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You are here: Home / Open Threads / “We Start With The Side of A Cow” — Or How To Fill In The Hours Until John Can Usefully Post an NFL Thread…

“We Start With The Side of A Cow” — Or How To Fill In The Hours Until John Can Usefully Post an NFL Thread…

by | 49 Comments

This post is in: ,

Check out this video from Wilson on the making of NFL game footballs. (Scroll down to the bottom of the column, as my attempt to link direct to the video failed abjectly.  My link-fu is exceptionally weak.)

Y’all may have noted that compared to JC, I’m actually good at this going Galt business. School starts again on Monday, (for my 10 y.o., not me) which ought to improve my posting performance, but I thought this little bit might amuse.

Most impressive to me:  these are old fashioned skilled craft jobs on display.  Shortest work stint featured at the Ohio factory in which Wilson makes its NFL-acceptable footballs was 28 years.  And check out Emmit at 2:17.  There is a man who works hard for the money.  He’s been doing it for 35  years.  I’d give myself ten minutes, fifteen tops, before screaming “Uncle!”

I guess this is an open thread, though mostly it’s just an excuse to start with the side of a cow.

Image:  Paul Gaugin, La nuit de Noël (La bénédiction des bœufs),1894-1903.

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  2. 2.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Doing a Charlton Heston imitation, after another Big Ten(12)
    flameout!DAMN YOU!!!! DAMN YOU!!! FOOTBALL GODS!!!!

  4. 4.

    Third Eye Open

    After this most recent of disappointing seasons for my Hurricanes, I have made a new-year’s resolution: I will in fact root for my (twice) alma mater of FSU. I guess all it really took is not having old Bobby around to finally get me over the hump. I need to buy a shirt now.

  11. 11.

    Violet

    Wow, Emmit rocks. That’s a tough job. All those people are amazing.

    I wish our politicians had to do those jobs for a month. Maybe they’d have a different idea of what “work” is.

  17. 17.

    Maody

    @sherifffruitfly: that is super cool. dolphins are so smart.

    Tom, beautiful Gaugin. His paintings just make me feel so calm. Will try to find something good as a gratitude offering.

  23. 23.

    Crusty Dem

    @suzanne:

    She sounds like a charmer. I have some plans lying around for a person-sized homemade trebuchet, if you need to launch her ~1/4 mile from your domicile, it’ll do the trick…

  26. 26.

    Skepticat

    @suzanne: She must have been referring to your large, soft, beautiful eyes; long, sweeping eyelashes; generally pleasant, low-key demeanor; and reputation for productivity and usefulness.

  27. 27.

    suzanne

    @Violet: I suggested it. She declined. Sigh.

    She’s staying until Thursday. Fortunately, my birthday is Friday, so at least she’ll be gone for that.

    Yes, I was breastfeeding at the time. And she specifically said that I reminded her of a particular breed of cow that produces a lot of milk. So I don’t think she meant it to sound like a comment on my appearance. I was still taken aback.

    @Crusty Dem:

    I have some plans lying around for a person-sized homemade trebuchet, if you need to launch her ~1/4 mile from your domicile, it’ll do the trick…

    I want something that will launch her about 1,400 miles away. Like an airplane.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @suzanne: Some people do not think before they speak. One time, after I had lost quite a bit of weight, my sister told me that I looked great now, not like one of those heavy women at K-mart who have big boobs but aren’t sexy.

  29. 29.

    Anne Laurie

    @suzanne: __

    My mother-in-law said the other day that I reminded her of a cow. That felt nice.

    Probably not much consolation, but there are beauty contests for cows, too. Maybe your MIL meant well, bless her heart.

    Back in the early 1970s, I had to memorize the scoring system for judging conformation in dairy cows. Out of a possible 100 points, 25 were devoted to the size & shapeliness of the udders, and 10 to “poise”. As I told my fellow feminists, not so different from the Miss America contest…

  30. 30.

    Crusty Dem

    @suzanne:
    Well, YMMV, but she sounds like someone who should experience human flight without the constraints imposed by an airplane. Especially the landing part.

    I believe my mother-in-law said something almost exactly like this to my wife at some point during breastfeeding. I’ve come to believe that something happens to mothers when they become grandmothers and their only method of coping is to say horrible things to their daughters and daughters-in-law. Perhaps your SO could politely remind his lovely mother that defenstration is a viable response to any future bovine comparisons and it would be wise if she kept any such observations to herself…

  31. 31.

    suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Wow. Just… who the fuck SAYS something like that?!

    @Crusty Dem: He thinks she was just joking and that, while it was insensitive, I should just kinda chill. Which is probably true; my MIL isn’t the type to be nasty or kidding on the square (she’s the Most Boring Person Alive, and not that funny). I just wish she had thought of how that might sound to someone who, having just delivered a baby, might be slightly sensitive about her body image.

    Oh well. Fuck it.

  32. 32.

    suzanne

    @Anne Laurie:

    and 10 to “poise”

    WTF?!

    Did you ask them their position on supply-side economics or somesuch and ask them for a cogent :30 response in order to ascertain this?

  34. 34.

    suzanne

    In more hilarious/weird happenings, I think my MIL went looking in my nightstand and found my vibrator.

    Awkward. And yet funny.

  35. 35.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    I wish I can do one of those Hitler/Downfall parodies on You Tube, titled Hitler the Big Ten Commissioner reacts to the bowl games on New Year’s day.

  39. 39.

    suzanne

    @Yutsano:

    Are you gonna have to explain the Regis obsession to her now? If so, can I be a fly on the wall plz?

    LMAO. Certainly.

    I only like Regis ’cause he’s, in all actuality, really fucking mean.

  40. 40.

    suzanne

    @WaterGirl: That would be awesome. If we could throw my ex-MIL in there, I’d totally bring enough popcorn for everyone, ’cause THAT would be epic entertainment.

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    @suzanne: College course, Dairy Science 101. I never got to know any well enough to judge, but according to people who do this for a living, some cows have poise and some do not.

    Whoops, the first .pdf I googled (USDA, 2000) doesn’t use that word any more. On the other hand, Holsteins are supposed to be “rugged yet feminine” and Gurnseys “refined & feminine”, if that helps…

  44. 44.

    Roy G

    @debbie: That painting is one of my favorites, since I first wandered by it at the Met many years ago. What always killed me is the gleeful/maniacal grin on the scientist to the left of the cow – like he was really going to blow its mind.

  45. 45.

    Tom Levenson

    I know the thread is, if not dead, then pining for the fjords, but I just want to say that what I really like is the way this community can digress so brilliantly. Vibrators, and Regis, and innocent eyes. Plus mothers in law and bovine poise.

    Been at 50th B-day party, just returned, and hence missed most of this fun, but gotta say thanks to all.

  48. 48.

    Platonicspoof

    @Tom Levenson:

    Been at 50th B-day party, just returned, and hence missed most of this fun, . .

    Fifty parties since 4:34 p.m.?

    What hides beneath the veneer of civilization . . . .

    (Someone had to; appears everyone else is busy stomping a troll in the next thread.)

    A birthday present, with an interpretation of progress.

  49. 49.

    de stijl

    No offense to M. Gaugin, but perhaps he should have given up in 1895 or so instead of stringing it out for the next eight years.

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