Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

The words do not have to be perfect.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

When we show up, we win.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Going Galt- What Is It, Exactly?

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  9. 9.

    burnspbesq

    Congrats to the UConn women’s basketball team on achieving an 89-game winning streak, the longest in the history of the sport, regardless of gender.

  12. 12.

    parsimon

    @beltane: Winter fur. Having lived with a cat similarly proportioned and furred for many years, I observe that this is a thickening of the pelt which is totally sensible in the winter months. Not to mention that the guy was asleep.

  13. 13.

    schrodinger's cat

    Behold, the great white one with the orange tail. Thanks John.
    Tunch pic made my day, now I can go sleep.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    @parsimon: I think he’s just conditioning his stomach so he can eat Cole in one sitting after he passes out from the xmas eve rumball overdose.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    John, a year or so ago I made a one-year commitment to a monthly donation to Gary Farber, based on a post here where you asked if folks could help Gary out.

    My year is up at the end of this month, and I know it’s rough on Gary when he loses the monthly money. I am hoping to find someone here who might be able to pick up my monthly subscription. I don’t know much about Gary’s status now, but you seemed to know him. Any chance you will be doing a post about Gary soon, or should I just post something on an open thread?

  21. 21.

    parsimon

    @WaterGirl: You’re asking John, of course, but I’ll mention that Gary is blogging at Obsidian Wings now, so people can check in on him there, if not at his usual digs.

  22. 22.

    Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)

    kirsten gillibrand 2016!

    I had been leaning elsewhere (whatshisname governor from montana), but she seems to have a higher ceiling.

    though, I’m sure when she’s inaugurated she sell us out and reveal herself to be a secret republican.

  26. 26.

    Joshua Norton

    You should put a little Santy Claus hat and maybe a sweater on him for a festive Christmas picture. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at all. Go on. We’ll wait.

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    @Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):

    Funniest thing I’ve seen on a basketball court in a while happened at the end of tonight’s Duke – Xavier women’s game. Highly controversial non-call gives Duke a one-point win. Xavier coaches melt down. Xavier’s 6’6″ post player ends up with two coaches in headlocks, one under each arm, to keep them from attacking the officials.

  36. 36.

    Linda

    I lost my 15 and a half year old black cat, Walt, the other day. I don’t post often here, but the stories of rescued and well-loved cats and dogs are my favorites.

    Walt was a neighborhood stray who I named and fed, yet assumed wasn’t mine. Silly girl! When I was getting set to move a few miles away, my friends asked me if I was taking Walt. No, of course, he is a stray. Linda, they said, you NAMED him. So, he moved in with my other two and we became a three-kitty house.

    In time, Kate and Toni passed away, leaving Walt and me alone. A couple of months after Toni died, I adopted a brother/sister pair of kittens. Walt was skittish at first, but within a few minutes, he instinctively knew they were his to protect. The strangest and most fun thing was that Jane and Ralph would suckle him (with glee!!) and he let them!! This lasted for about a year. He was always protective of them and spent his life loving and taking care of them.

    Thursday, he succumbed to failing kidneys and I had to let him go. Now Jane and Ralph spend their time with me. It’s up to us to take care of each other.

    If you want to see Walt in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrbmKn1pAM

  39. 39.

    Comrade Mary

    @Linda: Oh, Linda, I’m so sorry. Walt sounded like an awesome cat — and a wet nurse, too! (Well, dry nurse, to be accurate.) And that video is enchanting.

    Kidney failure is an awful thing, and I hope you know that you did just the right thing to let him go.

    Scritch Jane and Ralph for me!

  43. 43.

    YellowJournalism

    “Just you wait until you go to change my litter box the next time, Cole. And you thought the jumpy dog was a shitting machine.”

  49. 49.

    Lesley

    He looks piratey, that’s for sure. I’d watch my back if I were you, John Cole. He’ll suck your life breath and take your silver!

  50. 50.

    lol

    My cat is losing weight – she’s lost at least 2 pounds in the past couple months.

    Instead of feeding her three times a day, I just keep her bowl massively full. It turns out she was stressing out about availability of food (probably because she was abandonned) and was overeating to compensate.

    Give her all the food she wants and she eats proper portions on her own.

    So now she’s beginning to resemble the toned killing machine that I first adopted.

  51. 51.

    Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)

    @lol:

    It turns out she was stressing out about availability of food (probably because she was abandonned) and was overeating to compensate.

    she’d make a purfect blogger

  52. 52.

    asiangrrlMN

    TUUUUUUUUUNCHIE! And, to think, I was going to skip tonight. Happy sigh now that I’ve seen my boy.

    @Linda: Linda, my deepest condolences on your loss. Walt is so handsome, and I love the way he’s so gentle while grooming Jane. I’m so sorry you had to let him go, and I hope you know you did the right thing.

    @Bnut: Yeah, he is, but he stood up at a press conference and said that he knew they were only getting coverage because they were a women’s team beating a men’s team’s record. So, he earned a few brownie points in my book for that one.

  57. 57.

    abo gato

    Holy cow! He embiggens like crazy! I didn’t think it was possible for Tunchie to get bigger…..

  61. 61.

    Paul in KY

    @Linda: Linda, I’m very sorry for your loss. I know Walt had a great life & was a very happy kitteh. Once your mourning period is at an end, please get another one :-)

  64. 64.

    Gary Farber

    WaterGirl, thanks muchly for your concern. And thanks muchly to Google Alerts. :-)

    I’m not making any predictions, but I do have some hopes and intent to return to semi-regular, at least, blogging at Amygdala Real Soon Now, and am slowly doing bits of work on a template redesign.

    (Anyone who actually knows what they’re doing with HTML, let alone more complicated stuff under the hood at Blogger — and, no, I’m not switching from Blogger before August — is welcome to communicate with me, as are, hey, “people.”)

    Meanwhile, I’ve also become a front pager at Obsidian Wings, a spiffy blog, with a community that overlaps to some degree with that of Balloon Juice, and where I also have been commenting as regularly as I could since, finally, in October, made arrangements and began preparing to move to Oakland, California, for a house-sitting stint for someone I knew thirty years ago, who travels a lot; I moved to Oakland on November 11th, having been cat and house-sitting on my own since November 16th (some now aging words about that at that link, and previous entries, if you wish to check it out.

    Similarly, some of my earlier Obsidian Wings posts are listed there, and here is my latest tiny contribution, and, hey, it’s an open thread, where y’all are invited to stop by and chat at ObWi, as well, if anyone wants to chat with me and the gang there.

    (Comments at my own blog always also more than welcome, of course!)

    Meanwhile, to briefly update, my house-sitting stint currently lasts only until August, and that’s my horizon at the moment; I’m now trying to hook up with social services here in California, but have yet to really do so, and really can’t say what more will happen beyond what I’ve just said, until it happens.

    I hope to find somewhere to live by August, and hope to have social services help, and meanwhile, unfortunately, I’ve found that the gout has gotten so much worse since moving here, and as well as over the past year, that I’m again largely housebound, though this may respond well to medical treatment again; I can’t say.

    Regrettably, the essentials of my situation aren’t terribly different from a year ago, insofar as my financial situation, save that you Balloon Juicers were a major, huge, part of helping me out — far more so than any other group of people larger than individuals at a time, at the time of John’s immensely generous and kind post (he knows that I’ve asked for help far too many times in the past).

    For the moment, my income still flows through those subs and donations; I hope to change that ASAP, but the above is what it is.

    Here in Oakland, though, is endlessly better for me than Raleigh, which lasted from Mayish of 2008 through November 11th of 2010, so things are moving forward, vastly improving, and I’m feeling good about things, insofar as one can when couch-surfing, dependent on the kindness of strangers, friends, readers, and perhaps some day government, who will help me buy a Cadillac, all the lobster I can eat, health coverage, lots of conspicuous consumer consumption, because I just like to have such a good self-image by not feeling independent.

    Hmm, that sentence didn’t come out the way I intended, but I’ll leave it, or I’ll start editing and never stop.

    Anyway, I’m alive, well, compulsively unwilling to ask for help if not absolutely forced, and do look for me on ObWi, Amygdala more when I get the new design, and I was posting like mad to Facebook in the past year or two, with endless personal details, and leaving pointers at times on Amygdala that I was doing so, but as of this week, I’m on radio silence there, and contemplating how much or little I want to go back.

    That’s the gist gist gist in a non-coherent, rambly way, but I’m still getting mail, along with tons of spam, at gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com, and Am Around, as I always have been on teh interwubs, since 1995, one way or another.

    And now I have Lots And Lots And Lots of Cat Pictures I can threaten everyone with, since my primary function here is to Love The Cats for hours a day, and take care of the house (which is large, and two stories, with very narrow staircases, and I leave the implications to any careful reader, but I have gotten down to 204 lbs, which is great, and don’t lack for exercise).

    Oh, and people have even met me face to face within the past two weeks. Bloggers, even.

    I’ll post pictures when I Have Time, which may not occur until the January 15th gathering. Balloon Juicers anywhere in the Bay Area who wish to travel to Oakland/Berkeley are solicited, welcomed, encouraged, and desired to come! You don’t have to know me or anyone!

    Just say “I’m from Balloon Juice, I post as [FILL IN BLANK HERE],” and don’t everyone come as FILL IN BLANK HERE.

    And remind me to post a link to the next Formal Annoucnment of the January 15th socializing meetup, going out sometime after January 1st, on an open thread here, which I was intending to do anyway, once I’d seen if anyone showed up at the first one (nine of us did, which was absolutely what I expected).

    That’s doubtless TMI, but there you go. Y’never know what can happen when you hit “send” on These Great Tubes Of Intering We’re On.

    Peace, balance, and flow.

    I’ll close with some quotes I read yesterday:
    “We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

    “Courage does not consist in calculation, but in fighting against chances.”

    “It is almost the definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.” (It’s a quote; I wouldn’t do the ancient gendered languge thing there myself.)

    “Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”

    “When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.”

    See you at Obsidian Wings and around, and perhaps even at BJ now and again, but I’m not full of copious spare time from now until I do, so apologies if not.

    Thanks for asking. And thanks to everyone at BJ who helped me, and who helped others, and to all of you for paying attention to the world, doing good, and making the world better.

    And with that, my final close with my Thanksgiving post.

    I am thankful, and I try to pass it forward, and back when I can.

    “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
    — Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

    [unproofread comment; apologies]

  65. 65.

    Gary Farber

    “And remind me to post a link to the next Formal Annoucnment of the January 15th socializing meetup….”

    s/b: “And remind me to post a link to the next Formal Announcement of the January 15th socializing meetup in aBalloon Juice open thread….”

  66. 66.

    Gary Farber

    Anyone who wishes is free and encouraged to send me a Friend Request on Facebook, if you like; just mention where you know me from — in this case, the Magick Words would be “Balloon Juice” — and I’ll confirm, and then ignore you if you’re boring, and hide you if you’re offensive, and play with you otherwise as my impulse moves you.

    Assuming I post much again to Facebook. But at the least, I’ll check for messages, and probably be posting at least a teeny bit, if not scads more, within days or weeks.

    And now everyone should talk about something else, although, of course, you already are, which is one reason I don’t comment much on BJ, because it would be beyond a full time job.

    There are a lot of you. Lots more than in 2002.

    Did I mention it’s my nineth blogiversary on December 30th?

    Welcome to blogdom, newcomers! :-)

  67. 67.

    Gary Farber

    Yeah, I see this is 16 posts down, there have been subsequent open threads, and this post is about to disappear off the front page.

    And that’s as soon as I saw it, 12 hours later, and wrote a response.

    So, like, will anyone beyond maybe 6-8 people ever even read any of this?

    I dunno much about how BJ works these days. I’ve only barely adjusted to Tim being added as a second blogger to John Cole’s personal blog.

  68. 68.

    Gary Farber

    @burnspbesq: I’ve been commenting at Obsidian Wings since December 16th, 2003, and have written more in comments there since than anywhere else on the web, including Amygdala, by far. Hundreds of thousands of words in comments.

    A few of them even have made some minimal sense.

    I did take 2009 off, but otherwise: hundreds of thousands of words. Since December 16th, 2003. Really, truly.

  69. 69.

    Gary Farber

    This FAQ appears empty to my browser. Is there even a list of who blogs here these days somewhere? I’m not seeing one on the sidebar, and I just checked the FAQ, and now I gotta go.

    All I see is “Contact

    John
    * Tim F
    * DougJ
    * Anne Laurie”

    Which still doesn’t work, by the way, unless one wants to use some sort of non-web-based mail reader, or a Microsoft product, or has greater technical knowledge than I do.

    But I have the distinct idea that more than four people blog here; I sure remember seeing various others coming and going.

    But is anyone going to read this?

  70. 70.

    Gary Farber

    Yeah, the Javascript still demands I install Outlook or equivalent Microsoft product, or some software, at least, besides a web-based browser on my OS.

  71. 71.

    parsimon

    Hi, Gary. I’ve known you tangentially from around (chiefly unfogged, back in the day) — just wanted to let you know I have indeed seen these comments, though I’m fairly new in this space, it does move fast, and has quite a large number of commenters.

    Good to hear that your west coast move has been fairly smooth; and it’s terrific to read you at ObWi.

  72. 72.

    Gary Farber

    “Hi, Gary. I’ve known you tangentially from around (chiefly unfogged, back in the day)—just wanted to let you know I have indeed seen these comments”

    Thanks muchly!

    At least one person read them.

    Though if I’d figured that would be it, I would have used email, or Instant Messaging, or someting. But what the hell, there are more words where those came from.

    I suppose I could take up tweeting, if only I thought shortened links were safe, which I don’t.

  75. 75.

    Gary Farber

    @WaterGirl: It’s really not difficult to send me an email at gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com, or leave a comment on my blog. If you google “farber,” I’m on the first page. If you google “Gary Farber,” I’m listed thousands of times.

    What I don’t know is how to find or answer “WaterGirl” after she asked about me.

    Sigh.

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