Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Books are my comfort food!

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

You are here: Home / Sports / Steelers/Pats Open Thread #2

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    General Stuck

    This game is just painful to watch.

    Sorry to hear that senor Cole. The swelling should go down in a day or two. :-)

  8. 8.

    gbear

    At least your team probably won’t trash talk their own team to the press after the game is over. Evereyone associated with The Vikings really need to be taken out back and beat up. What a bunch of WATBs.

  9. 9.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    It’s not like the Patriots don’t have plenty of injury problems of their own. They just happen to OWN the Steelers for the past decade.

    But don’t worry, it’s not 10-3 anymore. It’s 17-3.

  10. 10.

    Yutsano

    @gbear:

    What a bunch of WATBs spoiled overpaid adults playing a children’s game.

    Fixteth for accuracy. And I’m stealing wifey’s idea about the store.

    And hon, if you come back: IT. WAS. A TYPO.

  12. 12.

    morzer

    @Karen:

    Your dad was right. The worst thing about it was the realization that their sucking brightened Jerry Jones’ evil old heart.

  13. 13.

    jharp

    I like you John and I like your blog but am enjoying watching the Steelers get taken to the woodshed.

    My Colts have the Pats next. At the Pats. And the three teams are the class of the AFC.

    BTW. Pittsburgh is great city. I used to travel there monthly in the 90’s. Oakmont is awesome. As is the Fort Pitt Museum.

    And it’s the most difficult city in the U.S. to find your way around. There used to be a joke that the locals didn’t know how to get around. And one wrong turn can be a 45 minute adventure.

    And you really haven’t experienced Pittsburgh until you can see where you want to be but can’t get there. It happened to my folks at Station Square and to me at R.I.D.C. Park.

  14. 14.

    2liberal

    This game is just painful to watch.

    I personally am rather enjoying this. Did you know the Steelers’ offensive line is slow?

  15. 15.

    gbear

    @Yutsano:

    Yes, this too. I read this evening that Brett Farve is making $1,000,000 per game. I don’t pay enough attention to football to know if this is true (I don’t watch the games) or not but if it is true, it’s an absolutely miserable statistic. These guys live on another planet to be bitching about how the team isn’t good enough for them when they’re making this kind of money.

  19. 19.

    asiangrrlMN

    @gbear: I didn’t watch the after-game crap. Now, supposedly, the talk is of Favre retiring again. It’s always gotta be about him. That number you quote is low, if anything. Sickening.

    @Yutsano: I came back. Heh. I like to tease you because you usually don’t make typos. And, I got my hat handed to me in the last thread for castigating Andy K. for a grammatical error and then making a spelling error of my own. So, hoisted on my own petard am I.

  21. 21.

    Ash Can

    @Karen: They may have sucked, but this was Dallas’s first game after having fired its coach midseason — which I understand Dallas just doesn’t do. If that doesn’t put a bomb under a team’s butt, I don’t know what does. The Giants were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  27. 27.

    MikeJ

    @jharp:

    My Colts have the Pats next.

    I didn’t know the Mayflowers had any actual fans. I figured they would have all left town in the middle of the night.

  28. 28.

    asiangrrlMN

    @MoeLarryAndJesus: Good god. I am on a roll today. Thanks for the correction. I am humbly eating crow right now (and crossing my fingers that this term is correct).

    ETA: And, it’s by one’s one petard or as morzer noted, with.

    @MikeJ: In a French maid’s costume?

    ETA, part two: I’mma shut up now.

  29. 29.

    SmallAxe

    Can the Steelers score 3 in a quarter? This will be interesting… that missed extra point could come back to haunt, and admittedly the Pats shut it down early sometimes so it’s possible. Definitely double up on the tussin Cole this could get interesting.

  33. 33.

    MikeJ

    @asiangrrlMN: I’m still interested in the part where you’re wearing nothing but a jersey. And I don’t really even care about football that much.

    I am polite however, and will always be nice about whatever my friends are into, even if I don’t care.

  34. 34.

    General Stuck

    I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it lately, but the Browns last week beat the Pats 34 to 14 at home. I like to keep folks informed.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    @morzer:

    E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898):

    Hoist on his own petard. Caught in his own trap, involved in the danger he meant for others. The petard was a conical instrument of war employed at one time for blowing open gates with gunpowder. The engineers used to carry the petard to the place they intended to blow up, and fire it at the small end by a fusee. Shakespeare spells the word petar: “’Tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petar.” (Hamlet, ii. 4.)
    __
    “Turning the muzzles of the guns Magdala wards, and getting a piece of lighted rope [the party] blazed away as vigorously as possible . . . and tried to hoist Theodore on his own petard.” — Daily paper.

    Historical use of the language often is not as precise as you might like.

  50. 50.

    2liberal

    @John Cole:

    as a longtime patriots fan, the kind of fighting spirit you have brought to the game this evening warms my heart. after the pick 6 I placed my order for two Pet calendars.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bubblegum Tate #17: Those comments are priceless. What an astonishing blog. Jeeze, it’s scary out there sometimes.

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack #53: NO! Why were you ranting in my general direction, and where might I find them now?

  60. 60.

    Martin

    A series of power failures at New Jersey’s New Meadowlands Stadium brought Sunday night’s game between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys to a temporary halt.

    Yeah, that’s what you get for going to fucking New Jersey.

    Oh, and FTFY!

  62. 62.

    Ailuridae

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Doing better and thanks for asking. Wake and funeral were tough but I am back in Chicago watching a Harry Potter marathon. I’m not good with grief but I tried to do what I could when I was there. My friend was still largely at a loss for words over the weekend but his wife was doing much better so I hope they’ll be alright.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Here is my Montalbano plug from October 11. (I had another comment or two later directing you back to this comment.)

    I thought you were the one with whom I discussed Foyle’s War back in May? If you like that, and from other comments you have made, I think you would really like Montalbano.

    P.S. I don’t know if the DVDs are still on sale, but they’re worth checking out.

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    At least your team stunk it up in a regular season game. Mine chose to play it’s worst game of the year in the semifinals. I might hate FC Dallas more than I hate the Cowboys.

  67. 67.

    Yutsano

    @Geoduck: Because the whole division suxxors more? Although I was honestly hoping Whitehurst would do better in his season debut, nothing would make me happier than Hasslesack retiring. Of course this means the better we do the less likely we get some stud QB in the draft. Sigh. Life of a Seattle sports fan. When do pitchers and catchers report again?

    BTW bacon, lettuce, avocado, and heirloom tomato sammie = NOM.

  68. 68.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Ailuridae: I’m sorry it was so hard. Again, my condolences. Just being there helped your friend; I firmly believe that. I think an HP marathon is a good way to deal with things. Even better: fastforward through any scene that does not contain Snape–but that probably doesn’t soothe you as much as it does me.

    @Yutsano: Yum. Did you see me screw the fuck up earlier in this thread. Sigh. Hubris. I haz it.

  69. 69.

    freelancer

    @Ailuridae:

    I knew libertarians were conspiratorial, I didn’t know that they, as a bloc, are largely alt med freaks. Also, is this comment spoof? Cause if this guy’s a libertarian by ideology, than I am Hugh Hefner’s grandson.

    an an ideal libertarian world, the market would provide healthcare at various, competitive price points. In this alternate universe, you would be able to purchase healthcare according to your means.
    …
    However, we do not live in a free-market healthcare world. Instead, our healthcare system is the worst possible mix of sociaIism and monopolistic competition – the most expensive, least efficient, most unsatisfactory healthcare system in the industrialized world today.
    …
    In an ideal world, you could live by principles and purchase healthcare according to what you can afford. But until this magical, free-market healthcare system materializes, I don’t see a problem with availing yourself of the social safety net we have in place today.
    …
    Until this magical, free-market healthcare system materializes, I also don’t see a problem with embracing the reforms of Obamacare, to curb the worst excesses of the current, non-competitive system.
    …
    Getting to this free-market healthcare panacea will be problematic, however, given the inherently problematic nature of healthcare. Many healthcare costs incurred today involve emergencies – you need healthcare *right now* – which makes it difficult to shop around as an informed consumer. And without informed consumers, the free-market principle falls apart… but that’s another discussion.

    Seriously, “My ideology is an unreachable, fantastical utopia with no chance of seeing the light of actual day, but that’s why I believe it!”

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    That’s pretty rich, Martin: somebody from fucking Irvine hating on New Jersey. I’ve lived in both places. I would move back to New Jersey tomorrow if I had the chance, but given a choice between shooting myself and moving back to Irvine I would unhesitatingly pull the trigger.

  72. 72.

    Yutsano

    @Ailuridae: There is one small condolence you can give them: their child is no longer in any pain. At least his suffering is over, and he can move on to the special place the FSM has for young children when they die.

    @freelancer: That’s either classic snark or so teh stupid they require mandatory sterilization.

  74. 74.

    Ailuridae

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Thanks for the kind words.

    I’ve watched the first two Potter movies and am about to start the third. It’s amazing how much better the “kid” actors get by the second movie (although some of that is attributable to Rowling’s growth as a writer I imagine).

    But the third one excites me as it introduces Sirius Black which means some Gary Oldman excellence.

  75. 75.

    Little Boots

    I wish I knew what Obama should say or do. I just don’t. It’s very frustrating for someone who once though posting on a website was the way to solve this country’s problems. Now what?

  76. 76.

    Yutsano

    @Ailuridae: And IIRC Helena comes into the cast at this point as well. A mistake a lot of folks make is assuming the Harry Potter series is seven books. It isn’t, Rowling has said as much. Marathon the books back to back and you’ll see what I mean.

    I just realized I get to take my young second cousins out to the Deathly Hallows premiere on Friday. I now haz a huge happy.

  77. 77.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack #64: Thanks very much! I’m not familiar with them, and they sound right up my alley.

    I was having my 3-week midwestern and Canadian road trip in October, and wasn’t checking BJ as often as usual, so I totally missed your post and any follow-ups.

    And now I am going to see if I can get a decent night’s sleep (for a change). Night, everyone.

  78. 78.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Ailuridae: Ix-nay on JK Rawlings growth as a writer. Not true. The kids just got better with age. And, Gary Oldman is awesome. The third is my favorite movie by far. Though, not enough Snape. Never enough Snape. Lupin. Yum. Yum. Lucius. Also yum. Oh, sorry. I call the movies pr0n for adults–OK, pr0n for me.

    P.S. The fact that you flew back on such short notice says a lot about you. I know it’s not always possible, but physical presence is so comforting.

    @Yutsano: She is really good, too. And hawt. And, the books needed serious editing. But, I made my case against the HP books in the James Frey thread below. I am going to see the HP movie on Friday, too, at a matinee so, as my friend says, “Less people will hear you moan.”

    ETA: I only read the books because I was hooked on Alan Rickman as Snape.

  79. 79.

    Little Boots

    Actually, I think the writing got better as the kids got older. I remember thinking, what the hell is wrong with Harry Potter? Is he under a spell? And then realizing, nope, he’s just a 15 year old. Of course he’s being a dick! It was a magical moment.

  80. 80.

    goblue72

    Sorry Cole, but do you feel that uncomfortable, repetitive punching feeling in your lower bowels? That’s the long, hard, deep dicking Brady just gave the entire Steelers defense.

  82. 82.

    MikeJ

    @asiangrrlMN: The little tacked on bit at the end of the last book bugged the shit out of me. I just hated that marrying your high school girlfriend was held up as being the bestest thing evar that could happen to you.

  84. 84.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: I think the epilogue was her way of announcing she wasn’t going back to the Harry Potter universe. Sort of her way of saying, “This is all you get folks, enjoy!”

  87. 87.

    asiangrrlMN

    @MikeJ: Yep. That shit drives me crazy. I hate the epilogue and the need to sum up everyone’s lives. And, yeah, the idea that they had no growth between high school and marriage is laughable.

    Harrumph. These last two movies better have LOADS of Snape in them, or I’m going to be REALLY pissed. I know the movies and books are for the children, but seriously. Snape’s gotten robbed in the last three movies.

    @Yutsano: Whatever. She could have left it out.

    And, to the room in general, can we stop with the derogatory comments about women and sex in comparison to how the Steelers lost? Seriously. It’s getting annoying.

  88. 88.

    Ailuridae

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I think its pron for a certain set of adults and i certainly qualify.

    @Yutsano:

    I read all of the ones out at that point back to back when I first started with them in 04 or 05. It was a neat experience but I don’t enjoy them all that much so I’ve put it off til the next time I get sick and am feeling sorry for myself.

    I might mention that I really, really loved Rochester as a city. Man, my images of it being an extension of the rust belt were totally wrong (as all my friends had told me). A little small for me but really wonderful. Not that I want to encourage any of the Western NY crowd here.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    @Ailuridae:

    I might mention that I really, really loved Rochester as a city.

    Heh. People say this about Seattle and we arrange for them to be targeted for elimination. The rest of the country thinks it’s a miserable place to live, and we’ll just enjoy that reputation thankyewverymuch.

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Whatever. She could have left it out.

    I agree. Plus if you notice it’s the worst passage she’s written in the whole series. That’s what happens when you have to talk a writer into doing something.

  91. 91.

    goblue72

    @goblue72: John’s a big boy. And for anyone who’s ever participated in a fantasy football league, excessive trash talking is half the fun.

    As an aside, I highly recommend the TV comedy “The League” to armchair football fans. Its accuracy in portraying your average middle-aged guy, FF league is frightening.

  92. 92.

    Little Boots

    @goblue72:

    he’s a very sensitive big boy. don’t ever forget that. he’s really pretty wonderful, but a bit sensitive. that’s the thing.

  95. 95.

    Little Boots

    can we all admit, this is the stupidest country on earth? can we admit that, or do we have to keep pretending?

  97. 97.

    Anne Laurie

    @jharp:
    __

    And [Pittsburgh]’s the most difficult city in the U.S. to find your way around. There used to be a joke that the locals didn’t know how to get around. And one wrong turn can be a 45 minute adventure.

    Hah, perhaps you have never been to Boston… or Salem, MA… Providence… four of the five boroughs of NYC… basically, any Northeastern city constrained by a combination of geography & longterm settlement.

    When we moved to Boston, people who grew up here told us the standard joke in all the local school systems was that the Revolution-era street signs were taken down to confuse the British intruders, a tactic that worked so well the signs haven’t been replaced in the ensuing 200+ years.

  98. 98.

    Martin

    @burnspbesq: Well, I’ve never been mugged in SoCal. Can’t say the same for Jersey. And for all of the faults of this place, at least the government has enough faith in the population to let them pump their own gas and make left turns.

    I certainly wouldn’t mind moving back to NYC, but Jersey? Uh, no.

  99. 99.

    Martin

    @Anne Laurie: Meh. NYC is cake compared to Boston. Well, except for Staten Island, where the directions to everywhere is ‘drive toward the seagulls, if it smells bad you’re getting closer’. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Boston, and it’s downright European for trying to get around. I can’t think of a more difficult city in the US.

  100. 100.

    morzer

    @Steeplejack:

    You are confusing an incorrect historical use with validation of the construction. By that standard, you might just as well cite George Bush as a source of correct English.

  101. 101.

    morzer

    @Martin:

    Having lived in both Europe and the USA, Boston (and the US in general) is vastly worse as a place to drive. Signs are missing, or at the wrong angle, and drivers generally have far worse manners.

  102. 102.

    MikeJ

    @morzer: How do you mean “worse” as a place to drive? I’ve long said that Seattle could be vastly improved by forcing everyone who wants to drive to go to Boston for two weeks. Survivors get to return.

    Drivers in Boston know where they’re going and nothing is going to get in their way. Drivers in Seattle will stop dead in traffic from 35mph on a main thoroughfare to let somebody pull out of a parking lot.

  103. 103.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ:

    Drivers in Boston know where they’re going and nothing is going to get in their way. Drivers in Seattle will stop dead in traffic from 35mph on a main thoroughfare to let somebody pull out of a parking lot.

    You speak as if this is a bad thing. I’ve driven in LA, Atlanta, and Seattle. No question as to which I’d prefer.

    EDIT: Phoenix ain’t exactly a cakewalk either.

  104. 104.

    morzer

    @MikeJ:

    Worse in that the roads, signs, and general conduct of drivers are .. worse. What more did you need as a definition?

  105. 105.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: Yes, it is a bad thing. When you are on the street, you should be moving unless there’s a red light, stop sign, fire engine, etc. People behind you want to go too. When you’re “nice” to people trying to get in, you’re mean to people who are already in.

    Eventually there will be a break where the person who wants in can get in. Or traffic will stop because it is backed up from a light. Fine, let them in then. But don’t stop the flow of traffic because somebody might have to wait 30 seconds.

  106. 106.

    different church-lady

    @Yutsano: I am not going to defend the driving habits of Bostonians.

    However, I will note that when one gives up one’s right of way, one frequently creates dangerous situations.

    You stop and let someone pull out, but does the person in the next lane see you doing that, and can THEY stop in time not to T-Bone the beneficiary of your generosity?

  107. 107.

    MikeJ

    @morzer: My argument is that the conduct of the drivers is preferable to those elsewhere. You know where you stand. If you want to merge, you just fucking go and people will know that you aren’t bluffing, you’re coming in, and they will yield enough to clear their bumper by a few millimeters.

    As for road condition, eh, I grew up in the south.

  108. 108.

    morzer

    @MikeJ:

    Hmm.. I’ve seen plenty of over-aggressive Boston drivers, and short of New York they are easily the worst drivers I’ve seen in Europe or the USA.

  109. 109.

    Yutsano

    @different church-lady: @MikeJ: I realized we were describing two different situations after edit expired. What I was thinking MikeJ meant was this scenario:

    Eventually there will be a break where the person who wants in can get in. Or traffic will stop because it is backed up from a light. Fine, let them in then.

    Which if you don’t let them in, you’re pretty much just a jerk. The other one (which I am admittedly new here but I haven’t observed yet) is illegal and should be a traffic violation. Not that we wouldn’t still be polite to a fault. Plus we execute zipper merges here. Those are really neat to watch come together.

  110. 110.

    Karen

    @Martin:

    A series of power failures at New Jersey’s New Meadowlands Stadium brought Sunday night’s game between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys to a temporary halt.

    I was on the phone with my dad when he told me the lights went out. I told him that it was fate’s way of telling the Giants how much they suck.

    He growled at me.

  114. 114.

    jl

    @asiangrrlMN: No, the rolling pin! Looks like you are ready for action.

    Lord, I log on for a minute before beddy bye time, and here is this pic of mad housewife, ready to whap somebody with a rolling pin, with a look of purest glee.

    That is one mad housewife.

  116. 116.

    Susan Ross

    @jharp:

    My Colts have the Pats next. At the Pats. And the three teams are the class of the AFC.

    And in the annual bloodletting, I expect my Pats to summarily hand your Colts their asses as well.

  118. 118.

    Scuffletuffle

    @asiangrrlMN: Late to the party, as always, but your Halloween pic is teh awesome! And, I agree, never enough Snape and he got boned in the last book, IMO. No continuity or resolutions at all. That tome is now propping up my sofa, and is likely never to be read again.

  121. 121.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Scuffletuffle: Well, to be fair, I was never a fan of the books. I only read them because I’m such a huge Alan Rickman fan, and I liked to imagine him as Snape (and David Thewlis as Lupin and Jason Isaacs as Lucius and Helena Bonham-Carter as Bellatrix). That said, the last book was a complete and utter mess.

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