Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

After roe, women are no longer free.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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Reader Interactions

164Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Here is a weird. In my favourites/bookmarks all of a sudden the Balloon Juice URL is defaulting to a late August thread (six weeks ago). I had to Google Balloon Juice to get here. Is this widespread or is it just me? Very disconcerting to say the least, as you don’t much notice anything is amiss until you read a few comments and think, Hmmm *this* sounds familiar, and then look at the date, and WTF?

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @General Winfield Stuck: I am shaking in fear and scaredness at the very thought of that vicious attack Libby. Grrrrrrrr!

  8. 8.

    Keith G

    It’s 65 deg here in Houston. Windows open. Fixin to be a two kitty night. Decent game on; Getting ready to play in the kitchen.

    Right now, life isn’t too bad.

  9. 9.

    Wile E. Quixote

    What the fuck is this nonsense. Why are all of the Dr. Manhattan action figures wearing thongs? Don’t these people know that Dr. Manhattan’s glowing blue genitalia are as much a part of his package* of superpowers as is his mastery of matter, energy, space and time (MEST)? Damnit! I’m not buying a Dr. Manhattan action figure until I can have one that’s anatomically correct!

    *Yes. I used package deliberately here. What can I say? There are times when I think I’m a 13 year old boy trapped in the body of a 43 year old man.

  10. 10.

    demkat620

    Evening all. I had to take my kids to get some clothes tonight. Can I tell you the biggest thing in girls clothes right now? (She’s 8, btw.)

    The peace symbol. Or basically anything hippie. She got a paisley shirt, a long sleeve t shirt covered in peace signs and a tie dye sweatshirt.

    Maybe, I am doing something right.

    And John, have you tried HBO’s True Blood? That show is freaking hilarious. Not quite as good as Six Feet Under but close.

  13. 13.

    burnspbesq

    If I were an NC State football fan, I would be looking for a freeway overpass to jump off. Twice in the fouth quarter, Duke punts took strange bounces, hitting a member of the coverage team in the ass. Duke recovered both times, and got two touchdowns out of it, breaking open a close game for the Blue Devils first ACC road win in six years.

  14. 14.

    gyma

    @Keith G: It’s 25 degrees here [Colorado] and I’m freezing my [fill in the blank] off.

    Lucky, lucky you.

    But to be fair, Colorado is more beautiful!

  15. 15.

    Jason Bylinowski

    Kids/Wife are gone this weekend, and I’m sick as well, so just finished a marathon rewatch of Lost season one, which kinda blew my mind a little bit. They really did have that show planned out from the beginning. Hope it ends well.

    Also rewatched some movies: the Libertine (Depp is insanely talented), and American Psycho (watched this a million times, never gets old). LOST reminded me of a movie I’d seen sometime ago, so right now I’m watching Brick (the girl who plays Claire is in it, sorta) which is really fantastic as well. I keep waiting for Rian Johnson to come out with something else, as he seems like such a natural directorial talent. This is what I do now, apparently, when I’m too sick to make music: geek out on previously watched movies in order to figure out just exactly how awesome I am for liking them. Heh, it’s fun though.

  18. 18.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Jason Bylinowski

    American Psycho (watched this a million times, never gets old)

    I watched this again last weekend. My favorite scene, which I played about a million times is “Hip to be Square”. God I love that. After watching the movie I realized that the reason why Christopher Bale is so good at being Batman is because he’s playing Bruce Wayne as Patrick Bateman, which makes sense because Bruce Wayne is a seriously twisted dude who likes to dress up as a giant flying rodent and run around at night beating up on criminals, sometimes in the company of a teenage boy. Do you think that he might be a Republican?

  20. 20.

    Keith G

    @gyma: I wouldn’t id trading for a week or two. As a transplanted Buckeye, I do miss the the wonder of a cold winter’s night in farm country, even if it comes a calling in Oct.

  21. 21.

    lamh31

    Guys,

    Ya’ll gotta read Michael Moore’s new diary over at DKOS.
    He wrote a post over on DKOS when Obama was awarded the peace prize, that lliterally said “congratulation obama…no earn it”.

    Well after some reflections, he started having seconds thoughts about his diary yesterday. He posted this over at DKOS:
    Friends,
    Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. “No, I don’t think so,” I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he’s now conducting the two wars he’s inherited. “Yeah,” she said, “but to tell him, ‘Now earn it!’? Give the guy a break — this is a great day for him and for all of us.”

    I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack’s big day. Did I — and others on the left — do the same?

  22. 22.

    shoutingattherain

    End of 2 at the Molson Center: Penguins 4, Toronto 1.

    Man, wtf is up with the Leafs this year? They are suckin’ donkey balls right now. Ron Wilson will be gone by Halloween. Is Don Cherry available?

  24. 24.

    Jason Bylinowski

    @Wile E. Quixote: “Do you think that he might be a Republican?”

    I’ve always figured Frank Miller’s Bruce Wayne was probably a winger, yeah, whereas Jeph Loeb’s was more moderate to left; my favorite incarnation though is Paul Pope’s Batman in Year One Hundred. Here he’s almost anarcho-syndicalist. Of course, NONE of the Bats are actually Republican, because in all incarnations Batman refuses to kill anyone. Mercy is for the weak in Rightsville.

  26. 26.

    General Winfield Stuck

    We have had a fairly warm October so far with daytime highs around 80. But last night it dipped into the mid fourties and was quite chilly around dawn.

    So I lit the gas furnace pilot light and turned on the heat for awhile./ I hate that smell the furnace puts out when it”s been off for 6 months. Makes me sneeze something awful.

  27. 27.

    JK

    @skippy:

    Tony Soprano plays the main wild thing in the upcoming movie based on maurice sendak’s seminal book.

    That’s great to hear. It’s just too bad they couldn’t fill the other Wild Thing roles with Tony Sirico, Joe Pesci, and Michael Imperioli. Would be very cool to hear the Wild Things speaking with thick New Jersey Accents.

    Wired has an interview with Maurice Sendak and he said he couldn’t be happier with the adaptation by Spike Jonze.

  31. 31.

    Martin

    because Bruce Wayne is a seriously twisted dude who likes to dress up as a giant flying rodent in two wetsuits and run around at night beating up on criminals gays, sometimes in the company of a teenage boy dildo. Do you think that he might be a Republican?

    Now I do.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Once again I find myself in the strange position of almost looking forward to the Sunday morning shows.

  34. 34.

    jl

    Thank you for the open thread. Just in time to report on my slapstick adventures in new Asian vegetables. My attempt to redeem myself last week was FAIL. Below I try to correct all the mistakes I made when I tried to correct my previous mistakes.

    What I thought was oppa was actually something else. The girl at the Asian vegetable stand at the farmers markets kept telling me today that what I bought last week was a sinqua, but that can’t be completely right. I did an intertubes search and seems like a sinqua is also called angled loofah, or Chinese okra, and it looks like a green accordian bellows rolled up lengthwise. I bought one of these about 6 inches long and just stir fried it for dinner. When they are that small, the sharp lengthwise ridges are tender and you just slice it up and cook it. It is good veggie filler that has a nice texture and good for soaking up other tasts, but I don’t think it has much flavor. But maybe I don’t know how to cook it to bring out the flavor, the article below says it has a very delicate and delicious flavor if you cook it right.

    http://seattlest.com/2007/01/19/uwajiwhat_loofah_squash.php

    So, I sitll don’t know what I bought last week, but it looks like a soft pale nerf zucchini and is good stir fried, or cooked up with eggs. It has a kind of cucumber taste, but better than cucumber. It turns into a kind of very pale green semi-ivory crunchy cucumbery thing if you saute it a little. A very pronounced cucumber flavor. You don’t have to peel it. I bought another one to go into scrambled eggs tomorrow.

    OK, now it turns out that oppa is actually spelled opo, and it is the same as the calabash, and is also the greenish crunchie cucumbery slices that go into vegetable sushi. Here is its entry in wikipedia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagenaria_siceraria

    So, I bought me an opo too, and will try that this week.

    Thank you to the commenter who recommended yu choi. I bought a big bunch and threw some in some soup I made for lunch. Yu choi is really good, it has a nice mustardy taste, but is not hot or strong at all.

    Anyone know what that pale nerf zucchini Chinese squash thing is? I gather from the intertubes that sinqua, or sin gwa, and words that sound like that, can be just be a generic Chinese term for squash. So, there may be a communication problem at the veggie stall, she might be just telling me that it is all ‘squash’ and doesn’t understand that I want to know the variety.

    Maybe the nerf zucchini squash is the manqua, or manqa. But there wasn’t a sign for it this week, and I forgot about that one until just now. I will get this straightened out one way or the other.

  35. 35.

    Martin

    Just got a news alert that Obama has announced he will end DADT.

    He announced that during the campaign and again after he got in office. From the looks of it, he just announced it again. It’ll be news when it’s done.

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    a swift boot to the head to Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck.

    Why would we want to raise their collectice IQ?

  40. 40.

    Yutsano

    @RedKitten: Anyone else have the feeling that Obama sees his overriding goal as bringing the US into the 21st Century? I mean, our game of catch-up is gonna go way beyond his presidency, but I’m getting the feeling what he’s doing is setting the stage for further work down the road that can’t easily be reversed even if the freeptards get the keys to the big house again.

  41. 41.

    benjoya

    livia soprano was most likely named after the mother in I, claudius. same character. and yeah, nancy marchand was great.

  42. 42.

    JK

    @burnspbesq:

    It’s probably asking for too much, but it would be great to see the Dodgers managed by Joe Torre beat those goddamn Yankees in the World Series. It would serve all those Yankee fans right who couldn’t wait to get rid of Torre.

  45. 45.

    JK

    @Chad N Freude:

    This is about as accurate as your remarks about Jewish conservatives in an earlier thread. (@Chad N Freude.) It’s Christian Bale, not Christopher

    WIN WIN WIN. This is great. Your screen name is perfect for this kind of post. Best comment of the day. I’m going to email you a beer.

  48. 48.

    LD50

    @Martin: With all the other headaches he has now, I suspect he wouldn’t bring it up unless he’s decided to move on it sooner rather than later.

  49. 49.

    Chad N Freude

    @JK: You like me! You really like me!

    Seriously, I have no — make that NO — patience for people who can’t be bothered to actually — you know — look stuff up before they comment about it.

  50. 50.

    jl

    @lamh31: thanks for the link to Michael Moore’s diary. I didn’t read yesterday’s, but today’s reflects my thoughts.

    I think I said in a comment here that the perspective in the US may be different from that in the rest of the world. From our point of view, it is an aspirational prize. But from the viewpoint in the rest of the world, Barak Hussein Obama has turned the US ship of state around from a course towards self destruction that would have taken big chunks of the rest of the world with it. Maybe from their point of view, that is enough for a prize.

    At any rate, if this prize discredits the wingnuts some more, that is more than enough to justify it for me. I’m going to go look at past recipients and see whether any look sketchy. I guess the Kissinger-Tho award should have looked sketchy from the get go, with little prospect of redemption in sight, and of course, it was a very perfunctory type of ‘end a war get a prize’ type of Nobel Peace Prize, though I am not sure how many like that have been given out. So, there is one that looks definitely worse.

    I can kind of sort of see how wingnuts have half a gripe: maybe Reagan and Gorbachev earned one for helping to end the US-USSR Cold War. But note that at the time, that prize would have blown the heads off the neocons and various ancestors of the wingnuts, which is a good index of how loony they are, because they were calling Reagan a traitor for his ‘appeasement’. Remember how those dingbats were trying to tell everyone how the end of the Cold War and the break up of the USSR was a big trick? And Bush I sometimes seemed like he wanted to keep that crazy wild good times Cold War thang rolling, didn’t he? Wonder why the loonies never liked him -I guess they are ultra tribal, and if you are out you are out. Little gestures like trying to keep the Cold War on do not good.

  51. 51.

    Brick Oven Bill

    It is beautiful here this sunset. The desert valley looks like it has been painted. The sun, which only months ago set to the right of the patio, now sets to the left (Astronomy: former Liberal Art). The average temperature is dropping. The Big Dipper has moved slowly but surely to the East. There is silence and it is in the 60s.

    So far, only one fire for the year. The wood is very dry. Excellence in media is the show ‘The Sopranos’.

  56. 56.

    jl

    correction: Gorbachev won a Peace Prize all by hisself in 1990. I shoulda checked the Nobel Prize page before I typed, and I didn’t.

    No e-mail beer for me!

  58. 58.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    An open thread without Tunch is like a day without sunshine.

    I’m trying to predict which fReichtard will have the best freak out over Obama’s speech to teh Ghey. We know Rush will say this proves Obama is gay and suggest he marry Barney Frank. (Yawn.) I’m equally sure there will be some laughable concern trolling about how Obama takes “The Homosexual Community” for granted. (Hey, they have to come up with something to replace “Democrats take the Black Community” for granted.)

    Maybe some dickweed who never has and never will serve in the military will declare he’d rather live under Sharia law than see DADT repealed.

    Do you think that he might be a Republican?

    A Republican, putting himself within five thousand miles of the possibility of violence? Bwahahaha!

  62. 62.

    Chad N Freude

    @jl:

    shoulda checked . . . before I typed, and I didn’t

    You clearly are a graduate of the Wile E Quixote school of commenting.

  63. 63.

    JK

    @Chad N Freude:

    You like me! You really like me!

    You had me at “hello”. You’re a funny guy. You know… the way you tell the story.

    Seriously, I have no—make that NO—patience for people who can’t be bothered to actually—you know—look stuff up before they comment about it.

    Bingo. Especially something so fucking easy to look up.

  64. 64.

    asiangrrlMN

    I hope you feel better soon, Cole. I woke up to snow this morning, which was most excellent. I went to tai chi class, and then I walked outside in 38 degree weather wearing a t-shirt and sweats. Very nice! Unfortunately, the snow has melted, but it’s still in the low forties. Love it. I can’t wait for winter.

  68. 68.

    Chad N Freude

    @Bhall35: Two things:
    (1) It’s neither plausible nor possible. (2) It’s what we call a joke.

    I kinda thought it would be so obvious people would ROFL. Or at least snicker. Sorry if it wasn’t as obvious as I thought.

  70. 70.

    JK

    @freelancer:

    The curiosity is fucking killing me.

    Last night your screen name was freelancer (itouch), tonight it’s freelancer.

    Dude, what gives with the 2 different screen names? I checked the BJ FAQ before posting, and couldn’t find squat to unravel this riddle wrapped inside an enigma.

  74. 74.

    Bhall35

    @Chad N Freude: Yeah, as I kept researching it seemed ridiculous, but I’m not hip to Gustavo Dudamel references (despite knowing BJ commenters are notoriously clever). But I really need to know the origins of this piece of Dadaesque beauty, so I was more than willing to consider it.

  76. 76.

    Chad N Freude

    @JK: I’ve been checking my e-mail, but the beer hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe a case of beer would work.

  81. 81.

    Chad N Freude

    @Bhall35: Dudamel is bigger in LA right now than … Britney (is she still big?) … the most recent disappeared blonde on Fox News … exploding rockets on the moon … Obama’s Nobel Prize (really) … the impending epic fail of health care reform … you name it. I didn’t go to the concert, but apparently he really is totally brilliant at what he does. Would that we could say the same of our legislators.

  82. 82.

    jl

    I suggest that some one send Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend to Beck, and maybe the weirdo Texas GOPer who is afraid hate crimes legislation will produce a second Great Depression due to permissiveness. It is clearly a menace, and should be outlawed. Will need to new federal security force with a special czar to control it, so will be good for jobs.

  84. 84.

    JK

    @Chad N Freude:

    I’ve been checking my e-mail, but the beer hasn’t arrived yet.

    Sorry for the delay. I’m waiting to hear back from Skip Gates and James Crowley to find out what beers they want. I wanted to kill three birds with one send tonight.

  90. 90.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JK: I don’t own one, either. I am just extrapolating from the itouch. I could be completely wrong.

    @JK: Yes. I have allergies, so that’s part of it. I also hate the heat. That’s another. Winter is my fave by far, then autumn, then spring. We shall not discuss summer.

  95. 95.

    JK

    @freelancer (itouch):

    I shamelessly stole it from robertdsc. When I’m on a computer, I’ll use a normal tag.

    Many thanks for your explanation. I’m seriously behind the curve when it comes to IPhones, cell phones, PDAs, and all other handheld devices. I’ve never owned or used any of them.

  99. 99.

    Phoebe

    1. Absolutely yes about Nancy Marchand. One thing about the Sopranos was how insanely well done the smaller roles were, and how well done. Tony’s mom and sister both were just jaw-droppingly flawless. The Wire, which I did love, well, it had good smaller roles too, but the bit parts were sometimes hilariously if distractingly wretched. That was never true about the Sopranos. The teachers in the teachers lounge in Season 4, yikes!

    2. I just saw Michael Moore’s commie movie and it was good fun and edumacational to boot. Yes he did some tiresome stunts, and those were the stale nuts in the brownie, but dang, the rest of it came through. Lots of riveting archival footage in particular.

  101. 101.

    JK

    @asiangrrlMN:

    We shall not discuss summer.

    I live for the summer and tolerate the autumn and winter.

    My Top Seasons List
    1. Summer
    2. Spring
    3. Autumn
    4. Winter

    In light of your statement quoted above, would you consider this line to be a major league diss?

    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  102. 102.

    Yutsano

    @JK: If you regard the fact that English summers are almost identical to Minnesota ones in terms of time and temperament, then you might survive with your genitalia intact.

  105. 105.

    freelancer (itouch)

    @JK:
    it’s okay. I don’t have cable.

    On the plus side, my friend introduced me to Marc maron’s WTF podcast. It is funny, smart, and entertaining. The conversation they had about Mad Men combined with your praise of it have nudged me over the edge to restart the show, tabla rasa.

  106. 106.

    jl

    @JK: That is A-OK, the whole point of that one is that a summer day is a piece of green s h * t for Lily The Dog rolling compared to the intended lad or lass, right, who was da bomb compared to some stinking summers day.

    I like spring summer fall and winter equally, if I can chose my hemisphere and locale.

  108. 108.

    jl

    @Yutsano: This kind Ultimate Muscle Roller whatever it is kind of thing will take over, if we have hate crimes legislation. A GOPer Congressman told me so. They had this at the end of the Roman Empire, as every schoolchild knows (or should know).

  109. 109.

    JK

    @Yutsano:

    If you regard the fact that English summers are almost identical to Minnesota ones in terms of time and temperament…

    I’m totally unfamiliar with the summer climate of Britain. A satisfying summer day for me is sunny, 80 degrees, and 10% humidity.

  110. 110.

    PanAmerican

    Some crappy streams of the US Honduras World Cup Qualifier. Honduras sold the US TV rights to some closed circuit outfit. WTF? I thought that died in like 1978??

  111. 111.

    AhabTRuler

    I am going to rebunk this photo, and say:

    a) I think that despite the controversy, Henri will be accepting the Nobel Cute Prize for Preciousness,

    b) to celebrate Halloween and October, I think everyone should go out and adopt a black cat, and

    c)@asiangrrlMN: you really should consider yourself to be Henri’s godmother (or something), as you convinced me to get a blackie. I guess that means that L-dub should also consider herself a sort of godmother, but from there it just gets complicated…

    …honored voyeurs, I guess?

  113. 113.

    JK

    @Chad N Freude:

    It was a smart-ass snark, dude. No offense intended.

    I wasn’t offended in any way whatsoever. I’m a little fed up with myself about my current situation which leaves me with insufficient disposable income to buy those items.

  115. 115.

    asiangrrlMN

    @AhabTRuler: Oh my gosh! He just makes me melt from all the cuteness. I would be thrilled to be an honorary voyeur of the absolutely adorable Henri.

    By the way, in many states, you can’t adopt a black cat within weeks of Halloween or, in some states, the month of October. Why? Because of the irrational fear that the cats will be used in satanic rituals. It’s stupid because black cats have such a hard time getting adopted as it is.

    @JK: I am so not talking to you now. A summer’s day, indeed. Sniff.

    @Yutsano: Ha! That’s a good one. It’s indicative of why you are my fake-hubby #2.

  117. 117.

    freelancer (itouch)

    @JK:

    You shouldn’t feel too bad. I just recovered from a 10-month old hospital bill and had some free cash so I decided to reward myself. I think of it as a 6-month belated b-day present.

  118. 118.

    SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta

    A nice wrap of Obama’s Nobel Price win by Al Giordano:
    http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3519/congratulations-dude

    The skinny community organizer kid with the big ears in the White House has motivated your multi-racial youth to drag you, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century. Can’t you see why those looking at the United States from the outside in – after so many years of having only feelings of dread and fear over what it might do next to them – might feel a great wave of relief and want to express it in this way?

  120. 120.

    JK

    @freelancer (itouch):

    The conversation they had about Mad Men combined with your praise of it

    It’s weird, I’m 45 yrs old and the only tv drama series I remember loving as a kid were Star Trek and Columbo.

    In recent years I’ve loved Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Shield, The West Wing, House, Rescue Me, Breaking Bad, Damages, ER, The Riches, Law and Order, Law and Order:CI, and Law and Order:SVU.

  121. 121.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Bhall35: No. I only got a cell phone after years of cajoling from family. They thought it best if I had it with me when I drive in the winter. So, I got one, but I keep it off and tucked away in my purse. I hate talking on the phone, and the screen is too small. Plus, I can’t use a Qwerty keyboard, and there is no Dvorak system app yet (as far as I know).

  126. 126.

    SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta

    @JK: I agree. The Field restored my sanity many, many times during the campaign last year.

  127. 127.

    Yutsano

    @JK: It has been a topic of conversation with my British boss, who is now happy to be dwelling in the desert of Washington (look it up, there is one!) and finally truly warm for the first time in his life. Of course his wife might have something to do with that as well. He was just in England for three weeks discussing family business (and goofing around) apparently he’s lost his pinting legs and almost froze the whole time.

  128. 128.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Wait, I didn’t read this carefully enough. MN summers are hot (eighties and nineties) and very sunny. They are not like the Brit summers at all, except in length.

    @AhabTRuler: Yes, really. I am a Dvorak typist. It’s much more intuitive, better ergonomically, and I can type much faster. I love it.

  130. 130.

    JK

    @asiangrrlMN:

    There is no Dvorak system app yet (as far as I know).

    You’ve become number one with a bullet on my cool list with that disclosure. I apologize for my mention of the S word. I swear I’ll never post links to Blanktime or Blanktime Blues even though I love those songs.

    Do I have to go all Bonasera on you now? Oh, I forgot you haven’t seen the Godfather. Bonasera asks Vito Corleone, “Be My Friend”? Can we break virtual bread?

  131. 131.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JK: Really? Do you use Dvorak, too? I don’t know anyone else who does. If you want to send me booze, I like Maker’s Mark and any good gin or rum. I would break virtual bread with you any time!

    P.S. My brother showed me the system a few years ago, and I forgot how to use Qwerty after a week. I hadn’t mastered the Dvorak system yet (I used a Sharpie to write the new letters on my old keyboard and downloaded the software from online), so for a month, I had to hunt and peck. Now, if I have to use a Qwerty keyboard with no Dvorak software, I am completely lost.

  132. 132.

    JK

    @freelancer (itouch):

    Don’t worry about it… It’s not where you start, it’s where you mature.

    I’m not worried about it. It’s more a case of my incredulity that the number of quality tv drama series could be so much higher today than it was in the period from the late 1960’s to the late 1970’s.

  135. 135.

    JK

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Do you use Dvorak, too?

    No, I’ve never used Dvorak. I’ve just read about it and have always been intrigued by it. I’m just completely floored and blown away by your revelation because YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON I’VE EVER MET WHO USES DVORAK. I never dreamed I would ever meet a Dvorak user in my lifetime. Just goes to show ya, huh? This is the reason why you have effortlessly propelled yourself to NUMERO UNO on my Cool List.

  136. 136.

    General Winfield Stuck

    For Iced Tea lovers, here is a link for powdered Matcha green tea,, that makes the best iced tea on the planet. No need to strain it, it desolves into solution by itself. One heaping tablespoon makes two gallons of iced tea, that is the best there is, imho.

    I heat a full mug of distilled water in the microwave and stir in the tablespoon of powdered Matcha, then pour half and half into two gallons of bottled distilled H2O. You can add sugar or sweetener before or after, but dissolves better stirred into the warmed water in the mug before mixing with the 2 gallons of water.

  138. 138.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Chad N. Freude

    @JK: You like me! You really like me!
    Seriously, I have no—make that NO—patience for people who can’t be bothered to actually—you know—look stuff up before they comment about it.

    Wow, I misspoke, or misswrote anyways and wrote “Christopher Bale” instead of “Christian Bale”. Yeah, you got me there. You really did, obviously invalidating everything else I’ve ever written. Got any substantive arguments?

  139. 139.

    burnspbesq

    @Chad N Freude:

    This is what happens in a city without an NFL team – conductors become household names.

    I keed, of course. But Dudamel is a force of nature, and for a town built on shallow, lowest-common-denominator entertainment, the importance of the Phil to civic life in LA is really surprising. Eager to see the broadcast of Thursday night’s concert on PBS in a couple of weeks; the Adams piece that was given its world premiere is supposed to be something really special.

  142. 142.

    JK

    @Polish the Guillotines:

    THANK YOU

    Everything I need to know to about life I learned from The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, Mean Streets and The Sopranos

    Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.

    Never take sides with anyone against the family.

    Never let anyone outside the family know what you’re thinking.

    Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

  145. 145.

    Steeplejack

    @JK:

    That would be poetic justice. But I hope anyone beats the Yankees. I think Philadelphia could do it, but I don’t know if the Rockies have the mojo. We’ll see. And it’s not a done deal that the Yanks will make it to the World Series. Still some games to be played.

  146. 146.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: I will say, however, that the new concert hall is a fantastic piece of architecture, the Disneyfied name of it be damned. And that organ! I would LOVE to know how they got that to sound so amazing and look so crazy!

  147. 147.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JK: Heh. Thanks. It’s really a great system. I will never go back to Qwerty. Give it a whirl if it intrigues you. It took me approximately a month to learn the system cold (and, I will confess that I am not sure of all the symbols like the +/= key), and I type super-fast now.

  148. 148.

    JK

    @Steeplejack:

    With regard to the Yankees, I’m a fatalist right now. Barring the sun going nova, a gamma ray burst, or an asteroid hitting the Earth, I fully expect the Yankees to go thru these playoffs like Sherman went thru Georgia. I would so love to be proven wrong on this.

  149. 149.

    Martin

    @Steeplejack:
    The Angels are probably the best bet do it. They’ve got a winning record against the Yankees. They don’t have as good an offense as the Yankees (who does) but they can shut down the Yankee offense effectively.

  151. 151.

    JK

    @Steeplejack:

    I love football, but baseball has always been my favorite sport. The thing that drives me absolutely crazy is how the insatiable greed of owners and the goddamn players union is killing baseball. With their current roster, the Yankees are poised to inaugurate another fucking dynasty. I’m not an econmist, but I think baseball must adopt a SALARY CAP. The more time that passes without a salary cap, the stronger the stranglehold the Yankees will have in terms of payroll gap with all the other teams.

  152. 152.

    freelancer (itouch)

    @JK:
    greed drives you nuts?! Brother, this is America. We took local p2p corruption and institutionalized it. Baseball’s flawed. Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that wrestling’s fake.

  153. 153.

    Steeplejack

    @Martin:

    Yeah, I think the Angels are the best bet to stop the Yankees. Minnesota is out of it, like they’re still floating in some trippy “Like, wow, man, we beat the Tigers” dream world. Ugh.

  154. 154.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: My brother thinks it’s just that the Twins had to play the extra game then get on the plane and travel so they’re just tired. Makes some sense since they’re not really getting any kind of break any time soon (at least as far as I know).

  155. 155.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    the Disneyfied name of it be damned

    Money talks. If it weren’t for Disney $, it wouldn’t have gotten built. Toss $50 million or so into the endowment, and the main performing space could be “The Yutsano Theater at Walt Disney Concert Hall.”

  156. 156.

    Beauzeaux

    @benjoya:

    livia soprano was most likely named after the mother in I, claudius.

    Not just named after, but largely patterned after the awesomely evil Livia, wife of Augustus Caesar, on “I, Claudius.” And as good as “The Sopranos” could be, “I, Claudius” is still the most perfectly crafted television series ever made. Siân Phillips played Livia and it’s a mystery why she never starred in anything else, given her formidable talents.

  157. 157.

    Beauzeaux

    @benjoya:

    livia soprano was most likely named after the mother in I, claudius.

    Not just named after, but largely patterned after the awesomely evil Livia, wife of Augustus Caesar, on “I, Claudius.” And as good as “The Sopranos” could be, “I, Claudius” is still the most perfectly crafted television series ever made. Siân Phillips played Livia and it’s a mystery why she never starred in anything else, given her formidable talents.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    That excuse buys them one game. After all, they had to play almost every day during the regular season, with occasional late flights, etc. And this is the playoffs. I feel sorry for them, but they just seem to be mentally out of it. Yeah, they haven’t been getting the breaks. But, hey, it’s the playoffs. You can’t expect any breaks.

  160. 160.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: No, it’s because the Twins do this every year. They win or lose on the last day of the season, and if they win, they get swept by the Yanks in the first round of the playoffs. That’s why I try so hard not to get my hopes up every year, and every year, like a sucker, I fall for their act once again.

    Sigh.

  164. 164.

    ignatov

    “how good Nancy Marchand’s character was (Tony’s mom).”

    Remember when she was Lou Grant’s boss?

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