All this talk of Four Loko and I decided I would have an Irish coffee tonight. Speaking of, this comment cracked me up:
Spiked coffee for football watching? I picture you knocking it back while eating a Hungry Man frozen dinner on a TV tray while carrying on a conversation with Tunch.
That struck a little close to home. If El Tiburon had mentioned a bathrobe and a terrible towel, I’d be searching the house for a hidden camera.
But seriously, what is wrong with a little hooch in the coffee after a late Sunday breakfast? At least it wasn’t a mimosa.
And who doesn’t talk to their pets? I talk to all of mine. Hell, I sing to the dogs. Not to mention, Tunch is, after all, named after a Steeler, so I always make sure he is comfy on the couch and we have a pre-game pep talk before the Stillers come on.
Tim
I never know whether to chortle or weep at the state of your private life, John.
That said, I talk to my two dogs all the damn time and don’t care who knows it. Ted and Helen are far more civil than most humans I have met.
jnfr
I’ll just take this moment to endorse two things:
The Balloon Juice Pet Calendar, which is awesome,
and the Wreck List, DKos guild on Garrosh (Horde side). Best WoW guild ever.
parsimon
Singing is always good. Perhaps there is also dancing.
General Stuck
Now I’m nauseous
Xecky Gilchrist
I totally sing to my dog. It’s a family tradition!
Rosalita
do I want to know what the terrible towel is for?
Ash Can
Do the dogs sing along? It’d be great if they did. You could all go on tour with Glenn Beck.
gbear
How can a person not sing to their pets while preparing their dinner? There isn’t a single song that can’t have it’s lyrics tweaked to describe the experience of feeding the cats.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
People who don’t talk to their pets should never be allowed to have them.
AnnaN
Our kitchen’s coffee corner has four items: Cuisinart coffee maker, grinder, bottle of Grand Marnier and bottle of Bailey’s.
So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a spiked coffee.
Calming Influence
I love mimosas! I’m not crazy about champagne, though, so I use club soda instead. And I hardly ever have fresh orange juice in the house, so I substitute scotch. MMMmmm – dee-lish!
Just Some Fuckhead
Jesus John, think of your younger readers, some of who may be in college and prone to binge drinking. That would be fine but you know kids hang out with other kids and some of them may be underage and do you really want to be responsible for their deaths?
It’s time to go sober John for the kids, for the good of the country, and humanity.
srv
I’m glad that juicetards here have joined the teatards in undermining federal authority at airports. The thrill of having airport security outsourced warms my heart and surely will aid the administration.
Who would have thought they’d replace punching hippies with hugging glibtarians?
trollhattan
This just in: Arizona is still populated with assholes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19dog.html?_r=1&hp
anticontrarian
Or on a Thursday evening, for that matter?
morzer
Cole? Singing? Cole? To TUNCH?
I need a good stiff drink after this alarming (audio) visual.
celticdragonchick
Watching Maddow.
Liberman says that GOP Sens Lugar and Collins will vote to repeal DADT. Murkowski said tonight she will vote to scrap DADT as well.
I think she is sending a big “fuck you” to cream deminthe…
Best news I’he heard this week.
I also announce I will lay off of Obama for not making any calls. He finally called that idiot Carl Levin this week and told him not to surrender after Levin announced he was ditching DADT from the Defense Authorization Bill.
Thank God.
kdaug
Oh, god. Cole singing to his pets while mopping naked and a terrible towel tied on like a cape…
I think I’m starting to get the picture. I need a drink.
celticdragonchick
@kdaug:
Uh, me too…
Violet
Bailey’s? Good Lord. That’s Sarah’s Palin’s drink of choice.
Persia
How can you not talk/sing/babble to your pets? Feeding them in perfect silence just sounds creepy.
magurakurin
I see the Four Loko ban in a different light. It is more banning the marketing rather than the actual substance. I more or less agree with this approach. My own personal stance on substance vices such as booze, beer, ciggies, and weed (and prostitution, too for that matter) is that they should all be legalized and heavily regulated across the board. In addition, if I were king of the world, there would be absolutely no advertising or marketing of these substances (and services) at all. They would be freely available to paying adults, but no tv ads at the Superbowl for beer, no magazine ads for smokes(of any kind), nothing. I think people should be free to choose to use recreational drugs, but there is little need to encourage people to do so.
For harder drugs, I would institute a program like they had in the Netherlands regarding heroin. If you want to be a junkie you have to sign up with government and get on a program. Harder drugs, are definitely a more difficult problem because the damage they cause to the individual and society is, if not stronger(alcohol is pretty bad, tobacco, too) certainly much more immediate. But let’s face it, if shooting smack become legal tomorrow, would there really be a mad rush to sign up to be a junkie? I really don’t think so.
MikeJ
Rather than Bailey’s I picture Cole drinking fat ass in a glass, but I don’t know if he’s ever been to Maine.
suzanne
I both talk and sing to Scout and Luna. Duh. Shit, it’s only polite, for God’s sake. Who doesn’t talk to their roommates?
And there’s nothing wrong with spiked coffee. Hell, if Starbucks served it, I might go more often. Enjoy one for me.
(Can I just whine once again how sick I am of having to live vicariously through all my Four Loko-drinking, sushi-eating, spicy-food-enjoying comrades? God.)
morzer
@magurakurin:
Rush Limbaugh is never going to let government into his “special medicine” cabinet.
parsimon
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
Oh, I don’t know. Depends on what you mean by “talk to.” I didn’t talk to my cats as though I expected them to respond — that is just weird. Talk to them for tone of voice; I think I mostly talked at or with my cats.
As in: “Minou, I can’t have you in my lap when I’m trying to type, sorry, babe.” Or: “Boy, give me a second here, I know we don’t have fish often, but *whoa get off the counter*”
Not so much for the babbling style of pet-conversation.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
From a friend of mine:
1.Go to Google Maps.
2. Go to “Get Directions”.
3. Type Taiwan as the start location.
4. Type China as the end location.
5. Read STEP 24 of the directions.
Douglas
I was always under the impression “spiked drinks” referred to drinks with drugs (including alcohol) that were added without the knowledge of the drinker.
While Irish Coffee is one of the four major foodgroups.
Anne Laurie
@parsimon:
__
SHHHHH! Last time Cole tried ‘dancing’ with Lily, it resulted in massive shoulder surgery!
(And not because the poor dog is overweight, either, haterz.)
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan #14: oh god, that is just sad and awful. That poor family.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And for something to celebrate, the Dallas School Board approved an anti-bullying policy that include protecting gays and lesbians.
J. Michael Neal
I talk to my cats all the time. Others might describe it as pleading for mercy.
J. Michael Neal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Why did I want to go to Lanzhou of all the godforsaken places?
S. cerevisiae
This thread has got me missing my puppy, but she is doing more good where she is comforting my mother-in-law who had a stroke. She is very protective of mom now, and she has claimed her lap for her own. She is a Cavalier who loves to fetch her soft frisbee – god I miss that dog.
kdaug
@Douglas: No, that’s “milk with knives”.
Svensker
@Violet:
If it had been invented, you know who’s favorite drink it would have been, don’t you?
That said, Bailey’s is just really delicious. Their chocolate mint flavored one is, well, it’s, um….let’s just say that I don’t only want to drink it.
J. Michael Neal
@celticdragonchick:
Citation? All I ever saw was some anonymous staffer (office unidentified) saying that Levin was considering doing this. Given the sanctimonious bullshit you continually spew on this subject, I highly doubt that you can produce the goods.
gbear
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Dallas is sooooo gay.
parsimon
@Anne Laurie:
Really? For John or for Lily?
Comrade Kevin
@jnfr:
Yes, that it is. Boy am I glad I ran across one of the diaries about it on DKos sometime last year.
SiubhanDuinne
@suzanne #24: It’s only a couple of weeks now, isn’t it? I want you to post comments from the delivery room while swigging down, well, really, any potent potable you can score.
J. Michael Neal
@magurakurin:
I would be horrified at this, but the Bud Light commercials really have sucked for about 5-6 years now. Didn’t beer commercials used to be funny sometimes?
MikeJ
@J. Michael Neal:
No. You were drunk.
Ahasuerus
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): There was one like this last year between North America and Europe. I wonder if it’s a glitch in their routing algorithm or an easter egg.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ahasuerus: My oldest says that the route between Seattle and Alaska tells you to kayak.
Anne Laurie
@S. cerevisiae: You have my sympathy, but how great is it that your dog gets to do the “job” she was bred for?
Despite all the sneers from “macho” idiots, there have been toy dogs ever since the distinction could be made between dogs and wolves, and situations like your mother-in-law’s are one reason why. Dogs may instinctively want to comfort “their” people, but it’s so much easier for a 15-pound dog to provide such comfort to an invalid…
Cliff
FYI, 100ml of four loco = 1 shot of 40% vodka, one can = 7 shots
fucen tarmal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
if you do it as united states (non specific) to china, first they start you in a non-descript red state(cheney’s undisclosed location methinks)
direction 42 is to kayak across the pacific ocean…which leads me to wonder, what is the upper limit of what google considers swimmable….i mean at some distance you have to go from swim, to kayak….i want to know how this determination is made.
Anne Laurie
@parsimon:
Ah, you’re new here. An explanation, from this January:
Cole, “Dancing” (on Ice) with Dog
S. cerevisiae
@Anne Laurie: Thank you, that is it exactly. She is a fantastic lapdog but has the personality of a big field spaniel – she even points!
lamh32
Anybody watch FRINGE on FOX? Man I’m sorry, but I’m beginning to love this show more than X-Files. It’s sacrelige I know but it’s true.
Tonight’s episode was da bomb, last weeks episode was da shiznitt, hell, the whole season so far has been the bomb diggitty!
Also, 3 season into the show, and I’m just finding out that the pictures they show after each commericial break are hyroglyphs and they symbolize a letter of the alphabet!
Fringe Glyphs code
Maody
The only god I coo to is my kitteh Mao Mao. She is picked up sideways so her haunches can be kissed each morning while chanting kinda sing-songy, “where’s my good kitty?” She thinks nothing else is going on in the kitchen while this lovefest takes place, but secretly the coffee kettle is on.
Our sister Bess’ go-to rule of life: “If the dog doesn’t like the man, the man doesn’t belong in my house.”
celticdragonchick
@J. Michael Neal:
The trial balloon was widely reported and Levin did not try to deny it. That amounts to an announcement…but if you want to argue the semantics since it wasn’t said in person on Hardball, I will let you have your way.
Obama called him on that and that was pretty widely reported as well.
But I wasn’t there in person with a recorder, so YMMV.
parsimon
@Anne Laurie:
Ah, thanks. That doesn’t sound like dancing. God knows what the “naked in the shower with a mop” reference is to.
J. Michael Neal
@celticdragonchick: So, when you said that Levin announced that that was what he was doing, you were being extremely economical with the truth and instead had a bunch of speculation. Got it.
J. Michael Neal
@parsimon:
Pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
tim serbo
the italians call it “corrected coffee.” i like the implication that there’s something wrong with coffee that doesn’t contain a slug of grappa, or whatever.
i sing to my rabbit, Hoppipolla (featured on the December page of the BJ calendar, he’s perched in his favorite guitar case) all the time. i’m on the guitar stool, banging out “passionate kisses,” and he’s plopped in the guitar case, front paws folded neatly and politely, staring at me. he’s such a lovely audience, i’d love to take him home with me. so i did.
Comrade Mary
@parsimon:
John tends to get a little hoppitamoppita about his physical environment.
BombIranForChrist
I talk to everyone, my pets, my family, my table. Fuck sanity.
asiangrrlMN
I talk to my boys a lot. I mean, I can’t talk to myself all the time! I have never baby-talked to an actual human baby, but I do it to my cats. I would be embarrassed about that except I don’t give a shit.
lacp
So what kind of Irish goes into your Irish coffee? I’ve tried a bunch, and Tullamore Dew 10-yr-old is the best so far. It’s good stuff, but isn’t that much more expensive than regular Tullamore Dew…at least, here in Pennsylvania.
tim serbo
@Comrade Mary: nice little neologism you got there. hate to see something bad happen to it.
fyi, Hoppipolla is Icelandic for “hopping in puddles.” it’s also the name of a song by Sigur Ros that was used as the credits music for the BBC’s massive Attenborough visits nature series. so pffffttt. and i mean that in the nicest possible way.
Comrade Mary
@tim serbo: Tim, I opened the page and started replying to parsimon, then went off to another tab to Google a bit to ensure that I punctuated hoppitamoppita correctly, got distracted, and came back and hit post, which is when I saw your adorable bunny name just above my reply. I beg your forgiveness: no insult or infringement was intended.
(Bunny picture? Please?)
El Tiburon
Talking to your pets is ome thing. Expecting a response is another.
tim serbo
@Comrade Mary: no insult taken, believe me. i was just taken by the quick change you rang on his totally perfect name. you see, when he leaps away from the spot where he just peed, there’s sometimes a bit of…scatter. tmi?
anyway, i’d be more than happy to post a pic of the little heartbreaker, but i’m such a tech retard (sorry, Trig!), i don’t know how. any advice, yins?
Jane2
Hey! What’s wrong with mimosas…’It’s just juice’.
parsimon
@Comrade Mary:
Tidy, then?
tim serbo
@Comrade Mary: two unrelated “hoppi”s in consecutive comments is a fairly amazing coincidence, btw. fairly full moon tonight, yes?
Tunch
@El Tiburon: It would be the height of discourtesy to allow someone to sweetly natter on in your presence without replying. If I were to let John’s mumbling sounds of affection hang in thin air with no reply — no reply at all — this would not only break the heart of He Who Feeds Me The Good Tuna, it would absolutely ruin my reputation as a gentlebeast.
If my word is insufficient to convince you, may I suggest that you review this.
Yrs in Bast,
Tunch.
Ash Can
@parsimon: Damned if I can find it in the archives now (::gives John the stink-eye::), but our illustrious blog host once reported here that he’d had a near-death experience in his bathroom. Being the efficient sort that he is, he’d decided to combine taking a shower with mopping the bathroom floor. Clothes off, he started at the doorway and worked his way in toward the shower. Somehow he slipped — IIRC, this may have been a murder attempt on Tunch’s part — and nearly brained himself on the toilet or some other bathroom fixture. (Note to everyone: Feel free to jump in and add to or correct my info.) Needless to say, we vicious jackals in the comment threads here have never let him forget it.
parsimon
@Ash Can:
Okay, thanks. To be honest, I figured it was something like that, at least involving the nakedness in the shower/bathroom while wielding a mop, but that was how it was reported.
The archives here are pretty much impossible, so I thank you for filling me in.
Ruckus
I talk to Bud the rescue cocker. But I am real worried that I won’t be able to do that much longer. Bud is around 12 and for about 2 weeks has been sick. Vomiting, not attacking his food bowl like he hadn’t eaten in about 2 weeks, losing weight too fast. The vet doesn’t really know what is wrong, we have tried a few things with only temporary moderate improvement and then he gets worse than before. Took him to the vet yesterday and he was prancing and excited like I’d never seen him. This morning he only half heartily eats about 1/2 his food. Hasn’t touched another thing all day long, refuses food from my hand, throws up twice today. Taking him to the vet again tomorrow. Poor guy, he looks so sad and moves like he aged about 5 years overnight. I’ve seen people act like this before and was never a good thing. I hope I’m being melodramatic and he just has a bug but this guy has gotten under my skin in way under the 11 months I’ve known him.
Ash Can
@Ruckus: Is it at all possible that your dog is getting into some sort of poison, like cleaning substances or insect/pest killer? Years ago, when I was young and we had a cat, the cat suddenly took ill out of a clear blue sky. The vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and neither could we. Finally we caught her drinking out of the toilet — the toilet in which my mother had recently started using some cleaning stuff that keeps the bowl clean and the water blue. We ditched the cleaner, and the cat recovered just fine.
Andy K
Bailey’s.
Bailey’s?!
John Cole: Girl Drink Drunk
Don’t drink and drive that Miata, hombre.
CircleSquared
@parsimon: Well, actually, one of my cats does talk back, and I don’t mean one “meow.” I mean, it’s like conversation. On one occasion I also got a picture of a person. Called her up the next day about something else. She said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about your cat.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I think she’s been thinking about you, too.”
Most of my animals haven’t been that “articulate.” If that’s what it was.
morzer
@Ruckus:
Could there be a problem with a particular brand of food? have you tried changing the food you give him? Also. how is he on drinking water? Has the vet ruled out pancreatitis and kidney problems?
I have heard of cases where the dog had swallowed some string, got the upper part caught around its tongue, and the lower part irritated the stomach. so you might want to check the mouth. Also, see if any teeth/gums are infected.
What medications have been tried?
Tim
Back before a wife and kids, when I could actually sit through an entire game, a splash of single malt in black coffee on Sunday morning (PST) was routine.
Anne Laurie
@Ruckus: I’m assuming your vet has checked Bud’s liver function already, but did he test for (a) Addison’s disease, or (b) thyroid problems?
My google-fu is even weaker than usual tonight, but I seem to remember being told that cocker spaniels are Addison-prone… this was when our seven-year-old rescue papillon was dying as the result of complications from “atypical” Addisons (“papillons seldom get it, and if they do it’s almost always older females, and when they do it’s almost never fatal”). But the symptoms, general as they are, seem like they might be right for adrenal failure.
Thyroid problems seem to be another one of those multi-symptom, up-and-down problems older dogs are prone to, and which are heinous difficult to diagnose….
Ruckus
@Ash Can:
We thought of that but I kid proofed all the possibilities 2 days after I got him. He is never out off leash when outside other than a dog park, which he hasn’t wanted to visit for a while. He sleeps by my feet during the day, when I move to a different room he follows and lays back down. So I doubt the poison angle but anything is possible. He goes back to the vet tomorrow to get a full blood panel to see if that gets us any answers. Like many of us I’d spent what ever is necessary but you can’t get blood out of a stone so the $800-1000 work up is not possible.
This road looks down hill right now but it looked like that day before yesterday till I took him to the vet. Then he’s like a pup. It’s like taking your car to the mechanic, it never makes the noise when you’re there. He just woke up a few minutes ago and got water, his tail waging like crazy. I’m going to wait till the blood results come back, hopefully that will give news. It’s expensive but the cost starts going up even faster after this.
morzer
@Ruckus:
Might seem like an odd question, but does his breath smell funkier than normal? If so, check his teeth, because one of them or the gum might be infected, which would produce vomiting.
Ruckus
@morzer:
@Anne Laurie:
I walk in the door at the vets and they know Bud right off.
He is on thyroid medication, he has been on anti-nausea meds for the last 2 weeks along with bland chicken and rice that I cook. I have also changed foods, weening him off the old onto the new. The vet used to give a small possibility that it may be Cushings and we are rapidly coming to give that a lot more weight. She says that many dogs have the symptoms and don’t have it and a lot of dogs have it with few symptoms. But that or cancer is right now the most likely. With the rapid onset of new symptoms other things than Cushings are a real possibility. Addisons doesn’t fit the symptoms.
And one other point, this dog has the best breath of any dog I’ve known. His teeth look pretty good, the doc is pretty happy about that.
Ruckus
@morzer:
You type too fast.
Calming Influence
@lacp: @lacp: I don’t know what John puts in his coffee, but I can tell you from experience if you put a shot of Redbreast in a cuppa, a leprechaun’s gonna fuck up your day.
Fax Paladin
@Maody: A female friend of mine tells of a cat she had (dead now, alas) that vanished whenever visitors appeared, except for twice: One male visitor got full-threat hissed at; the other had an immediate lap cat.
The former, not long after, had to be emphatically reminded that no means no. The latter’s her husband now…
Calming Influence
@parsimon: Whatever you do, don’t mention wetsuits.
Fax Paladin
Krauthammer declares “don’t touch my junk” to be “the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter”:
… where do I even start?
Oh, and:
It is?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Now notice what is important to Taibbi and what is important to President Obama.
Agreed.
.
.
Platonicspoof
@tim serbo:
This is probably hours too late, but there are sites like Flickr where you can post a lot of pics and video for free, up to a limit.
Signing up, uploading your photos, etc., is simple, just have to open a Yahoo account, then Flickr. Then you can post the links to your photos back here.
Google something like “online photo albums” and you’ll get hits for Picasa and others. Flikr is the only one I’ve used. I don’t trust Facebook for anything due to security inconsistencies, a quote from one of their people, etc.
And lots of other commenters have asked the same question.
Which makes me think of another site rebuild suggestion.
Maody
@Fax Paladin: When my late hubby and I lived in France, we had a black socks kitty named Normand who had the good sense to always rear back, hiss, spit and claw menacingly at my FIL who richly deserved it. My sister phoebesmother can attest to the deserving it part.
celticdragonchick
@J. Michael Neal:
He announced it to others on Capital Hill it seems and they lost no time in telling everybody else. He did not announce it on TV .