I hope you all had a nice holiday. I had a great lamb dinner with my parents, and while they invited several people, some illnesses and personal emergencies kept some people away, so it was just me, mom, dad, and Walt. I mention Walt a lot and realized I never told you who he was- he teaches English in town, and my mother hired him, and he is a close family friend and probably my best friend in town. The running joke at the Cole household is that Seth, my younger brother, is the #1 son, Walt is the #2 son, and I am the #3 son. My mom and dad love Walt that much. I’m like an overweight Tyrian Lannister.
The best part of the limited turn-out tonight means there will be ample lamb left over for mom to make her lamb curry. It’s one of the few dishes she cooks, but it is to die for. So I am psyched about that.
The Masters was probably one of the best I have seen in years. I love Phil, so I was hoping for a late charge, but he basically sealed his fate when he shit the bed with the triple bogey early in the day. After that, I was unable to choose between Louis and Bubba as to who to root for, because both would have been compelling stories. How amazing would it have been to have Louis earn his green jacket and have it put on him by his childhood friend? And, at the same time, having Gary Watson’s son win a jacket would be pretty cool. I was pretty ambivalent until the second sudden death playoff hole, where they both had drives that looked like something I would do after a six pack and a flexeril, and then Watson put up that freak-show shot out of the woods. That’s the stuff of champions. At that point, I was FIRMLY in the Bubba camp. That shot was the kind of thing Mickelson used to do a decade or more ago.
At any rate, a fine day. I hope you all had a good one with your friends and family.
Xecky Gilchrist
Your day sounds excellent, and the lamb curry maybe even more so.
Nothing too exciting going on chez Gilchrist – I did the family visiting yesterday. Today was about eating some chocolate and generally ignoring responsibility and taking a REALLY long walk with my little dog. Good enough.
NotMax
For those who care about such things, Merry Sham el-Nesseim.
David Koch
hah ahah ah ah ha ha ha ha ha ha aha
Olbermann trashes buffoon cenk ygur:
“Olbermann told [Current TV management] that he did not believe Uygur would be a good choice. Olbermann opined that Uygur had difficulty separating facts from things he wanted to be true.”
ha ha ha ha ha ha aha ha ha ha ha ha ha aha
emoprog on emoprog violence is deliciously hilarious.
Nicole
With Game of Thrones followed by Mad Men, Sunday nights really are excellent.
cckids
Today was nice, if low-key. It was our first holiday with one of our kids gone – son #2 is away at college. Instead of a big dinner, we opted for a super 3-course brunch that turned out to be fabulous – caramelized pineapple & banana with cinnamon cream; asparagus & shallot frittata with goat cheese & peppered bacon, and blueberry streusel french toast with maple-rum sauce. It was to die for. I may not eat for a few days.
Yutsano
My brothers finally got tired and headed home a bit earlier today. Now it’s just me and the cat. Kind of enjoying the quiet right about now. :)
PurpleGirl
A friend and I saw John Carter. Good movie. Saw it in a little local, second run theater with cheap prices ($6.00 for seniors).
WyldPirate
Austerity comes to Federal job training funding. With millions more out of work, the Federal funding is 18% less than 2006 and barely half of what it was in 2000.
Tax cuts are important so maybe the job creators will fill in the gap.
slag
GOLF!? LAMB!? I have no fucking interest in these things. Why are you talking about them? I can’t believe you’re still a front-pager here!
Oh…sorry…I thought this was an ABL thread…Carry on.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
I am allowing myself to be fully emersed in hatred for the flyers.
freelancer
I made a steak. Yes, John, I followed your rules. It was medium rare and fucking amazing. With a side of garlic basted red potatoes, it was the best self-made meal I’ve had this year.
Happy Easter/Passover Juicers.
satanicpanic
mmm lamb curry. Lamb is really underrated.
Clime Acts
I hope that was not the lamb of god.
Steve
I could be wrong, but I think John just said he started rooting for the winner after he hit the winning shot. Way to be, champ! Also too, what a great day to be a Tigers fan. Last time the Red Sox and Yankees both started 0-3 was 1966…
satanicpanic
@efgoldman: aw, that’s a bummer
Martin
BBQ ribs for Easter. Jesus said they were to die for.
Spike
@satanicpanic:
Indeed he is, even after scoring 22 points to lead all scorers in the national championship game.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i tried cooking lamb, for some one who doesn’t cook well, it was like chasing waterfalls.
Narcissus
It’s almost like you have a life outside of this blog John Cole
I mean what’s that about
Spaghetti Lee
@efgoldman:
That’s a helluva stat. My White Sox got pantsed by the Rangers on national TV, so I guess I’ll say it’s nice to see the Mets start well after all the crap they’ve been through recently.
BethanyAnne
Finally put the pieces together. Been grumpy for like 3 weeks, finally clued that I’ve been feeling angry since I had to put my cat down. You’d think grieving would be obvious; guess not. Still grumpy as hell, but I guess at least I know why now. My other cat has been yowly for the past month, too. Blah :/
On the good side, I’ve begun a countdown till I can move back to San Francisco. 150ish days, and I’m outta Houston.
swearyanthony
Not only did Sullivan cowardly fail to mention Charles Murray in his pieces on Derpyshire – he actually has Murray on his blog as a guest this week.
F.F.S.
noodler
Very nice church service in NYC this morning, and a big family thig this afternoon. WTF with I95 s in MD a 30 mile DEAD STOP? My NY-DC 3.5 hr turned into a 5.5 ordeal….
Masters was good tho. Played golf yesterday in NJ. Windy, but good.
Happy Easter to All.
Mnemosyne
G talked to his dad and he sounded pretty good for a guy who was admitted to the hospital with a fever from an unknown infection. He’s got his intravenous hydration and antibiotics, his painkillers, and his iPad, so he’s good to go for the night. Hopefully he won’t have to be in for more than a couple of days.
(As I mentioned below, G’s dad is on chemotherapy for a brain tumor, so any infection is potentially serious.)
slag
I have a totally unrelated question. @Yutsano, you, in particular, may be able to help. If I perform a service for a client in another state (Arizona, in this case), do I need to charge tax on that service? Anyone? (and no, I’m not talking about that kind of service)
BethanyAnne
@Mnemosyne: I hope he comes out of it soon and well :)
TheMightyTrowel
Went to a ‘good friday fish barbeque’ on Friday and ate my chocolate bilby happily in company with a few colleagues, phd students and assorted friends/partners. Spent the rest of the weekend working on a couple of papers and ploughing through my trashy fiction collection (if you want recommendations for deeply trashy, trashy fiction, just ask… especially if you have LGBT tendencies, interests or kinks)
slag
@BethanyAnne: So sorry about your cat! I’d be grumpy as hell too. I dread the day and can only imagine what you’re going through. Sadness.
eemom
hmmm. Am I the only one who finds the appearance of this judge-sober, well-wishing, Sunday-best Cole at this hour of the night a bit…..disconcerting?
Yutsano
@slag: That’s state tax rules, so you’d have to check with the states involved.
slag
@Yutsano: Yeah. That’s what I thought. I was hoping for an easy answer. The State of Arizona is (somewhat happily) a mystery to me. Thanks, though!
burnspbesq
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
Nothing wrong with that. I could go for a repeat of 1994. Not sure who will play the Messier role in the sequel, however.
burnspbesq
@Spaghetti Lee:
Until they go 16-9 in April, my guess is that the real Mets were kidnapped by aliens and replaced with cyborgs this weekend.
Gretchen
@eemom:
Me too!
burnspbesq
@slag:
Arizona has something called a Transaction Privilege Tax. I don’t do state and local, so don’t call me, but you do need to talk to someone.
Also, keep an eye on how much time you physically spend in Arizona, so that you don’t become subject to income tax there.
Again, talk to a good accountant.
slag
@burnspbesq: Thanks to you too! Yeah. I’m looking at the TPT info, and my service doesn’t appear to fall under the list of taxable activities. But I will check with someone. And I definitely plan to spend as little time in that state as humanly possible (sorry, State of Arizona, but you’re kind of a sprawling hellhole, and you know it).
Shinobi
I made a fatal error this morning getting into a big argument with my father about politics. Now of course we can’t let it drop, it’s now midnight and he’s trying to get me to read the Investor’s Business Daily op ed page, as though this will be some kind of revelation for me. (Seriously, who reads random op eds?) But since I wont read it and am clearly uninterested in dissenting viewpoints, I should send him to the blogs that i read so he can understand how I’ve been lead so far astray.
Is it too late to start drinking?
Amanda in the South Bay
Ah, you mean happy heretical Latin Easter! We all know Christians of the True Faith celebrate the real Pascha next weekend.
slag
@Shinobi: Read it so you can make fun of him for it. The trick is to not give in during the moment. If he makes a claim about something you’re not familiar with, write it down to look up later. Also, you’ll never agree, but you can never forfeit. It’s a struggle to the death. Luckily, he’s older than you.
SectarianSofa
Golf, lamb, blah blah blah. What’s next, badminton and snails? Truffles and polo? What is this bourgeois shit? Where the fuck am I? I’m canceling my subscription immediately. Someone send Cole some hashbrowns and get that soccer/futbol guy to post some of that stuff. Get some cheap beer in here, stat, and have velvet elvis make an appearance, find some goddamn stones, roll those back from whatever funeral home they’re sitting in front of.
Narcissus
@Shinobi: This sounds like a job for a goatse link.
MonkeyBoy
My mother’s “lamb curry” recipe:
Make a gravy with a roux and the drippings and platter juice of yesterday’s roast lamb. Add in sauteed diced onions, sauteed sliced apples, and curry powder. Let cook for a while then add in sliced leftover lamb to warm up.
We served this to friends including their 3 year old son. His mother warned us that he didn’t like meat much but he hoovered up several servings.
SectarianSofa
@Shinobi:
It’s the Investors Business Daily! It’s the truth man. Dig it.
Actually, I don’t get that at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this in a movie. Kid trying to get Dad’s approval in his new business venture, Pop lost in waking reverie, basking in his power, his long history of Winning — shit just always works out for him.
Really, though, he could be pointing to anything, trying to get you to read page 37 in some dog-eared copy of the Bhagavadgita, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, that other one about the Lesbian Surrogate Mother with the Hamstring Injury. It’s really just about you being a little lost sheep — you must listen to him — the world doesn’t make sense with where you’re going, you damned hippie. Krugman is a pinko affirmative action Nobel lightweight. All those other DFH’s just aren’t winners. Sorry, man. Sometimes you just got to face the facts.
Shinobi
@slag: We had such a nice truce going on and then I made the mistake of bringing up that supreme court decision about the strip searches. I totally thought he would disagree with it, because rights, and privacy. I will never understand. Now it will be twice as hard to return to our former “we’re not talking about this” stance. I was weak.
@Narcissus: I was thinking a rick roll, considering I’m still not allowed to use the F word in front of him, and I’m 30.
SectarianSofa
I’ve not been drinking. I’m just very, very tired, and very bitter. I’d go into it, but I’ve got to run — need to try to find my last fiver so I can pay the wife for sex.
Narcissus
@Shinobi: How about an animated gif of the dog-suit fellatio scene from The Shining
Shinobi
@SectarianSofa: So true. One day I asked him to stop sending me links to Fox news and he said “Some day you’re going to have to learn to live in the real world.”
Shinobi
@Narcissus: Well now I’m definitely never watching the Shining….How could one google that with any level of safety?
slag
@Shinobi:
If the hippies are against it, he’s for it. That’s all there is to it. Your inability to understand is simply the price you pay for being earnest.
piratedan
@Shinobi: well you could calmly state that the reason that we’re having any recovery at all is due to the Dem intervention from 2008 thru 2010 and now that we have the Austerity Kids in place, and their jobs jobs jobs promises unfulfilled, things are slowing down, just as they intended. Then again, common sense may not be in play here as ymmv. Tell him that you’re planning on investing in companies that promote invasive medical procedures for women because apparently that’s the only thing R’s are promoting locally and nationally.
Shinobi
@slag: Yup, he’s just so ashamed that his daughter is one of the unwashed. He also seems to base his opinions largely on theoretical catastrophes that could happen mostly involving taxes. However this rationale does not carry over into say, global warming.
Narcissus
@Shinobi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NmOoekbK6YI
Cain
I’ve got to fly tomorrow to China flight is at 6:30am.. ugh.. shoot me now.. :(
Shinobi
@piratedan: I did try to explain that countries like spain and greece that implemented austerity is failing. But he’s very concerned about our GDP and the deficit, which he explained so patiently to me is the Gross Domestic Product…. *bangs head on wall*
Shinobi
@Narcissus: Is thank you the appropriate response to this? How about with a question mark. Thank You?
Narcissus
@Shinobi: You’re Welcome?
slag
@Shinobi: Totally feel your pain. Beyond the random theoreticals, there’s the random snippets of apocryphal stories (which the left indulges in more rarely, it seems to me). It’s an endless stream of bullshit, and you can either strap on the waders or make a mad dash for higher ground. Sadly, you’re in it now.
Shinobi
Thanks for the moral support everybody. I should probably go to bed and prepare for tomorrow’s argument about how all my life choices are wrong,
slag
@Shinobi: Tell him that he raised you in the hopes that you would have it better than he did. And now you do, so you want others to have it better too–you’re acting in his image. That should end the conversation rather quickly.
Tony the Wonderhorse
For the record, my family is judgmental, drunk and no fun to be around, so I live 3,000 miles away.
I moved to LA, joined a church, got ordained, then discovered they were too close to a cult for my taste (the Gnostic Catholic Church). My wife, also ordained, disagrees, so we are separated.
But the Masters tournament today was great! And by God, I must be one of the freest people on the face of the earth right now. And when I find a new job, I know I’ll be happy there.
Jesus is cool and all but Jesus, churches suck.
Tony the Wonderhorse
@steve
ARGH! I curse the Yankees with whatever priestly juju remains in me but dammit, I love the Sox!
Anyway, the curse ended in 2004. Everyone who cares knows how the world changed that day. I am so not kidding, my car is a 2004, I refused to buy any other year. :-)
freelancer
@Tony the Wonderhorse:
Have you contacted your family since you’ve developed a disillusion with “churches” or cults and the like? You might find them a mite more welcoming now.
mai naem
@slag: If you are talking labor only you don’t. If you are selling materials, then, yeah you do.
HeartlandLiberal
I am not a golf fan, but I had come in exhausted from trying to seal the house to keep a swarm of bees from taking up residence, so I lay there and watched the last hour of the Masters. Sun is rising now, gotta get out while still very cool and finish the job this morning. I hate it, when bees are under such species threat, but we finally got them out of the house only two years ago, and they are NOT welcome back to manufacture hives and honey behind the siding between the joists.
For me, aside from Bubba’s fantastic shot out of the woods, the most compelling part was the raw and genuine emotions shown by everyone starting the moment after Bubba’s second his winning put.
Here I thought the Masters was all about manly men who could not admit women into the club house, even if they were CEO of frickin’ IBM, and here all these manly men are wandering around crying like babies, Bubba is hugging his mom, obviously thinking of his recently deceased dad, and they are all hugging the crap out of each other in long count bear hugs.
Actually increased my respect for them.
Too bad they could not just call it a tie and let both men share the jacket. They both played incredibly with respect for each other as far as I could see.
flukebucket
The shot out of the woods will go down as one of the most incredible shots ever hit at a Masters tournament. I was very proud for Bubba. As much as I enjoyed watching the double eagle earlier it was the shot from the pines that impressed me most.
BobbyC
I too had a very good holiday. It was not only Easter Sunday but our 35th wedding anniversary. Spent most of the day doing nothing but piddling in the yard while a corned beef brisket slowly baked in the oven. I also loved the end of Masters. Bubba’s awesome shot from the woods was one for the books. Congrats, Bubba!
Also, too, there was episode 2 of “Game of Thrones”. A very good Easter Sunday.
Peace
schrodinger's cat
I need the wisdom of the hive mind. Is anyone in the esteemed BJ commenteriat a cardiologist. I have a few questions.
Some background, my father-in-law had a massive heart attack a week and a half ago, in India. As luck would have it my husband was in India for a visit. Any way long story short the FIL is now stable but still not out of the ICU, since his lungs still have fluid in them. Another angioplasty seems to be needed but apparently it is high risk, so they are going for a second opinion. My husband is thinking of extending his stay and I have no idea what the hell is going on. I know a cardiac nurse had answered my comment when I had written about this before.
Tony the Wonderhorse
@freelancer
Thank you for the optimistic words but my Mom comes from a family of lawyers and my Dad is a banker. They both drink heavily and while my Dad is a good guy, Mom is a former Scientologist who left L Ron but L Ron never left her.
Sadly, I will gladly live in a box before I return to Massachusetts, the environment there is poison.