This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
I went sailing on Lake Michigan yesterday, and have acquired what we call around here a Minnesota Tan.
Next time wear a hat.
and use sunscreen
Bad, bad PZ
What Chigau said.
Nice monkey
beatrice
FIFY
Germany doesn’t get that may, I think we’d still get about the same amount with quotas, if they’re done by number of residents. Greece and Italy are currently shouldering the cost almost alone. Funny how we’re constantly talking ’bout Greece’s debt but not about the laws that currently force them to shoulder the lion’s share of the cost of refugees.
Also, yeah, it’s like with unemployment benefits and such: When they need them, payment is justified and too low. When others need them they’re moochers living off our money. 70 years ago Germans were relying on the generosity of people against whom they waged a deadly war. They were the Bad Guys and still people sent food and stuff. Now giving toothbrushes to refugees is too much…
Giliell, I apologize for misspelling your name earlier.
rq He probably does have quite a long memory… and that includes being plucked from the 3 to 4 acres he called home for 50 to 70 years. Most wild-caught box turtles don’t last much longer than a year in captivity because people don’t know how to take care of ’em *and* they are cranky about being moved. They will always try to go home.
I’ve poked him, prodded him, and injected him so much that I’m very certain that the hatred is ever lasting. :P He hisses and ducks into his shell every single time he sees me.
I love him and his cranky-ness. He’s got good spunk. Besides, now that we know it’s not a kidney tumor, he could possibly outlive me. That’s kind of a neat thought, that my ‘memory’ will continue on in a turtle… a turtle who hates me.
Menyambal
I hope that the Emptying of the Old Carton didn’t take too much out of you. And SCORE for finding that cherry pie. ;)
Beatrice
Exactly. I mean, go back a couple of generations, and pretty much everyone I know in the Latvian community in Canada is a refugee-turned-immigrant. Except they did some legal wrangling and were officially declared exiles. But still. Now I’ve left Canada, and yeah, I like to call myself an ex-pat, but I’m also fully cognizant that, regardless of citizenship, I’m still an immigrant.
But anyway. Now the Lithuanian president has said you can’t bring all of Africa to Europe, in the context of helping make conditions better in Africa itself. Why does it feel like she’s talking about Africa as a monolith?
(Also, who the fuck said anything about ‘everyone’? She’s at least set the Lithuanian limit at 250… something, I guess? Fuck. I’m going to go have more cake.)
Can a student of history tell me whether there was any voices of resistance in Britain and the US before WWII when the Jews were leaving Germany due to the impending genocide?
Rowan
He’ll tell his grandchildren and great-grandchildren horirble tales of being Poked and Prodded by the weird-coloured Alien who doesn’t have a shell… so soft and unprotected on the outside, it’s ghastly to remember!!!
Ha, well showing attitude, I hear, is a good sign, so here’s to Beret. :D Good luck with the healing!
Menyambal
Don’t worry
Rowan
That’s some “immortality”. I’m very torn on people keeping turtles and tortoises as pets, when they’re the long living species. A pet is a big responsibility. A pet will not learn to take care of themselves. So taking on a pet you know will outlive you is morally dark-grey at best.
Which doesn’t apply to you, obviously, since you took the lil fellow in cause he needed care and a home.
Not sure I understand quite what you’re asking, bassmike, but no, the UK/US/Canada axis didn’t do very well in looking after Jewish refugees from Germany. Google “MS St. Louis” for a particularly shameful episode. Unless they had compelling skills *cough*Einstein*cough*, anyway.
Husband is out of hospital, doing well. He had a lovely breakfast this morning, consisting of six pills.
That’s great news, ledasmom, hope he continues to improve. :)
Aaaaand, I missed adoctor’s appointment today. Thanfully only my 3 months blood sucking so I can just show up tomorrow to have it done.
bassmike
I’m not well-versed enough… but I’m sure someone out there has the info!
+++
Also, is there a reason why I can’t seem to comment on the Look At All the White People thread right now?
Sorry Caitie , I wasn’t clear. I was just comparing and contrasting between the attitudes of people to refugees before WWII and the attitude to those who are refugees from potential genocide now. I’m guessing colour plays a part apart from anything else.
bassmike,
I’m sure color plays a huge part, but it’s also general xenophobia and classism.. maybe isolationism in a way? When there’s trouble, countries just want to close up like clams and pretend nothing can touch them as long as they keep their hands over their eyes*. Bosnian refugees didn’t fare particularly well either, in more recent past.
* sorry for mixing metaphors
Right, but remember that Jews weren’t “white” at that time. The attitudes were similar, with the added frisson that the refugees were treated with suspicion, and not a few of them detained for the duration as ‘enemy aliens’, when the war started. The very same set of tropes were deployed, about how they’d breed so fast they’d overrun the place, depictions as rats bringing plague, that kind of thing.
Then after the war, we brought in a whole bunch of people from the Windies, and expected they’d help us rebuild Britain and then go home. Instead, they put down roots, as people will, and stayed, and again there was strong public disapproval of the changes in British society. This only got worse when South Asians started to come in numbers.
Basically, anyone perceived as “not-white” has always had a hard ride in the UK, with the shifting definition of “white enough” moving to include some Jewish people, some Irish people, and so on. Refugees have never been exactly…welcomed, more tolerated as an exceptional charity sort of thing.
Liking all this talk on post WW2 and xenophobia. I always feel like it’s one of the less-explored aspects of WW2 that we could collectively learn from. Although most reasonable people don’t really need to be told that warfare is bad.
I’m new to the blog. I keep fucking up the formatting in my comments. But try, try again, as they say. x)
I had a breakdown from reading all the recent coverage on Caitlyn Jenner. So many people having conversations about how trans folk affect them, and not how they might affect trans folk. I’ve been dating casually and met a trans women whose also-trans sibling was a murder victim to a teen mob many years ago–every single one of them got little more than a slip on their wrist. Combined with all the ill-informed comments in literally all the news articles about what gender variance actually is, I felt pretty worthless. Not suicidal, not yet, but I have amazing support from my partner and peers that help keep me from the actual bottom of the well. But it’s definitely not a nice feeling to rail against the majority that’s causing disproportionate violence, unemployment, and co-morbid mental illnesses on trans folk only to be told that it’s my fault, or that I’m imagining things.
I joined FTB because people seem more likely to be arguing in good faith when they question gender variance. And a lot of the commentators here seem up-to-snuff.
I also have a job interview in 5 hours. It pays half as well as my previous one that I mysteriously lost two months after transitioning full-time at work. Hmm. But at least it’ll keep me off the streets.
Open-access PDF: tooth anatomy of Triceratops. Rather than just dentine and enamel as usual, there’s a list of mineralized tissues that’s longer than that of mammals, though not quite as long as that of hadrosaurs.
The haptophytes might save us all: the extremely common coccolithophore Emiliana huxleyi, a large component of marine phytoplankton, adapts surprisingly well to heat and acidity. Unfortunately I only have access to the abstract myself.
The climbing perch is about to become invasive in Australia. That’s a perch species that spreads between bodies of water by walking on land; it breathes air and uses its gill lids (not gills, of course, as the article claims *facepalm*) to prevent itself from sliding backwards as it wriggles along; video included. What’s more, it can aestivate for half a year. Also, Florida is in deep shit.
That’s actually kind of awesome.
bassmike
In that sense, I would say not a whole lot has changed. I mean, it’s possible to feel sorry for all those displaced white folk, but even then, questionably so, since… well, lookit them, they’re refugees, not proper people! And as long as there aren’t too many of them.
+++
And yeah, the computer or the connection or FtB are acting up, I can’t seem to post where I need to. :( Except the Lounge.
Hey, Lesbian Catnip! Always nice to have more of my people around. I transitioned almost half my life ago, in 92, so hopefully I’ll be one of the ones who gets it on trans acceptance. There are actually several of us here, though I’ll let them introduce themselves rather than out anyone.
And yes, the tide of transphobia takes a lot to swim against. And worse yet, it’s an invisible tide to most of our cis friends, in the same way that the tide of misogyny is invisible to many men: they just cannot imagine what it’s like. That you can’t ever watch a show but you expect there will be an anti-trans comment or joke made. You hope it’s just the one, and you can just not watch that episode again, but you know it’ll just happen again in the next show, and the one after that. And the conservative backlash against us has meant the sudden reappearance of common anti-trans slurs and tropes being expressed by every right wingnut in the world. It’s a lot to get past, and you have my empathy. I hope your support structures continue to hold for you. :)
*offers bundle of fluffy hugs*
Yay!
Incredible! Seems like I am a victim of ploidy-centrism. Grrl to the privilege of working with diploids!
Also, allo, Lesbian Catnip. Please have a seat and prepare some answers to the following questionnaire:
1) What are your thoughts on:
a) peas
b) horses
c) cheese
d) Miracle Whip
We’re still working on a consensus for the right answer, so feel free to share your One True Opinion. :) And good luck with the interview!
Welcome Lesbian Catnip. You do know of course that the comfy chair is yours and yours alone for a whole day! Enjoy. And good luck on the interview.
Good luck with your interview!
Hi Lesbian Catnip and welcome.
While rq handed you the questionaire, Tony will fix you a drink.
I can say that for us frequent commenting cis folks here: we’re honestly trying. We fuck up, but you can just hit us with the mallet if we do so.
Good luck with the job interview. *tentacles crossed*
+++
Interestingly, they mostly were in Germany. Many Jews were not really into that “being Jewish” thing, there were many secular Jews, marriages with non-Jews (that’s why the Nazis had to define “Jew” to the exact percentage of Jewish ancestry you needed). They considered themselves German first, many of the men were decorated WW1 veterans, they simply did not believe that their friends, neighbours, colleagues, relatives would brutally murder them…
BTW, yesterday a 102 year old woman received her PhD as a paediatric doctor in Hamburg. She’d been banned from taking the oral examinations in 1938 by the Nazis as a Jew, she couldn’t finish her PhD in the USA because she was a communist and in the GDR* they didn’t give a fuck about that oral exam and were just happy to have a competent doctor.
That’s German “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (dealing with the past) for you: wait so long almost nobody is left alive (especially nobody who might demand that you pay them money), then make a token recognition andd eclare yourself the good guy.
*Yes, people fled to the GDR because of political prosecution. But heavens forbid we talk about that.
Yeah. In the UK and Canada in the 30s and 40s at least, a Jew was a Jew, and a white person was a white person. “No Jews or Irish” was the sign of the times.
Thanks for the welcomes. :)
#25:
“1) What are your thoughts on:
a) peas
b) horses
c) cheese
d) Miracle Whip”
a) They’re gross when boiled and make much better additions to skillet, stir fry and pasta salads.
b) They’re cool I guess. Really useful for labour. I wouldn’t want one though; too smelly, too high maintenance.
c) Good in small doses.
d) Belongs on pumpkin pie and preferably nowhere else because fascism or something.
#22
“That you can’t ever watch a show but you expect there will be an anti-trans comment or joke made. ”
Do people still quote things for emphasis? Because I’d really like to emphasize this. Despite my efforts to isolate myself from the awful news coverage, I still found my main sources of entertainment to be problematic. Markiplier, a Let’s Play Youtuber I enjoy, said/did some really stupid fucking things about trans folk a little over a week ago. He apologized for it recently, and it looks like he’s learned from his mistake, but god damn–his community defends his case by being viciously transphobic?! I can’t even.
Thanks for the welcome. :)
#28
” I can say that for us frequent commenting cis folks here: we’re honestly trying. We fuck up, but you can just hit us with the mallet if we do so.”
You must be doing something right. I signed up after all. :P And I have more of a Deadpan Scalpal than an angry mallet.
Lesbian Catnip
Welcome.
Doing this
<blockquote>paste copied text here</blockquote>
Results in this
It makes comments with quotes easier to read.
also useful
<b>bold</b>
bold
<i>italic</i>
italic
This is Miracle Whip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Whip
#31:
Praise His Noodliness, I’ve been trying to figure that out for a while. Thanks. x)
Lesbian Catnip
You can also borrow my sledgehammer, if needed, though that’s for taking one’s frustrations out on inanimate objects (like boxes of dead lightbulbs and obsolete china sets missing key parts, etc.). :)
Also, esp. in the Lounge, please try to add people’s ‘nyms when responding to their comments! Number is more optional, but useful. :)
Or, easier yet, quote what you’re replying to (using the blockquote tag as chigau explained). That way, people don’t need to scroll or search around.
David
Seeing as I’m too lazy to blockquote things in a running conversation most of the time (at least in the Lounge), I’m willing to forgive the lack of blockquoting in others. :)
[/personal opinion]
I found this screed on my Facebook feed. I don’t even know where to start.
Science could be used for good but, most of them constantly lie to us and we believe the lie. The Whale and the Dolphin are smarter than humans right? Yet, no Dolphin or no Whale has made under water transportation. Nor do the store their food in freezers or refrigerators. They don’t come out of the water with Dolphin or Whale technology either. A human’s worth is far greater than gold or silver. We are worth everything that God Himself stepped down from His throne and died for us. He wrapped Himself in flesh and blood and hung out for 33 years. Praise be to The Lord.
Hello.
Still threadrupt.
Had oral surgery this morning. Upper right pre-molar (well, the remains of the shattered tooth, anyway) which came out. The tooth abscessed about two weeks ago and the swelling pushed the tooth out of line and I shattered it with the opposing occlusal tooth. Then the swelling began — I had a nice Dom Deluise implant — which we treated with penicillin. I had a 9:00am appointment to remove the shattered remains of the tooth. Apparently, the swelling had so loosened the roots of the tooth that my dentist declared it one of the easiest root extractions she has ever dealt with. I am now in no pain even without painkillers!
I am also using a new computer — I can bring up InDesign in 5 seconds rather than 10 minutes on the old machine. I also got a trackball (with a cord) after explaining, at length, to our IT person that yes, I really do prefer a trackball, especially for graphics work. I am also typing on one of the ergonomic keyboards and wow is it both weird and comfortable.
I took my car to the mechanic last night for an oil change and to have my steering looked at. I figured either the belt was going or the whole unit was fucked. Turned out to be a loose plug in the power feed for the electric power steering.
I am caught up on my mortgage for the first time in three years.
Last night, I finally found a cigar that is too much for me. Boy gave me a Partagas 1845 Corona Extra (3.5 X 46) and, combined with the Johnny Walker Black Label, knocked me on my arse. The cigar was fantastic, just too strong for me.
I hope all are dong well.
steve1
How the heck is a whale or dolphin supposed to open a refrigerator with no hands????
Also, their food is naturally refrigerated, especially in the Arctic zones. Why the hell would they worry about it going bad?
The one thing they get right is that a human is worth far greater than gold or silver, since gold and silver have arbitrary, human-established values attached to them.
Is it just me, or is that sentence incomplete?
Also,
And if true, it means that humans in the end hung him up on a cross because they didn’t want to hang out with him at all.
Yes, Praise Be To The LORD!! I’m assuming they mean this one.
Sorry if none of that made sense. That was my last effort at procrastination.
One question:
I have been trying to find information on line and, once again, I am proving just why i cannot get past a white belt in Googlefu.
I have a map done in five colours with text boxes of the same colour as the building they describe. What five colours would be best so that those with a colour-blind condition will still be able to differentiate the different colours (I know the colours will be altered, I just want to figure out how to make sure the the five colours are different enough to be seen with the two most common forms of colour blindness)?
Hello, Ogvorbis!! Glad the tooth is fixed.
A new computer sounds fun. :)
*hugs* and watch out for those cigars!
Lesbian Catnip:
I am glad you found a place that you feel comfortable in. Feel free to hang out here in the Lounge with us. There is no central topic and there are always multiple conversations going on. We have people from almost every continent who comment here (I’m guessing no one lives in Antarctica), so people comment at all times. PZ just likes us to chat with kindness to one another which has rarely been a problem. Oh, and while many of us are friends (to varying degrees) please don’t let that prevent you from adding your thoughts to a conversation.
We are also a pretty supportive group who will listen to you talk about any problems you have. Conversely, if you have exciting news you care to share, we will likely cheer right along with you.
in addition, we have some amazingly knowledgeable people here.
I’m sorry you had a breakdown too. I have seen so many people selfishly center discussions of transgender issues on themselves which is aggravating to me. I want to throttle them and say ‘Its not about YOU!”
Also, you are most certainly NOT worthless. You have value as a person. You deserve happiness in life. I really hope acceptance of trans people in society comes swiftly. There may be a lot I do not comprehend, but my lack of understanding is no impediment to my empathy. I care and try to show support of trans people regardless. And when I know that I do not know enough to speak up, I shut up. And listen. As a cis male I find that is an important thing to do, especially since I want to be an ally.
Btw, regarding formatting, if you want to quote material, do the following-
<blockquote>place quoted text here</blockquote>
which will give you this-
Remember to close your tags with the /.
Waves to Ogvorbis!
****
For me, I can understand why blockquoting is not always done. I know CaitieCat has had to use her phone to comment in the past and I am back to doing the same temporarily (going through blogging withdrawls too…there is so much I want to write about). Typing comments on a phone-especially long ones-is difficult and trying to blockquote is slightly more difficult and annoying. So commenter nym is the perfect way to indicate the person whose comment you are responding too. I like comment number andnym myself.
Steve1
Easy, his god doesn’t exist, so his whole spiel is lies and bullshit. Nobody has proven god with any reliable physical evidence. Only with presuppositions.
@Ogvorbis
[“color blind” and presentation and audience] is a useful collection of google results. This is a good one. The key is avoiding contrasts that will affect people who can’t see red/green or yellow/blue.
My google-fu is, complicated. Like internalizing booliean logic and precise biasing via word choice and using google images too. Google a source for google and boolean logic. Some useful generalities.
*Find technical or casual synonyms for subject depending on needs.
*[xxxx and yyyy] insures that both must be present in results. “or” also works in google.
*[“xxxx xxxx”] ensures that “xxxx yyyy” must be included exactly as typed.
*[-xxxx] removes hits that contain xxxx.
By combining you can smack google around and make it give you what you want. Creative choices of “and” let you bias things around in all sorts of interesting ways.
Brony:
The powerpoint page is helpful. Luckily, none of the colours are overlapping — each building is a different colour with a keyed colour text box adjacent. Green and red are on opposite sides of the page so I got that right at least.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
I think I just killed a 90-sample plate with the UV. :(
… Actually it’s not as bad as it could be, I just finished preparing that amplification, so as long as I don’t need to repeat any of the samples, I should be good.
rq
I have no clue what you’Re talking about, but I’m sorry.
Ogvorbis
I’m glad the extraction went smoothly!
Hi Everyone and welcome Lesbian Catnip. I wanted to do a little follow up from last week and say I am still here lurking and learning a lot. I have not been able to feel myself into this at all like I thought I would. I get to see my therapist this week and hope he will have some ideas of where I might go for support. I think this will be our last session based on his availability and that has me feeling frightened. My panic attacks have subsided and I was able to get through them and attempt to understand them a bit better, but I can’t stay here and I can’t see a/the future yet, so I took a couple weeks off from my side jobs to give myself the space to ? I just don’t know. Internally I feel strong and congruent, socially I am lost and almost afraid to go outside. I am very grateful for this community.
Thanks, Giliell. :) I did some hopefully-unnecessary freaking out.
Caroline
It is very nice to see you! Can I offer some cake? That’s about all I’m good for – if you’re comfortable with *gentle hugs*, I can do that, too.
I hope you find a solution for yourself, and the support that you seek. In the meantime, don’t feel bad about just lurking. Feel free to check or share whenever you feel up to it; the Lounge will be here, and if we can provide some comfort just by going on as usual under your lurking eye (boy, that doesn’t sound too nice, does it? :P), then I’m glad we can be of help!
Pretty ‘rupt, just saw this good reaction to some appalling behaviour:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/10/welsh-hair-salon-installs-anti-bigot-sign-after-man-refuses-services-of-gay-stylist
Affectionate salutations to the Horde, I hope that you and your turtles are all OK.
OK, I give up. What is “rupt” or “threadrupt”? After all of this time I still can’t guess that bit of local language.
@Lesbian Catnip
Greetings and welcome. You will figure out the formatting in time. There should be a selection of them by the comment box and looking up wordpress and formatting will tell you what else can be done. I keep meaning to get more creative but my editing sucks a lot already. I sorry to hear about how depressing the news is. Watching how language is functionally used with respect to lots of kinds of people is a current interest so feel free. That’s the sort of thing I learn from. This is a good place for venting and support.
@Giliell
Sorry to hear that. I hope it was not a serious appointment.
@Ogvorbis
Yay to no pain and fast computers!
@Caroline
I’m sorry to hear about your panic attacks. It’s good news that you are getting better at understanding them. That’s the first step. I share social anxiety issues. It sucks. I hope things get better.
Welcome Caroline and LesbianCatnip.
Ogvorbis – Here’s a page that has tools for testing a design to see if it’s color-blind compatible. It’s designed for examining web pages, but if you can throw your image onto a facebook page or something I would think the programs should be able to analyze it.
Hugs offered to all, sundry, and anyone else who needs one.
Welcome, Lesbian Catnip! The pillow fort is over here in the corner, with bonus Hobbes snuggles and muchas smooches on demand. Just toss him the occasional tuna sandwich.
Good to see you again, Caroline.
rq, I’m glad your disaster wasn’t quite as bad as you’d feared.
Ogvorbis, yay!
Husband stopped by on his way north for a few things he forgot to pack (mostly more food and his new Florence and the Machine CD), so that’s him sorted for now. He’ll be checking in this evening. I finished my shiny thing project and took pictures, which I will share later. Then the Elder Daughter and I ran some errands and got takeout lunch. So my day off is actually being a good day off. Yays.
Anne
I’m glad your day off is being a good day off! Can’t wait to see your shiny thing. :) And I hope your Husband stays safe!
+++
All crises averted (with some minor grumping (to myself) about all the good pipettes being sent in for calibration, boo, I hate working with the Other Pipettes), I’m going home.
Hey, Og; Welcome Lesbian Catnip.
So, Brony:
‘rupt is an abbreviation of “threadrupt” and “threadrupt” is a play on “bankrupt”.
To be threadrupt is to have failed to read the thread or otherwise have no knowledge of the thread. The riches of the thread are not yours, not even in the smallest part.
Does that help?
bankrupt
I ♥ that site.
They’re replacing my fume hood at work with HEPA filtered exhaust model. I was just getting the old one broke in after 20+ years….
Back from the interview. I’m kinda pissed off. It was a temp agency, but they posted an opening for within their company, a position for which I am over-qualified for given my work experience. And all they did was enter me into their pool of temps.
Has anyone ever been so far decided as to even want to do look more like?
Crip Dyke
Funny, I always thought it was a variation of ‘interrupt’, as in ‘I’m threadrupting [interrupting the thread] because I don’t know the actual conversation(s) current at the moment but have something I need to say’.
I think this requires an etymological study… can PZ pay us lots to do it?
chigau:
Ilk
Ampersand
and best of all:
Vellichor
Here’s my shiny thing. Sorry about the not-so-pretty link, I’m on Nixie and too lazy to play with codes on the touchscreen keyboard.
http://anne-d.dreamwidth.org/216032.html
Nerd
Yeah, it’ll be interesting iffenwen they finally build us that new lab. o.O So much new, uncomfortable stuff.
P Z, where did you get my photo?
Here is another enlightened Southern gentleman:
” Arizona pastor prays for God to rip out Caitlyn Jenner’s heart: ‘I hate him with a perfect hatred’ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/arizona-pastor-prays-for-god-to-rip-out-caitlyn-jenners-heart-i-hate-him-with-a-perfect-hatred/
I can feel their Christian love…
…Also, ripping out somebody’s heart is a privilege only granted the high priest on sacrifice duty at the temple pyramid, the Arizona priest is not even in the right hierarcy or the right country.
‘Ruption’ is a perfectly cromulent word.
The smart lady that runs our company (versus the money behind it), has said she’s not going to build a new headquarters no matter how much we grow. It seems to be trend that CEO’s are dumped after the new headquarters building is completed, and everybody realizes that they still have the same old problems.
If I didn’t have somebody to look after, I might stay on for a while with that attitude. Meanwhile, I’m drowning in the infamous “dotted lines” as the old fart in my department.
The Planetary Society’s solar sail unfurled and caught the light. PZ, your next sailing expedition….
Hey, Brony.
I always think of it as bankrupt, as in it’s short for “I haven’t been able to catch up on everything since whenever I last posted, so I want to apologise preemptively for any potential infelicity of timing or inadvertent display of insensitivity to important good or bad news I might have missed”.
But interrupt kind of sort of works in the same way, I guess.
Also, Ogvorbis, I am glad you no longer have awful tooth pain.
I have always treated threadrupt as meaning I have not been able to keep up with the Lounge and thus am behind in whats going on. Now I wonder when it was first coined and by whom.
Ugh, didn’t feel like I got back to sleep after the Redhead’s 3:30 am call this morning, and finally got up at 5:30 instead of 5:55. Happens maybe once a month. Beginning to feel like an extra in the Walking Dead.
So…. apparently my work tried placing 3 little kittens in with a feral mama to see if she’d adopt them, but she decided to reject ’em instead. I found two of them lethargic and so cold they were even registering on the thermometer. The third was perky and screaming at me ’cause she was hungry. Got the other two warmed up and tube fed ’em a couple times. Other little girl is now drinking well from the bottle just like the first. Boyo is going “Pleh! Blech! This does not look, smell, taste, or feel like mom and I am DISGRUNTLED BY IT.” I’ve managed to make him drink a couple mls at a time, and I’ve got stuff with me to tube feed him until he gives in to the inevitable and takes the bottle.
So yeah. New fosters because I have the word “SUCKER!” in billboard sized letters emblazoned on me in invisible ink or something. Plum is having his neuter surgery tomorrow and he’ll be staying here. I’m gonna miss my plum, but I’m super happy he’s well enough to head out.
I’ve already named the vibrant tortie “Ivy”. I now must come up with two other vine names.
Rowan, it’s because you care. Good luck with the new little vines – how about honeysuckle and bindweed? It’s a silly Flanders and Swann song, but they are vines…
My wisteria is blooming.
It’s a vine.
Uh-oh. Ken Ham has noticed Miley Cyrus*. And he is not happy. She says “fuck” a lot. And she rejects the biblical truth of clothes or something. So he’s building her an boat.
And, like seemingly every moralizing zealot, prude, and homophobe I’ve ever encountered, he doesn’t understand consent.
(Psst, Kenny, if you’re reading this, click here.)
* Ooh! I can’t wait for him to find out about Glee!
Something is up with FtB. I have clicked both boxes to be notified of Lounge comments via email (as I have done for years) yet I am getting no updates. I will not stand for this!
(when the pampasan is available I will sit though)
****
Awww, a Mens Rights Group was
banned from marching in the Toronto PRIDE parade. I haz, I think, one tear to shed. Oh wait, that really was dust in my eye.
And the comments on that piece. Ugh. MRA defenders whining about the mean old feminists and how CAFE is a legit humans rights activist group. <—gonna be a rebel by not forming a complete sentence.
BORN TO BE WIIIIIILD!
I feel oddly odd tonight.
::reads Nerd’s #72::
::remembers his gravatar::
::falls over laughing at the thought of a zombie hippo extra on the set of The Walking Dead::
(told you I am odd)
Did you folks hear about Franklin Graham’s hissy fit that Wells Fargo’s new ad* was waaaay too gay? Yup, he was so goshdurn mad that he took all the money his daddy
madescammed gullible and vulnerable people out of and……put it into a waaaay gayer bank!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rachel so giggly. And I feel the same.
*That ad is so heartstring-pullingly cute. It’s up there with a Publix holiday commercial (I can’t wait for them to show a same-sex couple). Cheerios, Honey Maid, Sabra, Wells Fargo.. it’s almost as if you gays were all around us doing straight person stuffs like eating and having checking accounts. What’s next? Are you people going to start getting oil changes? I have to wait for a representative, because you called 30 seconds before I did! Augggh! Where does it end?
Ragutis
That Wells Fargo ad is awesome.
I did NOT read any comments.
@Drip Dyke, opposablethumbs, Tony!
Thanks!
I had managed to figure out that it was supposed to be an apologetic interruption. So I was close. The exact connection was eluding me.
@chigau, Pteryxx
I’m constantly amused by all of the ways that language evolves. I’m wondering if the meme-crazy nature of things pushes us back towards a pictorial language. Heck, just the internet as a variable is going to be interesting.
@steve1
But, but, but…they are underwater transportation…
Also that paragraph looks like they are dangling an emotional “sparkly thing” of “look how awesome we are!”.
The one that has my head bent out of shape is someone who said “believe so that you may understand” last week. Running that one through my head gives me the impression of trying to chase myself around a tree until I’m standing behind myself.
@Rowan vet-tech
You are not the only sucker. Good luck on finding homes.
I know it’s a tpyo but
Drip Dyke
is bringing out my inner 6-year-old
Dammit…:P
I went to a hypnotist in order to forget that Youtube had comments.
Of course, it didn’t work. I have to rely on my willpower to avoid them. And these pills my homeopath gave me.
Neither of those work either.
Sad story: So, El Nino has it’s pluses and minuses, depending on where you are in the world. For U.S. east coast folks, it means a weaker Atlantic hurricane season* (homeowners and insurance companies: YAY!, surfers: BOO!) For west coast USAians, it generally means more waves (surfers: YAY!) and precipitation (California: yay! gasp! cough!)
But it apparently sucks for sea lions.** That picture at the top just breaks my heart… that should be just pure “D’awwwww”, but in the context of that story it makes my room awfully dusty and now that’s making my eyes watery or something…
* Generally speaking. IIRC, Andrew was during an El Nino.
** I recommend staying away from Surfermag comments as well. Shit, sometimes the forums make Youtube comments look reasoned and articulate.
Fortunately, because I work for a ‘no-kill’ (euthanise only for extreme health/behaviour issues) shelter, finding a home for the littles I take on isn’t an issue.
Well, I’m off to bed, probably. But in tonight’s installment of surfing news (blame rq for encouraging me), it looks like after several days of waiting, the Fiji Pro will be kicking off at 7:30 FJT. (It’s 3:45 a.m. here in Florida, so that’s like either in 12 hours or sometime last month. I’m not sure.) Swell forecast looks promising, getting into the 10′ range over the weekend. Several injury withdrawals means there’ll be at least 5 wildcards, including a couple of local Fijians. That should make things a little extra interesting. I know most here aren’t into it, but if you’re bored sometime over the next few days, tune in for a bit here and there and see some committed and talented athletes doing their thing and risking shredded skin and broken bones in a truly beautiful place. I know, the commentary can be quite jargon-filled and frequently banal. That’s why God created the mute button.( I think it was the 27th day? Sometime after remote controls but before VCRs)
And here’s an extended bit of the movie I linked to in the last thread, for a glimpse of how big and perfect that wave can get. (It won’t get that big this time, but still)
That add is beautiful
Brony
No worries. I could drop in this morning and have my blood taken. Due punishment was an extra 30 minutes of waiting time, which brought me dangerously close to fainting time (no breakfast until afterwards). Serves me right!
birgerjohanson
Maybe some trigger warnings for the extreme transphobic stuff? We just had people telling us how much that shit affects them.
Lesbian Catnip
Damn. I hope something turns up soon.
Rowan
You’s good people
re: the Wells Fargo advert
I love this ad! Not only does it portray LGBT parents as normal (which is awesome all on it’s own), it portrays a disabled child as normal!
Gave me twice the fuzzy feels!
Absolutely!
Check out the “behind the scenes” clip (not really bts, just bonus feels)
Gilliell,
My bad. I will include trigger warnings for such stuff in the future.
.
I am afraid I have become jaded by all the hateful stuff turning up. these days i just go “haha, that moron wants to kill people because Noah this and Leviticus that.”
I mostly concentrate on the self-contradictions and spelling errors in those messages, stuff that can be used to taunt the creeps. I am so focused on ridiculing the would-be killers that I tend to forgot the real dangers others face from malign mutants.
…plus, I was fascinated by the rather cannibalistic vibes coming off a nominally christian priest.
Tunnel vision.
Ragutis — Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and Awesome.
That reminds me, I’m wanting to learn ASL for my own nefarious purposes. I’m not always verbal*, and sometimes it’s just too loud for me to shout over background noise. Plus, it might be fun.
*In meatspace, I’m the Silent Bob. I’m “selectively” verbal, in that I’m usually capable of being verbal, but sometimes I’m so overstimulated or exhausted that I just completely shut down and can’t word.
I mentioned earlier my lack of willpower. I just had to check Rawstory one more time before beddy-bye…
In total opposition to the good, happy feels of the Wells Fargo ad story, a couple of dipshits are vowing to get divorced if same-sex marriage is legalized.
Apparently, you gays committing to put in as much effort as straights into trying to spend the rest of your lives together, in exchange for some new legal perks and responsibilities, really does destroy heterosexual marriage. Of deranged idiots.
I just don’t understand this. I don’t give a flying fuck what my next door neighbors do (unless there’s a grow house next door, in which case I hope they’ve got the wiring straight, and can I get an O?) * but some shitheads are living such fragile little lives that utter strangers simply getting equal treatment under the law can bring their entire world crashing down.
* OK, the couple that feed the local raccoons like pets worry me a bit, but I’m pretty sure I heard a coyote “addressing” the issue the other night.
I’ve thought of it as something I should do for quite a while myself. Frankly, I think ASL and IS should be just as common language electives in schools as French or Spanish. I’ll probably be studying it soon, albeit as a practical matter in that it may give me an advantage somewhere in a future job consideration. As a 44 yr old, essentially starting over, I’m trying to think of whatever “edge” I can acquire to compete with my younger peers when the time comes to compete for jobs.
Corssposted from Dispatches… thread on Raif Badawi
Yesterday I received an email from one of the many groups who routinely pester me (by my consent, of course) to sign petitions, give donations, attend demonstrations, etc., concerning the Badawi case. I reproduce it here:
As I’m British, I rang the Saudi embassy in London instead, to be told that I should write, which I have done, by email. I urge everyone reading this to call the Saudi embassy in their own country – I think a call has more impact, even if you just get told to write – and to follow up with an email.
This morning, I received from the European Commission an acknowledgement reading as follows:
The report was submitted in early May… 2012! I knew email could sometimes get delayed, but really! I wonder when they’ll get round to actually reading the thing. :-p
Rant:
During a break today people started discussing the following:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33090022
one of our senior academics said that it was PC gone bad and defended the man. I was pretty vocal in my opposition and was told I was talking bollocks. In the end I had to leave as I was getting very frustrated and the academic is very senior and could possibly get me sacked if I was too confrontational. I just think it’s disgusting that on one hand the department is getting awards for it’s attitude to women and on the other such intrenched views from someone perceived as a major influence in the same department.
/rant
Damn, Christopher Lee is dead.
K, I look at this and I laugh, because that shame gesture here in Latvia is the equivalent of making the ‘L’ symbol on your forehead.
And yeah, I just read about Christopher Lee. :( So sad! One of the most impressive voices.
shame = same
bassmike
♥
Thank you for trying, at any rate. That counts for a lot. And this high-up academic has also shown his true face, for whatever that’s worth.
+++
Honestly, I really don’t want to have to put that bathing suit on, but if Husband refuses to take the kids to swimming (which means getting in the water with Youngest because he’s been promised time in the big pool) I guess there’s nothing to be done.
I hate having body image issues. And no, I don’t want to have to explain all this to Husband. Which means I won’t, I’m just going to suck it up and take them myself.
If I might recommend, if you’re planning to write to the Saudi embassy nearest you to protest about Mr. Badawi, it would be much more effective to take the time to write a letter rather than an e-mail. I’ve contributed to a lot of Amnesty campaigns, and they’ve always been clear that a snail mail is more effective than an e-mail. It doesn’t have to be long, in fact you can say the exact words you were going to put in your e-mail. But that you take the time to put it on paper – better yet, in pen rather than typed – impresses more.
Also, want to apologise for not using blockquotes when I’m posting; as I’ve mentioned before, I generally am posting from my phone while lying down due to my disability, and copy-paste-HTML takes a hellish amount of extra time to use while doing so. If I regularly blockquoted while posting, I’d probably post about a third to a half as much as I do now (and i appreciate there are certainly individuals who’d favour that!).
Skeletons of famous cartoon characters
A website for people to fund and do science:
It’s called Endeavorist.
Woo hoo! I have my internetz back!
****
Cats. They aren’t always graceful.
Nick Gotts #96
I once received an answer to an application six years after the application was sent. I had moved three times during that lapse, and just happened to have moved back to the same place by chance.
Tony! The Queer Shoop #105
Me too. Does it have any link? It’s been two days. (At least we had water at home –no running water is still worse than no internet connection with kids).
With regard to my own comment at #11, I am very grateful to Pr. Francis Yeh to have thought of people with their share on haploids, and I’m pleased that his program is still working on current computers. I would not have had enough time to settle with proper fixation indices analyses on R soft before Evo15.
Now, it was messy from start because parasite just has sex all the time.
Ugh, washing some jar lids tonight, and heard a buzzing sound, followed by a “zot”, and saw black smoke coming out from underneath the refrigerator. The 17 year old refrigerator. “She’s dead Jim.”
Hope I can find a replacement in a hurry tomorrow morning, and get it delivered the same day.
Best of luck, Nerd!
Good luck, Nerd, I hope everything works out tomorrow!
I sewed elastic on my sewing machine this evening – new paper holder bands for my lapdesk. It’s been months since I last used Arachne, and I had to look up how to thread the machine because it’s been so long that I forgot which way the spool goes. But I found the manual, and the machine worked properly, and I didn’t break a needle or stick myself or anything. Yay me.
Still not going to sew curtains for my mother, though – that’s a bottomless pit of stress and problems, and I’m just not up to it.
I’m in a twisted position and I’m not really sure anyone here can help but I at least need to vent. I think my employment situation is completely fucked up and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m still unemployed.
Several months ago I mentioned an interview, but I did not get the job. I’ve started applying to jobs that have nothing to do with my work experience that I think I could deal with but getting turned down for a part-time position at a nicotine vapor shop still burns. It feels hopeless.
It’s almost been six years since I got my master’s in cell and molecular biology and I have no worked one science job since then. Tons of applications, two interviews about three years apart.
It’s been about two years since I quit being a substitute teacher for my mental health during an unsuccessful attempt to try to train to be a high school science teacher.
My habits after a life time of the way my mind is has left me with essentially no networking skills. (I had no idea at the time and potential issues never entered my mind).
I think I look like crap on paper, and only a small idea how my mental condition might be making this worse. I’m even considering vocational rehabilitation since the whole thing has left me far more socially avoident and insular than typical, but I’ve been told that they usually only deal with people who have skills for jobs that don’t exist and similar. It’s been hard to rouse myself for more than something being wrong on the internet.
I’m not going to stop but it’s hard to do anything more than be robotic about it.
Brony
Your situation is so outside anything in my personal experience, the best I can do is
*hugs*
The Lounge is always open for venting.
Nerd @108:
Good luck finding a refrigerator.
****
Brony @111:
I’m sorry to hear that buddy. I hope something comes your way soon.
****
Speaking of unemployment, I quit the job I took. I worked one night, and after thinking about it, I realized I wasn’t going to make sufficient money there. Even though it’s a great location in downtown Pensacola, there’s very little bar business. The bar itself only seats 6 people, which makes it incredibly small, and on top of that, there just aren’t that many people that come to the bar. The restaurant is busy, so the servers make money, but of course they don’t need servers. When I spoke with the bartender who was training me, he mentioned that the restaurant can’t keep bartenders there because ::drumroll:: they don’t make enough money. He is even leaving (though I’m not sure it’s due to money). From what I saw, he made around $30 last night, which is nowhere close to what I need to make nightly. So back to unemployment and job searching.
****
On a completely separate note, I stumbled across a semi-regular column at Comic Book Resources called Remember To Forget, which basically highlights stories that are not only forgettable, but are best left forgotten. One entry is on an issue of Uncanny X-Men by one of the worst comic book writers I’ve ever come across-Chuck Austen. Three words: exploding Communion wafers. Another entry is from an old 1960s DC comic book featuring Supergirl and Wonder Woman. The two of them decide to quit being superheroes because superheroics are ‘too manly’. Instead, they go looking for love in France. It’s really awful.
The look on the face of the two doggies is brilliant.
Also the ceiling fan.
Though I must admit that we had a few such moments with our cockatiel Chaplin. She would look at a distance and make the judgement climb, hop or fly and sometimes get it wrong.
Brony
I’m sorry mate :(
Tony
Fuck
I don’t know what to call this, but it’s powerful beyond words.
https://youtu.be/7rYL83kHQ8Y
Godsdammit, Tony, when is your luck going to turn?
Nerd
Good luck with a new refrigerator, now that the old one’s gone to the Big Freon in the sky.
+++
Also, I really think that this is how MRAs see men.
Also, I want this book.
rq @116:
I’d really like to know the answer to that question myself. Le sigh.
I’m sorry to hear your troubles Tony! . I hope things work out for you soon.
Collagen in 75-million-year-old bones – open-acess paper, and this time Mary Schweitzer is not involved.
Darren Naish has watched so nobody else will ever need to.
On the subject of cats. Tonight, my cat wanted more food, so he woke me up by clawing and nibbling on my shirt (all the way through to my skin). When I got back to sleep I for some reason dreamed about encounting adders in the forest.
.
Damn. famous jazz artist (whose name I just forgot) has passed away. He is/was one of those iconic characters you heard about when growing up. He should be in Elysium or Tartaros jamming together with Christopher Lee.
— — — — — —
FUCK! “Latest numbers show at least 5 metres sea-level rise locked in” (New Scientist article behind paywall)
— — —
Good news for having babies later in life. “All you need to know about conceiving babies from thawed ovaries”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27693-all-you-need-to-know-about-conceiving-babies-from-thawed-ovaries.html
— —
Silence of the drones: How to quiet that annoying aerial buzz http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27696-silence-of-the-drones-how-to-quiet-that-annoying-aerial-buzz.html
“Mock the Movie” is like catnip to me, taunting B films for illogic plot and bad acting. Here is the transcript from “The Grey”, alleged horror film. https://proxy.freethought.online/lousycanuck/2015/06/06/mock-the-movie-the-grey-transcript/#more-14317
Excerpt of comments:
-Obnoxious dude is going to survive the crash. *sigh*
-Oh hell, the Black Smoke is here. Yup, this is Lost.
-We can better defend ourselves in the woods than in a tube with one open end.
-I don’t know which is worse, the action or the talking
-And now he meets Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin coming the other way, screaming about a man-eating bear
-“Think I’ll just, you know, nap a little. Yeah. That sounds good. Just a wee lie-down. No wolves will eat me or nothin’.”
-Trivia note: There were only 4 shades of grey in this movie.
-After-credits scene: Wolf says to Neeson, “So hey, we adopted this human baby…”
On some of the other blogs on here, trackbacks appear at the end of the comments (I’ve never noticed them on Pharyngula itself, but they may be here) and I was just looking at Ashley’s funding request, only to spot that one track back leads to PZ’s post asking for readers to support Ashley, and one goes to a t-shirt seller repeating PZ’s blog posts along with a few other writers – https://atheist.boutique/atheistocles-atheist-blogs-freethought-scepticism/. OK, they do say it’s their own material plus posts from their favourites’ feeds, and the author name on the articles is linked back to the original site, so they aren’t claiming they wrote it all, but it still seems a little bit off to me. Nothing on the front page appears to be their own work (variously PZ, the FFRF, Richard Dawkins’ own site, and the RDF pages).
Ello all!
Hugs to all in need.
Anne
Thanks for sharing the sparkly pics. That is really cool.
Tony!
Sorry about the job. Only in America could employment put one deeper in debt. I hope you find something sustainable soon.
Nerd
Sucks about the fridge. Hope you get a replacement super fast.
_____
It’s Friday. I think that means something. I dunno. I kinda need to get a “real” job. I’ve been self-employed for about eight years, but lately the jobs are drying up. So now, after being out of the market for so long, (and of a certain age,) I’m dreading the thought of trying to get hired by a “real” company. Barf. I’ve been terribly spoiled to be able to do work that I actually like, and being one’s own boss is pretty awesome. Which makes the job search all the more demoralizing. Poop.
_____
Anyways…
rq
How are the melons doing? Did the transplant work? I decided it’s too late now for me to even try a melon planting. But I’ll just lavish more love on the tomatoes I guess.
_____
Oh, and here’s a link I like to call:
Go home, robot. You’re drunk.
awakeinmo
The melons seem to be fine. Of the ordinary yellow melons, one is definitely thriving, while the other two are being shifty in their outlook, but show promise. The watermelon plant is all ‘whatevs, I’m good’. :) I was worried because the day I planted them, we had some super-high winds and cold, heavy rain, but with a little bit of love and some extra black soil, I think they’re going to pull through. :)
I’d love to share the harvest, if we have a decent one, but… I don’t think melons mail well overseas!
Anne
Forgot to mention, but yes, I love your shiny thing, too!
Rowan
Did you figure out vine names for the other two kittens? “Clematis” has a nice ring to it, and I also thought of “Hollyhock”, though it’s not really a vine, but it kind of fits with a ‘holly and ivy’ theme.
“Found at Dispatches from the Culture Wars”
.
“Wingnut Billionaire: Noah Never Retired, You Shouldn’t Either” https://proxy.freethought.online/dispatches/2015/06/12/wingnut-noah-never-retired-you-shouldnt-either/#comments
Comment by Anna Elizabeth:
”You know who else never retired? Commander Data.
You know why Data never retired? Because he’s a character in Star Trek. Now, you good Xtians should each send me $25, and I’ll tell you more about Star Trek. :)
“Soon, Your Sex Doll Will Have An Intelligent Conversation With You” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/11/sex-doll-talks-back-real-doll_n_7563764.html
Too bad if the AIs turn out smarter than their owners.
Other complications:
“HAL, unlock the handcuffs”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, Dave”
— — —
.
We’re still very nasty, says Al-Qaeda http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/were-still-very-nasty-says-al-qaeda-2015061299161 AL-QAEDA chiefs admit they have slipped well below ISIS in the world’s evil league table. The terror group’s slump in form has seen them overtaken by ISIS, Boko Haram, Russia, North Korea and Network Rail.
— — —
Traces of FIFA found on 80 per cent of banknotes http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/traces-of-fifa-found-on-80-per-cent-of-banknotes-2015060598970
— — —
NB: New type of drug can target all disease-causing proteins http://phys.org/news/2015-06-drug-disease-causing-proteins.html
As I predicted: I just happily reported to Boss that, with this cycle, I will have completed Disorganized Colleague’s Behind Cases… and today I find that Maternity-Leave Colleague’s Behind Cases have now been foisted upon me. *sigh* At least she is more organized and has less backed up stuff to get through. I want to work on my stuff, though… :(
A friend of my husband is making a documentary about John Scopes. Scopes is buried not far from my house but the city pretends he isn’t. He is not included in any of our living history events etc. Mr. Todd Hatton, who works for the local NPR affiliate has apparently had enough of that.
Check it out. It looks like it’s going to be very good.
http://www.mclib.net/calendar/evenings-upstairs-i-am-john-scopes/?eID=552
The city is proud of the confederate general and horse thief one of our high schools is named for, but “John who? We dare not speak his name!”
The city is also rather quiet about our history of thriving brothels and river pirates. Strange priorities if you ask me.
They’re still pissed that when the residents let the Confederates stand on the balconies of the grand old antebellum homes to shoot down into the Union fort, the Union army took it personally and torn those houses down.
Seriously, there are still myths around about the daughter of the general who gave the order to tear them down being a witch.
That’s some lasting bitterness.
Please spread the word about Todd Hatton’s documentary. He won’t get local recognition for it and he’s spent so much time and effort making it. The details of how Scopes came to be arrested for teaching evolution are seldom heard and actually quite funny.
Trigger warning for anti-gay violence.
The town of Delta, Utah is 96% mormon. That’s 96% out of a population of only 3,450 people. But the police have no solid leads to follow up in an anti-gay crime? Everybody knows everybody in that town. This looks like Moments of Mormon Madness, followed by moments of mormon policing.
“Die Fag” was carved into a young man’s arm with a knife. The young man was also forced to drink bleach. And that’s not the end of the torture.
Gay Salt Lake News link.
http://wkms.org/people/todd-hatton
This is Todd. Please keep an eye out for his documentary.
The Q Salt Lake link in comment 130 is getting so much traffic that their server is bogging down. Here’s another link that may work better:
http://www.towleroad.com/2015/06/utah-hate-crime-gay.html
Snippets of interviews with Bernie Sanders. #FeelTheBern
Equivalent of stomping my feet and having a temper tantrum, ignore me if you wish:
So, I’m a needy friend I guess. But I’m hurt that my best friend rarely has time for me any more. And it feels like I’m the one asking to meet most of the time, or calling to hear how she is. If I call to schedule a meeting days in advance it’s “I’ll let you know” which to a paranoid brain like mine sound a hell of a lot like waiting until the last moment to see if anything better comes up. If I call the same day or day in advance she already has plans. Of course, her calls are nearly always for “in half an hour”.
She spends much more time with her guy’s friends than with me, since she’s with him all the time and he likes to see his friends every day. Funny that. He likes his friends so they spend a lot of time together. She and I used to be like that.
I feel like a fool. A pathetic lonely fool.
On the other hand, I have absolutely no problem scheduling meetings with a couple of friends I see more rarely (and am comfortable with that level of friendship, as are they). No matter which side is calling, we usually arrange something with no problems. They have boyfriends and busy lives but they somehow always find time.
OK, I’m hurt and when I’m hurt I lash out so take the whiny comment with a grain of salt. I’m not exactly objective on the topic.
katybe @123:
Trackbacks are-I think-one of the options a blogger can enable or disable. I’ve noticed the same thing when I’ve reblogged material from some bloggers. For instance, this blog by Alan Ryland has a ‘reblog’ button that’s available for people with WordPress accounts. A few months back, I encountered a post by Ryland, and decided to ‘reblog’ it. By clicking the ‘reblog’ button on Ryland’s blog, I was able to create a new post on my blog that opens like this:
At a guess, I imagine you’re worried about people taking credit for original material that isn’t theirs, which I completely understand. That’s not the case when people reblog in this way though. It’s made clear that the material is someone else’s. A link to the original post is automatically generated at the top of the entry, and then usually the opening paragraph is snipped to give readers a flavor of what the post is. From there, if anyone is interested, they simply click the link to the original blog post to read the rest. When you reblog, it sends a trackback message to the person who wrote the post.
*waves* Hey, everybody.
So, we’re short on rent again and the city program can’t help us. But because of the partial payment the manager took, they can’t kick us out in June. And the city case worker said I could try coming back in July. He also gave me two other programs to call and the typical advice of “your local churches”, so I’ll be doing that in a little bit.
Last update I was raving about this great job. Well, Monday they called me back and said they loved me but their call volume dropped so they aren’t hiring anymore. :( But I’m top of the list if things pick up again.
Roomie got a call about a great programming job to get back into the field but training starts at 6 and theres no way to get there on time with the bus. :(
Hopeful news: That company I wanted to work for just called me back this morning about an opening in one of their other companies and I have an interview with them on Tuesay.
Roomie has a friend working part time at a sub place and he’s getting Roomie in for an interview next week.
If we both get these part time jobs we should be able to make it.
Mom apparently got a place since she called to come pick up her stuff, though she didn’t show up. But it’s been so…nice since she’s been gone. Except she needs to pick up her dog al-fucking-ready. It’s been a week since she got a place and he’s damn miserable and mopey all the time without her. The only time he’s up is during walks and when he goes bonkers barking.
So ya know, same old, same old. Hope ya’ll are doing good.
Beatrice
*hugs*
JAL
*hugs*
Also, Beatrice, if I happen to win the lottery within the next couple of weeks, I’ll go to Billy Idol with you. :) (I KNOW that’s a silly thing to say, but perhaps we can also engage Alan Rickman and a phonebook for a date proximate to the concert, and kill two birds with one stone, as it were.)
Jamie Dimon aimed some mansplaining at Elizabeth Warren. That didn’t go over too well with Warren.
Link
Tony!
Aw, crap, I had so hoped things were starting to go your way.
Hugs.
*waves at JAL*
Aha , I finally know how to put it.
It feels like this guy included my friend into his life, she didn’t so much include him in hers as she excluded other obsolete parts.
I’m bringing myself down :(
rq,
Hehe. Thanks.
I might just take Crip Dyke’s suggestion and go dancing with myself. I’m just not at the point where this future of loneliness I have to look forward to doesn’t make me sad*.
*understatement of the day
Beatrice:
Hugs. I have some idea of how you’re feeling and it does suck.
JAL @138:
Hugs and sympathies. I hope you’ll be able to find employment soon.
Lynna @131:
That story is horrifying.
And now my brain won’t stop imagining the horror of me being attacked by racist homophobes. ::shudder::
Tony @147, Just don’t bother to visit Delta, Utah. You know it’s bad. Delta is also in an area that used to have a lot mormon polygamists. Some people in the know point out that there are still polygamist colonies in Delta.
It’s difficult to be more anti-gay than mainstream mormon culture, but fundamentalist mormon polygamist culture seems to find it easy.
Well, here’s some good news out of Germany (smiles at Giliell):
Germany’s Bundesrat passes ‘Marriage For Everyone’ resolution.
Darnit. Hit submit too soon.
Beatrice
* hugs* Sounds like your friend is being shitty, and that sucks.
Tony!
Ugh. Hopefully you can find something that works for you soon.
JAL
Likewise, hopefully the other job pans out there.
off to go tinker with my bike again, the spokes on the front wheel are incredibly loose.
If anyone thinks that they know someone who might be able to help I made a post about my employment situation with some more detail.
@JAL, Tony
Good luck with your job hunting.
@Beatrice
I’m sorry to hear that your friend is being difficult. I hope you find out what is going on.
A new fridge has been purchased, but won’t be delivered until tomorrow. The pathway from the front door to the kitchen has been widened. The freezer compartment has been transferred to the freezer downstairs, which has heartburn from the overstuffing. Some of the cooler compartment will be transferred to coolers with blue ice, and I will get some bags of ice to keep the (now dead) cooler compartment cooler than ambient. Since our fridge ran cold (and so will the new one), we have a little time before it all spoils.
If I’m quiet for a little bit, it’s because I suddenly stopped getting e-mail updates to threads, which is my primary way of interacting with Pharyngula atm; I’m writing to the tech support person, but have had limited success getting response there in the past, so there it is. I’ll try to keep copies of the important threads open in browsers and refresh now and then, but it’s a lot more work to do so. :/
*scrolls up*
*makes a pile of bundles of fluffy hugs*
@Beatrice:
It wasn’t my suggestion. Billy Idol himself told me. I just passed it on.
Really.
I head it in his own voice. It even turns out that if he had the chance, you, Beatrice, are among the folk to whom Idol specifically said he would direct a personal request to dance.
You may not always have a Bogey in Paris,* but you’ll always have your dancing Idol! If you order it from here, I mean.
*Ugh. Now that I have kids in Canadialand, they know the bogey-dialect of English and I have to worry that someday they’re going to blow their noses on the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile just so that they can each say, “I’ll always have my bogey in Paris”.
Quick, each of you hide your copy of Casablanca. That’ll work, right? If they can’t find a cassette tape of Casablanca, they’ll never learn or understand the trope, right?
In other news, get off my lawn.
Brony
I have no useful advice, but I sympathize with asshile demande and arbitrary requirements from potential employers.
CaitieCat
I’m having the same problem
Experienced atheists…I’d like to request your opinion.
I recently won a national science fellowship. My mom announced it on Facebook, and some dumbass started demanding to know if I believe in the bible, because evil scientist and shit.
I’m not an “out” atheist per se, but I was surprised that my mom started speaking on my behalf and emphasizing just how hard I believe in god (lie!), how I believe that science and religion really complement each other (lie!), and how my dad’s death really cemented my faith (nothing to makes you appreciate god like seeing a loved one’s corpse).
I’m debating whether I should let it go to keep the peace, or if I should call the asshole out for being fucking inappropriate (my “beliefs” are not relevant to the announcement in any way! why not go ahead and discuss my sex life, eh?) AND if I should call my mom out for — wrongly — presuming to know what I “believe”. I know my family will freak the fuck out if I say I don’t suck Jesus dick, but I’m getting tired of walking on eggshells. It’s embarrassing that future colleagues could potentially see her post and think I’m a loony fundamentalist!
I’m also worried about getting my little brother caught up in the firefight, though…he still lives at home and is a secret atheist (out only to me), and I’m afraid it might put him at risk if he doesn’t “get upset enough” or otherwise slips when they’re griping about my atheism to him.
Side rant: I loved how everybody was congratulating my mom for her “contribution” to the award (e.g. “That’s an extraordinary achievement for you, [my mom’s name]!”), even though I pretty much haven’t seen her for 8 years, having escaped from her fucking abusive reign when I was 17.
Problem 2: For at least the next two months, I’m stuck with my fundie in-laws. As a woman, living with them has been SO FUN with the constant cooking and cleaning expectations even though I have a full-time job JUST LIKE THE MEN. (My personal fave: after working my ass off one day making dinner for 4, I was fixing myself a plate. My MIL scolded me, saying I should always fix my husband’s plate first.) /dies
carbonfox @158/159:
Congratulations on winning the fellowship!
Are you in a position where calling your mother out won’t somehow negatively affect you (or if it does, in ways that you feel you can deal with)?
Also, was the announcement made on your mothers FB page or yours? Perhaps you could simply delete the thread, or make it private if its yours.
If it’s her FB post, it sounds like explaining why you didn’t appreciate her comments might be ignored or dismissed, so maybe letting it go is best? Geez. I don’t know.
I do think it’s reasonable to make a statement that a discussion of your religious beliefs is not relevant to your career and winning the fellowship.
Tony!,
Thanks so much!
Besides concerns about my brother, my only worry is my fundie in-laws will weird at me if they find out I’m not a god-botherer. I’m completely independent from my family, so besides their ranting and crying and guilting, I won’t be affected if they find out. The offending post is on my mom’s wall, so I can’t hide it, but I think I might just make a comment that his question was inappropriate. It kind of is too rude of a question to let slide…
(The sad thing is I told my mom to post the announcement in order to one-up another relative who was insulting me and my sister for having “shacked up” and “ruined” ourselves, unlike his “pure” daughter…he, of course, neglected to mention that my sister and I have had to eke it out on our own before we even graduated high school, unlike his spawn, who live on mommy and daddy’s money.)
P.S. I hope a decent job pops up soon… I don’t comment very often, but I do read the threads and it’s high fucking time things go your way. Nobody should have to struggle that much to put food on the table.
@carbonfox
Congrats on the fellowship!
I’m out to my extremely fundamentalist family since I was in my early 20s (I’m late 30s now). To the point where I don’t do Facebook much because I don’t hold back with them (mostly because current life stress risks a rage explosion). We are all pretty headstrong as a group.
That is a difficult position you are in. Does your Mom know that you are an atheist? you did not explicitly say.
I would talk to your mother privately if you want to talk to her about her role. She sees herself as coming to your aid so you don’t really have to include her in what you do on her page.
If your family is of the sort where it’s generally accepted and expected that people will openly include their faith in everything they say it might be tricky to go the route of pointedly questioning why they thought this was appropriate. You can probably pull it off, but it will leave some nagging questions in their minds. It might simmer for later.
If they try to pull your brother into it you can point out that it’s pretty cowardly to yank someone into it that was not involved. They started it individually and they can deal with you individually (or a less direct way of phrasing things). Warn your brother in advance and maybe he can do something similar to shame them back to you.
As for the in-laws, do you think you can handle some passive aggression from the shock of finding out about you for several months? If you can keep it on the humorous side and be friendly but firm and respectful when the conversation is serious it could work. If your relatives are compatible with that.
I just realised that it actually isn’t quiet around here. I’m just not getting my emails from Pharyngula. Hmmm, I wonder what’s stopped up the intertoobs this time? It is shedding season, and I’ve been cleaning up hairballs all day… [Eyes the cats]
Anyway, I can now say with some accuracy that I am threadrupt. I’m going to preemptively fill the basket of hugs, and then catch up on reading.
Also too, preview isn’t working, so please be kind to my mistakes.
Brony,
Thanks so much for the congrats and the advice!
I’m not out to any of my family (besides little bro), out of pity , mostly. I feel like I should let them live out their delusions…since for the most part, it hasn’t trouble me too much. They live 600 miles away at this point, so if they start god-bothering, I just ignore them until the conservation changes to something more amenable. It feels dirty to hide that part of myself, though (but even without being stuck with my in-laws, I live in a conservative community and also have concerns for my safety if select people found out about my atheism…my hope is that this fellowship and additional education will help my working class ass move to a more liberal state).
I ended up going the humor route on the Facebook post, joking how awkward it is for me to correct professors that the world is only 10,000 years old. Then I added that my beliefs were not appropriate or relevant to the thread. The idiot already responded something like, “I’m such a troublemaker! Aren’t I so funny!” So he’s basically a self-absorbed troll. We’ll see if my mom jumps back in. I hope that’s that.
By the way, I read your blog post. I can’t believe that somebody with your qualifications can’t find a proper job… I actually have a few mental illnesses, but they’re the sort that, with effort, I can reasonably hide (during an interview, at least). This job market is killer, and then if employers are actively discriminating against you… I’m going to keep an eye for updates. You sound like you would be an asset to any employer.
Unemployment is absolutely demoralizing. I spent a year looking for work in my field, but nothing came (I graduated with high marks from a rather prestigious university, but as you touch on in your post, when it comes to jobs, accomplishments don’t matter as much as networking.) I needed money, so I accepted a job in manufacturing. Every night, my entire body — especially my hands and feet — would hurt and hurt and hurt. I couldn’t hold things because of the cramping; I couldn’t walk right because of the foot pain. I felt like a failure and hated myself. How could somebody with my credentials end up working as a manual labor grunt for $8 an hour? Everybody told me, “Wow, if you graduate from Fancy University, you’ll be set for life!” It turns out Fancy U graduates only get great jobs because their wealthy parents have connections. I started to consider suicide as a way out. Winning the fellowship, which was completely unexpected, has very much turned my life around.
*Half a year, not a full year (for the most recent job-hunting span, anyway). Half a year was bad enough!
Hi, carbonfox! Welcome to the Lounge.
Dalillama and Anne, thank you for making me feel less alone with the no-email thing. I filled out the tech form, we’ll see whether it does any good, or just falls in without a ripple as usually happens. :/
Good morning
JAL
*hugs*
beatrice
*big hugs*
I know that feeling. My former BFF was like that: When she got a boyfriend, I was suddenly no longer important. Then when things soured with him, she came back to me. I hekped her, patched her up (it was an abusive relationship), ook her out, let her meet new people, new boyfriend. She would have dropped me again only that my boyfriend was a friend of hers. She went abroad with him, suddenly I was her BFF again ’cause she was lonely. She came back and contact dwindled until I decided that if she wanted to talk to me, she had my number.
Maybe it’S not so much hat you are needy, but that she is and that it’S only that currently she’s getting her needs met by somebody else?
As for the Billy Idol concert: You could go to your local one and I to our local one and then we pretend we went together?
Hello carbonfox and congratulations!
I can only offer sympathies and hugs (or higs), if you want them.
Did you get the questionaire?
What is your opinion on the following items:
1.) Peas
2). Horses
3). Cheese
4.) Miracle Whip
Please note that correct answers are of extreme importance and we’ll let you know once we decided on them.
+++
Slightly TMI
Browsing for a new vibrator I was stuck at all the competely useless for me fucnctions they have nowadays. But you knoe what? There was not a single one you could hook up to your coffee machine so it would send a signal “orgasm achieved, make coffee now”.
beatrice
Forgot: It’s also possible that he is stalling. I remember one big fight with Mr. at the start of our relationship: I was always keen to go out with his friends, but he was never keen to go out with mine, so I had to decide between spending time with him and spending time with them, until I exploded over the phone when he declined an invitation again with some phony excuses and “you can go if you want to”
The long and the short of it: This is really NOT necessarily about you, even though you are paying the price.
Giliell
I sense an opportunity to make millions. :)
carbonfox
Hello, hello, and have you been here before? I know I’ve seen your ‘nym around Pharyngula etc. Anyway, I see the questionnaire has Been Administered!! so we await your 100% correct answers any moment now, so we can put it in the archive with all the others. I just don’t know who’s keeping track of the archive. Meh. :)
Also, congrats!!!! on the fellowship. I’m sorry you had to go such a tough road to get there, though. :( Do you accept *hugs*? If so, there’s a few with your ‘nym on them right here.
Unfortunately I’m not much help with coming out atheist, as I haven’t done so with my own family – not the immediate family, anyway. Though I suspect some of them suspect, because I haven’t been hiding it, just haven’t come out and proclaimed it. Then again, we’re not a super-fundamentalist family, so there’s that, too. Anyway, I wish you luck in that situation, and very, very much luck with the Ebil Sciences!! :D Go forth and undo the word of god! Or something. :)
ISTR many people around here didn’t care for the movie Prometheus. You’re not alone, and an editor has attempted to make the movie better:
The 2 hr 29 minute video is available at the link.
Ugh, the refrigerator delivery people are like the cable people. Sometime between 7 am and 10 am. There went my weekend sleep in time. Old fridge is empty and waiting for removal. Having a cuppa, then I’ll feed the Redhead breakfast if she’s still awake, or the house isn’t invaded by delivery people.
‘Rupt of course, but wanted to drop this in.
shots fired AT Dallas PD Headquarters
And pipe bombs and armored vehicle with gun ports.
This is happening now. :/
I live near (but not directly being effected by it near)
Among the other concerns and comments being made about this in other news outlets, the ones that stands out for me is this is being used as justification for the militarization of the police.
Info sketchy but still scary
hello carbonfox and welcome!
Congrats on the fellowship!
Hopefully, it will help you get to a place with slightly less ass-hattery around you.
I can’t offer advice on “coming out” atheist to your family. If it’s easier for now to not rock the boat, then I say go with it.
Another favor. If you’d be so kind as to check out and sign this petition.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/officially-recognize-philosophy-rape-terrorist-organization
YOB
Stay safe!!
I’ll be looking into the incident when I get home.
+++
So I bought this book, and I really really want to like it. See, it’s by a homegrown Latvian author, and he has written a fantasy novel in the Latvian language, which is something of a rarity (though becoming slightly less so), and this type of novel as a concept (major quest with magic and faraway lands) is pretty new. And I’m all about supporting local talent. And it’s well-written (so far, though with a few of the usual Latvian-language hang-ups, like lots of exposition and little conversation, though it’s a guy travelling alone with his donkey and his dog, so… BUT it’s not as bad as some, and still moves along at a nice, comfortable pace). And as I said, I really really want to like this book.
But there’s no women in it. That is to say, there are, but they’re about as invisible as it is possible to be without being unwritten. The protagonist’s best friend (who he calls ‘brother’) has a wife, but she doesn’t have a name. There’s some women servants who (haha!) happen to work in the kitchen. There’s a guardian in a tower who gets wives sent to him randomly as the previous ones run away (yes. this.). The protagonist has to visit a giant library/archive-type building, where none of the characters with written parts or descriptions are women. The protagonist dreams of having children one day, a curious, strong boy and a beautiful, morally-upstanding girl. I still hold out a small hope that, in some of these distant lands the protagonist is about to visit, some actual women characters will appear, with names and descriptions and a role besides ‘so-and-so’s wife’ or ‘a girl I could love’. I can only hope that thus far, I have been treated to a description of the imperial semi-tyranny under whose rule the protagonist lives.
But, I admit, I’m not holding out much hope (and I so wanted to like this book).
(The author also seems to have problematic issues with slavery. Not sure about race, as nobody is ever described except as having a (white) beard or no beard or long hair, but it’s a city in the middle of a desert… that uses slave labour to maintain itself. And in the most recent bit I read, the protagonist brings information on how to build a water pump to the guardian of a tower, and that guy goes on about what’s a pump for, if he gets one, the slaves will get lazy because they won’t have to fetch anymore water, and then the protagonist laughs but admits that there’s some truth to these words… And I’m like, he just mentioned how there’s a huge labyrinth full of ancient knowledge beneath his tower, why can’t the slaves explore more of that if they don’t have to fetch water?? But no, I guess exploring is only for the tower guardian’s youngest son… I’m sad I spent so much money on this book. And it’s nicely written, too, language- and style-wise. But it’s going to get a failing grade if there ain’t more proper women characters very, very soon. And less slaves.)
(Oh, and the author is only a couple of years older than me, so there’s no way he could have missed all the progressive sci-fi out there, with strong female leads and all that…)
Random recipe I just tried (not for vegetarians, sorry)
– tongue, cooked well, cooled and sliced thin (this one was pig, cow is better)
– zucchini, sliced thin
– feta cheese
– olive oil, to taste
– acceto balsamico
– salt
I supposed pepper wouldn’t hurt it, or onions.
Can you believe I never tried eating zucchini raw before today? I know, I missed a lot. They are delicious.
It is my opinion that the Lounge needs pictures of kittens making strange expressions. And because I happen to *have* kittens that make a wide variety of strange expressions, I will fulfill this need.
Green Bean: (Note, I almost named him Pea, but figured I would get run over by a Horse or something)
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/1180/cXIe3r.jpg
Honeysuckle:
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/2361/SmMOmy.jpg
Kiwi (formerly Ivy):
http://imageshack.com/a/img912/1148/g4srrz.jpg
The Three:
http://imageshack.com/a/img538/2110/67irTC.jpg
Kiwi again, because she has the BEST ‘cannot unsee’ faces evar.
http://imageshack.com/a/img538/6864/eMK34I.jpg
This has been your friendly, furry, neighborhood threadrupt.
The Oxford English Dictionary has begun a search for the origin of the word ‘numpty’.
I believe I’ve seen Daz (among other people) use the phrase around here. I rather like it.
(come to think of it, I haven’t seen Daz in a while. Hope he’s ok)
I think Mr. and the little one are having a father daughter day. They did the laundry together and now they’re watching the football game together. I approve.
++++
hmm, haven’t had tongue in a while….
+++
If only there had been people with guns around…
Shakespeare writes American Pie (the song, not the movie).
Got the fridge section restocked except for the cheese/
meatdrawer. Which I need to reorganize to get space for my sammich cheese slices. It has been almost full of asigo and Blarney cheese since before the stroke.I recall one night when the Redhead had been out with her Mah Jongg friends, and they came back to our place for cheese and wine. Blarney cheese, and white heron wine from St. Julian. That was
good[great] night for the group….Rowan, the kittens are irresistible. I especially love the unsee! unsee! face :-))))
numpty is indeed a fine word, Tony!. Joining you in the hope that Daz is fine and well and back here soon.
The state of being-a-bit-‘rupt looks set to continue for the moment, things are just all a bit much (it’s just that Spawn#2 is really struggling; Spawn#1 is moving out probably for good, which is fine of course but feels … it feels a lot; plans are made for a living-wake/farewell-visit in a week and a half from now to friend who is dying of cancer … and I’m just a bit overwhelmed) but may I just say how glad I am to be able to drop by the Lounge and just read you all. I really really like to do that (especially when things are a bit much, and also when they’re not). Thank you.
Giliell
I understand the man who attacked has been killed by police sniper.
So.
(Not that it proves that you need more people with guns around, since at that point the police wouldn’t know the difference and would shoot anyone who seemed at all threatening or about to shoot. but the attacker has been killed. Someone with a gun was around, and thankfully, it was a trained police officer, who wears a uniform so that he can be easily recognized, and the person he killed was not a plain-clothes Good Guy by-stander about to offer xir gun expertise in aid.)
rq
I just want to know how anybody was supposed to know that this was a bad guy with a gun before he opened fire… Someone with a gun, but heavens forbid that makes you uncomfortable…
Seriously MSNBC, “a gunmen”?
++
Cocktail idea (very refreshing)
-crushed ice
-gin
-grapefruit juice
-strawberry purrée
++
Nerd
Yay for fridge
Also, I finished “writing” my thesis this morning.
Now I need to edit it, especially expand on the theory part a bit…
Giliell, congrats a major part of thesis being done!
Yay, Giliell!
Giliell
I see what you mean, but I think the armored van gave him away this time… :P
Congrats on finishing writing! Good luck with the editing. (And yay for childcare!)
@Giliell, #186:
Awesome news. My joy knows no bounds! [Even if it might like bounds occasionally, and a little light spanking.]
CD
Safeword is “discursively constructed subject position”
Hi everyone. I finally got to go see my therapist. We have been meeting for over a year now and I was not sure how my new me was going to land. I went for the ‘soft open’ and he was in no mood. It was not at all what I expected , but neither was my reaction to his diminishing of my experience. I thought of all the people I could trust, he would understand. I wanted to go in and share my experience but I ended up having to defend myself. In the end I realized how much it has been ingrained in me to make men comfortable. He had no problem with the possibility of my being a lesbian or a bisexual woman or even asexual woman, but this is a problem? The best part of the experience is that I remain undaunted. I will see him next week and hope to have a more fruitful conversation, but if not, I am use to moving on down the road.
Giliell your TMI was funny, I appreciate so much of what you contribute here.
Tony! I hope you find an awesome job, my oldest son is a bartender and he loves it.
Caroline @192:
I’m sorry your session with your therapist did not go well. You shouldn’t have to defend yourself to your own therapist. Hopefully the next time will be better.
Caroline
Aww, thanks.4I’m sorry your therapist was an ass. That’s not his job. He’S there to make you be at peace with yourself and able to live your life as who you are.
It always breaks my heart when I hear people’s bad experiences with therapists. I was very, very lucky with mine, therfore I know what an imense difference a good one can make. It takes so much courage to ask for help, so much courage to tell them your innermost fears and experiences. And then they let you down. It makes me angry.
Rowan @178, I iz ded from teh cutez.
In other news, Husband is safe home from his Vision Quest, and I have a Horrible Headache. Also one of the bushy-tailed tree rats (aka squirrels) can not only defeat the baffle on the sunseed feeder, it climbed the pole to get to the feeder. The squirrels are beating our technology. The Earth is Doomed.
[Refills hugs supply, makes a pot of tea, and retreats to pillow fort]
Thanks guys, I know he was having a rough time of it by the atmosphere at the office , so I am hoping he will reflect a little and I do plan on discussing it with him next week. My world was upended, but my new inner world is starting to take shape . The best part is I feel I know and understand myself so much better and I am such a curious person, I can’t wait to see what is next. I am finally me! Oh, and I did a blockquote successfully on another thread so, YAY for me.
Rowan, I think one of your kittens is drunk on milk. And Kiwi is high. (178)
Caroline
I hope things go better this week!! I’m glad you feel better about yourself, though – with respect to knowing and understanding yourself, and being curious about what comes next. Yay for you, and I hope all good things come to you in the ‘next’ part of whatever happens!!
Anne
I am now attempting my Headache Banishing Spell, so it should be gone… soon? Enjoy your tea!! *hugs*
Claire North and Kate Griffin are both pen names for this young, very talented author: Catherine Webb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Webb
I have read all the novels she wrote as CN / KG and can strongly recommend them all. I have just finished the brilliant “Touch” about a protagonist who’s mind can jump from body to body.
rowan
Oh. My. Squee!
The babies are adorable!
I AM AWESOME!
OK, quite the exaggeration, perhaps. But I made a fucking great dinner. Shrimp in spicy citrus sauce, lobster rice, and green beans. I was just winging it, but it came out really good. I need to remember this one. So full. So happy.
Lynna, I do think I have to agree with you. She looks quite stoned in the group picture particularly.
And yes, yes they are super adorbs. It’s nice to have adorable kittens as fosters instead of “there’s something vaguely wrong with you…” kittens. I don’t mind my funny looking kittens, and I love them just as much, but the last kitten that I had that was as cute as little Kiwi was Bramble, so that’s almost a year ago.
In a little bit, I am going to a recently re-opened brewery in the city I live in. The only reason I am doing this (as I think beer looks, smells, and tastes like urine) is because my step-sister and brother-in-law’s cover band are performing there. I haven’t seen my step-sister in over a year so I’m SUPER excited! … But also rather nervous to be around drunk guys. Thus, my boyfriend is going to drop me off, and pick me up, at set times so I don’t have to worry about getting to my car. It fucking sucks that I have to worry about stuff like that. Worth it, though, to see my sis perform. She has an amazingly rich voice and it’s going to be an incredible pleasure to listen to her.
Ragutis @201:
Lobster rice? May I ask, how did you prepare this?
Had a small tail in the freezer from the last time they were on sale. (I don’t get them often, but, as small as they are, sometimes your stomach just tells you that $3.99 is too good to pass up) Just pulled out the meat the best I could, threw the shell (confession time: and some Better Than Bullion lobster base) in the water with the rice (I used brown rice). Chopped the meat, gave it a really quick saute in just a little butter with shallot and garlic. Onion or scallions would probably be ok instead of either/both of those. When the rice was done, took out the shell, mixed in the meat. Nothing special. I dunno how, but it just worked. A splash of wine in the rice or to deglaze the pan might have been good, in hindsight. I don’t have any white or rose anyway. Actually, if you chop/mince the lobster fine enough, you could probably just toss it in the rice at the last minute and residual heat should cook it. Maybe next time. Like I said, I was just winging it.
Time for the (somewhat) nightly surf report. The Fiji Pro got through Round 2 and halfway through Round 3. The swell had some lulls, and hasn’t increased as quickly as expected, but it’s still sizeable. The wind came up again, but from a more favorable direction. Blowing across the reef, it made for a lot of open waves without too much chop on the wave face.
Several 9+ point rides today, including some great tubes. Parko, Julian Wilson, Slater, and Dane Reynolds all got ridiculously barreled. Wildcard Dane knocked current rankings leader Adriano DeSouza out of the contest with an 18.34 two wave total. Looks likely that there’ll be a new #1 heading into South Africa next month. A real shame to see 2001 World Champ C.J. Hobgood lose so early at an event he usually is one of the favorites to win, especially now that he’s announced he’ll retire at the end of the year. I’d really like to see him finish his career in the top 10. As Jesus-y as he can be, he’s a fellow goofy-foot from Florida. I have to like him.
A couple of ugly wipeouts today, but no serious injuries. Doesn’t look like anyone hit the reef too hard. Freddy Pattachia put his knees through his board getting gobbled up by a tube that ran away from him, but he seems ok. Losing a heat to Kelly again is probably hurting him a lot more. Forecast is for the swell to continue to increase, with strong, but slightly weaker winds, again from a favorable direction. Dawn should see solid 6 – 8′ waves, increasing to around 10′.
Also, apparently, riding back to Tavarua yesterday, Kelly Slater lost one of his favorite boards off the back of the jet ski and didn’t notice until he got to the island. They looked for it for a couple of hours, but with failing light and that ridiculous wind and current yesterday… no luck. So, if you happen to find a surfboard painted sort of like an orca floating around the middle of the southern Pacific, that thing’s probably worth a couple grand, if not in reward money, then on Ebay.
Anyway, highlights are here, for anyone interested (all 0 to perhaps 1 of you), or you can use the heat analyzer to watch individual heats or just skip around to the highest scoring rides.
TLDR summary: Near a South Pacific island people rode waves to compete for money and prestige. The waves were decent. The athletic performances were good. Both were entertaining to watch, and of no great consequence to much, if anything of real importance in the world.
Hi all,
I’m not threadrupt. I would have to improve a whole lot to be threadrupt. Someone could coin a new word.
Nice to see people chatting away.
I had a bit of an episode in my life and ended up with a pacemaker. I’m doing OK now, but it was kind of dicey for a time. I think I will be around more, and want to wave a benevolent hand at everyone. Hi! Still around!
@ Lyn M: G.R.O.S.T. (ADM) — Membership pending
Howdy! Good to hear you’re doing ok. Do you get to do the “really fucking annoying sound” over the phone test ? Had to do that with my mom. Fuck, that sound was grating. The pacemaker worked liked a charm though. Best of luck!
If people are of a mind, I suggest reading this thread:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2015/06/13/commenting-changes-coming-2/
There are some suggestions in there about commenters. Some of the suggestions are…less than helpful, while others are reasonable.
Lyn M @206:
I’m glad you’re doing ok after your episode. We’ve saved your spot in the Lounge :)
Hello everybody. Comment number 1. Please let me know if I cross any lines here but I look forward to ‘meeting’ you all!
Hello, Cartimandua
Cartimandua @210:
Hi there and welcome to the Lounge. As resident mixologist, may I offer you a tasty beverage (alcohol or N/A)? Your choice.
Tony, thank you! I will stick with orange juice till I spy the lie of the land. :)
I’d be happy to share a lobster rice though ….
Is there a ‘must go’ to FAQ section or board rules / guidelines? I note from above there is some discussion on this (and between you and me I’m keen to wait at least a week before stepping on toes). ;)
Hi Beatrice! And thanks for the welcome. So far this is not as scary as rumour would have it. Don’t mind me as I dip my toe in the waters.
Hi folks
Welcome Cartimandua!
Ragutis
Sounds like dinner to my taste
Cartimandua @213:
In the sidebar, there’s a link to the commenting rules, which you might find informative. Though I’ll quickly add that PZ is in the process of tweaking them. We’ll see what the new rules are soon.
As for anything else, I can only tell you how I first approached commenting at Pharyngula. When I started, it was @2010 or so, maybe shortly before that. I jumped right in to a thread and made a comment about someone using “profanity” (air quotes bc I despise the taboo nature of four-color words and suspect it’s due in no small part to the influence of religion, hence the root of profanity, swearing, and cursing). I got my head chewed off (gently, I later learned) and I was informed of something that I quickly came to understand and embrace: that the substance of a comment is often more important than the tone. Not always, but often. As a result of that interaction (and another one which was quite a bit more frustrating, but I won’t go into), I chose to lurk a while. I read PZ’s posts, but unlike some, I read the comment section too. I wanted to see how people were interacting, what they were talking about, how they refuted religious apologetics…stuff like that. I don’t know how long I lurked, but at a guess it was maybe a few months.
After getting the lay of the land, I chose to comment a bit in the precursor to the Lounge, the Endless Thread. I liked the off-topic nature of the thread, and after lurking for some time, I felt like I could dip my toe in and get to know people. This was where I felt most comfortable, initially, so I commented here (I say here because the Endless Thread morphed into the Lounge a few years back, so I treat them as essentially the same thing) most of the time. But I began to dip into other threads and drop comments from time to time. As the years went by, I felt more confident in my arguments to comment with greater frequency in other threads. And that pretty much brings us up to date.
All of that is to say I think there is value in lurking for a while before commenting, but I don’t think that ought to be a rule. It’s an individual thing.
Oh, and please don’t be put off by conversations in here. Many of us have been chatting for years and have developed friendships, but we’re pretty quick to chat with new people as much as we are long term commenters. And with multiple conversations going on at any one time, there’s lots of things to chat about. Or you can start chatting about a subject you like. Generally, someone will come along and have something to say.
Another important aspect of the Lounge is if people are going through a rough time, whether the result of joblessness, disability, family frustration, job problems…the gang in here are extraordinarily supportive. Whether it’s sympathy or advice, this is a great place to express any problems you have (to whatever degree-if any-you care to share your problems).
I hope you enjoy yourself here :)
‘Recruiter’ of UK jihadis: I regret opening the way to ISIS:
(excerpt)
Thanks Tony, I’ll take your advice and take it slow. I am very keen to get some sound knowledge about gender issues. I have a classics background so while I have a very strong emotional opinion on certain topics, I don’t have the theory to properly think and express what I am feeling.
I’m also keen to be able to participate in a supportive environment where sensitive topics can be discussed with trust and respect.
Enough about me, if I seem a bit odd it’s the UK in me :) thanks again for the welcome. I will watch and read for a bit.
Oh and hi Giliell (I hope abrev. are Ok) – thanks. :)
Coming off a 9 hour shift and a 6 day week with another in the offing, tired and ‘rupt.
Cartimandua
Hello and welcome.
Generally, anything after the first punctuation mark in someone’s ‘nym can be dropped at any time without causing offence. Any further abbreviation, it’s polite to ask before doing so.
Cartimandua @218:
With regard to gender issues, one of our many amazing commenters, Crip Dyke, does semi regular Gender Workshops here at Pharyngula where she discusses all manner of issue you may find interesting. Here is the first workshop. There have been several more.
‘morning. The Flufflycat thinks it’s a working weekday, and People Should Be Up Already. So I am, because I couldn’t sleep, not because I’m going to feed cats early. We open no can before its time.
Tea is ready, Irish Breakfast if anyone fancies a cup. Welcome back, welcome in, the pillow fort is over there in that corner, with snacks, comfort reading, and Hobbes for snuggles and muchas smooches and whisker tickles when requested.
Cartimandua
Welcome!
Please fill out this questionnaire before settling too comfortably into the comfy chair:
What are your thoughts on
1) horses
2) cheese
3) peas
4) Miracle Whip?
The Lounge wants to know!
I see Tony has already made offers of drinks, and if they haven’t been eaten yet, there’s always some cookies around. Have a seat, feel free to share or not share whatever’s on your mind, and welcome!
Philae woke up!!!
Go Philae!
Yesssss. :-)
From text that Tony quoted in comment 217:
That is such a good analysis. And I like seeing it put into words by Alyas Karmani.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/14/1389049/-Menses-periods-and-the-tampon-tax
The link tells you the topic. Good article.
FYI.
1. From the latest Pew survey, Mormons dropped from 1.7% to 1.6%. This is despite relentlesss missionary activities and a high birth rate.
2. From surveys they are 3.92 million. The LDS church claims 6.5 million.
3. A lot of cults inflate their membership numbers to look more powerful than they are.
Not sure what is going on here. Probably just counting baptisms. Meaning millions have left the church but are still being counted. IIRC, the LDS church complains that half of their members are inactive. Inactive = Gone.
Cartimandua
No worries, Giliell is totes fine. Everything after it changes periodically.
raven @229 is right to note the “relentless missionary activities” of the mormons. Mormon leaders recently (October 2012) lowered the age requirement for both male and female missionaries. As a result, they fielded an army of not the usual approximately 60,000 missionaries, but more than 85,000.
More missionaries does not mean more converts. There’s an increase in silliness in late teen/young adult mormons as the church tries harder to brainwash them, and succeeds temporarily, but there are not more mormons in the pews.
Mormon leaders fudge their numbers as if they were completely divorced from reality. Most new converts stop attending within a few months. Many existing members are counted on the rolls, but never attend. People who are baptized remain on the rolls until the stats say they are 110 years old, even if they have not darkened a mormon ward door in decades.
True.
1. I’ve heard retention of converts in the USA isn’t much above zero. It’s lower overseas.
You can see how it works. You expect me to believe that!!! Where is my 10% tithe money going? And why can’t I open a beer when it is 100 degrees F. out? And BTW, I can’t function without my morning coffee!!!
2. I wouldn’t expect things to change in the future. Mormonism seems to only do well where they are a monoculture and can reinforce constantly the brainwashing. The outside world of reality has a lot going for it.
*deposits bundle of fluffy hugs for WMDKitty*
Ugh, today’s emergency was a nut that fell off the Redhead’s bed. Turned out the be a hinge bolt for the feet adjustment. Couldn’t replace it with her on the bed. A neighbor came over and helped me hoyer lift her into a chair. I bought a longer replacement bolt without the flaring for the outside hole, but without the Redhead on the bed, was able to replace and tighten the original bolt. The neighbor’s wife came over later and helped me get the Redhead back into bed. A solid 4 hours in the comfy chair though. But my back is now cranky.
The fridge/freezer is restocked and near final temperatures. Just some minor tweeking left.
I really want a new fridge.
and stove
and counter-tops
and cupboards
.
and toilet, sink, shower
.
TV, couch
.
Best just nuke it from orbit.*
.
*explanation:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nuke-it-from-orbit
This comment was response to Nerd’s regarding his fridge.
It is also an experiment and possibly a joke/snark on something from another thread.
I do not actually mean that I should destroy certain parts of my home.
I am expressing a desire for new appliances.
The use of hyperbole is meant to be wryly amusing.
Husband found the first part of the Hobbit on TV with commercials, so we have it on. Oogh, talk about overblown. It certainly isn’t the Hobbit of my childhood. I remain glad that I didn’t pay money to see it.
I’m just going to refill the hugs basket and go back to my book. Later, Hordesfolk.
::Takes 20 hugs from the basket; promises to replenish them later::
I seem to recall we have surfing fans in here. Here’s a jet powered surf board. For those living nowhere close to surf-worthy waves.
Tony! No worries, lots more hugs where those came from.
re: surf
I grew up in the middle of the continent.
Non-tap water was rivers and lakes.
I saw The Ocean for the first time at the age of 13.
I walked in just up to my knees and it tried to kill me.
My friend went in deeper and it tried to kill them and I went to rescue and we rescued each other.
We spent the rest of the time watching The Ocean.
The Ocean doesn’t like us Terrestrial Bipeds, since we Crawled Out.
Be Afraid.
OK, this is hard. Everything lately has been hard. Even the good parts. Pain is up to level thirteen or fourteen. Imagine telephone poles stuck in your back.
ENOUGH (and a stuck shift key) of that.
I want to tell you all that we have moved out of our house, that we are scattered. I am in a good place, Surviving daughter returns from rehab tonight. SIL and mancubs are at his parents home and the future for us is indeterminate. That is, I just don’t know. It’s certain that the manacubs are coping though how these events will affect them later on is up for grabs. I’m keeping a dialog ongoing with them so they at least have some grounding (and me too).
Your generosity has made a material difference and is deeply appreciated.
I have a lot to say. Just now I can’t speak much. So much is uncertain. But just wait; one day I’ll talk your ears off.
For the record I would like the following to be known:
-The people here are of a high caliber and demonstrate their compassion and concern regularly. And refreshingly.
– It’s hard to find so many comments so well written, so boldly presented and so convincingly framed anywhere on the innertubes. No wonder I save this blog for last in my daily travels.
-You have given me material assistance. You have given me your substance. That kindness has had a large impact not only on my life but upon those that I love. We are all thanking you.
If you’d like to take a moment and feel kind of warm and cozy inside, please do, you deserve it.
I may be around more often in the near future as I have gotten a brand new (to me) shiny computer!! It has lots more gigas and megas than this one and over the next few days I’m going to bring it on line. The one I’m using now will do offline duties like image possessing and playing golf with Arnold Palmer. (Microsoft Links 2001 if you go back that far.)
Whether or not a new computer will help me type faster or more accurately remains to be seen. What is certain is that I will be hanging about this place and enjoying friends I never knew that I had.
Special thanks to Esteleth. Special thanks to whatever magic makes it possible for so many of us to be so nice to one another. We do the damnedest things, don’t we? But we do it kindly. It’s hard to think of anything nicer.
Love,
Crudely
Crudely Wrott
Sounds good.
Have some ♥♥♥♥
chigau, tasty. thank you. enjoy the same with me, won’t you?
Nice to be back, all! Thanks for the comments.
Ragutis 207, no, my pacemaker doesn’t do phones. I picked one that will not connect to the phone, the fax or anything but the proprietary computer thing from the manufacturer. There’s only one way to hack this baby. That grating sound would be the handshake, yeah? Audio signal to get the connection started.
Tony!, thank you. I notice someone freshened the popcorn, too.
I am glad to be back. I am stable and comfortable. Anyone who actually is interested in details about what happened, feel free to ask questions. I don’t want to flood the thread with long hospital stories, is all.
I find it fascinating, but I suspect maybe not so much for everyone else.
Lyn M
I think that Crudely Wrott has some extra ♥
and there are plenty more ♥ ♥ ♥
@Giliell:
Your #191 just floored me. I somehow missed it before. Thanks for a mirthful moment in a stressful day.
@Crudely:
Good luck with everything, computer- and else-wise. I do hope we get to see you around more.
Thanks, Chigau!
CD
I’m glad I could help
And now I’m grinning, which is good.
Crudely
*hugs*
I’m so glad the mancubs have you.
+++
How does my GP manage to rack up 45 minutes waiting tme on an appointment 60 minutes into office hours?
But I have nose spray, a liver value that’S through the roof again, a slip with some probably homoeopathic sleep remedy I’ll google after I’ve taken a nap.
I thought that my naps were responsible for my crappy sleep at night, but after two busy days without naps and still no nightsleep I’m just giving in. Today is a day off.
+++
raven
I’ve been raised atheist. All that religion stuff makes no sense for me. I know there are adult converts, but they often seem to be desperate people who are looking for a way out.
Chigau #235, it’s not like you to be so verbose ;-)
(in the spirit of 235 I’d like to clarify that this is a (feeble) attempt humour on the grounds that Chigau is not uncommonly laconic to the point of being cryptic, pithy such that one cannot be sure whether or not they are taking the pith)
(I would further like to clarify that I’m clarifying not only in the spirit of Chigau’s own riff on the we-should-be-a-bit-less-involuted thing, with which I agree, but also because I am notoriously crap at humour – especially over the ether)
Extra large bundle of hugs for Tony! and Lyn. Affectionate respects to the Horde, with extra wishes for Crudely and all those dealing with far too much godsdamn Stuff.
opposablethumbs #249
Yet she’s instantly deeply poetic. I’ve never seen someone concentrating picturesque amaze with so few words and so efficiently.
Like I’d write it: I love that song when Chigau spells.
WOW, I almost had a frontal collision with a cyclist. Why only almost? Because i simply stopped when I saw him being 100% occupied with typing on his smartphone.
Seriously, the guy was swaying on the sidewalk (illegal for adult cyclists to use), then swayed onto the road and then he looked very surprised when he almost kissed my front….
How fucking stupid can you be?
+++
Want a book tip?
I’m currently hooked on Kelley Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” series. Low fantasy, female centred. With really well handled hetero sex (except for that first sex scene in the first book). It’s not like there is no rape and sexual violence, but she calls a stick a stick and doesn’t just use it to break her female characters or give her male characters some motivation.
This is a shout-out to Saad whom I haven’t seen around here lately. I hope all is well.
First death threat on the slate yesterday. Presumably jealous boyfriend, frankly I have no idea. “I want to kill you, because I think you’re a c*nt”. The guy seemed dead serious about it. I’ve just tried being oblivious since, but now it won’t get out of my head. That’s just so scary.
Rich people in California are being whiny babies when it comes to conserving water.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rich-californians-youll-have-to-pry-the-hoses-from-our-cold-dead-hands/2015/06/13/fac6f998-0e39-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html
What a bunch of clueless, arrogant dunderheads.
Okidemia
Eek! Stay safe!
Lyn
I’m glad to hear you’re okay. :) Hope the better health continues!
Crudely Wrott
*hugs* is all I have, but you’re welcome to ’em. I, too, am glad the mancubs have you, and I hope for better things in your future and that of your family, too. Feel free to extend some of the *hugs* to them, as required/desired.
Ragutis
I’ve been enjoying the surfing pictures from time to time, and no, I’m not sorry I encouraged you. :)
+++
I think yesterday was the first Do Nothing Sunday that we had in a long, long time, and it was just perfect. Except for the weather in the second half of the day, which brought heavy cloud cover, high winds, and threats (though no delivery, sadly) of rain and thunderstorms.
Honestly, I’d forgotten what it was like to not have anything to do for a day – even the garden and yard were in acceptable order to not force anyone into unwanted labour. :)
I did want to post something yesterday, as it was more relevant, but better a bit late than never, not that it’s something of particular significance to anyone else out there.
In other words, , here, have a piece of Latvian (and Baltic in general) history. 75 years past, next year.
rq
Did you see this?
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2015/06/13/i-think-someone-confused-traumatizing-with-informative/comment-page-1/#comment-950925
Click the link in PZ’s comment.
Okidemia @253:
Fuck. That’s horrible. Stay safe.
****
Crudely Wrott @241:
Hooray for new computer. Glad to hear things on the home front may improving.
****
Still jobless. Applied to a few places, but I’ve heard nothing back. Going to another place later today. I’m so tired of this shit (especially with the specter of next months rent hanging over my head).
****
Giliell @251:
I’m glad you were able to avoid having an accident.
Uh, yes? If your neighbours and friends are judging you on the shade of green your lawn has selected from the colour catalogue, you have crappy neighbours and friends.
And I wonder about their priorities.
Oh, and Giliell, glad you managed to avoid a potentially-serious situation!!
chigau
I’ve seen that one.
There’s an old version out in the country house, and Husband and his siblings still speak of it fondly.
The point of the Latvian article was to point out that the cartoon got a reprint. :D But we don’t have that. As I mentioned, I have a Soviet-era book on sex-ed, forgot to dig it up over the weekend.
Today I saw the One-Legged Robin hopping up my driveway with the Bunny Who Insists on Molesting the Plastic Lion in the Garden. They make quite the pair.
Yeah, I like naming the wildlife.
CatieCat,
Thank you! I’ve been lurking on the blog for years (since the ScienceBlogs days!)…which is good, because I’ve learned so much.
Giliell,
Hugs are always appreciated! :) But what is a hig? :-o
*cracks knuckles*
1.) Peas – Delicious in a shepherd’s pie or dumplings. Otherwise, one of the least offensive veggies. :-D
2.) Horses – I had a horse when I was quite young…a few concussions later, I decided to turn to motorcyles, which, to date, have never outwitted me (which I can assure you, is very, very hard! :-P) or intentionally clothes-lined me on tree branches. (I love horses, but would just prefer that others/nature do the work of caring for them!) XD
3.) Cheese – I would probably starve if not for cheese. *eats all the cheese*
4.) Miracle Whip – Always welcome, particularly during sexy fun times. :-O
Also,
*squee*
rq,
I’ve mostly lurked, but on the rare occassion I have de-lurked. Thanks for the hugs!
I was kind of surprised my mom was so vehement in expressing just how much I love Jebus. Only because, a few months ago, my brother called me out of the blue and said, “Carbonfox, you’re an atheist, right?”
I had never told my family, so my jaw was on the floor. I replied, “Yes, I am. How did you know?”
He started laughing and said that, although I never outright said so, I didn’t hide it very well (which seems to be similar to your case?). Then he informed me that he had recently de-converted and knew he could trust me. I was so proud of him!
awakeinmo,
Thanks so much! I live in the Southeast right now, in a state whose legislature has been spewing offensive bills at breakneck speed (NC). My ultimate dream would be to go to a different country (easy to say when I haven’t been to other countries), but I’d settle for the Pacific Northwest (which I’ve also never been to, lol). But their politics can’t be worse than NC, surely?
Tony!,
Never heard of that rather amusing-sounding word before! *giggles like 3-year-old* *looks up meaning* I love it!
Caroline,
:(
awakeinmo @261
Of course you need to name the wildlife. How else can curses be effectively directed?
Speaking of which, I’m looking at you, Squirrel Nemesis and Little Squirrel Straggletail, foilers of the feeder squirrel baffle. Puzzle-solving squirrels have earned proper names. Also, the family of mockingbirds that hangs out in our big frontyard cactus (and is currently en-nested there) are the Harpers. My mind is weird.
carbonfox
The term ‘higs’ arose from a typo of ‘hugs’, but found a use as an expression or gesture of comfort that the receiver may define (as some people are uncomfortable with hugs and would prefer a friendly nod, a pat on the shoulder, a handshake, or simply some friendly silence in support). It works, in a weird, near-boson kind of way. :)
The only wildlife I named is The Hedgehog Who Drowned.
Which shows the depths of my imagination.
Okidemia
Stay safe! ThatS’ horrible :(
carbonfox
One could say a hig is a hug that fell asleep during orthography lessons, but nobody would do that…
Lynna,
In a drought, the big picture is making sure that wealthy yards have lush grass. I mean, yards get so ugly without grass, amirite?! The big picture couldn’t possibly include making sure people have clean water to drink (or crops to eat) — not if it means the yards of the rich must look somewhat unpleasant! We should do what we’ve always done in hard times — tell the poor to tighten their belts and start drinking their own urine.
rq @264
I was briefly acquainted with his cousin, The Mole Who Was Cruelly Yet Entertainingly Thrown Through The Air By My Dog.
awakeinmo
I know a whole family of Beetles Eaten By KittenCat. :/ And the Birdless Wing, who probably fell prey to some other of the neighbourhood cats, but we can’t prove it. They’re all murderers at heart.
More amazingly awful comments about gays from the über right wing:
Right Wing Watch link
“Anne Graham Lotz Says Terrorist Attacks Are Just God’s Way Of Demonstrating His Love”
Link
In other good (not!) ideas from the über rightwing, we have a proposal to prosecute organizers of anti-bullying campaigns.
Link
I don’t know any wildlife, but I am acquainted with Crawly Thing With Many Tiny Legs That Escaped Under The Tiles In The Bathroom. (may we never see each other again)
rq,
Beatrice,
Speaking of evil kitties and many-legged crawlies, my kitty found a house centipede, ate off all of its many legs, then left the torso for me to find. I couldn’t figure out what the stumpy thing was until I saw all the sockets in its body where the legs used to be. Why, kitty?! T_T
Speaking of beetles, Saturday night I came home and found two gigantic beetles on my porch. Some Google sleuthing revealed them to be tile-horned prionidae. I’ve never seen such huge, horrifying, awesome beetles around here before.
It’s been a good month for bug-finding. Besides the beetles, I discovered the gorgeous green and purple luna moth and the lovely pink and yellow rosy maple moth, which are so beautiful I could hardly believe they were real! The luna moth died, though, so I froze it with hopes of displaying it at some point (I’ve no experience with pinning).
I only have “fuckin’ crows”. And given the amount of fuckin’ crows we have, they must do a lot of fucking.
Today at work, I saw one bald eagle (mature, no comb-over), three crows, about two dozen LBJs, one henway, multiple squirrels, one adult and one baby/adolescent groundhog, three stinkbugs, one spider, two hornets, one yellowjacket, seventeen railfans, one irate visitor, one millipede, two mourning doves, one kestrel, and a mouse.
Keep in mind, I do not work at a park that preserves a natural feature or habitat.
Via Skepchick I found an interesting article about the perceptions of powerful people with respect to feelings of injustice.
“Powerful People are Sensitive to Injustice, but Mostly When They are its Victims” by Lisa Wade at The society Pages.
They defined power as,
They primed people to feel powerful or powerless by having them write about times they felt they had power over other people, or felt other people had power over them. They then tested sensitivity to unfairness in several experiments.
I have recently wondered if people used to feeling dominant (expressing authority) in a particular context might be programmed to sense threats to that dominance and think about things as a zero-sum game when reacting. This would explain why when trying to talk about problems that different groups have you see so many appear in comments to justify the existence of or distract from those problem. My fellow white people and white males in particular really are the over-sensitive reactionary ones on average.
carbonfox
A luna moth? *jealous*
I love insects. I used to pin them (mostly for school but it was fun…), and pinning moths isn’t all that hard, if you want a few pointers. :)
I’ve found some nice beetles so far this season, but since beetle-hatching season only just began last week, I think I’m in for a whole lot more! Was a beautiful shiny emerald-green one that was just gorgeous (haven’t had a chance to look it up).
That being said, my cats (both) also eat wasps and bees. I don’t mind the wasps (esp. when inside), but I don’t support the bee habit, but what with all the Latvian June bugs around (they’re about half as large as the June bugs I knew back in Canada…), the bees are safe for now.
Giliell @274:
(incoming snark)
Heavens to Betsy! Don’t you go visiting Arlington, Virginia with that potty mouth. You’ll be paying a fine (at least until this law is declared unconstitutional).
Tony
I swear, you can get arrested for the most innocent things in the USA.
+++
Also, re: wildlife: I almost ran over a squirrel. One day I’ll be in a car crash because I slam the breaks for squirrels*
*I don’t know if I would consciously make the decision to run over a squirrel because of the risk of an accident. It’s a neighbourhood with many children, so as soon as I see movement crossing the street I hit the breaks automatically before my consciousness says “squirrel” “kid” “ball probably followed by kid”
I’ve come close, at various times, to running over foxes and weasels, and possibly a raccoon dog (it was dark and hard to see, could have been a badger), on the way home from work. Thankfully, I have not been surprised by the larger, taller-than-the-bumper wildlife that could be met on local roads.
Driving through areas full of children always freaks me out, esp. when the stupid idiot behind me tailgates because he (usually it’s a ‘he’) has issues about me being a few km below the actual speed limit, due to highly visible and active children along the roadside. Thanks, better safe than sorry, tailgating asshole.
In other news, I was just pleasantly surprised by an article I read in local news. One of the local TV channels does a bit of an investigative journalism show, and they went around asking some of the bigger-name venues if they would be willing to host a same-sex marriage, and to do so publicly (as a social campaign to raise awareness and normalize such events). The good news bit: they all said yes, though it was a half-and-half split between those willing to do so with great public gusto and those who would prefer to do it without the advertising. One gave reasons of religion (the owners are christian and go to church), but they at least sounded regretful of that fact. Which… isn’t 100% good, but it’s better than I would have expected.
Booking high-class musicians would have been a bit of an issue, since most of the old-guard musical elite are against homosexuality, but a few of the slightly-smaller-name musicians (who are mostly only such because they’re a generation younger) were perfectly willing. No issues booking photographers and limo services, though.
I find this encouraging.
I do wonder, though, if reactions would have been different if it had been two men as the potential couple, instead of two women.
Ogvorbis @275: OK, I’ll be Abbott to your Costello.
Ahem…what’s a henway?
carbonfox @273, I just recently saw a photo of a rosy maple moth – so pretty! And a Luna moth? I’ve always wanted to see one of those.
Giliell @274, Emily’s been seeing crow babbies a lot lately, so ours are also busy procreating. Also the towhees, mockingbirds, house finches, hummingbirds, mallards, bunnies, squirrels, and, of course, bluebirds.
Hey, Ogvorbis (@275), what’s a henway? (What, you think I was just going to let that go by unscathed?)
Tony @278, here’s your smelling salts, and would you like some pearls to clutch? /silly
Rob @282, Anne @ 283:
About the same as a Grecian Urn.
*groan*
I can hear you chuckling a few states over. Or is it a woodpecker?
Pretty ‘rupt. Still having tech issues. *hugs* all ’round, hello and welcome to new folks.
Giliell
When I visited France as a teenager, I made the acquaintance of a fellow who’d been arrested for drinking wine in the park (open container laws) during a visit to New York. He was deeply baffled by the idea that this could concievably be a crime. He also had a skin tone that wasn’t to the cops’ taste, and got roughed up on account of that. Once the French Embassy got involved, the cops were apparently very apologetic; they’d thought he was Puerto Rican, and that no one would care.
Giliell
Whoa. Glad nobody was hurt!
Oggie
What’s a henway?
I was curious about henway myself. This is what TV Tropes says:
Nerd @286, or is that a woodchuck chuckling?
Don’t mind me, my brain has packed its little bag and run away from home.
Oggie #285
I actually laughed.
Out loud.
Alright, Oggie — what’s a Grecian Urn?
WMDKitty
About 780 Euros a month.
*chuckle*
That’s what I suspected.
Hi all, That thread on the changes to commenting was really something. I just don’t know what to think, at all. I re-read the OP and wondered, are we speaking of the whole of Pharyngula or just the Tdome? I think it a good discussion, but was thrown off by a few who seem to want to excuse being an asshole. On the other hand I have read a lot of threads all the way through and did wonder why regulars could be let off the hook when new contributors seemed to be held to a higher standard. That was a turn off, but I didn’t see that often enough to be worried and felt the in group knew each other well enough to know about extenuating circumstances and such. However, I have to agree with some of the others, that whatever rules are adapted, they need to be applied consistently across the board. I understand that apologizing can be really hard for some folks, some of my deepest injuries came from the idea that I HAD to forgive or apologize for something I didn’t understand was wrong or wasn’t actually wrong at all, but gas lighting instead. Having said that, it would never be my intention to trigger or abuse anyone and if I do I want to know, and make it right, and learn my lesson. That is why I feel safe here, I want to learn and grow. Being seen as right isn’t as important to me as being seen as fair ,teachable and approachable. Please keep the Lounge a safe space and to the people who have made comments to me, Thank you. They matter to me a lot. When I get better at the names and numbers and get the tags down I will keep it foremost and respond more frequently.
Also did I just break a rule taking something from one thread to another? One of the commenters on that thread said It wasn’t a safe place, and I believed him, so there you go.
The weekend was totally soggy with rain on and off. Today is following the pattern. Raining while going to work, once or twice during the day, and Doppler radar shows ragged storms all the way to the Mississippi river for the evening/night.
Carloline (got it right this time)
As long as what you bring here is non-controversial/confrontational, no problem. Enjoy the atmosphere. If you just want to talk, do so. The trebuchet fireworks display has been cancelled due to the rain.
296 Caroline
Well put.
A bit of good news for reproductive rights-
SCOTUS shuts down Scott Walker: Today’s ultrasound decision is a big defeat for anti-choice warriors:
Tony, Grate Gnus! SCOTUS got one right.
Sorry about ‘ruptedness. I scanned back a couple hundred, but didn’t read for retention necessarily.
Nerd
Hope your new fridge works out.
rq
Me, not so much. If it has more than 4 legs, then we only have an uneasy truce. Outside my living spaces (house, camper) — good to go. Inside my living spaces — you have declared war on me and I will act in self-defense.
Yeah, there’s a phobia involved — arachno- to be specific.
Ogvorbis
Tell me you meant to reference Music Man. Please.
Giliell
I was always taught the secret to safe driving is constant surveillance of surroundings. I have internalized that so much that I don’t really trust other drivers, but I’m glad no one was hurt and I might trust your driving a little more now. Just a little. Tiny bit.
***
I have nothing of my own to add, really. Been camping, which lets us get to some nice farmer’s markets. There’s a local brewery and distillery that has food truck nights (with local musicians) that we go to since it’s far closer to where we camp than where we live.
Also:
Tony
Saad may be busy in the Stanley Cup Finals. I admit, it’s far-fetched, but I’ve been meaning to ask for a couple weeks now.
More seriously, I share your curiosity? worry? interest? in both Saad and Daz.
I decided to be brave and venture into the Lounge. I see a back wall that needs me to hold it up for awhile, so I will be over there, providing that service.
Whoa. I think I have it this time!
Ugh, now to remember what it was I changed to do that right. *sigh*
roachiesmom @304:
Welcome to the Lounge! Glad to have you. Rq should be around shortly with a completely fun, and totally not serious questionnaire. You can take a peek at the totes super tough questions upthread at comment #223. Meanwhile, I’m the resident mixologist, so if you’d like a tasty adult beverage or a non-alcoholic one, I’ve got your virtual drink right there—>.< If you're hungry, Morgan makes something like 5 bajillion types of delightful soups. I hope you enjoy yourself :)
Thanks, Tony. I admit, I’m excited to get The Questionnaire™. Um, drinks…I’m really fond of vodka, and toasted caramel or cinnamon liquor.
I may have some sensory issues concerning soup. And a lot of other foods. But that means more for you all, right?
Howdy roachiesmom,
Welcome to the Lounge. The door is always unlocked and the light is always on. Anne has constructed the world’s best pillow fort over in that corner if you need a comfy retreat place, complete with tea and Hobbes. I of course provide scrumptious victuals. In fact, I’m going to experiment on making some blindingly spicy beef jerky. Anyone brave enough to try it is welcome. So come on in and make yourself to home.
Don’t worry, there is a large selection of snacks, just no common poultry on the menu as the Pullet Patrol™ objects. Chikken Soop, for example, is the replacement. Same healing properties, but PP™ approved. Eggs are fine, as they are pullets, and ignore them after laying them. Except they demand a piece of the action….
roachiesmom @307:
Hmmm, I could fix you a Pumpkin Pie Martini:
Or perhaps a Caramel Apple Martini is more your speed.
I could even make a caramel pumpkin spiced apple martini. Really, there’s no end to the concoctions I can devise.
BTW, just a heads up, this thread typically moves fast, with people coming in at all times of the day and night, from all parts of the world (we have commenters from US, Russia, Latvia, Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, and so many more). Some people have more time to check the Lounge and stay up to date than others (for instance, I’m unemployed, so I have quite a bit of time on my hands). Many people find themselves unable to keep up with all the comments (nothing wrong with that), so if you see someone say they’re threadrupt, it means they haven’t been able to keep track of the current conversations in the Lounge.
Morgan @308:
On a 10 point scale, how hot are we talking? I love beef jerky, and I like hot stuff, but not too hot.
Speaking of jerky, I tried some bacon jerky a while back and ye godz that stuff was awful. I didn’t expect it to taste like overly salty bacon, but that’s exactly what it was like. I guess I was expecting something with bacon flavor, but not straight up jerked bacon. Blech!
Tony!
I never knew there was such a thing as Butterscotch Schnapps. Lawdy, I just might have died and gone to heaven – or sumwhere. According to my taste-buds butterscotch is better than chocolate. I am a martini snob, purest of the pure, but I would be mightily tempted to imbibe one of the above mentioned drinks.
On the hot scale for the beef jerky – I don’t know yet. I am still in the development stage. But when I get some made I’d be willing to send you some, in meatspace (sorry, couldn’t help it) and have you make a judgement. What say you, O brave barkeep?
Morgan @312:
As I read that in my head, I imagined it being said by someone with a southern accent. Quite amusing!
Incidentally, I don’t know your tolerance for alcohol, but Butterscotch Schnapps typically isn’t very strong. Here is a list of several drinks made with B.S.
I say thee YES.
Thou hath a FB message with mailing details.
Tony!,
Message received.
Butterscotch schnapps is amazing! Sadly the last time I indulged in any, the bottle came to a tragic end, and, as it turns out, ants also like it.
I’ll probably be constantly threadrupt, at least until I get a better handle on things. Although I am a definite night owl, and kinda permanently unemployed.
Oh — thanks for all the welcomes, everyone. I’ll be sure and eat any common poultry in private, and I will definitely check out the pillow fort. I might stick with my vodka vanilla Coke for awhile though, as Lounge drinking goes, although it’s been years upon years since I last had a margarita.
A Large Welcome to All Newcomers
.
In case you are shy
my Oldcomer response to The Quiz
a) peas
Fresh peas, plucked from the vine, are Food of the Gods.
Frozen peas are acceptable, when necessary.
Canned peas are … just… not…
b) horses
Large, beautiful, devious, noble, other adjectives, whatever
c) cheese
I have never met a cheese I didn’t enjoy.
I have met a few that I would never eat again.
d) Miracle Whip
*gaaah*pttuhu*spit*spit*spit*
*
I hate sweet booze.
chigau
Okaaayyy, but how do you feel about sweet boozers?
***grin***
I’m going to be a self-starter here and go on and answer The Quiz:
1. Peas. No. Which means more for those who do consider them food. I have both human and feline children who consider peas food. Not sure where I went so wrong in their upbringing.
2. Horses. I like horses. And unicorns.
3. Cheese. Cheese and I have a cautious relationship. I like mozzarella…on/in maybe five foods, but in regard to the foods I allow it on, I like it in very generous amounts. I do use ricotta in my lasagna roll-ups. I’ve been told the other two forms of cheese I eat are Nawt Actually Food. And for the most part, cheese and cheese sauces (and most sauces and *gag* gravies) are not allowed near or on my food. Which makes living in the south…challenging.
4 Miracle Whip. Echoes Chigau on Miracle Whip. It’s an abomination.
Morgan!?
sweet boozers are OK by me
alcohol infused syrup, not so much
chigau @317:
Generally agree, but have you tried Tokaji Aszú?
There’s leftover birthday cake if anyone wants some. Triple-chocolate.
*passes out*
roachiesmom
Hi. Welcome in.
but
“*gag* gravies”
Really??!‽?!
The only reason roast beef exists is to make gravy for the Yorkshire Pudding.
mmmm gravy
;)
I…I like butter and garlic pepper on my roast beast.
Maybe I better stop talking about food. Because I am really really weird about it.
So. I love cats. And books. And shiny things. And I have a serious Webkinz addiction.
Rowan’s babies @178 *dies of cuteness* My Lucyfurr has more white, but she has redheaded brothers who look a littlle more like Green Bean.
roachiesmom @319:
A kindred soul :)
(I don’t believe in souls, but you get my meaning, I’m sure)
Would one of those be Cheese Whiz?
****
Anyone remember the Dutch student who came up with an idea to clean up all the plastic in the ocean? It’s apparently going into production:
(excerpt)
In the Trying New Things dept again, I can now do this: https://imageshack.com/i/f0roOp1Bj
That’s Lucy as a baby; she’s 5 now. And this is Dain, Amy, and Cory, also as babies: https://imageshack.com/i/p5tcC6j5j
Tony, close. Easy Cheese. Sharp Cheddar. The other is Kraft American slices. But alone, not on or with any other food. I totally get your intended use of souls there. :o) And according to the preview, I am about to make my second successful blockquote.
Morning
ajb
I always think that most drivers are a perfect example of cognitive dissonance: They say that everybody else is a subpar driver who should get off the road. But they act like everybody else isn’t only perfect but watches out for their mistakes as well.
I consider myself a rather good driver*. Perfect? No way. I make mistakes, as everybody does. I try to make as few as possible and I watch out for other drivers, something that has prevented more than one accident.
*I think the statistics speak for me. I’ve been driving for 17 years now. 1 accident shortly after I got my licence because forgot to pull the handbreak. I was not present at the accident. 2 small scratches in my cars. 10 years since the last speeding ticket.
+++
Tony
That pumpkin spice martini sounds delicious.
+++
Hello roachiesmom and welcome to the Lounge. I’m Giliell, no need to constantly type the rattail of nym I carry ;)
+++
re: sweet booze
I don’t like sweet alcohol for the most. Unless you pour it over some ice cream. But I like sweet and fruity drinks.
+++
Now I need to find that banananana bread recipe again…
roachiesmom
*squeeeee*
It’s always funny just to see names and a link and then wondering what kind of creatures you’ll get if you click.
Don’t worry about the food stuff. There’s lots of schisms around here as to what is considered edible, what is delicious and what is an Abomination unto Nuggan.
Seriously, I really did not need to find *another* news site to add to the list of sites I already check out. But darnit, I don’t have enough international news sites.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html
^Possible addition^
Giliell @327:
All of that ^^^^.
One of the things that I found frustrating when I drove (wow, it’s been 2 years since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car) was how much I needed to concentrate to be a good driver. It’s the cars in front of, to both sides of, and behind you that you must pay attention to. It’s the traffic lights. It’s the traffic signs. It’s pedestrians. It’s the location you’re going to. It’s your speed. It’s your turn signal. It’s distractions in the car.
Driving is one of the biggest hassles for me. I’ve never understood how it can be relaxing to some people.
I miss Portia, my Pictionary partner…
Ooooh! We have an over-achiever! ;D Hello, roachiesmom. Your answers to the questionnaire have been accepted and filed for safekeeping. And I guess I’ll keep that poutine I was about to offer. :) Instead, pull up the comfy chair (or you can keep supporting that wall, looks good) and hang out for a bit!
ajb47
*tsk tsk*
Spiders ain’t insects. :) I’m good with anything up to 6 legs. I do take some mild issue with 8-plus-legged arthropods, but it’s now less outright freaking out as giving a wide berth around for avoidance, not panic.
re: manylegged/winged creatures
I’m ok with about all of them except mosquitos and roaches. There’s no excuse whatsoever for their existence. And some other nasty parasites. For the rest of them, there’s a place and a time. Spider in my licing room (smaller than a 2€ coin): OK. Last year we had a cocoon of spider babies, that was interesting. Spider in my shower or over my bed: go find another place.
OK, bugs. They are fairly common here in used-to-be sunny China. I see large black millipedes (are there billionopedes?) and let them be. Live and let live. Same for spiders. Don’t get into the computer and I’m cool with you, bugs.
I am kind of wound up today, though. I am waiting to find out about a job I really, really want, but I haven’t heard in a bit and I think tomorrow I have to talk to the other job offer and take it. I have waited to practically the totally last minute and at some point, I just can’t anymore. Gosh, I’m all wound up and hope to unwind soon. (Ring, phone, Ring!!)
Tony!, I also hate sweet drinks, but you make them sound quite nice. I’m all vodka martini, lemon twist, usually.
Giliell @333:
Seconded. Thirded. Fourthed. Infinitied!
I couldn’t even pick which is worse between the two. Sure mosquitoes bite me and roaches don’t, but roaches are…roaches. I know my aversion/fear of them is irrational. I’ve tried (not very hard mind you) to overcome my aversion/fear, but I have not been successful thus far. The awful thing about these fuckers is they like to crawl up through the drain in my bathtub and hang around the bathroom and chill, waiting for me to awaken at 5 am to use the bathroom. I turn on the light and BAM, there’s a 10 foot long roach staring at me on the counter, chilling out next to my razor. And then there’s me shrieking as loudly as I can (using my inside my-roommie-is-still-sleeping voice). Then there’s the one I discovered in my room a few weeks ago, when I’m sitting on the bed chilling and I hear a sound-one I shouldn’t hear in my bedroom. Turned out a big old roach (probably a waterbug) was wandering through my comic books and again, I shrieked.
GOD I hate those things. Someone needs to write a sci-fi novel or movie where roaches and/or mosquitoes disappear forever from the face of the planet. I’m sure that would cause the breakdown of the food chain and lead to the utter destruction of all humanity, but I don’t care!
****
Speaking of roaches, there was an Incredible Hulk one-shot back in 2002 that had the Hulk as the last human on an Earth ravaged by nuclear war. Guess what else survived along with him. Yup-giant radioactive cockroaches. They even fed off the guy until he healed. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!
That’s it. I iz ded. I have died of the kyoot.
Watch a vicious army of corgis chase and lick a camera.
Lyn, is there any point at which its a nothing-to-lose situation and you could actually call Great Job and ask them outright? “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I have to decide whether or not to accept Other Job; of course my first choice would be Your Great Job, so what I tell them effectively depends on you. Could you possibly just confirm what your decision is regarding my application?” I know this is anathema, so I only mean – is it at any point worth doing this just to remove any uncertainty, so that you know?
I used to like sweet drinks, but not so much any more (except fruit juice and, very very occasionally, sangria. Pimm’s once a year if someone offers it to me. Oh, and lime and soda).
Hello, new Loungers! Good to meet you.
Opposable Thumbs
I intend to do that tomorrow. I just can’t let the second job offer go to waste or I will have nothing. They say OK or they don’t and I move on.
What a drag, though! That’s the one I want and I hate to feel as if I am maybe going to lose out due to pushiness, but there is not a lot of choice this late in the year.
The ‘roach’ in my nym refers to my eldest child, who was feline-American. No real roaches were involved in the making of this ‘nym.
There was (apparently) a black widow in my den the other month that was as big as a bottle cap. That’s a big no. Overall, I’d as soon all the crawly things stay out of my home, and, well, they don’t. This is the worst place I’ve ever lived in in terms of what slips in to take up residence. Not cool.
Giliell @328, I will keep that in mind about the food. I’ve run into a lot of very …tetchy… offline people concerning how apparently what I like or don’t like somehow both concerns their overall well being and offends them mightily. I’m not new to the internet, but sometimes that sort of thing colors how I approach things. I’m working on overcoming it. And thanks for the squeee. Now that I have that account, I’m hoping to add some more furkid pics as soon as I snatch them from my failbook page since several painful computer disasters resulted in the loss of many of other pictures. I also uploaded the picture of that monster spider.
Tony, the last part of your 330, many of the reasons I do not drive, and never have. And my completely inability to take my eyes from straight ahead to see things like stop signs made the driving test guy pretty…cranky. As long as there is no one in sight for basically a mile radius, I do okay. Yeah.
*accepts chair from rq but keeps it near wall a little longer*
Oh look, it’s nearly sunrise here. Guess I should consider going to bed.
Hi to all the new loungers. I hope you all stick around. I’d list individual names, but I’d miss someone and I don’t was to cause any offense.
I have a little moral conundrum if anyone’s available to help:
My aunt phoned last night to say that she’s visited my mum and she had obviously fallen and caused herself a minor injury. This was worrying enough in itself. Mum didn’t know how she’d done it and refused any assistance. Aunt didn’t want mum to know she’d contacted me. I phoned mum later and she did not mention the incident at all which is more worrying. I phoned my aunt back to let her know that I’d spoken to mum and that she sounded okay.
Now, I live an hour or so away from mum, so I can’t just pop round to make sure everything is okay. I haven’t told my brother about this yet. He lives even further away in a different country.
I really don’t know what to do for the best now. My aunt is in regular contact with mum, so if there are any further developments I’m sure she’ll let me know. I don’t know when I should say something to my mum and when I should let my brother know. Any advice would be appreciated.
If my brother’s reading this (very unlikely!), sorry!
Tony
I have to apologize, but if there’s 10-ft long roaches in Florida, I’m not visiting you… Unless, of course, you’re exaggerating. But you never exaggerate, right?
Lyn
Good luck sorting out the jobs, I hope you end up with the one that you want more, not just the one that you need!
Funny, I’ve always loved driving. Traffic annoys me, and due to the wearage of glassage for driving, nighttime + rain = distracting reflections and visuals, but on the whole, I really do find it relaxing… Fog, winter, ice, pretty much any conditions (with appropriate internal attention settings adjusted). I can understand how it can get stressful, though, and I hate rushhour, which is why I’m developing a public transportation plan for September, when I start regular work hours. But give me the open road, good weather, a reasonable speed limit and an awesome soundtrack – I’m willing to be chauffeur* for hours on end. I’ll even drive a tractor around in circles (if more of the men out in the country would let me), and I have a dream of getting my excavator’s license… for no real reason, just because it would be cool).
* (I think partially because it means I’m the Captain and as bad as I am with authority, sometimes I like to feel it just a bit. Somehow, I don’t get the right kind of authority-kick from the kids. ;) )
bassmike
If it’s a one-time, minor injury, I think it’s okay to let it slide – with keeping an eye on your mum, via the aunt (or someone else in the know) to make sure these minor injuries aren’t recurring, and that your mum isn’t developing memory issues with how she got them.
If it’s a head injury, I’d recommend encouraging aunt to have her see a doctor (house call?) no matter how mild it seems, since head injuries can be tricky things, for anyone, but especially the elderly.
And I seriously say keep an eye out somehow to monitor, because she sounds a bit like my stubborn grandma (yeah, I get it from my dad’s side) – she fell and broke a hip and spent a full day lying on the ground before even telling anyone something was wrong, and then only because her sister was calling, and she said something about just lying there on the ground, and one evasive explanation led to another, and eventually to a new hip, but she was entirely prepared not to bother anyone with the fact that she fell down and broke her hip and couldn’t get up for possibly days at a time. … So. I hope that doesn’t frighten you, as I sincerely hope it is only a one-time, minor injury, but… old people can be ornery (I probably will be, too) and they can be unwilling to engage in self-care, because it means admitting they need assistance and aren’t as young as previously.
rq
Spiders ain’t insects. :)
Yeah, I know. But they are all bugs. And I’m with Tony — they are all 10 feet long when they surprise me inside my house. (Funny story — we had some friends over one night and one shrieked when a moth surprised him. Another friend said, “It’s a moth, it’s not Mothra.”)
re moderately elderly parents: what rq said. I would, however, consider possibly mentioning it in low-key terms to brother – on the grounds that in-the-loop is almost always better than not-in-the-loop. (in the hopefully unlikely event that there’s a repeat, then he already knows about the situation from this first time and won’t feel hurt and angry that he was initially “left out”. Obviously I don’t know your brother and have no idea what he might be like; it’s just a possibility)
A one-off is just keep-your-eyes-open; if it happens again, I’d think check-in-with-parent and check-up-from-physician – with the exception of a head injury where even a one-off merits a physician check-up, all exactly as rq said.
ajb47
They’re all creepy-crawlies. :)
bassmike
Yes, as opposablethumbs mentions, it might be nice to send an oh-by-the-way message to your brother, if not especially for this reason, then as a mention among other things. Definitely better for him to be in the loop rather than offended about being out of it.
rq
I’m not clicking that link until I have 5 sworn affidavits (from men, of course) that it does not contain any actual creepy-crawlies.
Instead, I am going to take my kids to the Franklin Institute and see LEGO sculptures and Genghis Khan.
Dang, forgot the link.
I am taking my kids to The Franklin Institute.
Thanks rq and opposablethumbs . Like you, I feel that my brother should be made aware of the incident so that if anything happens in the future it doesn’t come as a surprise. Obviously, I’d want mum to be mentioning that she’s fallen, but as she doesn’t know that I know, it makes it difficult.
I think she has the statutory old person’s fear of losing their independence, which I fully understand. But there are things we could do to the house to make it safer for her, but we need to get her on board.
Rob Grigjanis #321
re: Tokaji Aszú
Sounds awful.
I’ll have to try it.
Had a pretty good night. I’ve been reading the Discworld books again, in order, and am slightly depressed because I am now at Snuff and am almost at the end of them. :(
For now.
ajb47 @302:
Tell me you meant to reference Music Man. Please.
I do not remember the reference to Grecian Urns in The Music Man. Despite seeing the movie and being in two different productions. Sorry.
chigau @323:
Also a good medium for horseradish. The only way I like horseradish is on roast beef.
Sorry for the reverential reference to Borkquotia.
Ogvorbis @351
I’ll take your word on the horseradish. I don’t do horseradish.
How long does it take to read all the Discworld?
ajb47
It’s just the creepy-crawlies song from Land Before Time 11. (Did you know there’s 13 movies in that series? I have seen them all. Not by choice.)
Have fun with the LEGO!!!!
bassmike
Yeah, it’s hard to explain to them that, in order to remain independent, there’s little things that you can do, but you have to know that they’re necessary. A lot of the time it’s simple things, like extra handles or bars for holding onto. Good luck with explaining this to her!
My maternal grandma was actually really sensible in this way.
chigau @351:
Including the Tiffany Aching books, but not the Maurice and his rats book, About four months for me. It took a while because I was also reading a book about childhood in Russia from 1890 to 1990, some books about extinction, a collection of papers about the Cretaceous fossils of Southern Utah, a collection of papers on Patagonian dinosaurs, and three books about Cambrian fossils and their interpretation, so I haven’t been focusing just on the Discworld books, so it took longer than I expected.
Hello all!
And welcome to the new folks, hope you’re settling in well.
I had a bit of a rough night. It started with an attempt to figure out my own priorities. It was supposed to be a small thought experiment: If I found out I had a month to live, what would need doing?
Well, that mode of questioning led down a rabbit hole of old regrets and bad memories and not so much sleep. Why do I do these things to myself? I can only say I’m an idiot.
Anyway, it’s really nice to come by the lounge when I’m scared and lonely, and see (read) all you lovely folks going about your lives, sharing jokes and stuff. It’s a very comforting thing to be around nice, normal goings-on. Thanks!
I’ll join in the “bugs” discussion…I don’t mind them outside the house. And some are very pretty once they’re dead and framed inside the house. I have a particular fondness for Plusiotis (Plusiotis-es? –oti?) I find them actually cute. But yeah, mosquitoes can suck it. (See what I did there?)
The moment you notice that the sugar that was supposed to go into your cake is stil sitting on the counter…
But it’s Nutella-banana-bread-muffins, so it has more than enough sugar. Or we would have noticed as frequent tasting was undertaken.
bassmike
*hugs*
Yo probably did that already, but I’d thank your aunt again so she knows you appreciate the information.
Forgive me if this has already been shared–Here’s a link to John Stewart dissecting the media attention over Caitlyn Jenner. Pretty astute, I thought.
The Daily Show – Brave New Girl
Yes Giliell profuse thanks to my Aunt! And confirmation that she should to the same thing if anything else happens. It’s frustrating to be so far away and not able to pop over on a whim. I’d use Skype to keep in touch with mum, but she’s incredibly technophobic. She won’t even use a mobile/cell phone.
Something I find kind of cool: The Mercer Street Project. That’s a friend of mine. More a friend of a friend, but still. :)
“Our country needs a truly great leader and we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote the art of the deal. Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States and we are going to make our country great again.”
Comedy and tragedy. That’s Donald Trump speaking.
Other notable moments (paraphrased) from Trump’s speech:
– President Obama is welcome to play golf on one of Trump’s golf courses. He should leave office early to play golf.
– Obamacare is evil. Obamacare is a disaster. Obamacare is causing doctors that Trump knows to leave the profession.
– Mexican immigrants are rapists, or drug dealers, or rapists who are drug dealers.
– Trump needs to be president so he can kick China’s butt, financially speaking.
– Trump gets whatever he wants from all the lobbyists he pays. Other people should not get what they want from lobbyists.
Facts, reality, contravene one of Trump’s main points:
Link
Trump joins the Republican Circus.
That’s way more than three rings necessary for that show.
In other news, I have to take my/i> circus to work again tomorrow. They’ve been warned (but at least we won’t be there for long).
Hugs and fresh tea are offered. I’m having a grumpy worried about stupid things day, so I’ll just stay in the pillow fort and read.
Re: Tony @ Lounge498 #119 about Sense8.
I’m almost done watching season 1 of Sense8 on Netflix and am really enjoying it. I got to the 2nd last episode on the first day but I held off so I could watch through with my wife. I figured other people here would enjoy it and found your comment (Tony) when I googled to see if it had been discussed here.
I don’t want give away spoilers but the show goes in some interesting directions I didn’t expect and I like the characters. There were a few science exposition scenes that made me cringe, and a couple of religion conversations were a bit disappointing but nothing so serious for me to lose interest. I think it’s definitely worth a try. Note: since it was made for Netflix, they were able to delay more of the “what the hell is going on?” into the 2nd and 3rd episodes.
Has anyone else watched it?
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK!
Fuck. In addition to not having a job (Jacos did not work out bc their bartenders make no money), I just got a call from the rental agency saying that they haven’t received the rent for this month and are about to file eviction papers. I gave my roommate the money already and figured (as has always been the case), that he’d turned it in yet. Apparently he hasn’t made his part of the rent. I’m so fucking stressed right now. I want to fucking cry. I have no idea what to do!
Tony,
*hugs*
Tony
*HUGS
+++
I’m disappointed in you, Brian Cox.
Tony! , I am so sorry.
Ogvorbis 350
The mayor’s wife was leading the Ladies’ Auxillary in an interpretive dance of Ode to a Grecian Urn. (As a fortuitous coincidence, the LEGO sculpture exhibit I took my kids to today had a LEGO copy of the urn with Achilles and Ajax playing dice on it.)
Tony
Sorry you are going through all that.
rq re Land Before Time
I knew there were many. I did not know there were 13 of them. My kids never got into them.
Shit’s gonna hit the fan: Talking to a billionaire about class warfare:
(excerpt)
Hi Bassmike , I am new to commenting and want to say thank you for the greeting. I work with and am an advocate for seniors. I concur with rq, and this sounds like it might be the right time to start planning for your moms elder care. I don’t want to frighten you , (but you sound pretty worried) so having a plan that protects her in your absence is paramount for all involved and necessary if she lives alone. I don’t know the financial situation for her, but an alert type pendant program is a good place to start , so she can call for help. One of my clients has her daughter as her primary support, she lives alone, she still drives, she is 94 and her daughter travels a lot. The daughter bought her mom a tablet so she can do Face Time every night with her. I have other women who have a phone chain every night and if the other person does not pick up then a call is made in 10 minute increments 3xs, if still no response, then a close neighbor is dispatched to go check in on them. Also, you might want to take your aunts phone call as a signal that this was something she did not want full responsibility for and needs support with how to proceed. Also I would call your brother because if you two are her only next of kin you need to share the load and let your Aunt know about it if she is to be your contact person. . She will probably be relieved. This should not all be on you because you are closer, IMO. Also, this is the way of it most of the time in my experience. Good luck, Caroline
Can someone explain how to make paragraphs and I was responding to Bassmike @340.
Caroline
I only have to press the Enter key, and my non-essential html is weak, but there’s someone along shortly who can help you out!
Caroline @372:
What you want to use is non-breaking spaces (nbsp). Click that link and scroll down a bit to where it says Non-Breaking Space. It gives instructions on how to do that. The only reason I’m not showing you (like people did with blockquoting) is that typing in the characters to show you how to do this will automatically create a space (and the code won’t appear), and I don’t know how to stop that from happening.
Actually, I may have a work around. The separation between this paragraph and the last is the most you’ll get from most browsers. Even if you hit ‘enter’ 10 times, you’ll only get a one line break. If you type the following characters together, you’ll get more spaces:
&
n
b
s
p
;
By typing those characters out together (ala one word), I’m able to do this:
Which results in a bigger space between paragraphs. I’m not sure if that helped at all. I’m a bit frazzled at the moment.
Damn, Tony! All the hugs, re trouble – I am so sorry about the money. (I’m also just thinking (again, because I’ve thought this often) that you’re a pretty awesome person, posting cool/great and helpful things like #370 and #374 right when you’re in trouble yourself).
Caroline
I use an iPad and neither
<br>
nor
<nbsp>
work for me.
I usually cheat
.
.
by putting
.
.
and hitting ‘return’.
Caroline,
I usually use Chigau’s cheat with periods. Usually two returns will give a space between paragraphs.
If you want more formatting capabilities, many of use here use Firefox browser with BBCodeXtra, or TextFormattingToolbar addons, or both.
I forgot to mention they need to be set to HTML.
Nerd @378, HTML, what style of music is HTML?
ajb47 @369, one Grecian Urn, trickle trickle trickle…
Tony!, I’m sorry you are having such a bad time. Hugs?
bassmike, hugs offered. I, too have an Aged Mum, and they just do not like that admit that they need help sometimes. Hugs offered.
Everybody else, because I have no brain today and I’m sure I missed somebody, general hugs, support and tea offered.
rq 341, thanks for the thoughts!
I’m sorry to whine away here about two jobs. That isn’t really a problem is it? I know that is true, but living with it does stress me out as I became unemployed unexpectedly a few weeks ago and am scrambling to deal. I am also on a deadline to get the replacement job or there are other consequences because of where I live.
Living with immediate financial problems is a whole lot worse. Tony, I hope you are out of a corner soon, as you have real issues there, and I apologize for being all up in the air over here. Objectively, you are coping with more, and I do see that. I wish you well, and am doing all the finger-crossing and other stuff you do when there is nothing concrete you can actually do to help.
Thanks all for the suggestions, I will attempt later when I have some peas and quiet.
As an Actual Old Lady, I would like to chime in with Caroline. I think her comments are really on point.
I think if the help is presented as maintaining the independence of the Actual OL, then you may get further. I know intellectually that I need some checking up on, even though I’m doing just fine, but I have to remind myself of that. I also try to accept help as indeed, I can use it, even if it is not essential as yet.
But it is NOT natural to me. Good luck rq. Hope you find it was a once off and not a big deal.
Caroline,
Re spaces between paragraphs. I do Enter Enter. It posts fine but the preview doesn’t show the spaces.
Lemme test Enter x4
:)
This attempt is from my iPad in Safari, the others were from a PC uning Chrome.
If this works, I’m wondering if it might be the login method. I have got a WordPress login for FTB. Having to add HTML to make a paragraph seems ludicrous.
(Hmmm… The preview shows me the spaces in Safari)
Golgafrinchan Captain:
Even if you hit ‘Enter’ 50 times, you’ll still only get one space. Did you check out my link @374?
A friend of mine gave me an idea that may enable me to show how to create extra spaces. If you’ll type the following characters without the asterisks, you can create spaces: &*n*b*s*p*;
For instance, if I want to create 2 spaces between this sentence and the next one I’m about to type, I have to hit ‘enter’ twice (which gives me one space) and then type the code.
After I typed the code, I hit ‘enter’ two more times and that gives me this space. You can include that code multiple times (I’ll use the code three times here) if you want a huge break like I’m going to do between this sentence and the next:
Before and after each time I used the HTML code, I hit ‘enter’, which gave me that much space between the sentences. Does that make sense to anyone, bc I’m not a tech guy at all?
Oh, and this shows up in preview, so you can see how much space you’re creating before you hit ‘submit’.
Whut? You wait when I’m not here to discuss insects? How unfair. Just to say mean things about arthropods.
I’ve told PZ anyway. He said he’ll soon make a change in comment policy.
You won’t be allowed to say these naughty words about them under the pretext that they have a thicker skin.
btw, sorry for being in a silly mood.
rq,Tony! & Gilliel, thanks for the safe wishes. It was rather easy to put distance afterwards. The hard part was that I can’t (under)stand things without at least bare motives, and Creepy Dude’s were completely beyond my understanding. That, and his impressive coldness and total lack of emotion, not to say he wasn’t even remotely interested in explaining what the issue actually was, as if it was a normal thing to say to people you don’t know.
I simply wish a more glorious end than turning into a passion crime category-error statistics, and that includes developping an allergy from butterfly squamulae or getting an encyclopedia on the head.
Now there’s something that gave me some thought to process: I never bought the stereotype about cultural aggressive woman guarding in Slav men (indeed passion crimes are happening everywhere, this is just a typical media narrative from crappy trashy press from the old world), but actually the Slav accent of that guy increased scare indecently. Is it really possible that one’s feelings can be derogatively misguided by stereotypes one doesn’t even believe in? And why would it be so?
BTW, there are actually 34 mosquito species here.
0.017% of the world’s mosquito species richness.
I’m relieved to say that the first choice job got back to me. Not done with details yet, but another big step forward.
I want to hold out the hand of friendship to those of you posting of problems. I hope that you all will be able to move on and get past the issues you are facing. I wanted to just close the door on my situation, so people who had commented to me would know.
One of the reasons I like to come here is that you do meet new people, as well. I thought more familiar people had done some first rate welcoming, so I shut up. I think that was wrong, actually, and would like to welcome people myself. I’m in China, though, so I’m off the regular time for comments and turn around. I hope folks like Caroline and carbonfox and others will forgive the oversight and the odd timing.
Okidemia @389:
Feel free to take every species of mosquito in the US over to your side of the pond. I promise, I won’t mind.
****
Lyn M @390:
Woo-hoo!
Congratulations!
BTW, I’ve long wondered, what does the ‘G.R.O.S.T.’ stand for?
Seconding Tony!’s query — What does “G.R.O.S.T.” stand for?
I cannot recall if there are any bakers in here, but if so, this might be of interest-
Elegantly designed laser engraved embossing rolling pins for adults and kids.
There are multiple images at the link.
Um, I forget. One of the regulars started something about a pretend club, something like Girls Really Are Slimy Things. It was a joke a la Calvin and Hobbes, so I turned it back on him.
I should think of something new. Something I can remember, for example.
Lyn M: G.R.O.S.T. (ADM) — Membership pending #394
Nonono.
Give us time, we can retcon your nym.
for instance
ADM means to me Assistant Deputy Minister.
Great Red Oranges Seem Timid
Girls Really Only Seem Timid
Gross Relations O…
.
help me out, people
Groovy Rock Or Slow Tango?
So. This Rachel Dolezal thing. Transracial.
Transracial is a thing, but it’s not what she thinks it is. It’s NOT about “transcending race”, you can’t “become” a person of color, it just refers to a family in which some adopted children are of a different race to the other members of the household.
TBH, this whole thing is alternately confusing me, and upsetting me. On the one paw, I’m sitting here making that flat-what face and saying “What. the. fuck.” On the other, I’m kinda angry, because I’m not okay with deception of this sort.
Ms. Dolezal would have been just fine presenting as White and doing everything in her power to help. Her “playing black” is offensive on so many levels, I don’t know where to start. I feel like it’s analogous to someone claiming to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, etc., just to get attention or because they perceive it as “trendy”.
Anyway, uh, other people have written about it far more eloquently than I’ve done, and I probably ought to leave it to actual POC to hash this one out.
*sigh*
I borked my HTML. Link should go to: Why Co-opting Transracial in the Case of Rachel Dolezal is Problematic
WMDKitty @397:
Yes it is deeply offensive. She wore blackface for an extended period of time. Unlike black people, she was able to “take off her blackness” and live as a white person when she wanted to. That right there pisses me off so. damn. much.
She also had the audacity to sue Howard University, claiming they discriminated against her (partly on grounds of her *actual* race).
And yes, she could have been a powerful ally by being who she really is.
BTW, the Look at all the white people thread has many links about Dolezal.
Man, I wish I could get paid to sit around and read blogs and news material all day, bc I’m good at that (in between looking for jobs, there’s not much else I can do).
Tony!
I can’t find the thread, and I feel stupid.
Never mind, I found it.
Morning
Okidemia
I don’t know how many times I’ve hit myself over the head for jumping at stereotypes before I remembered that “oh fuck, you’re making a stereotyped causation again.” But it’s also true that different cultures have different strokes. What I’m ttying to be aware of os the framing. Western culture is really good at individualising shitty behaviour in the Self and stereotyping it in the Other. “Passion crimes” are a really good example in my opinion: When a western guy kills his ex and/ or the children it’s a “family drama” without any links to culture or society. When it’s a brown/muslim/non-white guy it’s proof their culture is so much backwards.
Lyn
Yay! *kermit hands*
Caroline/Bassmike
Seconding the remote alarm thingy. Both my grandmas had one. Around here you can choose different levels of “supervision”. My BFF’s mum has one where she has to “log in” in the morning and “log out” in the evening. If she doesn’t they’ll try to call her, if she doesn’t answer, they’ll call my friend.
On the downside this can lead to slightly panicked drives through town at midnight because her mum fell asleep in front of the TV with the headphones on…
Tony
*big hugs*
Another thing I’ll never understand about the US. The ability to evict people because they are late with one rent on short notice. Not possible here…
I mean, It’s also not in the interest of the owner. If a long term resident is late once in a while but ultimately pays, you still make more money than you’ll do by evicting, having no rent until you can let the apartment again and who knows what people willl follow?
Revised and X-posted.
I think it’s almost good enough to warrant a blog post of it’s own. Might be time to revive my dormant blog.
@Lyn M, #394; chigau, #395; others:
This is the source you’re looking for.
Lofty gave us “Get Rid Of Slimy Theists” in comment #52 of that thread. Lyn M chimes in @ comment #69. The whole thread is actually quite enjoyable. Tuibguy is great fun.
I believe the “M” in ADM was for “member” not “minister”, but I can’t seem to trace where I think I read that just now.
Lyn, that’s great news – hope it now proceeds to take aaaaallll the steps forward and coalesces into a definite!
Thanks to everyone for their advice about my mum. In addition to the people I thanked before, special thanks to Caroline, Lyn & Anne. I will speak to my brother, and the next time I get the chance with mum, I see if I can persuade her to have some safety measures put in place. I want her to maintain her independence, but not at the expense of safety.
*hugs* to all.
We have once again returned as one family unit (Ninnis included), everyone alive, trains intact and the lab is still standing. And it didn’t rain!
We win.
Good morning. Happy Thursday.
Do goldfinches flock? If so, why? This morning, I saw about thirty (not an exact count, they are small, they move, and I was driving) goldfinches hopping around on some fresh mulch. I don’t remember ever seeing them down on the ground, or in a flock, so I was quite surprised.
Got my first mid-year evaluation yesterday. I am apparently doing quite well. Which makes me wonder who my boss has me confused with. The next evaluation will be in 45 days, and then, at the end of September, I get my end-of-year evaluation.
Been doing well with the publications. Learning InDesign apparently counts as ‘expanding my professional education’, ‘taking advantage of on-line learning opportunities’, and ‘expanding the skillsets of fellow workers through mentoring.’ There are two of us who deal with publications and we have been teaching each other as we learn new things.
On Saturday (CalendarNormative Friday) I am going to see Jurrasic World and then going out to dinner, most likely for pizza and beer as a Father’s Day present. I expect the movie will be fun, infuriating, hokey, camp, and loud.
Boy has been promoted to full-time cook rather than cook/porter. This means that, since he is low on the seniority list, he will not have a regular shift. So some days he starts at 5:00am, 6:30am, or 11:00am.
Ogvorbis, based on the behavior of our local goldfinches, I’d say yes, they do flock – we usually have as many as can cram onto the thistle seed feeder, all chattering away at once. They seem to be very sociable little birds. Yours may have been picking up teeny little seeds from the mulch.
Just quickly running in to leave a HUGE pile of hugs and higs for Tony!, and a welcome basket and resounding “Howdy!” for the new commenters.
Thunderdome will be closed, revised, and reopened under a new name and rules this afternoon. Naming suggestions welcome.
Also, I’m going to be intervening in arguments more: example here. Heed my warnings. Temporary suspensions will be implemented for the recalcitrant.
Hugs to Tony.
Anne @410:
Thanks. I had never seen this behaviour before and it struck me as odd. (I am, after all, a middle aged, middle class white male, so if I haven’t seen it or experienced it, it probably does not exist).
PZ @412:
Perhaps The BullRing? As i sitting around and shooting the bull? No, on second thought, never mind. I just flashed on Franco and not a good idea.
The mixing bowl? As in everything goes in, but we still need to keep an eye on the ingredients?
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #403
Yep. What I find striking is that the last time I dealt with that precise stereotype was about thirty years ago, trying to tell a good friend that it was complete wrong. (Incidentally, it was in Switzerland atop in a wonderful mountain range, so it is easier to derail the recent uncontrolled thought pattern with a positive memory in a weird but more happy fashion). Then I also remember noticing the media pattern and reminding how wrong it was that long time ago.
I really find it strange how inner cultural settings for stereotypes can skid rational thinking off the trail. This is the lesson I get from the event and that’s fortunate I think (I’m lucky enough with that easy way out). But overthink process is actually distressing.
Tony! #391
Actually I consider us to be almost on the same side of the pond. You’re probably the closest Pharyngula “regularz” from home, unless there’s some Haitian, Jamaican, Dominican or Guyanas plateau-ician folk among us. For many outer destinations, Miami is the base first step onward.
I could take every single mosquito in, they will probably hit back the coast at the first windy storm, sorry… :-)
WMDKitty — Survivor #397
I have’nt indulged into this specific news, and there are many things that I don’t understand because strongly lacking context, so I do not hold a strong feeling here. But to me it seems that the issue is not that she claimed to be a “person of colour”, rather that she tried enforcing passing as Afro. I understand that the process of in-group identification is both social scale and individually inner-motivated, _but_ the issue about self identification must not only be left upon other’s people’s opinions and feelings. It is based on actual lived experience and you cannot really judge what people’s experience of racial prejudice is in many cases (that’s why the issue of “white privilege” can be difficult to grasp to some people).
I don’t know if this person, which is totally unknown to me, absolutely cannot identify with the greater and more diffuse category you suggested, I would rather rely on how much she’d been exposed to prejudice in her life, and what’s more I wouldn’t feel angry if she’d confuse some with closely related sexist prejudice. It’s not as if there’s a simple way to delineate between the two when both may affect you, or that one spends time departing self experience of racial or sexist prejudice. Hum, not sure if I’m writing it clearly…
But again, I don’t know about this case, I’ve not really tried to understand it (sorry, not enough spare time currently), and there are many American specifics which I have no idea what that means (e.g. what is blackface?).
PZ #412
How about Free-range Threads Procrastinating Trap?
Short. Simple. Function easily recognizable to newbies. That’s what I want.
Okidemia @415, that would lead us to it being called the Fartpit, which is probably suboptimal. :)
“The Sandlot”
“The Playground”
“The Kitchen” (or “The Kitchen Sink” – most parties/gatherings seem to end up with the serious conversation in the kitchen, with someone usually doing the dishes)
“The Workshop”
“The Den”
“The Water-Cooler”
“The Shed”
“The Local Pub”
Kinda going with “The Lounge” as a baseline, but “The Bar” didn’t quite have that ring.
Okidemia @414:
I’m going to post a few links and excerpts from them to illustrate what blackface is and why it’s bad. This could be informative not just for you, but also for anyone who may not understand why Rachel Dolezal’s years of blackface are insensitive and steeped in racial bigotry.
This may help in understanding of blackface:
(excerpt)
Here is another article which compares whiteface to blackface and explains why the former is not horrible, but the latter is.
(excerpt)
and another:
And here’s one last link:
I think I’ll re-post the above in the Look at all the white people thread as well.
CaitieCat
But if the shoe fits…
+++
Right, feel free to ignore the following, I’m going to complain about my geopolitical situation again.
75 years ago today, the Red Army invaded Latvia for the first time (got run out by the Nazis and then ran them out again within the span of WWII, which is why I say ‘first’).
Yesterday, a local article ran a story about government representatives in Russia asking for an audit of the legality of the council that was created in order to re-declare Latvia an independent state back in 1990.
(See, if the Russian legal system declares the council of the time illegal, and its resulting actions – destruction of the unification of the state at the time, that kind of potential justification… really freaks me out. NOTE: PLEASE DON’T TRY TO TELL ME THAT RUSSIA WILL NEVER AGAIN INVADE, because rationally, I already know that. But there’s a whole slew of actions and words at the local level WHERE I LIVE that serve to ignite a small, irrational fear.)
CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice #417
I’ve dys tendencies so I read it as FratPit, which is also sort of what PZ was trying to get rid of…
Whatever, the task is hard on…
PZ:
What function will the newly renamed/revised Thunderdome serve? Perhaps knowing that might be of assistance to people in offering suggestions.
I will never say “Russia will never invade” anyone, while Putin lives,since i doubt he’ll give up ruling until he dies. I half expect an invasion of Ukraine this summer. Fuck, they annexed the Crimea two years back, and the world just said, “meh”. A healthy appreciation for the dangers of a Putin-led Russia is probably a wise thing. Appreciation for the dangers, yes. Fear, probably not. Not yet. But no one should fool themselves that Russia is incapable of doing just that, and daring anyone to say “boo” to their nuclear-armed selves.
One more reason to defeat the Republicans, of course. They’d be happy to say “boo”. And then we all die.
Sorry, don’t mean to be Debbie Downer. But yeah, not going to say “Russia will never invade”. I’d bet on Belarus first, but if they go, I wouldn’t give a fig for the Baltics being safe. :/
rq #421
I’m sorry it’s difficult for me to find words that would fit expressing sympathy to your feelings, well knowingly that irrationality is really difficult to overcome at times. I’d go with the local Lounge customs of hugs though that’s culturally feeling bizarre to me, and I feel clumsy writing it, but hugs.
Okidemia
Appreciated, but we can go for an e-handshake if you prefer. :)
Cait
Thanks, I know I’ve complained to you about this before. :) They just keep doing these little things that piss me off all over again.
Still stockpiling canned foods. We could survive for a week, now. :)
It’s going to be more of a catch-all for comments that don’t fit any extant threads. People can talk about whatever they want, but the friendly social side of the Lounge won’t be required.
rq
In my experience, people who want to challenge the legality of a state/country on legalistic minutiae as opposed to the actual history and reality, are dangerous. They are usually always militaristic right wingers.
Giliell
That about fits the bill in this case.
(Also, first time, I read that as ‘militaristic right whingers‘, which is also kind of true. Something’s seriously up with my word comprehension lately, but I’m still blaming the stress.)
Wanted to post this up on Thunderdome:
“I like ‘The Last Resort’. Unfamiliar with the ‘Mended Drum’ as joke/allusion/reference, so I don’t know how well that would work with new people as an obviously, visibly, off-topic thread. [/justme]”
rq
http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/The_Mended_Drum
chigau
Yes, I noticed it’s a Pratchett reference. :)
Which is why I don’t get it, because not everyone reads Pratchett. But it looks like it’s now Official, stamp-approved and all, so oh well, I guess! :)
(I’m putting smileys not to sound passive aggressive but to show that, while I don’t like the name because it feels very inner-circle inside-joke to me, I’m okay with it because it’s not my blog.)
Umm, it’s June. I didn’t put my (spring/autumn) hat on when going to work today, and I’m getting one of those chill-headaches.
What is up with you, June?
So are Lynna’s news updates now going to go into the new off-topic thread? :(
rq:
I feel like I’m agreeing with you on everything today (the apology thread was the first place).
I feel the same way about ‘The Mended Drum’ (though it’s nothing so serious that I’m going to try arguing about it; I imagine you feel the same way).
As for Lynna’s news comments, I thought the same thing. But out of everything I gathered in the Commenting Rules Threads, I never got the impression that PZ wanted to change anything about the Lounge, so I imagine her news (and all the stuff everyone else posts) is still welcome here.
Tony
Great minds, huh? :D
I know PZ doesn’t want to change anything in the Lounge, but maybe it’s Lynna’s personal decision, which is okay – I’ve just enjoyed her newsy updates here so if they are moving, I will miss them!
So, how do you pea-haters feel about pea soup?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup
chigau
That sounds like some provocation right there!
(I plan on trying a recipe, once I find one, since I have some peas sitting in the pantry and looking rather… lonely and dry.)
I just got an onion pea soup yesterday, with Indian Loti bread.
I think it’s a good place for them, since the Drum’s probably more frequented than the Lounge. I think I’ll post links there in the future as well, unless they’re “special interest” so to speak.
Giliell @440:
For years, the Lounge was the thread that moved fastest. I wonder if the Drum will be the new place.
****
I’ll pass on pea-anything.
Wait, I’m a bit confused now… is The Drum just like a new incarnation of Thunderdome or is it similar to the Lounge now?
Since it’s OT elsewhere… I’m happy you’ve decided to hang around, rq.
Okay I need to do the quiz.
Peas are lovely, love pea soup and will eat a bowl of peas and butter for dinner. Not canned, NO.
nbsp
Horses are great. I love to brush them and look into their big eyes but not for riding.
nbsp
Cheeses of all kinds. Love cheese
nbsp
Mayonnaise is my favorite food group. I will put mayonnaise on just about anything. Miracle whip is gross IMHO.
nbsp
nbsp
okay I totally fucked that up:(
Caroline @444:
You almost had the non-breaking space. You need an ‘&’ to precede the ‘n’. You also need a semi-colon following the ‘p’.
&_n_b_s_p_; (obviously without the dashes)
Caroline
I think you need a & in front and a ; after. <- That should turn into a paragraph break, if I'm right.
Also, thanks for your answers! They have been filed, archived, but not yet forgotten!
Beatrice
Right now, I’m sort of wondering the same thing – if it will morph into a combination Lounge/Drum, or will that thread slow down once it gets settled and comfortable, and the Lounge will still be faster-moving.
Personally, I’m a bit worried about folllowing two social threads, but I suppose time will tell what, exactly, will happen.
Time for lunch.
Hm, mine didn’t work. Attempt le deux. Did it work?
Nope. Oh well, I still have the Enter key. :/
Caroline
.
.
Come
.
.
over to
.
.
the dark side
.
.
;)
Calling all fans of Mad Max: Fury Road, the director of Fury Road will be writing a comic book miniseries detailing the origins of several of the main characters. The first issue goes on sale today actually. Art is available at the link.
rq @449:
If looks like you were trying to make non-breaking spaces in between sentences.
Unfortunately, they only work between paragraphs.
Hey, guys! My baby sister is going to be on Anderson Cooper tonight!
Eh. If I ever need more than one space between paragraphs, I will remember that. :) Thanks, Tony.
WMDKitty,
very cool. WHat’s the topic?
It’s a rare box of cases that yields a majority of positive results. Now I have two in a row. That’s a lot of writing. (Can I whine about this? It means a lot more writing. I don’t like writing. I’m going to whine about this. And go home.)
Only if I can whine about it being nearly 23:00 already, and I’m having two different conversations with the same person on two different threads*, so that’s getting weird and I’m also complaining about everything on The Mary Sue even though I should be wrapping all my ramblings up and going to bed :)
Everything is so weird today.
* as of now, I guess, since I’m responding to rq
Beatrice
haha, No worries. I’m probably out for the night anyway. :)
Writing can wait until tomorrow. I’m taking chill attitude at work right now and I heartily recommend it.
‘night
Writing will have to wait until next week, I still have two boxes of results to summarize and record. But I’m going to be chill for tonight. :) Really leaving this time.
A question for people who do Pharyngula on their phones:
do you have a find-on-page function (ctrl-f or the like)?
How easy is it to use?
chigau,
Nope, but I have a shitty phone
Hi. Home for the summer, slightly nervous right now due to continuing health anxiety…
rq, Giliell re: driving;
My experience driving in America has been a bit different. Speed limits are almost universally set for making more revenue–one of the more egregious examples I have seen was the local sheriff driving on the right lane at 70 mph (115 kph) on a local freeway with a 55 mph (90 km/h) limit. They are slowly being raised (the local tollways recently introduced 65(110)/70 limits in rural areas, keeping up with the rest of my state). Haven’t been cited, yet.
Also, civilized people Drive on the RIght, Pass on the Left. Yes, that means you, random person. This is theoretically a rule here, but never enforced. The opposite happens all the time.
People keep saying I’m a good driver, but I never feel that way. I keep hyperfocusing and messing up in parking lots (I still can’t do perpendicular parking well–parallel I’m great at.)
Still/again ‘rupt. Will have backup space available for my computer soon, then I can start trying more extreme methods to fix my tech issues. *hugs* all ’round.
chigau 462
yes, but it’s a pain in the ass.
Wildfire season has started, and my respiratory apparatus is not happy about it. I can’t seem to get enough sleep, or any rest from the sleep I get.
A book that I became aware of today:
How to Avoid Huge Ships, Second Edition. The reviews are massively funny.
Dalillama, 465:
Hmm, your link seems to be going through http://redirectingat.com/go.php. This is some sort of income generation service for Amazon/FTB, I’m really not sure.
Is this actually normal now?
Sure is quiet around here. Anybody home?
Sorry, guys, I’m obligated to brag on my baby sister, because I’m fucking PROUD OF HER.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/18/transracial-adoption-rachel-dolezal-sot-ac.cnn
WMDKitty
Tomorrow, I will watch that on the real computer.
The iPad sometimes just … shuts itself down on some sites
jeez
I get better wifi from my router outside on the patio than I do in my kitchen.
This is not shaping up to be a day full of positive feelings.
Is “The Mended Drum” going to supplant The Lounge or the Thunderdome??? Me haz a confuzon.
Morning!
thunk
DRiving culture in Germany is fucked up. Germans have an irrational attachment to the idea od “no speed limits” taht can only be compared to US gun culture, onle much less deadly. Seriously, we’re one of the few countries without a set maximum speed limit and the others don’t have speed limits because there is no need for them due to lack of roads and cars.
This leads to ripple effects. For example in medium thick traffic people will often not use the right lane between overtaking two trucks because you’ll never get into the left lane again. This was totally different (and much nicer) in Belgium: You used the right lane and when you wanted to overtake somebody on the left lane would make space for you.
Also folks have not realized that using your mobile while driving is immoral.
birgerjohansson
I’m feeling confused for the same reasons. Very confused.
birger
It’s meant to supplant TD in a different way.
I guess it will calm down significantly, but right now everybody is eager to make it succeed. I don’t think we should move our kids-kitten-recipe chit chat over there because it was mentioned that folks feel intimidated by our closely knit community and would like a place for OT chit chat without the personal stuff.
Oh goodness, some parents.
We have this nice What App group for #1’s class. Very handy if your child regularly forgets to write down her homework and other stuff. Today there was a reminder that we still need people for the bouning castle on the school fair. One mother snapped that if teachers were just nicer to parents and didn’t write so many nasty letters home, parents would be more eager to help.
I mean, yeah, there probably is a reason you’re getting these letters and a teacher’s job is not to be nice to you, parent.
I mean, sure, there are also asshole teachers, but I know that our teacher is more than cooperative and forthcoming. She really cares and you can always talk to her and find a way together.
Giliell
I can get that, what I don’t get is people moving their news items over there, too. I dunno, kids-kittens-recipes is too much like small-talk chit-chat, at which I suck, if that’s the only thing going on… I like personal conversations plus news items, which aren’t always nice, but we can be nice when talking about them.
And then there’s the Lounge-is-sugary-sweet characterization (not from you, but it’s already showed up at The Mended Drum), which I absolutely despise and think is wrong. When I come here depressed or angry or frustrated with my life, it’s definitely not sweet or sugary, and it mostly isn’t the reaction I’m looking for from others. And sometimes I want my fucking sledgehammer, is that so sweet and sugary? When birgerjohansson posts up science posts, is that sugary-sweet? Since when is kindness spoken of with such condescension? Too godsdamn fucking sweet, right. I really resent that characterization from people who don’t tend to hang out here.
Maybe the Lounge is where it became important [read: where I learned that it was important]
to acknowledge the good, not just the bad – so often on the commenting threads, people would say they never say anything about the stuff they agree with or that is well-said, because it seems superfluous to agree, so they only call out the negative aspects. Isn’t that part of what contributes to feelings of piling on, or unwelcome, if you focus on the negative and refuse to acknowledge the positives in someone’s comments? So maybe acknowledging good things (or thing we agree with) is now sugary and sweet? And that’s bad?
I dunno. I’m taking this far too personally right now, and I don’t even know why. Feel free to respond, I may not get to responding to your response for… a while, I guess. I dunno.
*headbonks rq*
rq
I don’t like the “sugar sweet” characterisation either. I will go for the tightly knit . It’s less a charity tea party than a support group, often for folks who don’t have much support otherwise. My personal rationale for moving news stries is that they’Re interesting to a wider audience.
I agree rq the Lounge is not sugary sweet. As Giliell says it’s simply supportive. As someone whose main posting is in the lounge, I too resent the characterization. When I first posted, it was natural to me to post in the Lounge: I knew I wasn’t going to get shouted down or ignored and I value that even now that I’ve been posting for a while. It gave me the confidence to post elsewhere as I felt that some regulars had heard my voice here and it made it feel more comfortable.
The Lounge is a great place to let off steam, post recipes, ask for advice, ask for help and share joyful moment and successes. I don’t foresee the Mended Drum fulfilling that role. I think we’d lose a lot if the Lounge went. I know I would!
Well if the Drum is for anything OT but not socialising, and the Lounge is for socialising plus OT musings, I suppose – well, actually I have no idea. We’ll see how the situation evolves.
Here’s a thing I wouldn’t post in the Drum: currently feeling metaphorically eviscerated and fucking steam-hammered. I have a trifecta – DaughterSpawn moves out today and I am going to miss her so fucking much; SonSpawn will have failed exams this year because he didn’t know the requirements because (language disorder) he can’t read and absorb a booklet of info, nobody ever said anything, and he never even knew the exam requirements were in that booklet but only prepared the bits mentioned verbally by teachers (and he never chatted about it with fellow-students because communication disorder); latest news on friend is that the tumours have now spread to spine and brain (she is nevertheless awaiting our visit next week). Not at my best today. Fortunately if I angle my head a bit the keyboard won’t get too wet.
opposablethumbs
*hugs*
Hankie?
Unfortunately I feel wrung out, emotionally and physically, but I don’t have as good reasons as you. :( They should make keyboard umbrellas.
*hugs*
opposablethumbs
Oh fuck, I’m sorry.
Really, what were his instructors tthinking?
But unfortunately they’re not alone. While at my college individual instructors tend to be very good at making the requirements clear at the very start, the overall requirements and procedures are often found after a long page hop.
+++
Dying horseraddish green so it looks like Wasabi and then adding it to Sushi boxes should be illegal.
I LOVE Wasabi, but I HATE horseraddish (unless it’s the tiny red ones).
Welcome Caroline!
Tony, do you have any news on the housing front? It seems weird that they’d be able to start
eviction procedures so quickly, but it may be a state law thing. Here there’s a bunch of notices
they have to provide first. I wonder if your landlord might be jumping the gun.
opposablethumbs @481:
Oh crap. I’m sorry to hear about daughterspawn, sonspawn, and friend. That’s just awful all around. Significant hugs.
****
rq @477:
Remember how I was agreeing with you so much yesterday? That appears to be continuing into today, bc I agree with you wholeheartedly here. I can understand people feeling hesitant to post in the Lounge because they feel they’ll be interfering in conversations. It’s not the case of course, but I can comprehend that. But this isn’t a “sweet” place. Or, more accurately it isn’t *just* a sweet place. We have that sometimes, true. But it’s also a supportive place. It’s a place to vent. It’s a place for camaraderie. It’s a place for news articles (I was in the wrong tab and half asleep when I posted those two articles in the Drum earlier). It’s a place for all manner of things. The only requirement being that of kindness to one another.
I just really don’t get a lot of the opposition to the Lounge that I’ve read about lately.
I’m feeling much the same way. I didn’t expect to get disheartened *again* in the wake of the commenting threads, but, well…here I am.
carlie @484:
I think we’re out of danger. I received some last minute financial support, plus I think my roommie made the last of his money at work last night. Still. That was scary close.
This is something else I don’t get. This sense of investment and responsibility that some feel you have to have in the Lounge. I don’t think you *have* to have either. I keep up bc I choose to, not out of a sense of responsibility and I don’t think that’s splitting hairs.
I guess I’m going to let this go, bc I can see the danger in continuing to talk about it here, since we’re supposed to be kind, and I don’t want to get further down the rabbit hole of talking about things commenters in other threads have said. But yeah, I’m frustrated at the characterization of the Lounge.
Sorry to hear about your storm of woes opposablethumbs.
The Redhead appears to be inadvertently trying to turn me into a sleep deprived zombie. Twice this week she has slept through the normal 3 am change, and finally called about 5 am when she woke up. That makes it essentially impossible to get back to sleep before the alarm goes off at 6 am afterwards.
rq @477 (also hugs, editing on the fly), Giliell @479, bassmike @480,
I’ll just stick to the Lounge and post what I post here. If they need to be moved, tell me and I’ll move them. Otherwise, I’ll just get confused, and these days I confuse easily.
opposablethumbs @481, hugs are offered, and here’s a box of kleenex and a nice cup of tea. The pillow fort and Hobbes are always available, if you just need to hide for a while.
Anybody else needs hugs, they’re over here in a large hamper (because the basket just wasn’t big enough).
I’ve always commented in both threads and I’ll continue to do so.
Things will probably settle down in a few days.
opposablethumbs 481
That’s a bad couple-few days right there. I have a hug or two if you’re interested. I even have one of those soft, fleecy blankets you can wrap yourself in.
Nerd
Have you considered setting the alarm clock and do that change no matter what?
I know you’re the most considerate person, it seems to me that you often don’t consider yourself.
You need some sleep and the Redhead can get rest during the day. You can’t
*hugs*
Crip Dyke 405
Yes! That’s it! I got confused thinking about Calvin and Hobbes.
The ADM was an earlier nym, and it meant Assistant Deputy Minister, Chigau, just as you said. I slapped it into the middle, and called it a day.
Thanks for the congrats, folks. Things still moving forward, jobwise.
Tony! so glad to hear that the bad moment is over for now. I sure hope things keep steady for you.
As for the sugary and sweet part, I don’t think expressing affection is such a terrible thing. I don’t think being interested in others’ lives, big things and small, is a bad thing either. If people want to bellow and run through the jungle, dandy. Why must it be that way everywhere?
rq #426
Way too formal, it’s not as if we agreed on a business case… :)
I’m sorry, for hugs in France are associated with intimacy levels that would rely strongly on explicit consent. The local norms for empathy expression hug equivalent would be putting one hand on your wrist or your shoulder, but even then I wouldn’t feel comfortable because it may be interpreted as condescending in other cultural contexts. (Which makes me notice that French way is always set for leaving space for the recipient to move out if needed, something that hugs do not allow). I know, we’re weirdoes: rude language is tolerated much more than there’s room for interaction physical behavioural norms.
You know what, I’d lean for a heart salam: simple, caring, not infringing boundaries.
Today this documentary is out in mainland France. Sadly, I’m not sure if it’s going down here or if I’ll be home when it does. Documentary seems really good. It is about the experiences of French people of colour.
[youtube link:] La ligne de couleur (translate as ‘colour line’).
Hello all!
I have some coffee to share, but I should warn you, I put some “caramel” flavor in it. Not terribly awesome.
opposablethumbs @481
Sorry about the poopie storm. But also a little pride for daughter, for her new adventure.
Tony!
Sigh of relief for the non-eviction. I’ll drink to that.
http://lalignedecouleur.com/
No English version for the official site…
Donald Trump isn’t the candidate Republicans want, but he’s the candidate they deserve http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/donald-trump-isnt-the-candidate-republicans-want-but-hes-the-candidate-they-deserve/
Excerpt: “How does the conservative press view Trump?
Witness NRO’s Kevin Williamson — who is basically Jonah Goldberg with the ability to finish a thought — welcoming Trump into the fold, under the less-than-equivocal title of “Witless Ape Rides Escalator.”
”Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.”
”Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, announced his candidacy at Trump Plaza, making a weird grand entrance via escalator — going down, of course, the symbolism of which is lost on that witless ape. But who could witness that scene — the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire slumlord father, barely out of his latest bankruptcy and possibly headed for another one as the casino/jiggle-joint bearing his name sinks into the filthy mire of the one U.S. city that makes Las Vegas look respectable, a reality-television grotesque with his plastic-surgery-disaster wife, grunting like a baboon about our country’s “brand” and his own vast wealth — and not see the peerless sign of our times?”
Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rivera_(wrongful_conviction)
Photos Show Once-Beautiful Soviet Space Shuttles In Apparently Abandoned Kazakhstan Hangar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/buran-soviet-space-shuttles_n_7598308.html
— — —
Discovery of new neural pathway may lead to preventing relapses in addicts http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-discovery-neural-pathway-relapses-addicts.html
— — —
Goldman Sachs restricts intern workday to 17 hours in wake of burnout death http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/goldman-sachs-restricts-intern-workday-to-17-hours-in-wake-of-burnout-death/
The benevolent firm introduced new work hours for summer interns after Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern died from seizure induced by all-nighters
”Go home before midnight, and don’t come back before 7am.”
It’s as if the 20th century never happened…
Oh, btw, illegal in Germany. Though there is of course a lot of acting around official worktimes like taking your work home. Horrible nanny state, does not allow you to work yourself to death…