and then suddenly BAM DAN BROWNED and you see how unfair and straw manning they are in crystal clarity.
Oh yeah. I bought one season on DVD (show not aired in .au) and never another because of that. Well, that and the naked ladies. Not that I have anything against naked ladies (damnit).
If anyone is interested in applying for my committee, you can read more about it here.
@ thunk
Feel free to apply! I can’t promise anything, but I will be adding a few new volunteers to my committee within the next week or so. No one has applied so far (well, other than the only person on the committee at the moment).
Is anyone here looking to volunteer for a secular organization? Because I’m looking for people to fill my committee at Secular Woman and you all are generally pretty cool.
I don’t remember where y’all are (probably not around here), but what kind of volunteering are you actually looking for? As in, what would be involved in being a member of that committee (why the fuck does that word have so many double-letters!?)
starstuff is magica and answers my questions before I manage to ask them. how convenient.
alas, I’m way to n00btastic to qualify
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Ah well, but I’m a complete noob, like jadehawk.
I’ll still join the org though!
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
OK, seriously pissed off. I don’t get why:
1. I can’t use the FtB search box to look for words or phrases among comments.
2. Google doesn’t “see” FtB threads.
I’m looking for a thread within the past month or so where I posted a (sorry to be immodest) very funny parody song to the tune of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” It was all about centipedes in my house.
Why do none of the keywords, nor any of the combinations of them, work in the FtB search box?
Why does Google have no record of any of them?
I’m baffled.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Starstuff:
Are there any other minor-er committees? I’d love to help somewhere where I’m more useful…
@ Jadehawk
Feel free to apply for any of the committees!
@ thunk
We’re just trying to fill up our major committees right now, but in the future we’ll probably be looking for more volunteers. The form and the list of committees can be found here.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Yay, joined!
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Pterryx. . . I need to understand why none of my searches work! What do I need to input to make it come up?
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Sure. Might as well give a shot at it.
No harm :)
Pteryxxsays
dunno Josh, I can’t find it on a search either.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Pterryx: I’m looking for both the thread where I pasted that, and also the song parody (I stupidly deleted it).
Sea Pansies are weird looking. (This is me sharing my adventures in completing my evolution homework with you all.)
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
See, that’s fucking wrong. Why can’t it be found? Arrrrrgh.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Oh lol. I’ve never done a resume…
Part of my brain is screaming “I’m not worthy!!!”.
I should give it a day.
Pteryxxsays
Josh: I got Google to find a *different* comment where you ranted about a skitters-about (by searching for ‘freethoughtblogs skitters-about’ of course). Maybe Google just hasn’t made it through all the zillions of comments to index your song?
There’s no “worthy” or “unworthy”. That’s for the religious to claim lol.
Resumes aren’t that hard (you can even find guides online). There’s no harm in trying and even if I can’t fit you into the committee, you’ll still get some experience in filling this kind of stuff out and creating a resume.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Thanks starstuff. I’ll give it a shot tomorrow.
The days are long and empty in summer.
Pteryxxsays
Josh, here you go!
—–
Many-Leggeds (to the tune of “Single Ladies:)
All the many-leggeds!
all the many-leggeds.
All the many-leggeds!
all the many-leggeds. Now pick your Raid up. .
Jumped in the tub
ready to scrub
and wipe all the grease offa me
From the drain was crawlin’ something appallin’ wagglin’
its feelers at me
Long and skinny movin’ with a shimmy
It came from the cret-a-ceous
Hiding in the curtain, bathtub lurkin’
Fixin’ to be creepin’ on me
Chorus:
If it skitters then I’m gonna spray some Raid on it
If it slithers then I’m gonna put paid to it
I got some poison with a centipede’s name on it
Just be certain that I wiped out all the eggs from it
No, no no! No-no-no, no-no-no-no.
No, no, no, no-uh-oh!
No, no no! No-no-no, no-no-no-no.
No, no, no, no-uh-oh!
Standin’ in a towel, cats on the prowl
but the kitties think it’s all fun and games
Lazy pussies actin’ like wussies while I try to cover my shame
Creeper started crawlin’, I started haulin’
Oh hell you’re not esc-a-pin’
So I took my sandal and used it like a paddle
And told the bug to SAY MY NAME
Chorus:
If it has that many legs it’s unacceptable
In my house you use a mouth and not a mandible
Won’t be livin’ with a thing that’s exoskeletal
Don’t be creepin’ on a faggot who has chemicals
All the many-leggeds!
all the many-leggeds.
All the many-leggeds!
all the many-leggeds. Now put your legs up. . .
Josh: …I got it from the log of a friend I sent it to.
<_<
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Well hell, Pterryx. It’s bullshit it shouldn’t be readily available from FtB (I’d still like to know what the hell thread I put that on) or Google.
But thanks EVER SO for rescuing it for me:))
Raised talon and scree!
Pteryxxsays
*high threes*
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Pteryxx:
*high threes*
Three digits, eh?
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I promise to abstain from eating chicken feet for 7 days and 7 nights in your honor. Which won’t be hard considering I don’t like dinosaur claws so much and also kerosene is better for lighting. :))
Owlmirrorsays
and why there is even such a thing as a twisty cat and a munchkin cat.
A while back I had a very vivid dream, one part of which involved a very very tiny cat. While it was very cute, I remember, in the dream, reading up on the horrible genetic side effects involved with getting that breed, so the “aw, cute” was definitely mixed with “eww, squicky, people do this?”
I see that “munchkin cat” isn’t exactly small, but rather short-legged, so that doesn’t quite match my dream. But still. People do this?
/DreamsAreWeird
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
And another blockquote fail! Stop forgetting the slash already!
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Owlmirror-I’ve had very similar dreams. Same proportion of cute/squick. In my dreams the genetically thwarted kittens are called pachyderms, and they’re found in underground mausoleums.
How interesting: google [“all the many-leggeds” site:freethoughtblogs.com] – returns nothing at all.
I suspect it’s something to do with the pagination, since the named link w/o page number goes to the second page. So it might look like an update of the original to a googlebot. And thus deletion of all page 1 comments from the record…
I would test this further but I really should be working.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
Anyone else have tornado dreams? I’ve had them for 25 years at least. Last night’s were particularly vivid and frightening. Technicolor high resolution—like I was actually there. Moving in molasses, just slow enough that I couldn’t quite get to the cellar in time.
Pteryxxsays
*slashes at Thunk in a friendly manner*
—
Alethea, when I googled freethoughtblogs + skitters-about I got a link to a comment thread, yes, but the link loaded the second page of comments only (with no skitters-about on it). However, the *first page* did indeed have the searched-for word, once I went there manually.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
I didn’t think anyone liked Beyonce these days…. j/k
Josh, you can always eat fried pork skins (one of my favorite snacks) instead of the feet.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitternesssays
I know there is a group for knitters here and facebook. Is there some similar club for book lovers?
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
I thought I was the only person alive who didn’t know how to write a resume.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
LOVE pork cracklins, Tony. But almost never eat them. Early-onset heart disease and all.
JAL, I’d be interested in a book group. I know that Caine and I are both on LibraryThing; I bet we could use that.
Pteryxx, I saw that too; I suspected it might be something to do with the update lag. But the “older comments” link (the only one explicitly to comment-page-1) doesn’t have a rel=nofollow on it, so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
Oh man, I really SHOULD be working. But my brain is totally failing to grok relations between event data right now. I should go draw some pictures.
I thought I was the only person alive who didn’t know how to write a resume.
I’ve never had a “real job” (went straight from McJobs to being self-employed), and I’ve never applied for a higher-up volunteering position like this before, so the need to write resumes has simply never presented itself.
Which, considering I’m “old” now, makes me feel like a failure at being an adult :-p
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shieldsays
Good night everyone. Deorbit and landing into a bed would feel great about now.
Anyone else have tornado dreams? I’ve had them for 25 years at least. Last night’s were particularly vivid and frightening. Technicolor high resolution—like I was actually there. Moving in molasses, just slow enough that I couldn’t quite get to the cellar in time.
No, but ever since I was a kid I’ve had driving a car that’s out of control on a curvy road dreams with that similar molasses-like quality.
Haven’t had one in a while. Haven’t remembered dreams in a while.
theophontes (坏蛋)says
@ David Marjanović
We are having a bit of trouble on TZT working out whether we have to contend with Boltzmann Brontosauruses or Boltzmann Megalodons. Your professional opinion will be much appreciated.
(Warning to others: click with care, not for the squeamish. And consider also that these have not yet been house-trained.)
i do. but only since after last year’s multiple tornado-warnings. except they’re never actually scary, just exciting.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitternesssays
JAL, I’d be interested in a book group. I know that Caine and I are both on LibraryThing; I bet we could use that.
Oh, awesome. Never heard of LibraryThing, I’ll check it out. I’ve been using GoodReads. It started as a way to keep track of all the books I’ve read. I’ve only started recently to add reviews to the star rating, mainly for me to remember, praise or vent about a book.
Josh, Official SpokesGaysays
I know what you mean, Sally. Not fun, those dreams.
Sometimes they’re interesting or amazing to look at, but often, for me, they’re just frightening. Can’t remember the last time I had a “good” dream instead of a nightmare. Probly side effects of SSRIs. I’ll take ’em compared to the alternative.
ibyeasays
Speaking of dreams, have anyone ever died in a dream? I did. It was actually pretty frightening. I really thought I was going to die. It was weird. I don’t know what motivated my brain to do that just for that one time.
No but once I had a dream that was so vivid that I sincerely believed I was never ever going to wake up. It was intense–the moon split in half while I was watching it and people started flying everywhere and cities burned and forests grew up on the surface of the shattered moon.
I went through the first 10 years of adult life doing nothing but construction and baby-sitting, more or less. It was Strange-Ex who taught me how to write a resume.
I’ve now written hundreds. I’d be happy to review yours, Jadehawk, if you like.
Can you tell I’m scrolling in reverse chronological order?
ibyeasays
@Sally
Mine was also pretty vivid. Thankfully, when the bomb exploded and I died, I only felt a bit of heat, not pain. Then I kept asking myself in my mind “am I dead?” and then I slowly began waking up from the darkness. I was sweating profusely and I think I was crying. I did feel a wet spot around my eyes and cheek. Yeah, if I could talk to my consciousness, I would tell it: What the hell was that!? I bet Freud would have a field day with it.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]says
two years after Target drew a backlash for a $150,000 donation it made to a group backing Tom Emmer, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who opposed gay marriage.
I wonder how that money was used. How many peoples’ lives did it negatively affect? Can the scales ever be balanced?
Speaking of dreams, have anyone ever died in a dream? I did. It was actually pretty frightening. I really thought I was going to die. It was weird. I don’t know what motivated my brain to do that just for that one time.
Lots of times. The last time was about two months ago. I went to do the door, looked out the peephole and there was a pizza delivery man there. I opened the door to tell him that I didn’t order any pizza and while I was talking he pulled a gun out of the delivery case and shoots me in the chest. That’s when I wake up.
Before that I had the dream where I was driving on a narrow mountain road, lose control of the car, and I go screaming over the side of the cliff but I wake up before hitting the ground for the last time.
Beatricesays
Good morning!
re : dying in a dream
I used to have a nightmare from which I would only wake up after throwing myself from the balcony. I didn’t even know about lucid dreaming then, but I somehow “knew” in the dream that if I could get to the balcony and jump, I’d wake up.
The last time I had that nightmare, it became really creepy. I jumped and when I opened my eyes I realized I was still dreaming. I was laying at the bottom of the building and I felt those things that were chasing me in the dream closing up on me. Then I woke up.
Nightjarsays
No but once I had a dream that was so vivid that I sincerely believed I was never ever going to wake up. It was intense–the moon split in half while I was watching it and people started flying everywhere and cities burned and forests grew up on the surface of the shattered moon.
I think it has stopped now, but some months ago I started having this recurring and very frequent dream where I was looking up at the sky at night and suddenly the moon started moving across the sky. I mean, following the path that it usually does during the course of the night, but faster, disappearing over the skyline line and reappearing again at the other side, getting bigger (and faster) every time. As if it was spiralling down towards the Earth and eventual collision was inevitable. Scary stuff, and also very vivid.
As for dying, I don’t remember ever dying in a dream, but I once dreamed about my funeral. That was just weird.
I wonder why many American jokes on Russia is some sort of dark comedy.
I blame Yakov Smirnov.
Josh – I have never successfully been able to find anything in a comment by searching. It drives me nuts.
LOVE pork cracklins, Tony. But almost never eat them. Early-onset heart disease and all.
I found out on vacation that the midwest has now invented microwave pork rinds. Just like microwave popcorn, only all fat! And salt.
It is so fucking hot. This house was built like crap. How does a house that lets all the cold in during the winter trap all the heat in the summer?
dysomniak, darwinian socialistsays
I blame Yakov Smirnov.
In Russia, object verb subject!
dysomniak, darwinian socialistsays
Just like microwave popcorn, only all fat! And salt.
So, different from microwave popcorn how?
John Moralessays
dysomniak,
So, different from microwave popcorn how?
Carbs.
—
On a related note, I’m somewhat amused by the low/no fat claims on packaged products that are basically all sugar.
(True claim, but misleading)
ImaginesABeachsays
Tony –
Target gave money to a PAC that supported Tom Emmer in the last Minnesota governor’s election. He was seen as the pro-business candidate, and he was running against Mark Dayton, a liberal Democrat (whose family started Target, btw). This got publicity, Target ended up giving an equal amount to a gay rights group. Dayton won the election. The lasting result is that Minnesota companies have been much less likely to make large donations, especially to groups that support controversial candidates.
Several large Minnesota companies (General Mills, for example) have taken a public position against our proposed ballot question enshrining bigotry into our constitution.
It is exciting to me. I’ve literally been writing this story since I was 13. It’s been started and stopped so many times that I just haven’t ever finished anything, but this is truly something I feel not only comfortable writing, but at the same time is something I need to finish. This is the story I will publish, there’s nothing I don’t like about it.
As for why I wrote this story, I explained that about a month ago. When my brother graduated from college, I got separated from my family – my mother and father went one way with my sister and my grandparents went another way. I ended up behind one of the auditoriums where there was a group of security guards. I watched them and listened to them and realized they all had these interesting kinds of personalities. I wanted to write them into a book.
Of course, since my genre is fantasy, writing a cop drama wouldn’t work so well – but for someone’s comment on TET and also just having finished reading “Guards! Guards!” I realized I could do it. So I expanded the ‘cop drama’ idea to a ‘city guard drama’ one. It works perfectly!
HI there
Sadly had to break up with Jules and David early ’cause #1 is sick. But she’s already feeling much better after puking on the train platform….
Maybe I can get back together with David again later the week.
“dogs have taught themselves to ride the friggin’ metro!!”
Years ago, New Scientist commented on how pigeons have learned to ride the London “tube”. And birds generally have smaller brains than mammals. But they would have been helped by their sense of direction, they know which way they need to go, even underground
carliesays
I used to have a nightmare from which I would only wake up after throwing myself from the balcony. I didn’t even know about lucid dreaming then, but I somehow “knew” in the dream that if I could get to the balcony and jump, I’d wake up.
And that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do! According to this episode of Radiolab, the key is to figure out something that is entirely ludicrous and wouldn’t happen in real life, and then think about it often enough that hopefully it makes its way into your dream. Then when that thing happens, that’s the cue that this isn’t reality. I am kind of botching it because it’s been awhile since I listened to that episode, but that’s basically it.
So, different from microwave popcorn how?
Carbs.
Also it doesn’t pop, it sort of just…puffs. Yes, I tried it. How could I not?*
On a related note, I’m somewhat amused by the low/no fat claims on packaged products that are basically all sugar.
(True claim, but misleading)
I laughed earlier this week when I was reading my Kashi cereal ingredients. In the list was “evaporated cane juice crystals”. JUST SAY “SUGAR”, KASHI. GOD. Had more than a whiff of crunchy frog to it, you know?
*How could I not? Turned out to be surprisingly crispy, but oversalted. Definitely had the je ne sais quois of good pork rinds, though.
In the description, they call them “bacon curls”!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
diannesays
Good morning, thread. I’m kind of threadrupt, as usual, so sorry if I’m ignoring something I shouldn’t be.
Caine, hope you feel better soon!
Re weird dreams: My “favorite” nightmare is one in which I am going about my everyday business and something happens that shouldn’t or fails to happen that should. Usually something extremely benign like I turn on a light and it doesn’t actually light up. Then I (in a move that my waking mind finds a drastic overreaction) realize that this is a dream and therefore any horrible thing can happen. I’m hoping that some day I’ll get far enough past adolescence that this scenario will morph into “this is a dream and I can do anything I want”, but hasn’t happened yet.
I haven’t definitively died in a dream, but I have had several dreams where I fell and hit the ground, which people used to say would kill you in real life from the shock. My memory of the dream is thinking (in the dream), “Yeah, right. I’m so sure that my mind can handle being eaten by wild bears, trapped in a collapsed building, and tossed about by tornadoes*, but not falling.” I hit the ground and bounced.
*All actual dreams. The collapsing building thing is a post-9/11 dream. It’s the only one that’s actually scary. The others ended up being weird satires of fear: I gave the bears food poisoning and lectured the tornado on how disappointed I was that it didn’t take me to Oz.
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantussays
Check the nutrition information on a back of microwave pork rinds. High in sodium, but the fat is usually lower than an equal sized back of potato chips. And there ain’t no carbs. For some people it actually is not a bad choice. And they taste good. Mmmmmmm. Poke Rahnds. Mmmmmm.
Too many people here from the American continent. No wonder these threads are quiet for most of the day – and every morning I find pages of new comments :)
It’s 3:30 pm here by the way.
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantussays
Good Morning. happy Monday to all.
Beatricesays
Jadzia626 ,
Hey, you’re in my zone. *waves*
Pteryxxsays
…Maybe PZ should set some posts to auto-appear at 3 AM his time, so y’all outside of the Americas have something to look forward to? ;>
diannesays
Good afternoon, Jadzia. If it helps any, I’ll be in Europe in August and saying good morning to the thread at midnight or so eastern US time then.
Thread interrupt-
Newest charge is a little non-native birdlet. S/he is not a happy bird, and knows s/he’s a bird and does NOT believe that I am actually a Provider of the Food.
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/7656/einstein1.jpg
John:
“What if the bodies are in conveniently-sized pieces?
(3-D packing problem)”
In “Kraken”, Goss and Subby find a solution by folding a victim through an extra dimension.
— — — — —
Still no SAMMICHES! Me hungry! Now bring!
Hello!
Eesh, why’s there so much hair in the lounge…
cicely, thanks, I don’t do that, but I save a chunk at a time and earmark it for whatever I want to give.
Ogvorbis Oh, sorry about your son and sorry things seem to’ve gotten worse for you. Hope he recovers soon.
Alethea, great to hear! You go!
Caine,They grow up so fast! And rest your back as much as you can.
kristinc,I’m sure that birdie would thank you if it could :)
Tony, dysomniak and TLC, ah finally something I can relate to with some people here. Batman:The animated Series and Batman of the future were amaazing and my faves as a kid, too.
David Marjanović, okay. Good to hear Jules is doing better!
Thats better. Weird. That “thanks” slipped in and I came off as being dismissive, without meaning to, sorry.
Totally threadrupt. *waves!*
So, for anyone who’s keeping score on Audley’s personal life front (and I know you all are!), my asshole sister is still being an asshole. It’s actually getting to the point where Mr Darkheart and I are considering moving (she’s my downstairs neighbor) just so I can get away from her shit.
Hell, I’ve been fucking kind to her this entire time– taking every single one of her criticisms of me and my doctors (and there’s been a lot, trust me) with a smile and a reminder that we’re all different, when all I really want to do is tell her to fuck off and drop dead.
*sigh* I’m going to take Tony’s advice and write her a letter, I think. At least that way I’m less likely to stick my foot in my mouth.
Sorry ’bout the rant. :(
No need to apologize, Audley.
It is probably a good idea to get away from her just so that your child does not have to witness this bullshit everyday from her aunt, if not for your own sake.
JT had some good advice in a post on his blog in the last day or so. Write the letter, get everything of your chest, then tear it up and start again.
Thanks, Janine.
I just feel like she’s pushing me away and I don’t know why and I feel like there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And above all else, it’s frustrating, you know?
Thanks, Matt. I’ll do just that.
HI there
Just returned from an awesome day trip with David and Jules to the natural museum. Lots of dinosaurs to squee at.
So far, everything went fine (although it is an adventure to do such a trip by train and everything with 2 kids, especially if big cities overload your system already).
Had a rather sad experience changing trains in Frankfurt. There was a woman on the train with us who was clearly mentally ill. Probably mostly harmless, but she took to the girls a lot, worried about them a lot, tried to care for them and kind of bothered me.
So I was glad when we got off the train in Frankfurt. Since we had time we went to a stall to buy a drink and a pretzel and a coffee and while I waited there she turned up again.
Well, I said mostly harmless, but I was afraid that she might be one of those people who will totally harmlessly wander off with your kid because she thinks she has to do something for them.
Well, as I was busy herding the kids and making sure they stay with me, the woman at the stall didn’t bother to hand me my change, which I only noticed on the next train. And I’d paid with a 50€ note :(
Audley
Sorry to hear that your sister is still an asshole.
Can you tell her to STFU about your pregnancy if she cares to keep in contact with you?
This links to Faux News.
Rick Warren is doing an other forum with presidential candidates.
This, coming from a person with connections to Scott Lively and Uganda’s Kill The Gays bill. Let us talk respectfully about if people we do not approve of should be imprisoned and killed.
Evil asshole.
Giliell,
Jealous about David and Jules! Not so jealous about the train experience. :(
Since my computers are down at work, I’m working on that right now. I’m trying not to be too blunt (‘cos lord knows she’ll twist it so she’s the victim in all of this), but I’m trying to be very clear in my letter that she’s hurt me and that where our relationship goes is entirely up to her.
Found myself wondering today: are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region? Not asking for addresses or anything, but I find myself feeling a bit isolated in a rather conservative area.
1) Audley, your sister, oy vay! I recommend sewing some prawns into the hems of her curtains while she’s out. Nothing says “I disapprove” like the smell of a 2 week old rotting prawn. ;-)
2) [TRIGGER WARNING FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE]
How the fuck did I get to this part of Youtube? Okay so it’s a video from a UK charity (watch the whole thing) that I donate to, but when it popped up in my recommended videos thingy I nearly shat a kidney. This is not what I want to view…and then the penny dropped, it’s a charity advert…have you any idea how hard it is to resituate a kidney? Using only a spork?
Louis
Paul: we’ve got peeps in the bay area, and a few of us coastal or in SoCal. I don’t know of any specifically in the Central Valley (Sacmo or such).
Though I’ve driven through there plenty of times, heading either to Guerneville or to Portland.
Pfffffffft. I lost all respect for Penn before it was cool.
When the Sb comments come back, there’s a thread from 2009 or 2010 with several people asking me omg why are you being so mean to Penn Jillette.
;)
Ixchel:
I had no idea you were such a hipster! :p
Louis:
Hmmmmmmm, I do have keys to her house and I did offer to water her plants the next time she goes on vacation… ;)
Well, I guess I’d qualify as coastal. I don’t know how people refer to these areas normally, being at heart a SoCal native (don’t make my way down there very much anymore, though, always so busy).
That Penn felt the need to dedicate a Bullshit to wheel chair ramps but not Scientology is reason enough.
@Tony check out the finale to Brave and the Bold…its gloriously meta and addresses the different tone to 90s Batman.
And if yoou hate that you’re gonna hate The Batman and Beware the Batman
Do I want to know what the Bullshit! episode about wheelchair ramps was about?
The fact of you not asking for addresses would have told us that you are not asking for addresses already. You stressing that you are not asking for addresses, however, makes me think you were hoping for addresses.
But then, I’m uncharitable and overly suspicious anyway.
You mean the USA ?
Randomly – if folks are interested in Secular Judaism and are free the first week of August, there is a conference going on in the SF area of CA. It’s J-West. I know the folk involved in putting it on (I’m related to some of them) and if work didn’t have me all over the place I’d be going myself.
Actually, getting them would creep me the hell out. I probably should have said “cities” or “exact locations”, I don’t know how much people generally share about their physical locations outside of “country of origin”. It just seemed like an odd request even to myself, so I wanted to qualify it a bit.
Yes, the USA is one big monolith. The culture in San Francisco is an exact match for that in rural Louisiana.
If it’s the one I’m thinking of (was ADA in general), the bottom line they kept hammering in is “if we legislate people needing to accomodate the handicapped, that means there’s no room to do it out of the kindness of our hearts anymore. People having legislated requirements will hate the handicapped so much they won’t even bother holding doors open for them anymore, and the world will be a worse place for it”.
Yes you do. Its about the Americans With Disablities act and how handicap spots are bullshit worth addressing. Foricng buisnesses to accomodat eis bullshit because no one can accomondate a man wheeled around in an iron lung.
Paul:
I assume by that you’re north of the bay area? I’ve got a friend who runs a pub (and is starting a brewery) in Sebastapol if you need an escape and it’s nearby.
Are iron lungs really a thing nowadays?
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.
And yet, I am not surprised. Fucking Penn.
(warning for Tosh-related sickening)
I don’t remember who linked the Fem2pt0 essay on Tosh misusing his comedic platform, but it’s excellent; and this is disturbing to know:
(It gets worse…)
That’s just the beginning. The dissection of his shtick just gets worse and worse… I haven’t been able to finish reading it yet.
Pozner recommends calling on Comedy Central and Viacom, not because of what Tosh said at an unrelated standup venue, but because they’re accountable for what he says and does ON HIS SHOW.
That essay again:
http://www.fem2pt0.com/2012/07/16/surfing-the-rape-wave-what-tosh-teaches-about-humor-power-and-privilege/
Nah, that’s why I started out with “Central California”. The bay is decidedly north. I’m about an hour north of Santa Barbara.
No, but that was P&T’s money shot. I had actually forgotten about it. They demonstrated how not one of the places they looked at could accommodate an iron lung, therefore the ADA is fundamentally flawed and thus we should count on charity and individual kindness to ensure those with disabilities can meaningfully participate in society. Otherwise, they’ll take their ball and go home, or only accommodate the handicapped to the minimum letter of the law and no more. Typical rich white guy libertarian blackmail.
@Pteryxx
I did!
It is very good. Jenn Pozner makes an excellent argument.
Wait.
Caine fell downstairs the other day? How did I miss this?!?
*hugs&booze&chocolate&bacon*
–
*hugs* for Alethea. Happy for progress, sad for frustration.
–
There’s a lot of good posts on that blog in general. Especially Abigail Collazo’s. She’s the editor. We started following each other on Twitter after I got harassed by the RadFem2012 crowd. That’s how I discovered that blog.
There are a lot of non-US posters on this blog. Louisiana or San Francisco has its issues, so does Copenhagen or Melbourne or Vienna. We get it. And we also get that the US actually is one big monolith leaning in the wrong direction when it comes to conservatism, equality and health issues, science and education, and it really is much much worse than any of those other places.
holy crap, Caine fell? Gah, Caine, I hope you’re okay! (And that carpet of rats should all grow up and surround you as a living fuzzy shield of cute.)
What happened Caine? Hope you’re all right.
Yes, I am familiar with this blog. I’ve lurked and participated on and off for years.
What does this have to do with me noting that I live in a pocket of excess conservativism in the US? I didn’t make it out to be unique or different, so don’t give me the lecture about other places having their own issues or disliking the US direction as a whole. I don’t, either. And this has fuck-all to do with my original post, so I’d appreciate if you quit trolling me over nothing or lecturing me for living in the US and looking for possible like-minded people in the local area.
No worries at all ! Good night.
Paul:
Ah. I drove through Santa Maria and SLO on my Highway 1 trip over Memorial Day Weekend. I don’t think we’ve got anyone near there, but others will correct me if I’m wrong. I do have a friend who hits the dunes at Pismo fairly often, but it’s a bit of a haul.
Louis CK on The Daily Show last night, talking about Tosh. While I hardly agree with everything he says I appreciate that he’s able to actually take criticism and process new points of view.
Okay, I’ve now written two drafts of the letter to my asshole sister. It’s been really tough to get my point across without sinking into passive-agressiveness.
:-/
Katherine:
Awesome!
Your excitement is literally pouring off the page.
I’m happy for you!
When/how did you come up with the concept for your story?
(I’m not a writer, but the creative process is interesting. Where do people get their ideas for stories from? Why do they choose to write in a particular style? How does one develop a voice for their characters? How does one weave a central theme throughout a story? How do you include enough exposition so readers understand the world you’ve created, but not so much that it gets bogged down? *)
*I’m not asking you these questions. These are just many of the things I think of when it comes to writing.
A black man playing a lead role is one of the many reasons I like the FOX show, Fringe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Reddick
Reddick plays Phillip Broyles, the head of an FBI department investigating paranormal activities. Reddick described the hard-driving character as “a real ass. But he’s also one of the good guys.”
I didn’t care much for his character during the first season, but over the next few, he has really grown on me to the point that I love his presence on the show. I also thought the Walternate version of Broyles was even better developed.
~~
birgerjohanssen:
Louis did.
Something about how he was wearing ass-less chaps while fixing sammies for everyone…
rowanvt @85 (previous page) –
Yes, I know. And my whole life in America I only had rescued cats but my girlfriend is obsessed with having very expensive cats. Russians are now capitalists and they want to show off as much as possible.
My first two years here I was horrified at the overt ostentation but now I’ve gotten (somewhat) used to it (no, it still upsets me). There is no “being humble” here because everyone was humble for decades and now that they have something? They talk about it constantly. To me, it’s a little like children talking about their better-than-yours! expensive toys.
Unfortunately, this (for my gf) carries on into animals. I am not happy about having purebreds because they always have problems. Plus, it’s gross, to be frank. There are plenty of homeless cats on the streets.
Also unfortunately, Tosha, my Siamese boy, loves me and is on me every second of the day I’m home and has such a sweet personality. It’s neither his nor my fault he’s here. I just have to take care of him now that he is.
(I don’t mean to paint my gf as anti-animal. She monetarily supports many homeless shelters for animals here in SPb but she doesn’t see that her support of the “kitten mill” is abuse. Baby steps.)
Nutmeg @103 –
That sounds sensible. I’ve had many friends who didn’t come out until their 40’s or 50’s so there’s no time limit and everyone just has to do what feels right for them.
Vilem Saptar:
Hey, don’t look at me. I shave in the shower. I’d rather clog the drains then reveal to everyone the process by which I become PoC Mr. Clean.
What’s funny to me is Time Warner/DC Comics is lightyears ahead of Marvel with their animation, but the opposite is true of the live actions movies (well not lightyears, perhaps. DC is trailing Marvel with quality movies. I don’t discount how fantastic the Batman movies have been, but that’s almost all of DC’s live action movies in the 00s). From Batman: TAS through Justice League Unlimited (which takes place in the same animated universe and includes Justice League, Static Shock, Superman:TAS & Batman Beyond), DC’s animation shines. Marvel, OTOH has had lackluster success, IMHO. Yes, the X-Men cartoon from the 90s was cool, but the animation was subpar. So too were the various Spider-Man animated series in the 90s. The sole exception, IMO, to this Marvel=lackluster animation rule was the MTV Spider-Man series, which lasted all of 1 season
I thought the animation was superb. The show skewed a little darker in tone as well, and I’d say it was probably a PG-13 type show. The writing was also of higher quality than the X-Men show and the other Spider-Man shows (the show was meant to fit into the continuity of the movies, taking place at some vague point after the first Spider-Man movie, but before the second). In fact, I thought the writing and atmosphere were comparable to Batman: TAS. Marvel also created a few direct to DVD animated movies, based on some iterations of the Avengers (two of them were adaptations of the some of Mark Millar’s reimagining of the team in the Ultimate Universe comic, The Ultimates; the Avengers live action movie borrows heavily from Millar’s reimagining of the team).
Today, Disney XD puts out a quality show in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The animation still isn’t *quite* my preferred style, but it’s *far* better than any of their 90s output.
And I hope that is enough to qualify me for the Lifetime Geek Award…
Audley Z. Darkheart (aka Maudley Pee Darkfart) @5 –
I feel you on the sister thing. I always felt my little sister was on my side. She repeated the right platitudes, anyway.
Last year she really showed her stripes when I would email and Skype her about the gay marriage struggle.
“Be happy you can’t marry. You can’t go through divorce.” That sort of thing.
I countered, “At least you’re considered an adult and can get married.”
“You’ll be an adult when you have a baby.” Ah! I see.
The fact that her first two children were allocated to their father’s care because she’s not a stable human doesn’t matter. She at least HAD babies. Phew! And now she’s had another baby!
Not to make it all about me (obviously I am, as that’s the only viewpoint I know for sure) but I miss her. I miss the sister I thought she was when she was on best behavior, I guess. But I axed this incarnation (maybe the real her?) out of my life and feel much better for it (not to mention, I’m saving a lot of money because she just would not work).
Really, I’m trying to say I feel for you. It really, really sucks to lose a sister you so want to have a close relationship with (especially if she’s just downstairs). I feel that same void.
Thank you, Krasnaya.
I doubt I’ll be able to get through to my sister, but it might just be better to give it a try and then, depending on her response, let the relationship go.
Audley:
Damn. I was rather hoping her pregnancy would have mellowed her assholishness out. Does she just pick random things to pester you about, or does she have some sort of point?
Oh, she suffers from “IANAD in real life, but I like to play armchair doc”. Like the armchair psychologist, these docs really need to stop administering their unsolicited and often uneducated opinions.
~~
Matt:
You know, that could work too. I know for me that all my ideas run throughout my head in a non-linear fashion, so I almost always forget important things to talk about when I’m dealing with a situation similar to Audley’s. Just the act of writing things down (even w/out the intent of showing the written material to anyone) can work to iron out all the details in a coherent fashion.
In other news, à propos of nothing, my gf loves to travel and is often paid to travel–she’s a well-known blogger and photographer– but she hates flying. (I’m usually also paid to go with her, to translate and accompany–my gf has epilepsy so I’m her medical aide as well as her gf.)
If you’ve ever seen that one person freaking out on the plane? It’s my gf. Any turbulence sends her into panic.
Yet, every night, she searches out airplane horror movies and watches dramatizations of airplane crashes. Why?!
Caine: ? She fell down stairs?
Koshka:
I have no idea.
Caine:
Ou ouchee (hugs etc). Hope ya get better.
Audley Z. Darkheart (aka Maudley Pee Darkfart) @46 –
Sometimes you do just have to let go, unfortunately.
I hope you formulate the letter you want and that it makes a difference.
Tony:
Well, it’s all been related to my pregnancy and what she sees as “wrong”. So, take your pick: one day it will be about my swollen ankles, the next it will be about my size. She has told me that I shouldn’t be experiencing heartburn (???) and that I also shouldn’t have any back pain*. She’s told me that I should be looking for new doctors because mine haven’t referred me to a genetic councilor and they haven’t been performing ultrasounds once a month.
It’s like she has some unreasonable expectation of my pregnancy and she’s mad that I haven’t lived up to her standards. Despite the fact that I’m generally happy and so healthy that Dr Jen has said that I’m her easiest patient.
*Despite the fact that, yeah, I had heartburn and sciatic nerve pain before I became pregnant.
Giliell:
OOOOOOH!
Dinos!
I just realized for all that I love dinosaurs, I’ve never been to a museum to see any fossils…
I did watch the supremely awful Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief movie. It had a fossil…
I wonder if any creationists have been to an actual museum. Seems to me that if you see how powerful and predatory many dinosaurs were you’d start to wonder how early humanity could have defended themselves from creatures who could shit you to death.
Did you say anything to the annoying woman? Or did you just keep one watchful eye on her?
~~
rorschach:
I didn’t take it that way.
I saw it as making sure people knew there was no inquiry about actual addresses. I think some people would interpret the question “are there any Pharyngula posters in the Central California region?” as specifically asking for addresses. So why not err on the side of caution?
~~
Paul:
I think the amount of sharing [re: personal info] depends on the individual. I’ve mentioned a few times where I live. Others, for reasons of their own, choose to have more anonymity (and I do not at all begrudge anyone choosing to do so).
LOL.
Imagine if that were true.
Think of the Gay Pride celebrations bringing in tens of thousands of people…to Louisiana.
Oh, and Audley. To be a perfect platitude, sometimes it just takes time.
My mother was appallingly on my sister’s side until I sent her the Straight Privilege Checklist. To my great surprise, the very next day my mom apologized to me. It only took thirty years.
I sincerely hope your sister can rise to meet you before then.
In a previous post I noted Michelle Bachmann’s latest conspiracy theory, namely that muslim extremists are infiltrating the government of the USA. Now we see that the result of her nutbaggery has consequences when it comes to international diplomacy. (Shades of how right wing nuttery affected Uganda’s anti-gay campaign.)
The story below is related to Hillary Clinton’s latest diplomatic efforts in Egypt.
Source.
Pteryxx (from your quoted material @28):
I don’t think it’s safe to assume that. Rape is far too prevalent in society. Too many people dismiss women when they speak up, using the “oh, it wasn’t PIV, so it wasn’t rape”. I’m not saying to assume that Tosh was asking his audience to do that, but based on his comments, he doesn’t take the problem of rape seriously.
~~
Paul:
So they’re saying they should ditch the ADA and rely solely on the kindness of others? What version of the United States do they live in? Yes, there are a *lot* of compassionate, generous people in the US (and across the world), but there a lot of shitheads out there too. If someone in a wheelchair requires assistance, how are they supposed to know who to ask for help? Are people going to be required to wear Assistance Badges? Those who don’t want to help have to wear Douchebag Badges? What if you’re around people that don’t know how to assist you? What if you’re going to a restaurant and all the guests are busy eating and don’t have the time to help you?
None of that takes into account how often disable individuals are treated as if they’re invisible.
~~
Audley:
If you keep it to expressions of how *you* feel, rather than guessing your sisters’ intent, that may make things more palatable to her.
Also if you’re worried about passive agressiveness, you could try reading it aloud to hear how it sounds. Better yet *if* there is someone you trust enough, perhaps you could read the letter to them to get their reaction.
You know what would be a great anti-cancer therapy? RAT VIRUSES! http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/07/17/you-know-what-would-be-a-great-anti-cancer-therapy-rat-viruses/
Airborne aircraft carriers take to the air (at some indeterminate time in the future)
http://scienceblogs.com/sciencepunk/2012/07/17/airborne-aircraft-carriers-take-to-the-air/
Tony:
Nah, that’s what Mardi Gras is for.
Thunk @ 49 – Спасибо for trying. :)
I would think it adds to her freak out but she tells me it soothes her (?).
Cicely:
Thank you. ♥
Pteryxx:
Doing better, *highly* medicated. Hee, my carpet of rats! Love the imagery, thank you. ♥
Jadzia:
A perfect storm of stupid happened, helped along by 120 lbs of exquisite stupidity, goes by the name of Jayne. (Monster dog, gives stupid a bad name, he’s really *that* stupid.)
Audley, seems to me that it’s your sister who keeps trying to torch any bridges in the vicinity. Why should you turn your life upside down in an attempt to keep quiet about her assholery? Tell her to fuck off and to stay fucked off until she can figure out how not to be a compleat douchecanoe.
I am highly medicated, so take all that with the requisite truckload of salt.
Krasnaya:
Ignorant question here:
What type of problems do purebreds have?
Why is it gross?
.
.
I do agree that adopting cats off the streets (via an organization that spays/neuters them and gives them shots, natch) is the infinitely preferable way to adopt a cat (that’s how I got *all* my feline and canine companions)
~~
Audley:
I hope she responds as a compassionate human being who cares about her sisters’ feelings.
Richard @57:
Doh! Forgot about that.
I may have been thinking of spreading the Gay Luv across the entire state. Why should NOLA get all the pseudo-love?
Half a flight. :(
She’s in pain but has medication for it.
Differs based on breed. Almost/all purebreds have a suite of known problems due to lack of genetic diversity.
It can range to hip problems, lung problems, breathing issues, cardiac issues, neurological etc etc.
Such problems IIRC are a big reason why Puggles started getting pushed heavily. Pug breathing problems were getting too great so they had to introduce greater snout length into the population.
Also since there was some talk about comics and BTAS, I hope you don’t mind if I blogwhore for someone I know. They’re setting up a project after hearing friends complain about the New 52 to see if it works at appealing to new readers. She being completely new to comics is going to try to read the first 5 of the initial launch and blog thoughts on it.
http://elusivenewreader.wordpress.com/
So a friend of mine posted about religion on Facebook. One of the responses was from someone who said she was “a follower of Jesus, but not religious”.
How does that work?
@Tony
It means they’re protestant it’s a fundamentalist meme from the 2000s and late 90s
Must-remember quote
“Islam is such a perfect religion for dickheads! Is it the reason for the high rate of conversions to Islam?”
— — — — — — —
“A new Islamic sex guide” http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2012/07/17/a-new-islamic-sex-guide/
— — — — —
I have tried hard to come up with film titles to recommend to the humanist festival mentioned elsewhere in Pharyngula, but a lot of the best films are only known to me by their Swedish titles, the original titles in Engish, French or German can be completely different. Darn.
ING:
Post away on that.
I can’t see that appealing to me, as I’m massively anti-DCnU, but someone else might like to hear about that stuff.
~~
and in frustrating news:
The Boy Scouts of America will keep their controversial policy banning gay scouts and leaders after a confidential two-year review, the organization said Tuesday.
@Tony
as am I but I found the blog interesting for picking up on stuff that, I as someone who has read a comic, wouldn’t even notice or question.
So far it’s on Batgirl….I imagine humor will come when she reaches Voodoo or Catwoman.
Caine:
Oh noes! I missed that you had posted about falling. Ouch ouch ouch (and *loves*).
You never see that in dog food commercials, do you? It’s always “dog: the faithful companion” and never “dog: the monster that tests your patience, but you still love”.
Tony:
That would be nice, but knowing how my sister rolls, I don’t have high hopes for that. At this point, my goal is to make my feelings known without being painted as the villain in this drama.
*faxes “Get Well Soon Card” To Caine*
Tony: this BBC program is a good introduction.
Thank you, Audley & Ing. ♥
Gnarls* off to get more tea.
*Best descriptor of how I’m moving about at the moment.
Ing:
Even as I said it wouldn’t appeal to me, I clicked on your link anyway (it was probably close minded of me to no at least give it a glance) and found exactly what you saw: an analysis of the material in a way that I’m unfamiliar with. The feminist perspective of the author is a welcome voice, especially in the male dominated field of American comics (not sure how it is with other countries). I may actually check it out from time to time.
That said, I wish she would have picked a different character than Batgirl. I’m still friggin’ pissed that they took away such a valuable character in Oracle, one who had a unique role and mission within the DCU and just happened to be disabled.*
*by that, I mean her disability wasn’t the focus of her character. It played a role, sure, but she was almost always presented as a well rounded character. It’s the same notion as having a gay character versus having a character who happens to be gay.
Ing:
I’ll see your fax, and raise you a telepathic get well message to Caine.
Beat that!
I had to go get access to a fax machine to send my termination letter to unemployment…so damn it I’m going to use it!
Btw I believe I borrowed a time machine from someone here to go back to 1995 to get a fax…do you still want it returned by yesterday?
Ing,
Hey now, I use a fax machine at work!
… We’re not behind the times at all. Nuh huh. No siree.
… And I just realized that my printer/scanner is also a fax machine.
It’s too bad I’ve no landline to hook it up to.
I got a very very hostile response when I asked if I could scan it and e-mail it.
Tony:
Ayn Rand Funland. Everything goes well if we just leave people to their own devices, with the government backing the hell off. We need to check the Feds before they decide to Go Galt.
The odd part is, they’re well-off enough that they must have realized the real end-goal. They’re Winston Smith. O’Brien would have administered some severe punishment if they said “rich people don’t want the ADA because that way they get to help people with special needs out of the Goodness of their hearts instead of just to conform to some cold and impersonal law, and they’d make sure they were just as helped without the laws anyway”. They are intelligent and connected enough to know the real motive is control, and making sure they are not being coerced into spending their hard-earned money just to accommodate handicapped people when it would cost them money to do so and they could just as easily cater to those without special needs.
I liked Bullshit! until that episode. I know that doesn’t speak particularly well of me, but that at least was enough.
Old Protestant meme. The idea is that you’re not following some religion, you just have a personal relationship with Jesus. He’s your BFF, future husband, etc. The fact that they still tend to officially take the Bible as gospel is just incidental, surely.
Ing:
There was a young woman from Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She left home one way
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.
Bah…. “left home one day“
I like to think I have a personal relationship with Jesus…specifically he’s the little clingy kid from school that we let hang around because of his willingness to eat bugs and dog poo on a dare.
Bullshit has the big problem of dishonesty via cherry picking your opponents. Even when they’re right they do score cheap points by often picking the easiest representatives of the other side to knock down. No one could ever say honestly that it’s a fair investigation of any issue. It very much runs on similar principles to creationism IMO; they have a narrative per-decided and then go looking for the facts and interviews that will build support for their conclusion.
Tony:
Well, he was a troll.
Thanks, btw, for the compliment on my “sticky” post on Dreamwidth. Also, I’m getting a 403 (forbidden) error when I try to look at Kayta’s photo.
By “gross,” I think Krasnaya Koshka meant “disgusting” in a metaphorical sense.
Gnumann:
FTFY.
Myself, I’m partial to the way LiveJournal and its various clones nest comments and permit expansion and collapse of subthreads. But that could just be because I’m used to them.
Kristin:
I had electrolysis done years ago, to get rid of a light ‘stache and also some chin hairs. The former hasn’t come back, but, due to age and hormonal changes, the latter have. Plucking them encourages them, but I will admit to finding it satisfying in the same way picking a scab is satisfying.
Also, pretty birdie.
Caine: Ow, I hope your back and neck feel better soon. And, eeeeee, new ratlets!!!
Also, medication regardless, I agree with you about Audley’s sister.
Birger: About four or five years ago, a Canadian friend of mine mentioned that the Inuit had begun to see robins around the Arctic Circle. “What are these birds? We’ve never seen them before.”
But, yeah, Al Gore made up anthropogenic global warming in order to buy another mansion. /fuxnooz
Janine, I remember the “vile bitch” in your handle. I was lurking at the time.
Ogvorbis, hope your son feels better soon.
Audley: Sorry to hear your sister is still being a shit to you. If you & Mr. D. can afford to move, move. You don’t need the aggro, and Janine has a good point too.
Esteleth: D: indeed.
RowanVT: That is one pissed-off looking birdling.
Holy shit, you guys, how have I never shopped for fabric on eBay before?
*drools and compulsively clicks Bid Now*
John Sununu: Always an asshole, still an asshole.
I agree with this guy.
Oh, and since we’re talking about disability in the thread right now, here’s an article about a disability services agency in California that discriminated against a disabled job candidate.
That said I think Bullshit should be seen as the best thing for skepticism ever.
Because you go through thinking “FUCK YEAH! GO YOU GUYS! TOTALLY STICK IT TO THEM” until they hit something you disagree on or know more about and then suddenly BAM DAN BROWNED and you see how unfair and straw manning they are in crystal clarity. Then ideally you look back and think “wow! Look how easily I was taken in by utter Bullshit!” and learn an important lesson about being taken in by a charismatic figure telling you what you want to hear….and also how huge an ass Penn is.
Apropos of nothing with a smattering of TMI:
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This damned hemorrhoid is on my fucking nerves. This is the only time I’ve been happy to not have a sex life. I wonder if they’re genetic for some people. I seem to get one or two a year. It makes walking very awkward.
(have no health insurance, so casually seeing a doctor isn’t practical; preparation H over a few days has proven the perfect remedy; still, I’d like to not get them at all)
Hey now!
Some of us *are* behind the times :)
I’ve never owned an MP3 player or an Ipod.
Last night I did find an old Ipod Nano that I guess belonged to M. I don’t have a charger for it though, but I guess I’ll keep it.
Truer words have never been said. Well, maybe they have at some point. But not a lot of them.
Although even once or twice on issues where I agreed with them I kind of wanted to facepalm because of the set-em-up, knock-em-down quality of some of their arguments. I mean they’re pretty shameless.
Why is Kiara, T’s dog, sniffing my crotch? It’s creepy.
@Kristinc
It’s basically a ‘magic trick’ of giving the illusion of giving the opposing side a fair chance to make their case.
If it wasn’t for some of Penn’s recent positions and behavior towards Ophelia and others, I could almost think that Bullshit! was intended to give that whole experience of realizing that even you get taken in by bullshit as long as it’s something you want to hear (whether it’s because you have Randian tendencies, they’re arguing a trivial point that should be obvious, or what have you), and if you go back afterwards after being disillusioned by the source you see in stark contrast how poor the arguments were in the first place. But no, it seems more likely that they just like to be high-fived at how well they school everyone with positions differing from theirs.
Ms Daisy:
Maybe I didn’t set it up right.
I uploaded the pic to my computer from my phone. From there I copy/pasted the URL for the pic onto my comment here. Is that the correct way to do that?
who the FUCK puts music in their ebay listings goddamn knock it off people
PZ johnfreethinker is spamming. Clean up. I think he’s an old troll anyway
Not caught up.
*headdesk* Oh crap.
All seconded. ♥
WHAT
WHAT
Daisy:
Thanks.
Not surprisingly, this isn’t an easy decision. In order to afford moving expenses and not downgrade to a smaller apartment, I would definitely have to go back to work full time as soon as my disability payments run out after DarkFetus is born* and that was definitely not my plan.
We had started working on a budget so I could quit my job a couple of weeks before my due-date. I planned not to work few months after DF’s arrival and after Xmas or so, I was going to look for something part-time. With our current apartment, we can definitely make this work by cutting out a lot of our “luxuries” (cable tv and whatnot) and trimming back on other expenses (as cliched as it sounds, we’ve already switched car insurance companies and managed to save a few dollars every month).
Now, who knows? Because we don’t pay “market value” for our apartment, we are so fucking screwed. We can either stay here and deal with my asshole sister (and roll with our original plan), move to a one bedroom 1/3 of the size of this place (and roll with our original budget), or look for something comparable size-wise (and I would have to go back to work full time immediately).
I hate feeling stuck. :(
*New York oh-so generously pays for 6 weeks of disability.
I second that, but that may be a privilege thing – we’ve got decent museums (and tar pits!) here.
Bah, hello.
I’m too lazy to comment today, it seems.
How does anybody follow all these threads? Patience? Practice?
johnfreethought has certainly crawled so far up my ass that he’s nibbling on the inside of my tits. I cannot stand the coopting of people’s actual struggle with mental illness or depression for a fucking gotcha game.
Huh…?
I can’t get this to work.
I was able to post a link to the picture of Krystal a while back, but now I can’t seem to do that for Kayta. Drat.
Tony:
Not to sound like my mother or anything, but…
(You knew that “but” was coming, didn’t you?)
… Are you eating enough fiber? Staying hydrated?
I would. You’ll find someone who has a charger, trust me. ;)
Both, and also obsessiveness.
Oh and also:
Meeting all of ya makes me realize how well-off I am.
I’m sitting on a couch doing nearly nothing all day, living in a not-bad house, with plenty of luxuries (at least for now).
I’d love to contribute to a proposed general fund…
Audley:
Ouch, tough choices.
Hope ya figure out a way to make it work. *hugs and help if needed*
David:
I just knew you were going to say something :)
I haven’t been here long, but from what the others say about you (when they’re not talking about how awesome you are…something that I’m starting to see), I get the impression you know a thing or two about fossils.
I’ve been to a museum once or twice in my life, and both times it was at a point where I didn’t care about art or history. Now that I’ve come to appreciate history a bit more, and science a whole lot more, I think museums would be fun to go to. Now I just have to get over this anxiety I feel about going new places by myself (this is the reason I haven’t been to the Creation Store yet, or on a cruise, or to another country [I have been to Canada, but tada, it was with someone], or on a vacation somewhere by myself that I’ve never been to). This is one of the things (among so much more) that I miss about M being alive. He and I went *everywhere*. I think maybe it’s like Linus and his blanket. The comfort of knowing that I’m somewhere strange with someone that I know and trust is incredibly important to me. Additionally, I like having someone to *talk* to and experience things with. There are days I feel like life is passing me by, but I just don’t see the fun in experiencing things by myself.
And boredom.
The tar pits continue to simultaneously freak me out and fascinate me, in that quiet, pit of my stomach dread kind of way.
Doesn’t the nano use the same charger as the normal iPod? Should be easy to get if it does.
Thanks, thunk.
Tony:
Dagnabbit, blockquote fail!
Tabs.
Daisy, David & Thunk, thank you. ♥
Audley, I imagine you’ll want the room once DF has arrived, being more cramped is not going to help in any way and you need that time off, too. Sooner or later, you have a draw a line with asshole sister.
Okay, just confirmed with my mom – it’s the standard iPod cable. So, should be $20 at a store if you don’t have a friend with an extra (I seem to have several dozen (slightly kidding)).
I think iPod cables, like USB cables, reproduce by mitosis in the dark. Put one in a drawer, and next time you look there’ll be two in there.
I can only speak for myself but in my case it has to do with waking up feeling like I have a hangover (despite not having had the fun of getting drunk) and deciding fuckit I will ditch everything and sit in front of the intertube for the day.
Which is not to say that I only keep company with the Horde when I am too sick to avoid them! Just that it’s the only way I can actually keep up with the Horde.
Caine:
You’re absolutely right. And I will long before DF is born, whether or not we decide to move in the meantime.
Richard:
Yeah, not so much with the privilege here.
I’ve lived in Pensacola, FL for the last 9 years, and prior to that, I lived in Huntsville, AL for 15 years. The latter has the Space and Rocket Center, but I wasn’t interested in anything like that when I lived there. Pensacola has, well the Creation Store and a lot of nice beaches, if that tells you where this city’s priorities are.
Richard:
Thanks for the Nano Info!
Audley:
Do you and Mr. Darkheart plan to keep the “dark” theme running once the little one is born?
Darknewborn
Darkinfant
Darktoddler
etc.
A good ‘but’ is hard to find…
True, but one that fits the item that you have will become two that don’t fit anything that you have.
ok, I’ve taken up way too much of this thread. I’m heading to the gym to try and create another hemrrhoid :)
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus @60 –
Purebreds (in my limited experience) have problems being normal animals. I’ve had a purebred dog (who had to have surgery three times) and three purebred cats–one who died not so long ago because his fangs were so big he was forced to be bulimic. He could not eat normally so he rapidly snarfed what he could and then purged because it was not chewed properly.
It’s gross (to me) because there are so many healthy, “normal” cats (and dogs!) everywhere on the street so I don’t understand why people need to use animals as status symbols. (To be clear, I’ve never seen homeless cats in Russia but I’ve seen MANY homeless dogs.)
“Gross” was a lack of eloquence on my part at that moment.
All these purebreds are because my girlfriends wanted them.
I’d be happy picking a kitten up from Cadiz and taking it home. If it were only so easy.
Krasnaya:
I got a “404 page not found” for your Cadiz link.
Sorry! The actual link.
I have however had 3 purebred dogs that were wonderful with no health problems.
They were however not up to breed standards.
*Via adoption*
Audley, as far as moving goes, if you talk to your landlord/management person, would it be possible for you to move to a same size apartment farther away in the complex from asshole sister?
Oh! I should have put a warning up. So many cats had no eyes in Cadiz, Spain and there were so many kittens. There was the Cat-Man of Cadiz, who fed them all, and therein lies the conundrum. Is he doing them a favor or not?
I say they’re already alive so he is doing them a favor. In Turkey and in the Ukraine (I can’t remember where else) they fix stray animals and put them back out with tags on their ears.
In Scandinavia and Finland I never saw stray animals. Not once. And I lived in Finland in a cabin on a lake for five months (lovely people, the Finnish).
Koshka:
Well, me russian isn’t completely gone. Nice cats.
Ing: Gerund of Death @130 –
I’m talking about animals that have passports. That have their entire ancestry laid out in paper. I can see when my kitten’s great-great-grandmother had her shots for various things.
When animals are severely inter-bred — horrible.
Pedigreed? Is that the word I want? (Do I want to know this word?)
Wait, I think PZ already posted a video about this.
@Kranaya
Yes there are inherent problems in companion animal breeding of pedigree lines being too stagnant and interbred.
Also, there are no SPCAs in Russia. People’s living rooms, yes. But no governmental organization to rescue animals.
So *via adoption* is exactly what we do.
Ah, by via adoption I meant I took in 1 dog that it’s owners couldn’t keep and 2 from an accidental breeding.
@Caine
Ouchy ouch.
120 lb of stupid is a LOT of stupid. Hope you get better soon! *hugs*
Ing: Gerund of Death – I’m entirely agreeing with you. Plus, you said something really hilarious on another thread that I wanted to praise you for but my internet died at that moment.
Crap, I wish I could remember. (I don’t think it was on Pharyngula.)
Though you’ve made me laugh many times.
Anyway, despite my faulty memory and faulty connection, thank you.
rather than actually seeking out a purebreed or anything. I worked in a pet store and was very very sad about the state of pets there. :(
Caine:
My apartment is the top two floors of a historic brownstone and it’s my landlord’s only rental property. If we did live in a complex, I imagine this would be hella easier.
*sigh* I’m just not going to let this bother me any more tonight ‘cos my night just went whoa into the shitter.
I went to buy my tickets for The Dark Knight Rises and Mr Darkheart just now decided to inform me that he can’t take Friday off, so no Thursday midnight showing for us. To add insult to injury, everything else this coming weekend is sold out, unless I want to drive about an hour to a shitty mall theater.
So, yeah. I’ve been excited for this movie for years, I guess I can wait another week or two. :(
Jadzia:
Yes, yes it is. Jayne is…special. In a shortbus sense. You can see him here and here. He’s the bigger one, with the spotted black tongue. In the second link, he’s the one who doesn’t know how water works. *sigh*
Ing: Gerund of Death @140 – Our last cat, recently deceased, was free of charge because he had been abused and had half his tail chopped off (in a door, was the story) and had humongous fangs.
He was sabre cat. He also had no control of his mighty sphincter so he just trailed poo everywhere. Not his fault, the fault of “pedigree” breeders. Poor guy.
I’m not a fan of breeding, at all.
I’ve told my gf I love birds and now I’m quite afraid she’s going to bring home an African Grey. I don’t want a bird in a rather small flat with cats. But I do love birds.
“Today I saw the most beautiful parrot and I almost bought it for you,” (this sentence sounds extremely sexy in Russian) but I said, “Thank you for NOT buying it. Think of the bird.”
I’m so blabby. I apologize.
I sometimes regret NOT breeding one dog because she has such good motherly instincts and as a large example of her breed could probably have a low risk litter…but I am very happy with her and wouldn’t want to put her at any risk.
Ing: Gerund of Death @140 –
Of course. Criminy, here in Russia there are rows and rows of monkeys in Le’Murr stores. I’m surprised I don’t leave with all of them, if I could afford it.
I just can’t go into those stores anymore.
God, wasn’t that terrible? My son and I were looking forward to it SO MUCH, and then it was that trainwreck.
Luckily The Hunger Games movie made up for the “books are shit turned into movies” vibe we were starting.
*soft hugs* for Caine. Falling down the stairs is for shit. Fucking stairs.
Audley, you shouldn’t have to have that much upheaval just to deal with your sister. Tell her your pregnancy is off-limits for conversation, and every time she says something you’ll just walk away. Or something like that.
Caine, have you ever read the Hyperbole and a Half posts about her special dog?
Dog 1
dog 2
@Caine
Despite the dumb, a very nice dog :)
My heart was utterly broken after I spent a week nursing a pug with a kennel cough only to have it sent back to “supplier” probably for disposal.
Audley – i just realized that sentence sounded awful. I wasn’t trying to say that dealing with your sister shouldn’t be difficult, i meant that you shouldn’t have to get to the point of needing to move to get her to stop. :(
It’s okay Carlie, I understood what you were getting at.
Ing: Gerund of Death @148 –
Not to be completely maudlin but———
If you’re already depressed, don’t read. Seriously!
My step-father died in May 2004. My youngest brother died in December 2004. My mother got a new puppy, Lady Phoebe Puddle-Jumper, in January 2005. Only to have her die the next month of parvo.
But my mother was not devastated. She was born in 1946 in Germany and had already experienced much worse.
This is not meant as “my story is more terrible than yours”. It’s actually meant as “my mom is so amazing”. I don’t know if she’s a statue or not but my mother is a rock.
Russians clearly have mastered depression and developed a cultural immunity to it.
Omg, thank you, Carlie! One of the first things we found about Jayne was that he didn’t know how stairs worked and refused to have anything to do with them. This was problematic, seeing as both the front and back decks have stairs.
Thanks, Jadzia. :)
Time for a musical interlude: Song of the Volga Boatmen
Training dogs on stairs story.
When I lived else where we had big indoor steps and Gypsy being a tiny tiny dog was terrified of them. I had to train her to go up on her own one step at a time by putting popcorn on the stairs just out of her reach
Then I found out I had to do the same for going DOWN stairs
Later with current dog, he was really really tiny as a puppy so it was a big accomplishment when he learned how to hop the one step we have (a slight rise to the bathroom). Later when he found real steps he’d hop up one and act confused as to why he wasn’t at the top.
Jayne was 7 months old and 100 lbs when we adopted him. He’ll sort of do stairs now. Outside, he just jumps the steps, rather than actually step on them. Inside, he sort of slides down the stairs and crashes into the wall at the bottom.
Ing: Gerund of Death @152-
What? I’m going to be self-centered and think you said this about me. How could you have concluded that from what I said?
Okay, всё равно. It’s all the same.
For the record, (as I have to say every fucking day,) I am not Russian. (How I wish I was so I wouldn’t have to spend so much time with beastly Immigration “humans” in spangly Russian outfits).
Sorry I was joking.
My night is looking up:
I HAVE ACHIEVED DARK KNIGHT RISES TICKETS!
Not where I wanted to see it, mind, but in a little, rundown, half-closed suburban mall not far from here. I had to actually go there in person to buy the tickets (no online ordering, boo!), but I had a nice chat with the assistant manager AND they still had showings available on Friday night.
Bonus: The tickets were $3 cheaper than my usual theater.
Do you know what happens in Russia if you’re depressed? You call your work and say, “I’m too depressed to come into work today.”
That’s it. Okay. I hope you feel better. Это всё. That’s it.
Ing:
This makes for the funniest image in my head. :)
re: pugs-
I think they’re the most adorable little canines. In the future, when I look for another dog (we’re talking way down the line), pugs are at the top of the list. I love Krystal (and I miss Max), but my next dog will be a small, indoor dog
~~
Krasnaya:
From what you’ve said, it sounds like she’s strong as heck. That’s admirable.
Did you pick that trait up as well?
~~
watching something called ‘Wild Japan’, which reminds me of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (which I watched any time I could when I was a child). It appears to focus on the growing population of Japan as it encroaches on the habitats of various animals (I didn’t know how many islands Japan was made up of; nor did I know that the population was so massive, and fits into a country the size of Montana!)
I do love pugs, my coffee mug is my pug mug. That’s why it made me so sad. If you do want a pug please consider the pug rescue and adoption sites!
Krasnaya:
Is that a paid day off?
And why no SPCA?
My favorite bit of Japanese nature is their giant hornets. They’re definitive proof that if there is a god it actively hates people and wants them away from it’s sacred nature spots
@Krasnaya:
I was playing off the US trope that Russian literature is very very dark. The joke goes that the difference between a Russian comedy and tragedy is that in the end of a comedy everyone is dead…but they’re happy about it!
Ing: Gerund of Death @ 158- Okay, and I have* to live here so I was being far too serious, probably.
.
*I don’t have to live here. I do because I love my girlfriend and we both have built great businesses here.
So I’m reading about pedigree dogs, and I just remembered that my roomie E, got his dog Sham from breeders. He’s an American Bulldog. Is anyone aware of problems they face as they grow?
Krasnaya:
Cats with no eyes??
:::eyes unable to blink through sheer shock:::
I’ve never heard of those kind of felines.
Whew, weather by the Lake can be interesting. At 7:00 pm, 95 ºF at both the lake and inland stations, wind from the south. At 7:30 pm, wind had shifted around to come from the north, and the station near the lake was showing 82 ºF while the inland station still showed 95 ºF. at 8:00 pm, both stations were showing 79 ºF. Sometimes I wish I had a map that shows isotherms.
@Tony
I’m going to check because last time I went off the cuff I said the opposite of what was right but I believe hip and elbow problems are the biggie
Bulldogs have lots of problems :( Breathing, ’cause of the face, and skin issues with the folds, and hip/back problems.
Ing:
Those are pretty much the only places I would look for a pet. Every one of my cats has been from the Humane Society, and my first dog-Max-was as well. Krystal was a strange situation of me being in the right place at the right time. I guess I sort of rescued her too, as I have no idea what a vet’s office would have done with her.
~~
running commentary on Wild Japan:
Uh, the Japanese Giant Salamander is enormous. It’s remained relatively unchanged for millions of years to boot?
See, *proof* evolution isn’t true :)
Ing, Cipher:
Those issue with bulldogs…would crossbreeding eliminate some of them?
~~
The Indian Mongoose is kinda cute. The little noses are so adorable.
@Tony
Crossbreading provides vigor and in many cases does eliminate or dilute issues. The problem is limited breeding. Intentionally breeding with lines that do not have those problems is pretty much the way to save the breeds. Pugs for example pretty much NEED longer snouts, hence why puggles started to show up all of a sudden.
Ing, my idea of Russian humor is Zoshchenko although Russians hate him.
Two have told me, when prodded, that they found Bulgakov hilarious. They seem to prefer ironic humor.
Total anecdata: I have never met a Russian yet (and I teach a LOT of Russians) that didn’t love The Bodyguard and Pretty Woman. These are two staples of Russian cinema.
I have never seen either one so I am a lousy American.
The big bits of Russian humor that I was introduced to were The Nose and the Overcoat.
OMG, I just googled Puggles. A beagle/pug mix. They are 110% cute.
Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] @ 168 – Because fishermen hook their eyes, is what the cat-man said. (I know enough Spanish to have understood that. Though I think most of them lose their eyes to fighting. There are SO many cats on that small bank.)
Ing- Ah, Gogol. I’ve never heard a Russian in Russia speak of Gogol. Maybe I run in humorless circles. I joke.
No, there’s a Gogol Festival going on right now at the “Buff” theater on one of the streets where I teach (I never know street names as I always take the Metro).
It’s fairly close to Russkie Samosvyeti and Okei so I could walk there from my work.
But! My friends find those who seek out “buff” to be stupid.
Living in a foreign country is SO difficult. And wonderful.
Koshka:
Actually, one of my few reasons for not being in Russia is avoiding the draft.
It seems that not only do they have a hard time accepting new residents, they have a hard time letting go.
Which reminds me of:
Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs
It’s strange that canine intelligence can be so variable – from “unable to understand stairs” to “able to navigate the Moscow Metro system”.
@Owlmirror
Response before reading link. Not surprised at navigating a metro system but not stairs. I can’t imagine there was too much incentive for a predator like wolves to develop too much concepts of 3D navigation/space.
The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] ” 163 –
In Soviet times they all say you just had to show up in the morning and then everyone went home.
They called the people who actually worked “Duraki”. Idiots. If you punched in you could go back later and punch out. Or have your friend punch you in and punch you out. Take turns.
Of course there were many people in government jobs who couldn’t do this. In the universities and in labs you could not do this, of course.
There is a huge uprising of “Bring back communism!” I see every day on the streets. It’s mainly fronted by old people who were promised something their whole lives and then were unceremoniously dumped. I have scads of their paraphernalia.
It’s fairly volatile here but I’ve mainly been adored for being American (we’re still cool!) and was only spit on once. That was gross.
So we have a set of windows that are tall and thin, and can open either from the bottom up (as usual) or the top down. We’ve always opened them from the bottom up, but the cat managed to knock out one of the screens in her excitement once (the bottom of the window is close to the floor). So ever since we’ve been opening them from the top down, which puts the opening four feet from the floor. I just heard a noise, and looked over to find her dangling by her paws from the top of the opening. What the hell, cat????
(Hm, does this work?)
Also: PDF about Moscow dogs.
thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield @180 –
The draft. In Saint Petersburg, it’s no longer necessary. If you can pay $3000 you can get out of it. (I don’t know of any young men going into the draft here.)
So it is elitism. You have to have money. A really craptastic system, granted, but we’ve all seen stories of new recruits being harvested for their organs. This is on the news nearly every day.
I think the (Putin-owned) networks are all trying to rake in money. It’s not advertised, but it is commonly known. And the young men who don’t have $3000? Fuck them. It’s so awful. I have a hard time not lapsing into Russian but the words for “poor guys” feels and sounds so much better in Russian.
Бедные парни. Bye’Dny Pah-rny.
I’ve found a new, fun way to indulge in masochism. Just read forum discussions about the race of ancient Egyptians.
Why did I subject myself to such painful ignorance and frothing racism? I really don’t know.
The Puggle Wiki page is so sad. =(
Looks like wordpress really does not like metrodog dot ru (posts disappeared into spamtrap, I guess)
Terry Gross interviewed Sister Pat Farrell of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (American nuns) and asked her about the fact that the bishops are going after the nuns for spending too much time helping people rather than talking about abortion and teh Gheys but protect priests who rape children (that summary compresses a 38 minute chat into one sentence, with the child rape bit at 34:20 )
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156858223/an-american-nun-responds-to-vatican-condemnation
I don’t understand how people can stick with this church.
D: Goddamn I hate everyone.
Owlmirror:
Thanks for the link. I can’t believe dogs have taught themselves to ride the friggin’ metro!!
Caerie:
I’ve found flogging myself to be much more enjoyable. You should try it.
~~
Ing, JAL:
Yeah that wiki page is a bummer. Fuck puppy mills and anyone who is knowlingly involved in them.
~~
Krasnaya Koshka:
I’m fine if you want to type ‘Tony’, instead of the whole ‘nym, if it saves you time.
I wonder why many American jokes on Russia is some sort of dark comedy.
???
Inasmuch as getting to the metro, and leaving it, necessarily involves stairs/escalators, this makes no sense.
(Elevators are even more counter-intuitive.)
I was referring to the intelligence range across dogs, not some weird stair-blindness in all or most dogs.
???
Because all environments that wolves live in or lived in are flat?
@owlmirror
Because I misread and didn’t bother to read the link before commented. sorry. Ignore me. It’s very very hot.
Koshka:
Well then. Too late now…
Also, just call me “thunk”.
As for the metro dogs… wow.
Evolution is amazing.
Is anyone here looking to volunteer for a secular organization? Because I’m looking for people to fill my committee at Secular Woman and you all are generally pretty cool.
We have probably more pets than is wise (5 cats and a dog) specifically because of the way they have of appearing and needing help, with no one else stepping up to provide that help.
I had some weirdass jerk on pandagon once accuse me of using animals to feed my savior complex, and running an unregulated shelter full of dangerous dogs (as I mentioned, I have exactly one dog, but for the next week I amused myself by referring to her as “all of you”).
So I’m watching JUNO for the first time right now…
I *love* the dialogue. Very snappy. It flows off the tongue well, and most importantly sounds like the way people actually speak.
New blog from Lousy Canuck: TAM’s harassment policy was secret. Why?
This whole episode just gets more bizarre with each new development.
Hey, StarStuff! I think I’m in the wrong country to be on your committee, but I’m glad to see you around here again!
Good grief, that’s some serious html fail on my part. And apologies that the link goes to my comment rather than the top of the page; should have checked before pasting…
Starstuff:
First, I should join it.
:p
If you’re willing to take me though, sure. *doesn’t get hopes up*
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone.
ipod nano, ipod regular & ipads all charge with the same cable. (iphone too maybe?)
Tony, don’t you mean “a hard ‘but’ is good to find”?
Our last 2 cats died of a genetic disorder that is, I’m told, extremely common among Persians. They were rescue kittens who looked like ordinary shorthaired tabbies, though – they didn’t look at all Persian.
The defects come about because some people like the look of specific types of animals – and breed for them regardless of consequences to the animal. Hence why the Persian has lost its muzzle over the last 60 years and can no longer eat or breathe properly; why the Siamese has become elongated to deformity; and why the cartilage disorder responsible for the scottish fold is becoming more common; and why there is even such a thing as a twisty cat and a munchkin cat. Horrors of breeders. I’m sure some breeders are OK, but a lot seem to care nothing for the animal’s welfare and everything for its looks.
Oh yeah. I bought one season on DVD (show not aired in .au) and never another because of that. Well, that and the naked ladies. Not that I have anything against naked ladies (damnit).
oh dang, scooped to the “sooper seecrit harassmint poleez” story by Wowbagger
If anyone is interested in applying for my committee, you can read more about it here.
@ thunk
Feel free to apply! I can’t promise anything, but I will be adding a few new volunteers to my committee within the next week or so. No one has applied so far (well, other than the only person on the committee at the moment).
I don’t remember where y’all are (probably not around here), but what kind of volunteering are you actually looking for? As in, what would be involved in being a member of that committee (why the fuck does that word have so many double-letters!?)
starstuff is magica and answers my questions before I manage to ask them. how convenient.
alas, I’m way to n00btastic to qualify
Ah well, but I’m a complete noob, like jadehawk.
I’ll still join the org though!
OK, seriously pissed off. I don’t get why:
1. I can’t use the FtB search box to look for words or phrases among comments.
2. Google doesn’t “see” FtB threads.
I’m looking for a thread within the past month or so where I posted a (sorry to be immodest) very funny parody song to the tune of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” It was all about centipedes in my house.
Why do none of the keywords, nor any of the combinations of them, work in the FtB search box?
Why does Google have no record of any of them?
I’m baffled.
Starstuff:
Are there any other minor-er committees? I’d love to help somewhere where I’m more useful…
oh, wait, it says you folks need a graphic designer… Maybe I could do that…
Josh, do you need the thread or just the words? Because I have those… <_<
@ Jadehawk
Feel free to apply for any of the committees!
@ thunk
We’re just trying to fill up our major committees right now, but in the future we’ll probably be looking for more volunteers. The form and the list of committees can be found here.
Yay, joined!
Pterryx. . . I need to understand why none of my searches work! What do I need to input to make it come up?
Sure. Might as well give a shot at it.
No harm :)
dunno Josh, I can’t find it on a search either.
Pterryx: I’m looking for both the thread where I pasted that, and also the song parody (I stupidly deleted it).
Sea Pansies are weird looking. (This is me sharing my adventures in completing my evolution homework with you all.)
See, that’s fucking wrong. Why can’t it be found? Arrrrrgh.
Oh lol. I’ve never done a resume…
Part of my brain is screaming “I’m not worthy!!!”.
I should give it a day.
Josh: I got Google to find a *different* comment where you ranted about a skitters-about (by searching for ‘freethoughtblogs skitters-about’ of course). Maybe Google just hasn’t made it through all the zillions of comments to index your song?
It asks me for a resume. I’ve never written a resume.
*minor panic attack*
I’m pathetic :-p
Pterryx . . yes, but the FtB’s own search engine can’t find it no matter what key words I use. Very, very frustrating. And it was recent, too.
@ thunk
There’s no “worthy” or “unworthy”. That’s for the religious to claim lol.
Resumes aren’t that hard (you can even find guides online). There’s no harm in trying and even if I can’t fit you into the committee, you’ll still get some experience in filling this kind of stuff out and creating a resume.
Thanks starstuff. I’ll give it a shot tomorrow.
The days are long and empty in summer.
Josh, here you go!
—–
/end
OMG Pteryxx thank you!!
But how did you find it?
More on Moscow metro dogs:
http://englishrussia.com/2009/04/07/smartest-dogs-moscow-stray-dogs/
Woof!
Josh: …I got it from the log of a friend I sent it to.
<_<
Well hell, Pterryx. It’s bullshit it shouldn’t be readily available from FtB (I’d still like to know what the hell thread I put that on) or Google.
But thanks EVER SO for rescuing it for me:))
Raised talon and scree!
*high threes*
Pteryxx:
I promise to abstain from eating chicken feet for 7 days and 7 nights in your honor. Which won’t be hard considering I don’t like dinosaur claws so much and also kerosene is better for lighting. :))
A while back I had a very vivid dream, one part of which involved a very very tiny cat. While it was very cute, I remember, in the dream, reading up on the horrible genetic side effects involved with getting that breed, so the “aw, cute” was definitely mixed with “eww, squicky, people do this?”
I see that “munchkin cat” isn’t exactly small, but rather short-legged, so that doesn’t quite match my dream. But still. People do this?
/DreamsAreWeird
And another blockquote fail! Stop forgetting the slash already!
Owlmirror-I’ve had very similar dreams. Same proportion of cute/squick. In my dreams the genetically thwarted kittens are called pachyderms, and they’re found in underground mausoleums.
How interesting: google [“all the many-leggeds” site:freethoughtblogs.com] – returns nothing at all.
I suspect it’s something to do with the pagination, since the named link w/o page number goes to the second page. So it might look like an update of the original to a googlebot. And thus deletion of all page 1 comments from the record…
I would test this further but I really should be working.
Anyone else have tornado dreams? I’ve had them for 25 years at least. Last night’s were particularly vivid and frightening. Technicolor high resolution—like I was actually there. Moving in molasses, just slow enough that I couldn’t quite get to the cellar in time.
*slashes at Thunk in a friendly manner*
—
Alethea, when I googled freethoughtblogs + skitters-about I got a link to a comment thread, yes, but the link loaded the second page of comments only (with no skitters-about on it). However, the *first page* did indeed have the searched-for word, once I went there manually.
I didn’t think anyone liked Beyonce these days…. j/k
Josh, you can always eat fried pork skins (one of my favorite snacks) instead of the feet.
I know there is a group for knitters here and facebook. Is there some similar club for book lovers?
I thought I was the only person alive who didn’t know how to write a resume.
LOVE pork cracklins, Tony. But almost never eat them. Early-onset heart disease and all.
Damn you arteries (shaking fist)!!!
Pteryxx:
Heh. Those things are sharp.
JAL, I’d be interested in a book group. I know that Caine and I are both on LibraryThing; I bet we could use that.
Pteryxx, I saw that too; I suspected it might be something to do with the update lag. But the “older comments” link (the only one explicitly to comment-page-1) doesn’t have a rel=nofollow on it, so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
Oh man, I really SHOULD be working. But my brain is totally failing to grok relations between event data right now. I should go draw some pictures.
I’ve never had a “real job” (went straight from McJobs to being self-employed), and I’ve never applied for a higher-up volunteering position like this before, so the need to write resumes has simply never presented itself.
Which, considering I’m “old” now, makes me feel like a failure at being an adult :-p
Good night everyone. Deorbit and landing into a bed would feel great about now.
No, but ever since I was a kid I’ve had driving a car that’s out of control on a curvy road dreams with that similar molasses-like quality.
Haven’t had one in a while. Haven’t remembered dreams in a while.
@ David Marjanović
We are having a bit of trouble on TZT working out whether we have to contend with Boltzmann Brontosauruses or Boltzmann Megalodons. Your professional opinion will be much appreciated.
(Warning to others: click with care, not for the squeamish. And consider also that these have not yet been house-trained.)
i do. but only since after last year’s multiple tornado-warnings. except they’re never actually scary, just exciting.
Oh, awesome. Never heard of LibraryThing, I’ll check it out. I’ve been using GoodReads. It started as a way to keep track of all the books I’ve read. I’ve only started recently to add reviews to the star rating, mainly for me to remember, praise or vent about a book.
I know what you mean, Sally. Not fun, those dreams.
Sometimes they’re interesting or amazing to look at, but often, for me, they’re just frightening. Can’t remember the last time I had a “good” dream instead of a nightmare. Probly side effects of SSRIs. I’ll take ’em compared to the alternative.
Speaking of dreams, have anyone ever died in a dream? I did. It was actually pretty frightening. I really thought I was going to die. It was weird. I don’t know what motivated my brain to do that just for that one time.
No but once I had a dream that was so vivid that I sincerely believed I was never ever going to wake up. It was intense–the moon split in half while I was watching it and people started flying everywhere and cities burned and forests grew up on the surface of the shattered moon.
WRT resumes
I went through the first 10 years of adult life doing nothing but construction and baby-sitting, more or less. It was Strange-Ex who taught me how to write a resume.
I’ve now written hundreds. I’d be happy to review yours, Jadehawk, if you like.
And Thunk of course.
Can you tell I’m scrolling in reverse chronological order?
@Sally
Mine was also pretty vivid. Thankfully, when the bomb exploded and I died, I only felt a bit of heat, not pain. Then I kept asking myself in my mind “am I dead?” and then I slowly began waking up from the darkness. I was sweating profusely and I think I was crying. I did feel a wet spot around my eyes and cheek. Yeah, if I could talk to my consciousness, I would tell it: What the hell was that!? I bet Freud would have a field day with it.
Same-sex cards by Target. Good move, but…
I didn’t know about this.
I wonder how that money was used. How many peoples’ lives did it negatively affect? Can the scales ever be balanced?
Ibyea —
our brains do crazy things. Consciousness is a hell of a drug, apparently.
If I’m about to cark it in a dream, I realise it and duly regain wakefulness.
(Nice side-effect from years of playing with lucid dreaming)
I don’t think I’ve had tornado dreams, but I have had tsunami dreams.
In the most recent one, I saw the water recede, and I sternly told some young people who were standing around and gawking that we had to flee.
rupt
cannot catch-up
hugs for everyone
and
raspberries
lotsandlotsandlots
of raspberries
(and very soon, apples)
More on Moscow dogs. This one mentions the silver fox breeding that produced dog-like sociability in those foxes.
Moscow’s Stray Dogs
Lots of times. The last time was about two months ago. I went to do the door, looked out the peephole and there was a pizza delivery man there. I opened the door to tell him that I didn’t order any pizza and while I was talking he pulled a gun out of the delivery case and shoots me in the chest. That’s when I wake up.
Before that I had the dream where I was driving on a narrow mountain road, lose control of the car, and I go screaming over the side of the cliff but I wake up before hitting the ground for the last time.
Good morning!
re : dying in a dream
I used to have a nightmare from which I would only wake up after throwing myself from the balcony. I didn’t even know about lucid dreaming then, but I somehow “knew” in the dream that if I could get to the balcony and jump, I’d wake up.
The last time I had that nightmare, it became really creepy. I jumped and when I opened my eyes I realized I was still dreaming. I was laying at the bottom of the building and I felt those things that were chasing me in the dream closing up on me. Then I woke up.
I think it has stopped now, but some months ago I started having this recurring and very frequent dream where I was looking up at the sky at night and suddenly the moon started moving across the sky. I mean, following the path that it usually does during the course of the night, but faster, disappearing over the skyline line and reappearing again at the other side, getting bigger (and faster) every time. As if it was spiralling down towards the Earth and eventual collision was inevitable. Scary stuff, and also very vivid.
As for dying, I don’t remember ever dying in a dream, but I once dreamed about my funeral. That was just weird.
More from Jennifer Pozner about “toshgate” (I hate how everything is turned into a *gate).
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/18/daniel-tosh-rape-joke-are-comedy-and-feminism-enemies.html
I blame Yakov Smirnov.
Josh – I have never successfully been able to find anything in a comment by searching. It drives me nuts.
I found out on vacation that the midwest has now invented microwave pork rinds. Just like microwave popcorn, only all fat! And salt.
It is so fucking hot. This house was built like crap. How does a house that lets all the cold in during the winter trap all the heat in the summer?
In Russia, object verb subject!
So, different from microwave popcorn how?
dysomniak,
Carbs.
—
On a related note, I’m somewhat amused by the low/no fat claims on packaged products that are basically all sugar.
(True claim, but misleading)
Tony –
Target gave money to a PAC that supported Tom Emmer in the last Minnesota governor’s election. He was seen as the pro-business candidate, and he was running against Mark Dayton, a liberal Democrat (whose family started Target, btw). This got publicity, Target ended up giving an equal amount to a gay rights group. Dayton won the election. The lasting result is that Minnesota companies have been much less likely to make large donations, especially to groups that support controversial candidates.
Several large Minnesota companies (General Mills, for example) have taken a public position against our proposed ballot question enshrining bigotry into our constitution.
@Tony (#500+41)
It is exciting to me. I’ve literally been writing this story since I was 13. It’s been started and stopped so many times that I just haven’t ever finished anything, but this is truly something I feel not only comfortable writing, but at the same time is something I need to finish. This is the story I will publish, there’s nothing I don’t like about it.
As for why I wrote this story, I explained that about a month ago. When my brother graduated from college, I got separated from my family – my mother and father went one way with my sister and my grandparents went another way. I ended up behind one of the auditoriums where there was a group of security guards. I watched them and listened to them and realized they all had these interesting kinds of personalities. I wanted to write them into a book.
Of course, since my genre is fantasy, writing a cop drama wouldn’t work so well – but for someone’s comment on TET and also just having finished reading “Guards! Guards!” I realized I could do it. So I expanded the ‘cop drama’ idea to a ‘city guard drama’ one. It works perfectly!
HI there
Sadly had to break up with Jules and David early ’cause #1 is sick. But she’s already feeling much better after puking on the train platform….
Maybe I can get back together with David again later the week.
Caine
Ouch
Hope you’re feeling better
Promiscuous squid fatigued after mating: study http://phys.org/news/2012-07-promiscuous-squid-fatigued.html
—-
Why is Earth so dry? http://phys.org/news/2012-07-earth.html
Damn! Missed comment #777!
“dogs have taught themselves to ride the friggin’ metro!!”
Years ago, New Scientist commented on how pigeons have learned to ride the London “tube”. And birds generally have smaller brains than mammals. But they would have been helped by their sense of direction, they know which way they need to go, even underground
And that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do! According to this episode of Radiolab, the key is to figure out something that is entirely ludicrous and wouldn’t happen in real life, and then think about it often enough that hopefully it makes its way into your dream. Then when that thing happens, that’s the cue that this isn’t reality. I am kind of botching it because it’s been awhile since I listened to that episode, but that’s basically it.
Also it doesn’t pop, it sort of just…puffs. Yes, I tried it. How could I not?*
I laughed earlier this week when I was reading my Kashi cereal ingredients. In the list was “evaporated cane juice crystals”. JUST SAY “SUGAR”, KASHI. GOD. Had more than a whiff of crunchy frog to it, you know?
*How could I not? Turned out to be surprisingly crispy, but oversalted. Definitely had the je ne sais quois of good pork rinds, though.
An entire case of microwave pork rinds could be yours.
Hey, crunchy frog chocolates are my favourites!
In the description, they call them “bacon curls”!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Good morning, thread. I’m kind of threadrupt, as usual, so sorry if I’m ignoring something I shouldn’t be.
Caine, hope you feel better soon!
Re weird dreams: My “favorite” nightmare is one in which I am going about my everyday business and something happens that shouldn’t or fails to happen that should. Usually something extremely benign like I turn on a light and it doesn’t actually light up. Then I (in a move that my waking mind finds a drastic overreaction) realize that this is a dream and therefore any horrible thing can happen. I’m hoping that some day I’ll get far enough past adolescence that this scenario will morph into “this is a dream and I can do anything I want”, but hasn’t happened yet.
I haven’t definitively died in a dream, but I have had several dreams where I fell and hit the ground, which people used to say would kill you in real life from the shock. My memory of the dream is thinking (in the dream), “Yeah, right. I’m so sure that my mind can handle being eaten by wild bears, trapped in a collapsed building, and tossed about by tornadoes*, but not falling.” I hit the ground and bounced.
*All actual dreams. The collapsing building thing is a post-9/11 dream. It’s the only one that’s actually scary. The others ended up being weird satires of fear: I gave the bears food poisoning and lectured the tornado on how disappointed I was that it didn’t take me to Oz.
Check the nutrition information on a back of microwave pork rinds. High in sodium, but the fat is usually lower than an equal sized back of potato chips. And there ain’t no carbs. For some people it actually is not a bad choice. And they taste good. Mmmmmmm. Poke Rahnds. Mmmmmm.
@dianne
Good morning!
Too many people here from the American continent. No wonder these threads are quiet for most of the day – and every morning I find pages of new comments :)
It’s 3:30 pm here by the way.
Good Morning. happy Monday to all.
Jadzia626 ,
Hey, you’re in my zone. *waves*
…Maybe PZ should set some posts to auto-appear at 3 AM his time, so y’all outside of the Americas have something to look forward to? ;>
Good afternoon, Jadzia. If it helps any, I’ll be in Europe in August and saying good morning to the thread at midnight or so eastern US time then.
Hey Jadzis
Didn’t we tell all about the super-secret CET-ish timezone parties we’Re having when the ‘Meiricans are in bed ;)
NEW THREAD!