Go vote!
BTW- I’ve noticed that since I got pets a couple years back when I got Tunch, song lyrics change. For example, this morning I found myself singing “Oh, sweet Lily, your daddy’s got ‘dem deep ellum blues.”
by John Cole| 93 Comments
This post is in: Dog Blogging
Comments are closed.
Bad Horse's Filly
I voted! Did you.
BTW- I’ve noticed that since I got pets a couple years back when I got Tunch, song lyrics change.
Glad I’m not the only one.
Laura W
A Bitsy Beg AND THE RETURN OF THE EDIT FUNCTION ALL IN ONE MORNING?
This is going to be my luckiest day EVER.
Bad Horse's Filly
Ooo, edit and deletion buttons have arrived. Now I await breathlessly our HTML buttons for dummies and I’ll be soooo very happy.
EDIT (YEAH!): L-dub beat me to it.
AhabTRuler
“Oh when you go down to deep ellum, put your Greenies in your shoes, ’cause those puppies in deep ellum, got those deep ellum blues.”
robertdsc
The black cat makes me laugh.
SiubhanDuinne
Singing to pets is one of life’s special pleasures, whether you’re riffing on a real song or making it up yourself.
I used to do this in a kind of deep growly sing-song to my dear (departed) black cat Hamish:
I like your FACE and I like your NOSE
I like your PAWS and I like your TOES
I like your NECK and I like your PURR
I like your BACK and I like your FUR
I like your TUMMY and I like your TAIL
And I like the place where you used to be a MALE!
bey
Are you talking the oogums to her yet? Once you start talking the oogums and giving them their own songs, it’s all over but the crying.
I had a cat who had her back feet amputated (long story – mom didn’t chew through the umbilical cords) . If Miss Piggy and Joan Crawford had a baby, it would have been Lois. Her motto was What have you done for me LATELY? Anyway, she had a song sung to the tune of Our House
Our kitty
The one who is so neat
She’s pretty
But she don’t got many feet
Monkeyfister
I do the same thing for my three cats all the time. It’s funny how Dead lyrics work so well for changing into pet-love songs! It is reassuring to know that I am not the only one who does this.
–mf
John Cole
The webmistress is doing the long awaited redesign and work this weekend. Did you not notice the top banner is also different?
Demo Woman
Daily I have voted for Bitsy. I just know one of these days Bitsy will win.
Moxie and I dance and sing, not sure why I’m bragging.
Laura W
@robertdsc: You should live with her! Character x 12.
I posted this on the open thread in response to a question about Little Bitsy, but Annie is in all the ads because she was rescued by the same woman.
If you can click thru to flickr, you might enjoy her most recent fashion shoot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13481225@N03/3933567631/
@John: Did you sell the blog or what? No longer John Cole’s?
Skepticat
It would be too cruel for me to sing to my cats, especially as their hearing is so acute. Actually it’s cruel for me to sing to anyone/anything.
Speaking of cute, as ordered I’ve voted for Bitsy this morning (her numbers are looking good) and also for North Shore Feline Rescue at http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com.
(John, thank you so much for the edit function.)
Jackie
I sing made up verses of jeeper creepers to my dogs. I have no singing skills and they are the only ones who like it when I sing. Their joy in silliness is one of their major virtues.
By the way Laura W, you have outdone yourself with the
Bitsy ads!
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
voted. Bitsy’s doing well this week. glad to see the design is ongoing, but I’m not seeing anything on the individual pages in the banner.
arguingwithsignposts
And it’s back. And I’m editing just to check it out. w00t!
arguingwithsignposts
Also, I hope you’re including a “subscribe to comments” plug-in so we don’t have to refresh the page all the time to see the additional comments.
BTW, is Sekimori Design doing the redesign?
AhabTRuler
Laura W
Oh Good Lord you are brave, John Cole.
FAQ page, where readers ask the questions?
I’m going for a walk now. Must be disciplined. Must stay classy.
Bad Horse's Filly
I go away a few minutes, I come back and
Too cool for school.
EDIT: I suppose this only illustrates how truly pathetic my life is, now, doesn’t it?
John Cole
test
test
South of I-10
@arguingwithsignposts: I know you have been having some rough times lately – this song just popped up on my iPod, and I thought of you. I wanted to try out that neat new linky button too. :) Hope it works.
RedKitten
Oh my sweet jumping jeebus, the html buttons are back. Oh frabjous day!
And a FAQ, where we can ask the questions? I second Laura — that’s just a real invitation to mischief. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the results. :)
Bad Horse's Filly
@Laura W: Ummm, I don’t want to alarm you, L-dub, but by frame three she looks like she might kill you in your sleep.
(p.s. I’ve hooked onto the L-dub moniker because I’m watching Middle Man on DVD).
Oooo, see how I did that? Italics and linking. We are BACK people.
General Winfield Stuck
OT
Bids started at 25 large. I just heard the winner was for 63,000. Bet it was Rich Lowry’s bag of Starbursts that one the day.
Since my roll of plug nickels didn’t get the job done, I am going Galt to lick me wounds.
Seanly
I don’t mean to be mean, but how long is this election? Seems like it’s been going on for weeks…
arguingwithsignposts
@South of I-10:
worked. thanks for the thoughts. thank everyone for the thoughts. your kindness is astounding. F–king liberals! :D
General Winfield Stuck
Since we got edit and buttons back, to add insult to injury, now my flawless grammer/spell won’t stand out in the crowd.
Libertini
You are not a true dog owner if you do not sing to your dog. I have lots, but the first, and still favorite is Jake, Jake, Jake….Jake,Jake, Jake, such a cutie, scratch his bootie. (KC and the Sunshine band for those of you whose musical life didn’t come of age in the 70s and 80s.)
South of I-10
@arguingwithsignposts: The song makes me happy, so I was hoping it would do the same for you.
arguingwithsignposts
There’s a bj dictionary now too. Burkean Bells should be the first definition. Followed by Clown Shoes.
Laura W
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Oh, that was her Grace Jones pose. The look I love and linked to is Diane Keaton, REDS. You’ll find a Hepburn in there, Monroe, Aunt Jemimah, Inaugural Aretha, and of course, Helen Keller. She’s quite versatile.
I like L-dub just fine because Ahab started it and it always makes me feel connected to Bush.
Fun with buttons! A link, just because we can.
Do you love David Gray like I love David Gray?
arguingwithsignposts
@arguingwithsignposts:
so i’m still getting moderation for s-h-o-e-s. I never did get that.
My original comment:
There’s a bj dictionary now too. Burkean Bells should be the first definition. Followed by Clown Sh0es.
Hillary Rettig / www.lifelongactivist.com
How about
We will, we will walk you!
Hill
Laura W
@General Winfield Stuck:
Had I been drinking wine, it would’ve come out my nose.
@Seanly: I know it’s annoyingly long. We are ending week 7 of 12. If we push her into #1, we can shut up till the semis! Let that be your incentive people!
nogo postal
deep Elem? Tap yer toes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx1LqnIJLj8
South of I-10
@Laura W: Hey, I love David Gray! Saw him at the Woodlands a few years back. My iPod obviously wants my house to be clean quickly, cause some Bluerunners just popped up. Best cleaning (while dancing) music ever!
Brachiator
@John Cole:
Well, one thing. You can’t get back to the main page by clicking on “Balloon Juice.”
You have to click on “Consistently Wrong.”
This seems to invite frustration.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Laura W: I like that song. I don’t know David Gray but I may have to get to know him.
I don’t want to say this too loud, because we know how sensitive John is, but does the banner feel a little off…or maybe asymmetrical…to anyone else?
And cause we need a little BAD this morning:
Bad Things
Just Some Fuckhead
Yer an idiot.
Laura W
@South of I-10: I can’t believe I’m still sitting here, but now you’ve really encouraged me. LOVE THIS:
Please Forgive Me
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W:
I’ve been thinking about buying it and turning it into a gay dating site.
Hypatia
testing new stuff
bold text
italics
Hypatia
testing new stuff
hmm… not much progress on the block quote front
asiangrrlMN
Holy shit! It’s all back! BackI
sayscream!You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’!
Linky button no work.
Trinity
Wha?….Is this?…..Is this Christmas??
Lovin’ the upgrades John.
And I voted for Bitsy too! Is it Miller time yet?
South of I-10
@Laura W: Probably my favorite song of his – it was great live! Kiss Before I Go – currently playing South of I-10.
burnspbesq
Hooray buttons!
But what is the “mippin” thing that is suddenly the only way I can access this site from a mobile device? Me not sure me likee.
JenJen
Thanks for this post, mostly because I vote for Bitsy daily but am really weary of clicking on or anywhere near a Steelers logo.
John, dog ownership looks [i]so[/i] good on you. :-)
Plus, the return of comments functions! This is better than Fitzmas!!
JenJen
Bwaaaah!! Fooled again, no edit button!
lost in GA
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, what gives with “mippin? At first I thought my phone’s browser had been hijacked.
burnspbesq
@lost in GA:
Details of the nefarious plot emerge. Mippin has a WordPress plugin. Speculation is rampant that
JohnTunch will soon be running his entire global empire from a mobile device.Fred Fnord
I hate mippin. Please make it stop on iPhone. I have no idea whether I want to read something or not. It shows up ugly.
The iPhone does not have a mobile browser, it has a REAL browser. Simplifying things for it just makes them uglier.
At least let there be a button iPhone users can push to see the real site.
-fred
Warren Terra
So, I’m viewing this on my cheap-ish webphone, a Samsung Instinct, and it has two browsers: the Obigo browser that came with it (slow, badly memory-limited such that in can only show 50 or so comments here, doesn’t always display right, but well integrated into the phone) and the Opera Mini browser I added (fast, displays pages properly, doesn’t run out of memory trying to load long Balloon-Juice threads, sadly poorly integrated with the phone such that I can only use 200 characters in its text box). As you may be able to detect, I vastly prefer the Opera Mini browser.
Unfortunately, the newly updated Balloon-Juice recognizes Opera Mini, and instead of displaying Balloon-Juice for me instead I get an unholy abomination called “Mippin” (thank heavens, Obigo apparently escapes it). This is bad. Mippin Must Die.
I’m being hyperbolic above, but it is absolutely true that Mippin completely destroys the site. The home page gives only the post titles, the posts themselves are rendered in a large-font single-column format, and only the most recent 10? comments are shown. And I think the comment I left through Mippin went astray. Nearly every attempt I’ve seen by a site to create a “mobile-friendly” version has been a disaster, a significantly worse version than if they’d just left it alone and trusted the mobile browser, but Mippin is in a class of Awful all by itself.
We used to give you a lot of grief about our favorite blog, WordPress > Error, but honestly I’d trade Mippin for that in a moment.
MikeJ
Since the “consistently wrong”is now text perhaps new mottoes will be rotating in.
It is annoying to not be able to click on the logo though. One of the reasons I never read comments at Washington Monthly. No easy way to get back to the main page.
MikeJ
@Warren Terra: Can you change your user-agent string? (I know, long shot on a phone.)
Warren Terra
@ Mike J, #55
I don’t know enough even to know what a user-agent-string is, so, no. I could learn what it is, I suppose, but I’m not terribly likely to go meddling all that much in the innards of the software.
The especially frustrating part is that the Opera Mini browser has its own “mobile” mode, which I keep switched off, which could emulate some of the changes Mippin makes in a less damaging manner – but Mippin doesn’t check to see whether my browser is operating in “mobile mode” before inflicting its damage upon the site.
licensed to kill time
Are the FAQ and dictionary pages intentionally blank? Do we have to fill them in ourselves, like a class project or something?
(Also, I left a variant of this comment over on the Open Thread, where everyone has left, apparently. I tried to edit my comment and it spewed gibberish all over the page. I like to spew my own gibberish, thankyouverymuchwordpress! But it’s nice to have the html buttons again.)
JenJen
Home today but I usually read Balloon Juice on the road… so thought I’d load it up on the Blackberry after hearing of this Mippin nonsense above.
I concur… it’s awful. The site doesn’t even look like the site. I also use Opera Mini, if that has anything to do with this; Opera Mini takes all the “mobile” out of sites and performs like an actual browser. I’ve never seen it do this, so is there any way to bypass the mobile detection that routes us to Mippin, or something?
It’s not the end of the world or anything, mind you; I hate bitching about this site at all, and I’m going to stop now. :-)
freelancer
The site is breathing and changing.
In the mouth of madness, this calls for a little Jeff Mangum.
“I luv you Jeeesu-us Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist!”
Song cracks me up every time.
John Cole
I disabled mippin.
burnspbesq
@John Cole:
Thanks rain down on you from mobile users.
Demo Woman
@Brachiator: Thanks for the information about “consistently wrong”. I did notice that jumping up and down on Balloon Juice did not work.
J.
If you do not vote for Bitsy, I will sic Son of Catzilla on you! No one is safe from his feline wrath!
licensed to kill time
I voted, also, too!
You just have to read this.
It involves monkeys, golf balls and dogwhistles.
J.
P.S. The only problem with voting for Bitsy (who seems to have a bit of an advantage) is that I wind up spending waaaay too much time on that site looking at (and voting for) all the other cute doggies. Thanks a lot, @Laura W. and @John Cole. : (
Robertdsc-iphone
Mippin was orange. Was BJ about to become the new Great Orang Satan?
I like the new features, also.
Warren Terra
@ John Cole, #60
My undying gratitude for your valorous deeds in the slaying of the accursed Mippin, scourge of the mobile telephone.
sylvia
Thanks to all of you that are voting for Little Bitsy! She was on the local radio station this last week and will be in our local paper this coming week. We are determined to win this thing and couldn’t do it without all your votes!
Thanks guys!!
The Other Steve
I’m starting a counter-protest.
Mippin is the greatest thing since sliced bread!
Bring back Mippin!
bago
User-agent string is what you send in your http Get headers to identify to the webserver what OS, browser, etc, that you are using.
burnspbesq
@The Other Steve:
Sliced bread is vastly overrated.
Andy K
I wish I could remember where I read it, but there’s a study that shows that 85% of all elderly, spinstress “cat ladies” were once libertarian military veterans. The remainder were characters in the plays of Tennessee Williams. Go figure.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Andy K: lolz
bago
It lets you know what you can do with the request.
Example:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.0.590; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.5.30428; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)
As you can tell, I might be a .net developer.
Just Some Fuckhead
@bago: I guessed that based on the sheer amount of time you spend on Balloon-Juice.
burnspbesq
Bruce Bartlett has been en fuego of late. From a well-reasoned take on the life and work of Irving Kristol:
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1109/remembering-irving-kristol
burnspbesq
Ugh. Blockquote is still limited to one paragraph. The second paragraph above is also from Bartlett.
Katherine
@Libertini:
I miss singing to my dogs . . . one died about 2 years ago and the other died just last month. Especially my Sunshine (the one who died 2 years ago) . . . “You are my Sunshine” “Here Comes Sunshine”, she put up with my singing just about every day and never seemed to hold it against me. Boy do I miss her . . . singing to cats just isn’t the same.
JenJen
@John Cole: Many thanks!!
bago
@Just Some Fuckhead: And a very annoyed java developer. One file for every class?
Linkmeister
@bago: “One file for every class” reminded me of Jan and Dean’s Surf City, specifically this line in the chorus: “Two girls for every boy.”
Yes, yes, sexist, but hey, beach culture in the 1960s.
benjoya
i knew eventually there’s be a thread for my calicos’ theme song: (to the tune of “green acres”):
Ann Richards is the cat for me
Ann Richards and Aung San Suu Kyi!
Ann’s Spreadin out so far and wide,
almost as fat as Elvis when he died
licensed to kill time
Gosh, has BJ gone Galt? No new posts or even comments for, like, forever….
Fulcanelli
Er, Mr. Cole, yer dictionary is a little, ah, thin? Jes’ sayin’.
AhabTRuler
That’s funny, I have never heard of it referred to as a dictionary before. And I really don’t think that John wants to expose this matter in such a public forum.
Legalize
Test
The Saff
I think a history of Balloon Juice would be helpful, at least for me (you know, an “about” section). I know John used to be on the “dark side” and that he was able to “find the light” but it would be fun to know how this thing came to be.
And maybe have links open in a new window so you don’t lose your place in the string.
Oh, and I sing to, and about, my cats all the time.
Just Some Fuckhead
@The Saff:
John and I had an incredible mescaline trip and when it was over, I was straight again and he was a Democrat. I don’t usually date Republicans, especially the ex-military types that have a hard-on for The Cars but as it happened, The Cars were on the stereo and one of us had a hard-on. Next thing ya know, we’re laying on the futon with the faux aztec throw- a tangle of arms, legs and coital fluids and John says, “Hey, I’ve got some mescaline and Mount Gay rum.” I remember making the obligatory “Mount Gay” joke and we both giggled before going up to the mountaintop and coming back down hours later, both of us changed men.
Just Some Fuckhead
However.. I may be remembering some of the details wrong and there may be someone else out there with a competing narrative to explain the conversion of John Cole………..
Lewis Carroll
Voted, and will vote again tomorrow.
BTW, John, my Dad sent this, and I think you’ll like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytedC1heY_8
josefina
What about nicknames, John? “Silly Lily” is obvious but I’m quite sure you’ve come up with many more, seeing as that’s another thing they don’t tell you about when you acquire a dog. You must come up with several nonsensical variations on their name, as well as cognomens related to their personality, appearance, and/or habits, and use them frequently. (However, the high-pitched baby voice is NOT mandatory and is indeed discouraged.)
Cases in point:
Jupiter (RIP): Joop, Joopie-Joop, Doglet 1, Spotty Boy, Skritchy Butt, Macho Dog, Prince Tailio, Egg-Sucking Bastard*
Rilla: Rillabeast, Rilla-rill-rill, Doglet 2, Yellow Girl, Fetchzilla, Porkina Fatso, Smiley, Old Lady
*(True fact: He taught himself, in the following order, how to a) open the refrigerator and eat the eggs, b) perform a) then close the refrigerator, c) perform a) and b) then hide the ravaged carton, d) perform a), b) and c) then barrel past me as soon as I opened the door and go sit in his “BAD! BAD!” corner of the deck until I called him in. His ashes rest in an ostrich-egg shell on the shelf above by desk.)
Germane Jackson
I voted, although I don’t think the dog is all that cute, frankly.
Comrade Mary
@Just Some Fuckhead: This HAS to go in the FAQ.