Honey, I need you to sit down and hold on tight to Lily. No Chuck tonight, I do believe Dubba is speaking instead. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
4.
MikeJ
As somebody pointed out earlier, Birth of a Nation is on TCM at 9:15 tonight. One of the most important and vile movies made in America.
5.
MattR
@Xecky Gilchrist: @TaMara (BHF): And I was already pissed off that I had to listen to W at halftime of the game last night. I was in bed watching and I turned the damn thing off and went to sleep rather than listen to that interview with Matt Lauer.
If it makes your wife feel any better, she will get 24 episodes of “Chuck” for this season instead of 22.
I guess I am the only one who is watching the show about Bush’s book. I’m far from a fan of his, but I will admit, he’s handling his post-presidency status pretty well. Instead of acting like Dick Cheney, who is acting like the classless dick we all know he is, he’s not really inserting himself into the debate. Give him credit for that, at least.
I don’t even *watch* “Chuck,” and I’d be throwing something at the TV if they pre-empted it for GWB’s tired, underwhelming, ghost-written reputation rehab attempt.
In other things – news items I was greeted with when I came home: Sarah Palin is now dog poo on the bottom of the GOP shoes, if you’re flying, be prepared to show your private parts and you can no longer pack your toner cartridges to travel with you, WTF. Now how am I going to print mid-flight?
12.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Palin/Kucinich ’12!
When the Fed announced $600 billion of easing last week, the usual suspects on the left started screaming that it was another wall street bailout. Nevermind that the sainted Paul Krugman said it wasn’t and that he agreed with the Fed’s actions.
Today, Palin joined the Firetards and started screaming about the Fed’s actions.
I wonder how the firetards feel about sleeping with palin. And to think, they said they hated bipartisanship.
13.
MattR
@Steeplejack: Set my DVR when you first posted it. Thx.
Chuck got pre-empted here for some Gee Dumbya Talks about his Book thing …
That’s it! We MUST retaliate! I DEMAND Obama do a two hour interview pre-empting: Dancing With The Stars!
And if Obama doesn’t do this, why, then I’ll… I’ll… I’ll hold my nose while voting for him in 2012! So there!
.
15.
Steeplejack
Actually, I am catching up on not one but three episodes of Chuck that I haven’t watched on the DVR. This is shaping up to be a great night: no Dubya, multiple Chuck episodes, a good NFL game (I hope), and TCM is cleaning out the silent-screen archives. Mama!
Actually, I am catching up on not one but three episodes of Chuck that I haven’t watched on the DVR. This is shaping up to be a great night: no Dubya, multiple Chuck episodes…
All of your grasshoppers laughed at me as I stored up my nuts [whatever ants store] for the lean times . . .
20.
MattR
@Steeplejack: But nobody told me there’d be Dubya and I had this extra hour to kill Saturday night.
21.
Hypnos
Quite a compelling analysis of the current American predicamente by the Spiegel. Listen to the Germans – they have quite an expertise when it comes to institutional gridlock and right wing crazies flooding the streets.
@JGabriel: I didn’t see Krugman say it was weak, but assuming he did, that makes the firetard/teabag freak out worse. lighting your hair on fire over weak tea only heightens their status as laughingstocks.
seriously, watching the Trotskyites and the Brown Shirts mate is gross.
Fortunately, I knew Chuck was preempted so watched a movie instead.
Does anyone know whether or not the previous president spent a lot of time discussing aborted fetuses in jars?
@MattR: I was half-dozing when I saw W’s vapid face on my teevee last night (muted because I never listen to commercials). My initial response was, “What the hell is that fuckface doing on my TV?” Yeah, not very mature of me, I know.
P.S. Thanks for you-know-what. Go, Steelers!
@lamh32: Whyfore you go back to lamh32? You taking years off your age already?
@asiangrrlMN: Glad I didn’t switch channels to something else before I fell asleep. (Though I assume you would take one shot at flipping it back to see if I changed it again)
@MattR: Huh? I can change the channel whenever I want with the remote. Right now, I am flipping between the Stillers and the Food Network Channel. The games I watched yesterday were on network TV.
Mebbe we should be speaking in code.
@Brian J: I thought you meant Bachmann at first for whatever reason, and I groaned. When I saw you meant Palin, I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse.
She’s supposedly going to give a “wonkish” speech on Federal Reserve policy soon. I’m sure monetary scholars throughout the country are waiting with baited breath.
… it looks as if we’re going to see an attempt to do the trick with quantitative easing alone. I hope it works, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
There’s more, but I’ve run into BJ’s 3 link limit, including the link back to your post. So it’ll have to do for now.
If you want more examples, you can find them by doing searches at Krugman’s blog on “Bernanke”, “Quantitative Easing”, and “QE” or “QE2”.
.
38.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN: I was watching in the bedroom last night (which is a rare occassion for me and is the TV you are accessing). But I was only half awake and not flipping around or you would have gotten to enjoy my ADD.
@Brian J: It could be a lot like my friends’ Bar Mitzvahs. All she has to do is memorize saying the phonetics at the proper pacing.
@Larkspur: I had not seen it so thank you for mentioning it. Very Cool!
42.
Steeplejack
Jon Grudin is insightful, but his tone of voice and golden-retriever enthusiasm rub me the wrong way. But at least when he’s talking Al Michaels is not. That is a blessing.
43.
Face
I think we need to have multiple channels broadcasting this game, otherwise its a monopoly and inefficient and stuff.
I calm myself by reminding myself that neither one is Brent Musburger, whom I truly hate with the heat of a thousand suns. Om . . .
46.
mr. whipple
I hate both these teams. Where is my choice?
47.
Larkspur
I don’t have cable TV or any TV reception at all, so I am half-“watching” the ESPN GameCast. It is a weird way to watch, and very tiring, since I have to do all the commentary and the crowd noises, all by myself. Also, please don’t say Jon Grudin in the same sentence with golden retriever. I love goldens. I don’t hate Grudin, but he is Chucky, and Chucky and golden retrievers are unmixy things.
@Steeplejack: Oooooh! You are so right. I watched Musburger do the Little League World Series (because Taiwan made the international championships), and I was shouting at the TV because of the inanities spewing from his lips. Then, I saw him doing a college football game, and I had to mute him. He is worse that Gruden and Michaels combined!
49.
MattR
@Steeplejack: My blood pressure spiked just reading his name. My theory is that broadcasters should be like officials in that neither should take the focus away from the game on the field. (Gus Johnson is the exception to the rule. His enthusiasm may be a bit over the top but it adds to the experience rather than detract from it)
When it comes to college football I kinda like Gary Danielson and Verne Lundquist, but I am also biased since I went to high school with their sideline reporter, Tracy Wolfson.
50.
Larkspur
Ooh, Bengals! ::(Makes crowd roaring noise, refuses to go to commercial, cuts the broadcasters’ microphones, more crowd noise)::
51.
Svensker
The hubster thinks football is crude. It’s a phase (he tends to the effete), but really annoying. There are only a few months of hunky men in tights, and then we’re back to stupid baseball. Harrumph.
Also, too, Canukistan!
52.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@JGabriel: I knew I was right. I was thinking, “wait, I read the blog, and he didn’t say it was weak”. To me, “mild” ≠ “weak”. I don’t interpret the word “mild” as neither “STRONG!” nor “WEAK!”
I often wish I could just have the crowd noise with no announcers. Sigh.
I thought that was the whole point of all this technology. I don’t even think they do it anymore, but back in 2002 or so when I first went to digital television Cablevision actually offered a feature where you could change the camera angle on the fly for NY Rangers home games.
56.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Brian J: count our blessing, she may actually run for president!
@MattR: Oh, the technology exists–it’s just not put into effect. Can you imagine being able to mute the announcers for the whole game? That would be quite a waste of money, wouldn’t it? Any time the HD feed cuts out leaving me with only the crowd noise, I am in bliss.
58.
Larkspur
When I have access to a real television, and I wish to watch of the football, I will often hit the mute button and listen to the radio coverage instead. The radio guys have less time for the bullshit.
I rarely watch a whole football game from start to finish, so I’m not up on all the announcers, but I agree with you.
My gold standard is the baseball announcers on TBS in the ’90s and early ’00s, when TBS still showed all the Braves games. Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson (senior), Don Sutton and Pete van Wieren worked every game in various combinations. One pair would do radio for half the game, the other would do TV, and they would switch in the middle of the fifth inning. They were very good at pacing their commentary to the game, not overwhelming the action or feeling like they had to fill up (allegedly) empty air. They weren’t excessively Brave-o-centric, they told good anecdotes, and they minimized the blowhard syndrome that is an occupational hazard. Really, really good.
I still remember the joke Caray made one night when they were all jammed in the tiny TV booth during the fifth-inning changeover. “We scored it 3-2 on radio. How do you guys have it?”
60.
MattR
FYI – John’s gone off and created a new Steelers open thread
I’m bouncing between the computer and the TV. Not set up for simultaneous viewing (deliberately).
I decided not to do NaNoWriMo. Work at the Big Box Bookstore has reached a crazy crisis, and I may be out of there in the next couple of weeks. So I have stepped up the search for software projects and for another gig with health insurance, and of course I’m generally stressing about the whole situation. If I do leave, or get cut loose from, the BBB, in the holiday season, I have been thinking that I would fold some capital-W writing time into the schedule. You know, in between the pointless sending out of résumés, scanning CraigsList for interesting work in totally unrelated fields and lying on the couch dozing and reviewing all my faulty life decisions.
@lamh34: That makes sense. I didn’t really think you’d shave a couple years off your age after you went through all the trouble to make your ‘nym current age correct.
@Steeplejack: Ah. Yes. That makes sense. Sorry to hear about the shit happening at the Big Box. Mucho good vibes in the job hunt.
stuckinred
TO talkin shit with Chucky!
“Ray don’t scare nobody”.
Xecky Gilchrist
Chuck got pre-empted here for some Gee Dumbya Talks about his Book thing, so my wife says. She’s not happy about it.
TaMara (BHF)
Honey, I need you to sit down and hold on tight to Lily. No Chuck tonight, I do believe Dubba is speaking instead. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
MikeJ
As somebody pointed out earlier, Birth of a Nation is on TCM at 9:15 tonight. One of the most important and vile movies made in America.
MattR
@Xecky Gilchrist: @TaMara (BHF): And I was already pissed off that I had to listen to W at halftime of the game last night. I was in bed watching and I turned the damn thing off and went to sleep rather than listen to that interview with Matt Lauer.
Brian J
@Xecky Gilchrist:
If it makes your wife feel any better, she will get 24 episodes of “Chuck” for this season instead of 22.
I guess I am the only one who is watching the show about Bush’s book. I’m far from a fan of his, but I will admit, he’s handling his post-presidency status pretty well. Instead of acting like Dick Cheney, who is acting like the classless dick we all know he is, he’s not really inserting himself into the debate. Give him credit for that, at least.
Pigs & Spiders
C’mon man!
stuckinred
@Brian J: W is a shit eatin dog fucker.
arguingwithsignposts
You are kidding me, right? WTF?
I don’t even *watch* “Chuck,” and I’d be throwing something at the TV if they pre-empted it for GWB’s tired, underwhelming, ghost-written reputation rehab attempt.
Steeplejack
@MattR:
Program notes were posted here.
FYWP! Eating comments again.
TaMara (BHF)
In other things – news items I was greeted with when I came home: Sarah Palin is now dog poo on the bottom of the GOP shoes, if you’re flying, be prepared to show your private parts and you can no longer pack your toner cartridges to travel with you, WTF. Now how am I going to print mid-flight?
Mike Kay (Team America)
Palin/Kucinich ’12!
When the Fed announced $600 billion of easing last week, the usual suspects on the left started screaming that it was another wall street bailout. Nevermind that the sainted Paul Krugman said it wasn’t and that he agreed with the Fed’s actions.
Today, Palin joined the Firetards and started screaming about the Fed’s actions.
I wonder how the firetards feel about sleeping with palin. And to think, they said they hated bipartisanship.
MattR
@Steeplejack: Set my DVR when you first posted it. Thx.
JGabriel
@Xecky Gilchrist:
That’s it! We MUST retaliate! I DEMAND Obama do a two hour interview pre-empting: Dancing With The Stars!
And if Obama doesn’t do this, why, then I’ll… I’ll… I’ll hold my nose while voting for him in 2012! So there!
.
Steeplejack
Actually, I am catching up on not one but three episodes of Chuck that I haven’t watched on the DVR. This is shaping up to be a great night: no Dubya, multiple Chuck episodes, a good NFL game (I hope), and TCM is cleaning out the silent-screen archives. Mama!
JGabriel
@Mike Kay (Team America):
While pointing out that it was pretty weak tea, to be fair.
.
Steeplejack
@MattR:
Oops, sorry. Hit your reply button instead of MikeJ’s.
JGabriel
@Steeplejack:
No one likes a gloater, Steeplejack.
.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
All of your grasshoppers laughed at me as I stored up my
nuts[whatever ants store] for the lean times . . .MattR
@Steeplejack: But nobody told me there’d be Dubya and I had this extra hour to kill Saturday night.
Hypnos
Quite a compelling analysis of the current American predicamente by the Spiegel. Listen to the Germans – they have quite an expertise when it comes to institutional gridlock and right wing crazies flooding the streets.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,726447,00.html
Pigs & Spiders
Yeah, I think my Shiba needs this.
debit
@Hypnos: Good article, but Cole front paged that yesterday, I believe.
lamh32
A little didya know trivia you guys, your fav “accidental spy” is the voice of the new Disney “hunk/prince” coming out this month.
It’s called Tangles
Mike Kay (Team America)
@JGabriel: I didn’t see Krugman say it was weak, but assuming he did, that makes the firetard/teabag freak out worse. lighting your hair on fire over weak tea only heightens their status as laughingstocks.
seriously, watching the Trotskyites and the Brown Shirts mate is gross.
PeakVT
Combining the Steelers and Chuck into one open thread is just another step on the road to nanny-state fascism.
lamh32
@lamh32:
That’s supposed to be Tangled!
JPL
Fortunately, I knew Chuck was preempted so watched a movie instead.
Does anyone know whether or not the previous president spent a lot of time discussing aborted fetuses in jars?
lamh32
@lamh32:
That’s supposed to be Tangled!
BTW, Anyone planning to watch the premiere of Conan on TBS tonight?
Pigs & Spiders
Well that was about the best first two minutes you could have hoped for!
Xecky Gilchrist
We’re getting by by watching some old A-Team episodes on teh Netflix. This internet stuff kicks some serious bootie.
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: I was half-dozing when I saw W’s vapid face on my teevee last night (muted because I never listen to commercials). My initial response was, “What the hell is that fuckface doing on my TV?” Yeah, not very mature of me, I know.
P.S. Thanks for you-know-what. Go, Steelers!
@lamh32: Whyfore you go back to lamh32? You taking years off your age already?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@lamh32: yeah, I love trainwrecks.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN: Glad I didn’t switch channels to something else before I fell asleep. (Though I assume you would take one shot at flipping it back to see if I changed it again)
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: Huh? I can change the channel whenever I want with the remote. Right now, I am flipping between the Stillers and the Food Network Channel. The games I watched yesterday were on network TV.
Mebbe we should be speaking in code.
@Brian J: I thought you meant Bachmann at first for whatever reason, and I groaned. When I saw you meant Palin, I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse.
Brian J
@Mike Kay (Team America):
She’s supposedly going to give a “wonkish” speech on Federal Reserve policy soon. I’m sure monetary scholars throughout the country are waiting with baited breath.
JGabriel
Mike Kay (Team America):
Here:
And here:
There’s more, but I’ve run into BJ’s 3 link limit, including the link back to your post. So it’ll have to do for now.
If you want more examples, you can find them by doing searches at Krugman’s blog on “Bernanke”, “Quantitative Easing”, and “QE” or “QE2”.
.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN: I was watching in the bedroom last night (which is a rare occassion for me and is the TV you are accessing). But I was only half awake and not flipping around or you would have gotten to enjoy my ADD.
@Brian J: It could be a lot like my friends’ Bar Mitzvahs. All she has to do is memorize saying the phonetics at the proper pacing.
@Larkspur: Is that what that is. I was wondering.
Larkspur
Has everyone already seen and/or talked about today’s google home page, celebratin’ the 115th anniversary of discovering the X-Ray? It’s really neat.
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: Ah! I see. Yeah. I think I would have to have sent you a VERY stern email to knock it off had I caught you doing that.
@Larkspur: Yes. It’s teh awe-sum!
JPL
@Larkspur: I had not seen it so thank you for mentioning it. Very Cool!
Steeplejack
Jon Grudin is insightful, but his tone of voice and golden-retriever enthusiasm rub me the wrong way. But at least when he’s talking Al Michaels is not. That is a blessing.
Face
I think we need to have multiple channels broadcasting this game, otherwise its a monopoly and inefficient and stuff.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Hiya. How you be? Yeah, Al Michaels makes me all stabby-stabby. Don’t care for Gruden, either, but eh.
@Face: Snort. Actually, I am more sympathetic on the topic of monopolies and cable companies. Gr.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I calm myself by reminding myself that neither one is Brent Musburger, whom I truly hate with the heat of a thousand suns. Om . . .
mr. whipple
I hate both these teams. Where is my choice?
Larkspur
I don’t have cable TV or any TV reception at all, so I am half-“watching” the ESPN GameCast. It is a weird way to watch, and very tiring, since I have to do all the commentary and the crowd noises, all by myself. Also, please don’t say Jon Grudin in the same sentence with golden retriever. I love goldens. I don’t hate Grudin, but he is Chucky, and Chucky and golden retrievers are unmixy things.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Oooooh! You are so right. I watched Musburger do the Little League World Series (because Taiwan made the international championships), and I was shouting at the TV because of the inanities spewing from his lips. Then, I saw him doing a college football game, and I had to mute him. He is worse that Gruden and Michaels combined!
MattR
@Steeplejack: My blood pressure spiked just reading his name. My theory is that broadcasters should be like officials in that neither should take the focus away from the game on the field. (Gus Johnson is the exception to the rule. His enthusiasm may be a bit over the top but it adds to the experience rather than detract from it)
When it comes to college football I kinda like Gary Danielson and Verne Lundquist, but I am also biased since I went to high school with their sideline reporter, Tracy Wolfson.
Larkspur
Ooh, Bengals! ::(Makes crowd roaring noise, refuses to go to commercial, cuts the broadcasters’ microphones, more crowd noise)::
Svensker
The hubster thinks football is crude. It’s a phase (he tends to the effete), but really annoying. There are only a few months of hunky men in tights, and then we’re back to stupid baseball. Harrumph.
Also, too, Canukistan!
Mike Kay (Team America)
@JGabriel: I knew I was right. I was thinking, “wait, I read the blog, and he didn’t say it was weak”. To me, “mild” ≠ “weak”. I don’t interpret the word “mild” as neither “STRONG!” nor “WEAK!”
asiangrrlMN
@Larkspur: I like the way you imitate the noises of the game. I often wish I could just have the crowd noise with no announcers. Sigh.
@Svensker: Separate televisions, my friend, separate TVs.
monkeyboy
If John would only spend his every waking hour teaching Rosie to do tricks I think he would have less problems with her.
MattR
@asiangrrlMN:
I thought that was the whole point of all this technology. I don’t even think they do it anymore, but back in 2002 or so when I first went to digital television Cablevision actually offered a feature where you could change the camera angle on the fly for NY Rangers home games.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Brian J: count our blessing, she may actually run for president!
asiangrrlMN
@MattR: Oh, the technology exists–it’s just not put into effect. Can you imagine being able to mute the announcers for the whole game? That would be quite a waste of money, wouldn’t it? Any time the HD feed cuts out leaving me with only the crowd noise, I am in bliss.
Larkspur
When I have access to a real television, and I wish to watch of the football, I will often hit the mute button and listen to the radio coverage instead. The radio guys have less time for the bullshit.
Steeplejack
@MattR:
I rarely watch a whole football game from start to finish, so I’m not up on all the announcers, but I agree with you.
My gold standard is the baseball announcers on TBS in the ’90s and early ’00s, when TBS still showed all the Braves games. Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson (senior), Don Sutton and Pete van Wieren worked every game in various combinations. One pair would do radio for half the game, the other would do TV, and they would switch in the middle of the fifth inning. They were very good at pacing their commentary to the game, not overwhelming the action or feeling like they had to fill up (allegedly) empty air. They weren’t excessively Brave-o-centric, they told good anecdotes, and they minimized the blowhard syndrome that is an occupational hazard. Really, really good.
I still remember the joke Caray made one night when they were all jammed in the tiny TV booth during the fifth-inning changeover. “We scored it 3-2 on radio. How do you guys have it?”
MattR
FYI – John’s gone off and created a new Steelers open thread
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: I watch while doing other things, like NaNoWriMo–which I’m doing right now. You?
lamh34
@asiangrrlMN:
It’s form filled by my internet system, so I have to actually change it everytime I post, and I just forget…lol!
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m bouncing between the computer and the TV. Not set up for simultaneous viewing (deliberately).
I decided not to do NaNoWriMo. Work at the Big Box Bookstore has reached a crazy crisis, and I may be out of there in the next couple of weeks. So I have stepped up the search for software projects and for another gig with health insurance, and of course I’m generally stressing about the whole situation. If I do leave, or get cut loose from, the BBB, in the holiday season, I have been thinking that I would fold some capital-W writing time into the schedule. You know, in between the pointless sending out of résumés, scanning CraigsList for interesting work in totally unrelated fields and lying on the couch dozing and reviewing all my faulty life decisions.
asiangrrlMN
@lamh34: That makes sense. I didn’t really think you’d shave a couple years off your age after you went through all the trouble to make your ‘nym current age correct.
@Steeplejack: Ah. Yes. That makes sense. Sorry to hear about the shit happening at the Big Box. Mucho good vibes in the job hunt.
Yutsano
@Svensker:
Sigh. It makes me haz a major happy I’m now only two hours away from there.
@asiangrrlMN:
Are you typing with your toes again? Or did you con Raven with enough tuna to stenograph?