I have surveyed the interweb today, and I have come up with very few people worthy of immediate taunting, mocking, and otherwise agitating.
As such, consider this an open thread.
*** Update ***
I suppose this is worth noting- after my off-color antics yesterday afternoon, this website is now the #1 google search for “skull fuck a kitten.”
Aim high, I always say.
Dreggas
I would like to announce that I have not smoked a cigarette in over 2 weeks and feel really darn good.
Oh and CTHULU FOR PRES, Colbert can be his running mate.
jcricket
I see the soft bigotry of low expectations strikes conservatives again:
Yes, this is the best healthcare system that the best country on earth can come up with, one where anyone with kids has to stay in a less than optimal job just to provide healthcare benefits.
I’m sure that’s just great for the economy, social mobility, retirement savings, consumer spending, etc.
Livin’ the conservative dream!
Pb
Birth-Control Foe To Run Office on Family Planning:
In other news, war is peace, ignorance, strength–film at 11!
Cain
Groovy dude!
cain
Zifnab
Congrats! Keep it up
Chris
the hot issue of the day is still, as far as i can tell, the non-stop goat blowing by Mickey Kaus.
ThymeZone
Awesome, man. Keep it up.
Dave
Reporters Without Borders ranks the US 48th for press freedom
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24025
Someday, with some hard work, we’ll be as good as Nicaragua.
libarbarian
I’m watching “The office” in the office!!!
I LOVE MY VIDEO-IPOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bombadil
Congrats! Every time you pass a milestone (first time you skip the first cigarette of the day, first time you go a whole weekend, first time you have coffee without one, etc.) you get stronger. My last one was in November of 1984 and if a weak-willed addict like me can quit, I assure you that you can be successful.
Billy K
4 weeks for me as of yesterday. Rock on!
Bombadil
However, I just did some quick calculating based on something that John said in his iTunes post, and if I’m right, the last time I had a cigarette, John Cole was roughly ten years old.
Now I feel depressed.
Billy K
When will Micket step forward and explain his goat-blowing behaviour? The American People demand it! Why is he stonewalling? What ELSE is he hiding?
John Cole
I was 22 in 1992, not 18, so your calculations are off. Remember, I went into the Army for several years after High School, so I was an older undergrad.
Bombadil
Well, I feel a bit better. Or at least not quite so old.
Bombadil
What on earth possessed you to even check?
Krista
Right on! Keep it up — it really does get easier as you go.
In other news, I’m getting married in 6 days. Please feel free to share the best/funniest marriage advice you’ve ever received.
Bombadil
Woo hoo! Congratulations! Or best wishes, I can never remember who gets what.
My second daughter just got married on Saturday — ’tis the season, I guess.
I have never heard any marriage advice that was worth a damn. If you’ve made the right choice, no advice is needed, and if you’ve made the wrong choice, no advice will help.
Mary
Way to go, Dreggas! I bet you smell a lot better already. (My parents smoked like chimneys, and it wasn’t until I moved away from home that I became aware of how much they and every single item in the house smelled of smoke.)
Krista: Have as little sex as possible as you can stand for the first year, so that you can point and laugh at those who say that you’ll have more sex in your first year that for the rest of your marriage. Feel free to go nuts from year two onwards. Bring in goats or Kaus only if you both agree and have rubber sheets and a safe word.
Dreggas
Thanks guys.
Amazingly enough I used a subliminal messaging program that used EKG brain wave stuff along with everything else. Went to bed with it playing 2 weeks ago and woke up the next day with no desire to smoke, been listening to it regularly since then and have not smoked, have had little to no withdrawals and feel great. Basically I did it cold turkey. Of course I should own stock in spangler candy since I have developed an affinity for dum-dums.
gypsy howell
krista:
marriage advice
Y’know, in case you’re ever “really not in the mood”
:-)
jcricket
What do you quitters have against healthcare for children? That’s what I want to know :-)
In other news, I’m getting married in 6 days. Please feel free to share the best/funniest marriage advice you’ve ever received.
Dreggas
Been there done that which is why I WISH we had single payer. It was such a nightmare worrying about whether I would get my meds or not.
Bombadil
I took a look at my smoking patterns and realized that I’d smoke a pack to a pack and a half a day during the week (this was in the old days when you could smoke at your desk, belive it or not) but maybe go through a half a pack or less on the weekend. So the Friday before Thanksgiving, I finished up the pack I had going and didn’t smoke at all for the weekend (uncomfortable, but doable). I then went through three very tough days at work, but then had a four-day weekend at home without a cigarette (which was easier). By the time I got back to work the following Monday, I’d gone ten days and never had another. Can’t say I wasn’t tempted, but was able to resist.
Everyone is different and it’s a matter of finding what works. That EKG stuff sounds like something I’d have liked to have back then.
jcricket
Durn second blockquote is all backwards and shiznit.
Dreggas
Yeah that’s right we know how to really defend ‘Murica round here.
laneman
I’m a piker – only been married 16 years.
don’t listen to the naysayers; don’t listen to consrvatives who ‘value marriage’
listen to your best friend who you are marrying
and have fun
Dreggas
Actually, this was part of my reason for quitting. I have nothing against healthcare for children but I’ll be damned if I am one of the small few paying for it.
laneman
oops, and congrats!!11one!1eleven!
jcricket
Right up there with you. Just off the top of my head here are immediate single payer benefits:
Big businesses would benefit from not having to worry about retiree healthcare costs.
Little businesses would be freed from either not covering people or being swamped by administrative and general healthcare costs.
Entrepeneurship could increase, because people wouldn’t have to rely on their spouse keeping their job for healthcare, or just going without if their spouse doesn’t work.
Those of us unfortunate enough to lose our jobs wouldn’t immediately worry about a massive spike (COBRA) in healthcare costs or losing coverage and then having to pay medical bills with no income
You wouldn’t have to switch doctors if you switched employers (because they have a different plan).
Your plan would be much less likely to switch coverage amounts/etc every year (as happens to my wife about every year).
All evidence points to lower administrative overhead, by massive amounts
Everyone in the US would be covered (which unless your callous, is a good goal. Healthy people are much more likely to contribute productively to the economy).
The only people who hate/fear universal healthcare are Republicans and Libertarians. Two groups who right now basically stand for hatred of homosexuals, muslims and other foreigners; contempt for the role of government and tax cuts uber alles.
Support for and the success of Social Security led to Democratic dominance of US politics for 40 years, and make no mistake, universal healthcare will do the same. Another large, successful social service program provided by the government, will doom whomever opposes it (Republicans) to being in the wilderness politically, possible forever (until they stop running on the “I’m against the programs you love” platform).
jcricket
Whatever gets you to quit is fine by me. When I think of all the wasted healthcare spending on people who smoke it’s pretty frustrating. I don’t care if the funds generated by taxes on cigarettes go away. I’d rather things be funded by general taxes, and because I’m not reflexively anti-tax, I’m not afraid to say if smoking taxes go away and we don’t want to cut the programs these taxes fund, raise other taxes.
Speaking of that, the great orange satan reports
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! INVADING HORDES OF DARKIES! OOOGA-BOOGA! VOTE REPUBLICAN OR DIE!
capelza
Krista! Congratulations… no advice, yet anyway, except to have a well developed sense of humour and irony….
And to the newly non smoking best wishes, too.
I, too, want to knohow John came to look up “skull fuck a kitten”.
John Cole
RE: google and skull fuck- Someone mentioned it in the previous thread.
As to smoking, I am so glad I quit. I feel so much better, even though I put on like thirty pounds. My doctor didn’t care. Said he would rather have me fat than smoking.
I tend to agree. I just feel so much better.
Bombadil
I also agree. All things considered, it’s easier to lose thirty pounds than it is to grow back a lung.
Well, almost as easy, anyway.
Mary
True, but some people can grow back fingers with the proper application of pork by-products.
Mary
(Before and after shots of said finger here. Yeah, it’s a bit gross.)
Dreggas
I haven’t put on weight, in fact I have been losing it. Since I quit I started walking/bussing to work. In the morning I walk a mile to the bus stop, ride it to the stop I need to, get off and walk another mile to work itself. Then, at the end of the day, I walk from work to the house without taking the bus (about 3-5 miles). So I am getting 5 to 7 miles of brisk walking a day.
jcricket, I disagree on taxes on smoking funding anything, it’s bad policy when part of the stated goal is to get people to quit. My major reason for quitting was I was sick and tired of not being able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded and I wanted my life back.
John et al.
I couldn’t agree more. All the horror stories I told myself and the horror stories I had heard about quitting were BS. I feel so much better, I have so much more time on my hands and am able to really relax. No more worrying about when I will be able to have that next cigarette.
Punchy
/quivers…tears up/
I didn’t get…um…an…invite. I’m sure it was lost in the mail. These things happen. Sure. Lost in the mail. I’m sure my wedding gift I sent you will be lost in the mail, too.
Tax Analyst
Congratulations, JC – that’s certainly got to be a twisted feather in your cap. It ought to bring some interesting and highly enlightened additional traffic over here, too.
I imagine you’ll be hearing from PETA pretty soon.
Tax Analyst
Congratulations and Best Wishes…I have no marriage advice and the only “funny” marriage stories I know appear to seem either “totally tragic” or “in incredibly poor taste” to most people, so I think I’ll leave well enough alone.
Krista
/hugs Punchy
Sweetie, we’re basically eloping. My own mother isn’t even going to be there.
Tax Analyst
Guess I’m in a “congratulatory” mood, so let me also extend my hardiest congrats to you, as well…and there is no need to feel the least bit slighted at being the THIRD and LAST of my back-slapping exercises for the day.
Seriously, though, anything that improves your health and makes you feel better without harming anyone else can’t be a bad thing.
Hmmm…I just realized I smoked my first joint about one year before John Cole was born…sigh…I remember I had to con my older brother into letting me smoke with him. He had vowed to himself he wouldn’t be the one to turn me on, but since he thought I had already indulged he didn’t have an issue with it. Two days later I was dropping acid and tripping-out watching the ‘follow-ups’ from the lit end of a cigarette he was smoking. He was trying to explain some fascinating concept to me and stopped to ask if I was following him, but my brain wasn’t really in a heavy-concept-receptive state, so I told him, “Uh…yeah…just keep waving your hands and it will be all right”.
Boy, that was a long time ago.
Tax Analyst
Now if I WERE offering Wedding advice, that would be right at the top of my list – Elope. Good move, I think.
rawshark
I quit 4/1/1994, april fools day. It was tough the first two weeks, after that I couldn’t imagine blowing the two weeks I went smoke free so I kept at it. I’ve had maybe 20 cigarettes since then. The urge is still there but its so easy to ignore now. My last cigarette was a year and a half ago. I bummed it off a dancer in a strip joint in Rocky Point Mexico. Good times :)
Dreggas
Yeah I can’t see myself blowing this two weeks and considering the stress I have been going through, If I can survive it without a cigarette I doubt I’ll even encounter a situation where smoking would even be an option. Every now and then there is a twinge but really I am quite happy NOT smoking and intend to stay that way.
Dreggas
TA,
Thanks LOL. And no I don’t feel slighted. Also the “trails” off a cigarette while tripping were just plain awesome.
rachel
Shouldn’t that be “VOTE REPUBLICAN OR LIVE!”
gypsy howell
Your own mother won’t be there? Someone’s apparently already given you excellent advice.
Have a huge party for all your friends and family (assuming you like them) when you get back from eloping. The party is the best part of the whole wedding thing, and by then any jangled nerves you might have had had about getting married are over, so you can really have fun.
Punchy
/shakes head slowly…waits for Krista’s mom to post an angry screed here blaming John Cole “for all this aloping hoo-haa”
Tax Analyst
April 1st! My B-Day! HAR!
Dreggas
oh another benefit and motivator for quitting is it will dramatically lower my cholesterol.
Krista
That’s precisely what I’m doing. Were we to have a wedding here, we would have wanted it to be small, simple and stress-free, which would have been impossible. Himself has a gigantic family, and my family’s too complicated. (Mom and Dad make Israel and Palestine look like bosom buddies, stepdad is cantankerous and rude in public settings, sister has no internal censor.)
So, we take off, we get married by ourselves, with my bf from high school as our witness, we enjoy NYC for a week for our honeymoon, and then we celebrate separately with all of the various factions when we return.
Tsulagi
Congratulations. First two weeks are the hardest.
Best wishes there too!
Advice? Probably to take all outside advice with a boulder of salt. When my SO and I first got together 11 years ago and started getting serious, we laid out what was important to each other. I still remember the look in her eyes and the words when she told me “Don’t ever take me for granted, or I will be gone.”
It was kind of a threat then, and kind of funny now recalling it, but she keeps giving me reasons why I wouldn’t want her gone. And I keep trying to show her I don’t take her for granted. It’s worked for us.
All the best.
jcricket
I think of Republicans as that booming voice from the 80s video game 720… And Michelle Malkin’s readers are the swarm of bees.
Cain
Krista, congratulations! No advice though. :-) Just have fun!
Amazingly enough I used a subliminal messaging program that used EKG brain wave stuff along with everything else. Went to bed with it playing 2 weeks ago and woke up the next day with no desire to smoke, been listening to it regularly since then and have not smoked, have had little to no withdrawals and feel great. Basically I did it cold turkey. Of course I should own stock in spangler candy since I have developed an affinity for dum-dums.
Dreggas
Cain,
I was NOT a believer in this stuff before trying it but had tried everything else. The fact that I am now HAPPY and not smoking and don’t regret nor even desire one in such a small span of time freaks me out but I am damn glad I did it.