Have at it!
***Update***
Or maybe not. Comcast has now decided I no longer deserve CBS, either.
I’m now down to basically AMC, USA, SYFY, and HBO. And there is a thirty minute hold to get through.
This post is in: Open Threads
Have at it!
***Update***
Or maybe not. Comcast has now decided I no longer deserve CBS, either.
I’m now down to basically AMC, USA, SYFY, and HBO. And there is a thirty minute hold to get through.
Comments are closed.
Phyllis
David Gregory’s “exclusive guest” this morning is…President McCain. Whoda thunkit.
I’m beginning to think Gregory’s deliberately f**king with us at this point.
mr. whipple
I can’t WAIT to see John McCain. He’s hardly ever on my teevee. I really admire how he lost gracefully and faded into the background.
Brian J
Yesterday, while at a wake in Maryland, I saw a lot of Republican relatives. Apparently, Obama is now not bipartisan enough, because he’s constantly complimenting someone even as he’s attacking them. And this goes against what he campaigned on, which was bringing the country together and working with Republicans. Or something like that. I didn’t really bring up politics, but one uncle and the brother of my grandpa started to talk, and something similar to the sentiment above was mentioned.
Perhaps I missed something, because I was trying not to be drawn into the conversation, but man, if I heard that correctly, now more than ever I am convinced we are living in two different worlds.
Phyllis
@mr. whipple: Average workweek for MTP Guest Booker:
Monday: 9:00 a.m., coffee, scan front pages of major newspapers.
9:15: Take call from Sen McCain’s office-“Again this Sunday at the usual time?”
9:30-Friday at 1:00: Golf, naps, whatnot
Steeplejack
Open thread! Yee-haw. I have been up for two hours, impatiently waiting for one. And, er, now I have nothing to say.
Looking forward to a quiet day puttering around the man-cave. Maybe a trip to Micro Center to get some RAM for a hand-me-down laptop (it has only 256 MB–eek!) and to marvel at the gadgets.
Brian J
@Phyllis:
I thought you might be joking, because there’s just no way he’d be on television yet again. So I went to the “Meet the Press” site, and sure enough, it’s touting an exclusive with St. John McCain the Maverick from Arizona.
Words simply fail.
Pasquinade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ5U9PNzfuw
“start over”
“clean sheet of paper”
“step by step”
Keith
Predicted Dick Gregory quotes for the day:
“Senator McCain, the President rather harshly responded to a statement you made during the summit. Would you care to rehash the statement for us and tell us the entire genesis of how you came to craft said statement?”
“Senator, is there anything else that you would like to get off your chest?”
PaulW
Do we have a legal basis for suing the Sunday Morning talk shows for misrepresentation? Or fraud? Anything to get these idiots to start bringing onto their shows people who actually know what they’re talking about?
mr. whipple
Gregory: “Senator McCain, at the healthcare summit Obama was rather rude to you. Is that any way to treat a war hero?”
MikeJ
Using a set top box or not? I know they told me that any tvs that didn’t use a box would lose most channels and they provided a basic box for the one tv without regular set top.
Phyllis
Wishing I had thought of the Batter Blaster. I mean, what a freakin’ brilliant, obvious idea staring one in the face. Going to get some this week to try.
valdivia
Oh John I think your channel selection though limited is better for your mental health than having to deal with the sunday wank fest.
I do know that here in DC we got a comcast mailer letting us know that March 16 they are switching everything to a new digital system and if you have the wrong box you are screwed. Some sort of systemic upgrade. Wonder you if you can get in touch with them via live chat or internet medium instead of having to wait for an hour to talk to their customer service.
SGEW
Huh . . . comment posting failure, for some reason?
Oh well.
Steeplejack
Cole:
Silverado just started on AMC. Can’t go wrong with that. Reruns of White Collar and Burn Notice on USA. Meh. Can’t recommend Stephen King’s The Langoliers on SyFy. Idea for a (very) short story padded out to tedious length.
John Cole
@MikeJ: I have cable boxes. Both tv’s are HD.
Something went wonky during the last snow.
Laura W
Stretch: “Senator McCain, show me on the doll where That One touched you.”
Elizabelle
If I ever run into David Gregory, in a restaurant or something, I am going to say: “Hey, I know you. You’re that guy on TV with John McCain!”
zzyzx
Did you try disconnecting the box from cable, turning it off, plugging the cable back in, and turning it back on?
electricgrendel
So I know you probably can’t do this given your injury, but if the televisions you are watching have boxes connected to them then you may be able to unscrew the coaxial from the cable in on the box and run it directly to the back of your television. You will need to change the input the the cable input and possibly run a channel scan. But if your Comcast network is like the Time Warner network here in Austin, then you can get basic and standard with just the cable to the back of the tv. That limited amount of cable should include CBS, NBC, ABC and the like.
gogol's wife
@Keith:
If only the host were Dick Gregory and not David Gregory. Then I might watch it.
debit
@Laura W: You know, if the Balloon Juice store had a “Show Me Where Rahm Touched You” doll, I’d totally buy it.
Freemark
@John Cole: If both boxes are missing channels either Comcast has a large scale outage or something happened to the line outside your house.
If you can manage to hook one of your cables direct to the TV you may be able to get your lower channels. Analog is much less susceptible to full drop out.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Is it possible that Gregory is actually the guest and McCain is the host of Press The Meat?
McCain on NBC’s payroll? Now it all makes sense!
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
So, to all the Canadians here, how much of a MUST WIN game is today’s game on a scale of 1 to 10. 10? 12? 20? A sum too large for modern math to calculate?
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Freemark:
When our box stops responding or showing channels I have to call the automated help line and they reset the box remotely. Seems I have to do this about every six months or so. If I am impatient I hit my A/B switch and bypass the box to get at least the basic channels until I feel like calling in and jumping through the hoops yet again.
Charter cable here.
Maude
@Steeplejack: I’m jealous. I’m on 192 RAM here and durn grateful for it. It was on 128. Now, on desktop and dial up, I go faster than the speed of light.
A lot of Dell desktops come with 256 and where I tech, I am always searching for memory. Mine and the CPU’s.
JD Rhoades
@Pasquinade:
Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did.
MikeJ
Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did.
Comrade Mary
I am not a number! I am a human — OUCH!
Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did.
RAM
John, have you tried the old standby: Unplug the power cord from the back of the cable box, wait 30 seconds or so, and plug it back in and see what happens. My Comcast box refused to let me watch anything yesterday morning; I reset it, and was good to go again. Until the next time.
HRA
I swore off of MTP shortly after Gregory took over. I put it on today almost at the end of McArrogance-Stupidity. Bad move. Going back to ignoring it.
A thought -when is Faux going to invite Gregory to work for them?
JD Rhoades
@MikeJ: @Comrade Mary:
Now see, folks? It’s not hard.
Let’s try some other ones:
“Up or down vote.”
“Tax cuts for 95% of working families.”
MikeJ
“Tax cuts for 95% of working families.”
should be
“Tax cuts for working families.”
You’re getting all liberal on us, putting in caveats and warnings. Say what you mean, even if it isn’t true in 100% of cases. And say it again. And if anybody questions it say it again. And again.
Kiril
I’ve been boycotting SciFi since they did their ridiculous rebranding. A lonely boycott of one.
SIA
I hope MTP ratings plummet every time Grampy is on. I mean, who watches him? Liberals and tea baggers despise him and any sensible conservatives know what a wretched Pandora’s box of crazy he dumped on the country ala Palin.
MTP: Most Tedious Personalities.
John can’t you get satellite? I have Dish for TV and cable for high speed.
Freemark
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Have tried unplugging, replugging the box when that happens? Should fix most box issues. Those digital boxes are basically computers. Its actually good to reboot them occasionally.
Kiril
Have you tried turning it off and on again? lol
Freemark
@Kiril: I wondered about that rebranding. I think they couldn’t copyright Sci-Fi.
JD Rhoades
@MikeJ:
Good point. Because Obama cut taxes for working families, and the people want to see an upperdown vote. Also.
Kiril
@Freemark: Nope. It was to minimize the reference to science, which they felt was off-putting, particularly to women. The spelling is derived from text messaging, so popular with the kids.
Punchy
I got ribbed yesterday for suggesting that the tsunami warnings were mostly CYA, and not appropriate for most of the countries who issued them. Told ya:
That is all.
Cathie from Canada
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: Oh, all us Canadians are such a quiet and polite people, we’re just waiting for some excellent hockey and we really don’t care which team wins!
NOT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vYFIufNoBo
SiubhanDuinne
The only thing I watch on the SyFy channel these days is their occasional “Twilight Zone” marathons. (Although I imagine they’ll soon start billing them as “Twylyte Zone” marathons. At which point I will boycott them.)
MattF
Ah, Comcast. Given Comcast’s recent merger-renaming-full page ads– activity it’s not surprising that their service is getting to the “I’m looking for a word that means less-than-abysmal” level.
My free advice is to give it up. Teevee watching fell off the bottom of my ToDo list some time last year, and I don’t miss it.
Robertdsc-iphone
John, I think you have to feed Tunch some more to have him stop screwing around with the remote.
J.W. Hamner
Not paying any attention to politics this morning… about to head off to brunch, then next up is Hockey Time. I have a feeling a vengeful Canadian team is going to come down like the fist of an angry god, but whatever… good excuse to drink some beers.
SIA
@ 28 JD Rhoades – the Dems should have Debbie Wasserman Schultz in front of the cameras every time health care is discussed. She is one smart, fearless lady.
nancydarling
I just received a text message from my globe trotting children. They are getting ready to leave the Galapagos. They are headed for Peru, I believe. Thanks to all of you who expressed concern.
Ash Can
I was a lot more partisan about the women’s hockey showdown. In the case of the men, I really don’t care all that much who wins. There are Blackhawks on both teams, so it doesn’t make much difference to me. :)
ETA @nancydarling: That’s great news!
Steeplejack
@Maude:
In what Third World computer hellhole are you living? Even low-end Dell desktops come with 2 GB of RAM these days.
This hand-me-down notebook, a Dell Inspiron 8600, dates from February 2005. I got it in trade from a client who moved up to a new one a few months ago. It’s a little bulky by today’s standards, but after I uninstalled a bunch of junk and scraped the barnacles off the hull it runs pretty well (Win XP). Just dog slow. It will take 2 GB of RAM, so that’s what I’m hoping to upgrade it to. To 1 GB at least. I’m not up on the latest RAM pricing, but 2 GB shouldn’t be more than $100-130. (Dell’s Web site quotes $140, but they are always overpriced.)
I don’t know how old your machine is, but you should be able to put 256 or even 512 MB of RAM in it. Memory for old computers is really cheap–if you can find it.
NobodySpecial
I blame John Cole for advising me to buy Dragon Age. Or for the invisible hand of Tunch coming out of my computer screen and using my info to pay for the digital download.
eastriver
No Wanimal Pwanet? Don’t cwy.
SIA
WP has 3 identical comments from 3 different people. Super mind meld?
“Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did” X 3.
Face
Say what you will, the fuckers have massage discipline. Wish I could get some.
Steeplejack
@SIA:
They were making a joke. Message discipline. Get it?
scav
@Steeplejack: New Olympic Sport? Synchronized Snark? (yeah, we’d medal)
SIA
Steeplejack-haha! well I do NOW!
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
Or maybe . . . just *maybe* . . . they are all the same person . . . because you’ve now entered a place called . . . The Twylyte Zone.
Fleem
FWIW, we lost all the same channels as Cole did last night, and we have DirecTV. Turning it off and on caused ALL the channels to quit; we attributed it to the snow, which always messes up the signal. But I don’t think it’s equipment problems this time since we’re nowhere near WV. Did Comcast decide not to share?
SIA
@ SiubhanDuinne, that….or perhaps. SATAN???
Max
Breaking… The President is in VERY good shape.
Obama weighs 179.9 lbs (in workout gear); Resting heart rate: 56 bpm. Blood pressure: 105/62.
Apparently, his doctor told him to keep his LDL chol. below 130 and he’s got a little tendonitis in his knees.
Those Kenyan’s have good genes.
plasticgoat
Reset your cable box. Unplug it from the wall, wait a least a minute and plug it back it. It will reset.
Steeplejack
@SIA:
Morning advice: coffee first, then Balloon Juice.
Bad Horse's Filly
Hmmm, has anyone considered that McCain maybe the only guest MTP can book?
Cole: I gave up cable and switched to Dish and couldn’t be happier, 7 years later. Comcast picture sucked and if possible their customer service sucked even worse.
SIA
@64 Steeplejack – confession: had 2 cups already. You should see me pre-coffee intake. Pretty sad.
Steeplejack
@scav:
No way. We’d degenerate into one of those embarrassing intra-team squabbles and lose to the Swedes, whose language is structurally incapable of snark. (But they do deadpan very well.)
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Freemark:
Yup, unplugging it does nothing. I lose all channels but the TV Guide service and all that works still. One time I left it unplugged for almost a month and when I plugged it back in it was exactly the same. I think they do it deliberately so we have to call in, it keeps their computer voice from getting lonely.
As good an explanation as any when it comes to cable service. They have great broadband but their cable TV service sucks green donkey dicks.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
Satan . . . or TUNCH!
But I repeat myself.
valdivia
@Max:
can i ask how come we know this info right now? was his dr’s report released?
SIA
@ SiubhanDuinne “Satan . . . or TUNCH!”
ZOMG. Don’t speaketh His nameth!
Max
@valdivia: Yes.
Linky here.
His first official physical since becoming Pres. Next one in August 2011, when he turns 50.
ETA – His vision is 20/20 and apparently, he’s still trying to quit smoking, using cessation tools (self-use). I’d be smoking a pack/day if I were in his role.
valdivia
@Max:
thanks. he really is in great shape. as if we di not know just by looking at him ;-)
scav
@Steeplejack: NOT the SWEDES! I’d rather lose to a turnip.
valdivia
@Max:
just read it. want to bet Tapper will be saying this is the smoking gun that proves Obama still smokes? (see the continuation of nicotine therapy which a lot of smokers continue for a long time after they stop smoking, but you know what they will say eh?)
Also weird to read all these things about Obama no? Feels like it is way TMI. :)
Max
@valdivia: You are right about Tapper. I see a “some people say” question for Gibbsy at the next presser.
It’s very TMI, but I like knowing he is healthy as the proverbial horse. I used to wish W had hemorroids :)
Mike in NC
Known in some circles as the “J. D. Salinger of American Politics”.
valdivia
@Max:
:) ah the thought of Bush and hemorroids!
I too like knowing he is so healthy (may the FSM keep him that way) but reading about his colonoscopy and his prostate exam. Umm. weird.
gnomedad
@Phyllis:
What does “exclusive guest” mean? That he can’t be two places at once? Thank heaven for small favors, I guess.
demimondian
We have message discipline! It’s just different from, and better than, theirs!
demimondian
@SiubhanDuinne: No, no, no!
There’s a secret facebook group which is controlled by a secret mailing list which controls the snark around here.
Max
@valdivia: With the PSA thing, I look at it a plus that he’s still able to “get the job done”.
Michelle’s a lucky lady, in many ways.
valdivia
@Max:
:)
that is all.
Phyllis
@gnomedad: I started giggling like mad when the announcer said it. The SO wanted to know what was so funny, but alas, he is not a blog/BJ reader, so the humor was lost on him.
Steeplejack
@scav:
We could probably pull that off as well. Think: Brick Oven Bill on the bell lap. Ngrr! Scared myself.
16 shells from a thirty aught six
So I thought you guys were exaggerating about Sunday being all McCain, all the time. At the gym this morning I looked at a TV tuned to news for literally half a second, and saw… John McCain.
Good lord, what an attention whore.
Drive By Wisdom
Not content to artificially prop up the housing market by having the banks dribble out foreclosed properties and keep prices up, the 11th-dimensional chess players want to add more bureaucracy to the process.
They must be hoping this gets them to November.
All politics, all the time, these folks.
kay
@Drive By Wisdom:
Well, I disagree. It’s modeled on the Philadelphia program, where the homeowners and lenders are forced to meet and try to come to terms, if they can’t, a judge intervenes, and that’s been successful. At the end of 2008, the Philadelphia program had a 70% success rate.
It will be hard to replicate at the federal level, because the Philadelphia model uses pro bono attorneys and credit counselors who follow up with the homeowner, but that’s the general idea. To have some entity call a halt and force the lender to make an offer, or deal in some way before going right to foreclosure.
“The Treasury proposal would require all borrowers who are 60 or more days delinquent on their mortgage to be sought out for participation in HAMP. Mortgage companies would need to try to contact the borrower at least four times by phone and twice by certified mail over 30 or more days before going to foreclosure. “
demimondian
@Drive By Wisdom: Hmm. It appears that the quality of the trolls around here didn’t rise during my attentional hiatus.
In your case, sir, I recommend that you turn around and drive *back to* wisdom. You’ve evidently passed it by.
Elizabelle
Moving on from President McCain:
I’m not sure Sarah Palin was a good “get” for Jay Leno’s return to his Tonight Show slot.
I’d had some sympathy for Leno (as well as O’Brien) on the transition debacle.
Not any more.
licensed to kill time
Can any geeks here tell me why I would lose the html tag buttons on top of my comment box? It happened two days ago after I got a few weird “database not found” msgs after trying to comment and one comment that just never showed up. I had been rolling along just fine until then, and then all of a sudden those tags were gone.
Now I can’t link, bold, blockquote etc and the nifty text formatting toolbar I used during the last WP fail on BJ says it is “no longer compatible with FF 3.6” so I can’t use that either.
I use NoScript and have tried “temporarily allow all this site” but nothing changes. I’m on WinXP and FF 3.6. Any ideas? Anyone else have this problem?
ETA – I still have my edit/delete buttons after I submit a comment. FWIW.
kay
@Drive By Wisdom:
This is what they did in Philadelphia:
“The order stated that a mandatory conciliation conference had to be held in all foreclosure cases where the property was owner occupied before the property could be sold at a sheriff’s sale. Investment or commercial properties were not subject to this order.
This conciliation conference would be scheduled 30 to 45 days after the mortgage company filed its complaint against the person holding the mortgage. The person facing foreclosure and a representative from the mortgage company had to attend this conference.
A court order would be sent to the person facing foreclosure notifying them of the conference. It would also instruct them that they had to meet with a counselor at a housing counseling agency.”
If the homeowner didn’t respond to the letter, they went to foreclosure.
The Order had another unintended consequence: all of a sudden, the mortgage lenders showed up in court with their “ideas”. Imagine that. They stopped completely ignoring the pleas for help from the City and got all creative about financing.
MikeJ
@licensed to kill time: You absolutely will need to allow balloon-juice.com in noscript for the html buttons.
Have you tried clearing the cache (tools->options->advanced clear now)?
licensed to kill time
@MikeJ:
Bless you, MikeJ! I cleared the cache and et voila! ze buttons are back. I feel like an idiot that I didn’t think of that, thank you so much :)
asiangrrlMN
Cole, so I’m assuming that the payment is ‘on hold’ as well? Fuckers.
@Steeplejack: Argh! Did not need that!
@Max: Yeah. Good to know that Obama is good to go. I need a ciggie myself now.
As for Grampy McCain…sheesh. He’s like a third-rate caricature of himself. Get off my lawn, McCain!
Ranger 3
Direct TV is your friend.
Drive By Wisdom
@kay:
ie, the taxpayer ate it, or will eventually. Thank you for your reply, but on the grand scale, I do not understand what the motivation is for banks to negotiate when they are a holding onto billions of government bailouts to not flood the market now, and know they are going to get another bailout when these reimagineered mortgages fail anyway.
Every democrat seems quite comfortable acknowledging there was a bubble, but does not think reinflating it makes it one. Perhaps I just need more hot air when thinking on the scale of 7 million foreclosures.
I predict there will be a Change on this issue soon.
Steaming Pile
Why don’t they just fire David Gregory and make John McCain the permanent host of MTP? Saves money and time.
kay
@Drive By Wisdom:
I would agree with you on one point, though. Obama waited too long.
We all should know by now that mortgage lenders and the finance sector in general had and have no intention of making any attempt to remedy the goddamn mess they made without an order.
They were real creative when they were dreaming up that huge pile of bad debt. Interestingly, the geniuses in finance and lending ran out of ideas when it came to cleaning it up.
They have not offered, willingly, one idea. They had to be dragged to the table in Philadelphia, and they only showed up when the Court halted foreclosures. A real show of personal and professional responsibility there, I must say. They continue to do us all proud.
There was nothing stopping lenders from acting responsibly and not shoving the costs of their poor decisions on cities and counties and states, ie: taxpayers.
They did nothing. They offered nothing. Incredibly, they bitched and whined and complained.
kay
@Drive By Wisdom:
No, the taxpayer didn’t eat it. It’s a roundabout way to a cram-down, relying on a common pleas judge rather than a bankruptcy judge, but don’t tell anyone, because cram-downs are very, very bad, for some reason, but only if we’re talking about something that is a residence :)
We just disagree on the whole issue, probably. Are they spreading out the pain? Yup. You think that’s a bad thing, and politically motivated and venal, and I don’t.
I think it makes sense to wind it down slowly. You probably rip off band aids, too.
I do agree with you that I wish they had used a bigger stick, and sooner. I think a bk cram-down would have scared the shit out of lenders, and been really effective.
licensed to kill time
Good post by Benen on an ABC “This Week” round table discussion:
Is K-Thug the only grownup at that roundtable?
mcc
So I’m hearing that what John McCain used his show today for was to
– Dig in on his claim that he was mislead about TARP by claiming that all of America was in fact mislead and in fact EVERYBODY was just as confused as he was. (He justifies this by saying that that whole thing where the bailout moved from being based on purchase of troubled assets to direct loans to the banks, amidst massive public outcry that paying good money for “toxic” things would be a huge giveaway to the banks, was in fact a big nefarious bait-and-switch attempt to give away money to the banks.)
– Claiming that military leaders oppose a DADT repeal, he just can’t tell you who they are, and the military leaders who stepped forward to say they support a DADT repeal don’t count because they were speaking “personally”.
SGEW
@licensed to kill time:
Do you really need an answer for that one?
ETA: re: John McCain. Josh Marshall wins the day with this line: “It’s been pretty much shark hopscotch for McCain going back to late 2007.”
artem1s
my congress doesn’t seem to be working…can we try this?
licensed to kill time
@SGEW: Uh, no. Merely a rhetorical question.
mcc
@artem1s: You have to blow into the contacts
GeeYourHairSmellsTerrific
Just wait until Comcast buys NBC. Nothing can go wrong with that.
bago
@mcc: So THAT’S what the army of cute blonde reporters is for!
Elizabelle
@SGEW:
Shark Hopscotch.
Fabulous. Should go in the lexicon, with props to Josh Marshall.
allium
@MattF: Tartarean?
Tar·ta·rus (tärtr-s)
n.
1. Greek Mythology The abysmal regions below Hades where the Titans were confined.