Here are two representatives from the “Working Group.” As you can see, they are hard at work stinking up my sofa and drooling on my throw pillows. Their snores can be heard throughout the house. And FSM help you if one decides to “let fly” in your vicinity; their farts (unfortunately NOT rare occurrences) can trigger symptoms similar to those caused by tear gas. And yet we love them so.
Open thread.
Corner Stone
I painfully dragged myself out of the hivemind circle jerk below only to be hit with Boxer* WMD.
Oh well, on balance it’s better to be in this thread.
*I’m not good with identifying breeds.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: You are correct; they are boxers.
Yutsano
PUPPEHS!!
I came to work today against my better judgment. But I do have a lengthy rather important meeting where I have material that I have to present, so here I be. And I’m waiting on the snow to fall and hopefully send us all home early.
Amir Khalid
Cats don’t fart, do they? At least I’ve never heard or smelled anything from my cat.
Poopyman
@Yutsano: Snow!? Here in Maryland it’s in the 50s. Another weird winter almost half in the books. Plenty of time for the weather patterns to change, though.
Puppehs!
Kittehs!
Randy P
Since it’s an open thread… any BJers know a source for hard-to-find movies?
For reasons which I don’t recall I was describing the 70s cult movies “Willard” and “Ben” (both about a creepy kid who befriends city rats) to my wife. She remembered the theme song from “Ben” when I played it (EVERYTHING is on YouTube), which Michael Jackson recorded as a solo when he was still a kid & which was one of his most popular hits. She said she had thought it was from “Gentle Ben” which is a very different movie.
Anyway, now I’ve got a hankering to see these films. And they’re not to be found. Suggestions?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Some do and it’s an immediately life-threatening crisis. Have you seen what they eat?
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Yutsano: A nice thing about living within a couple miles of work is the ease of the commute. The one downside is I’m expected to be at work and stay at work come sleet or snow because even if the buses aren’t running, I can always trudge my way to and fro.
@Amir Khalid: Yes, they do. Yes, they do.
[Edit: Obligatory FYWP]
schrodinger's cat
@Randy P: Have you tried Amazon? Or your local library? We have a great regional library system in Mass, if my local library doesn’t have it they can get it from other libraries in the system.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Randy P:
BitTorrent?
Poopyman
@Amir Khalid: Dear FSM! Count your blessings! Happens to us most often when you’re changing their food, like when first bringing them into the house or (ahem!) when the vet decides they’re too fat.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
It assume it depends on what you feed them. If you feed them proper cat food, they probably won’t have too much problem with gas. If you let them eat inappropriate food (e.g. human food, especially dairy and vegetables) they’re a lot more likely to have digestive problems.
jeffreyw
Tunch dreams in calico.
schrodinger's cat
Puppehs is cute, how are the chickens? Do the dogs ever chase the chickens?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodinger’s cat:
We’ve had great success getting old movies from the library.
Ruckus
May I suggest a change of diet? We will never eliminate noxious(and potentially deadly) odors from the exhaust port of mammals but we can lessen their effect.
Of course I’m pretty much of a hypocrite in these matters my self but it never hurts to tell others how to be more socially acceptable.
schrodinger's cat
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Me too, Hitchcock movies and Katherine Hepburn movies.
Randy P
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Worth a try, but I’m beginning to suspect neither was ever released on VCR, let alone DVD.
scav
Pro guns still running strong and now anti-yoga? Showing up about the military and an elementary school in California. Oh help, yet another developing target of rightist outrage.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: The chickens are doing well. They’re producing an extraordinary number of eggs (3 dozen or so per week, which we share with family and neighbors) plus lots of chicken poop that gets composted for the garden.
I keep the dogs and chickens separated at all times and have complicated fencing and enclosure arrangements for that purpose. The brindle dog above would probably not hurt a chicken, but I don’t trust the fawn dog, who has a pretty highly developed prey instinct. The chickens are safer with a sturdy fence between them and her.
schrodinger's cat
@scav: Who is anti Yoga? And why?
ranchandsyrup
Still sick. Helping my wife do more research on Steubenville to blawg about. She’s pissed about it and the more I read, the more I am as well.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: Switching rations doesn’t seem to make a difference. We’ve always had boxers, and they’ve always been terrible farters. Fortunately, they have other qualities to compensate.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Randy P: It’s not instant gratification, but if you have DVR, you might be able to do like I’ve done and command the machine to record either movie if they’re ever presented on any of your cable or satellite stations. This is how I was able to catch Harold and Maude, plus another comedy from that era, Elaine Mayes’ A New Leaf (with an appropriately curmudgeonly Walther Matthou – a real sleeper gem, but totally not available on DVD).
ranchandsyrup
@schrodinger’s cat: crazy mom in Encinitas who objects to a yoga module that is part of a larger wellness project. IT’S INDOCTRINATING OUR KIDS TO HINDUISM. She took her kids out of it but that’s not enough for her.
cckids
@Randy P:
Around the time of the election, I kept seeing “Willard” in rotation on a cable channel – maybe Starz? Not sure if they’re still showing it. I hadn’t seen it listed anywhere for 20 years or so. It made me think some programmer was having a “47%” moment just for laughs.
Steeplejack
@Randy P:
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) usually notes if a DVD of a film is available. Also, Amazon will usually show if out-of-print editions are available through secondary sellers. Those are the two places I check first.
Note: No DVD for either movie. There are out-of-print VHS copies of both available.
The Red Pen
WTF is this “failure to pass a budget” stuff?
I’m pretty well-versed in wingnut tropes, but this whole “Congress hasn’t passed a budget in 3 years” or whatever confuses me. If there’s no budget, how is the government continuing to operate? How is whatever is keeping it going wrong and bad if it’s still going?
I could link to Townhall for background, but I’d rather not.
Raven
@Randy P: The Video Beat is mostly rock and roll stuff but maybe.
LanceThruster
Don’t know where I heard it but I like the saying,
“A dog is the incarnation of the buddha.”
They are masters at living in the moment, and remembering to take time to be happy.
As Kurt Vonnegut observed, and reminded us all to ask ourselves from time to time…
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
schrodinger's cat
@ranchandsyrup: Why don’t these uber religious fanatics so afraid that someone will burst the hermetically sealed bubble that surrounds their children. Have they no faith in their own faith.
Heh I have proved immune to indoctrinations by my uber religious Tamil Brahmin mom-in-law, evangelical fundie Korean friend, and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons who have come to my door. I am still a firm believer of the ceiling cat.
Steeplejack
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
A New Leaf is now available on DVD (since September). Harold and Maude is not only available on DVD, it has been given the full Criterion Collection treatment, including available Blu-ray.
Randy P
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn: A good suggestion. I’ll see if that’s an option with verizon FIOS.
For those too young to have ever heard the theme song from “Ben” I recommend seeking it out. MJ really had an amazing boy soprano voice as a kid. Beautiful song, even if it is a love song to a rat. I’ve had it as an earworm now for over a week.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
I just had remembery flash throught my head about the Willard movie. As I recall, Ernest Borgnine was in it, and one point his character is devoured by the rats, and I recall he’d commented that the way they got all the rats to swarm over him was by coating him with peanut butter.
I shit you not.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Same here.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Steeplejack: Kewl! Elaine May (got her name wrong the first time) is so crushworthy in that flick (I have a weakness for smart, funny women). I need to own that.
@Randy P: I was in 3rd or 4th grade when Ben came out. I remember they’d have us sing that song in music class.
scav
@schrodinger’s cat: bother, the one time I assume no one ever reads my comments and close tabs. I swear
i saw a breaking big name dude protesting yoga in the militay as a part of suicide prevention etc. Said Thats what christianity was for so how dare they? lost the link. The Perkins protest of yoga in military is less unexpected and, like the school stuff, predicated on the links to religion and How Dare That Be Introduced Into Schools and The Military! ! ! blahblahblah
Corner Stone
@Randy P: I’m sorry, I’ve been resisting this but I can’t any longer:
Reasons which you don’t recall?
rikyrah
Betty Cracker,
Why do you have chickens? Aren’t they a lot of trouble to care for? Do you live on a farm? A rural setting? A suburban setting?
SatanicPanic
@The Red Pen: It’s based on a misunderstanding of the word “budget”. They’re thinking of it like “I can’t afford to go to the movies today, I’m on a budget.” It’s just a lame play on words. Some of them also try to claim that Obama never had a single budget passed, which is not true, he passed one in 2009.
ranchandsyrup
@schrodinger’s cat: Heh. I watched a couple of interviews with her and she just shrieks about indoctrination. Your point is well taken, though. Jesus wouldn’t let that happen.
It is quite odd that this lady demands that everything reflect her values. Encinitas is one of the more yoga friendly places in the US and is home to the Spirtual awakening center. Maybe the school is reflecting the values of the community as a whole, lady?
Cassidy
@Randy P: Give Netflix a shot. You’ll be surprised at what they have.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
Amazon bought IMDB precisely so they could use it to advertize movies to potential buyers. If IMDB doesn’t mention it being available, that probably means Amazon won’t have it. You might be stuck looking at Ebay.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Betty Cracker:
Ditto on the boxers and farting. It reminds me of that lovely “All Creatures Great and Small Episode” where the owner of a lovely boxer had to find it a new home because the farting was so bad. James Herriot (the vet) discovered that the local lady of the manor had no sense of smell whatsoever and was delighted to adopt the boxer. It all turned out fine until she had a dinner party and couldn’t understand why her guests were holding their noses, it was hilarious!
Oh and yes, cats do fart, one of mine loved to fart frequently while sleeping on my sleeping head. The smell used to wake me up in the middle of the night.
Raven
@Steeplejack: I have a vhs dvd converter if anyone wants one cheap!
Randy P
@Corner Stone: Um, yes. I don’t recall the reasons the subject came up. Therefore they are reasons which I don’t recall. What am I missing? It’s a common enough phrase.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Randy P: Found Willard immediately. A Torrent file.
Zaftig Amazon
One of my friends had a boxer, which they would tie up in the back yard. Whenever the dog needed to poop, he would climb the neighbor’s fence, and leave a deposit in that backyard. The neighbor was constantly on a tear, because of the poop piles in his yard, but never connected it to this boxer, because he was tied up!
The Red Pen
@SatanicPanic:
The Townhall article was saying that Harry Reid is in violation of some law that requires him to pass a budget, but such a thing hasn’t happened. I can’t follow this… it sounds like it’s just complete fantasy (surprise, surprise).
My understanding is that Presidents’ budgets are also rarely passed as submitted, so the claim about “Obama passing his budget” is sophistry.
I’m getting sick, haven’t had much sleep and have been trying to get my head around the reality of the “coiner” plan, so I’m a little dazed.
Suffern ACE
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn: I would have made a mental note to fire my agent after that. The “no rats licking me” clause would be inserted in all my contracts.
Roger Moore
@The Red Pen:
The budget is not the same thing as appropriations bills. The budget is a high-level plan about how much money is going to be allocated to which parts of the government. It is then implemented with individual appropriations bills for each branch of government that formally allocate money. Congress can still appropriate money and keep the government functioning in the absence of a budget, but it means that there isn’t an agreed upon plan for things. The lack of a budget has meant that Congress has not been able to rethink our spending priorities.
Also, as I understand it, the budget is tied into the reconciliation process in the Senate. The Senate is allowed to bypass their normal restrictive rules to pass laws needed to implement the budget. Failing to pass a budget means that the Senate can’t use reconciliation to bypass filibusters on spending, since there’s not budget to reconcile with.
quannlace
Ah, dog pictures. I needed that. Those are some solid looking pups, there. ;-)
***
It’s funny, my Kate doesn’t fart that much. And after a near life-time of other dogs that can shoot it out with the best of ’em, I’m very grateful.
The one time I do notice something is when she’s going, fast, up a flight of stairs. I’ll hear a little ‘toot.’ It’s hilarious.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Ronzoni Rigatoni:
Make sure it’s not the remake, or worse yet, a Mitt Romney documentary.
SatanicPanic
@The Red Pen: The president is required to submit one, but AFAIK there’s no requirement that it pass, they just keep working off the previous budget until there’s a new one.
schrodinger's cat
@ranchandsyrup: I don’t have cable, so thankfully I am spared of the wingnut freak out of the day.
cmorenc
I’m fortunate that my Italian Greyhound “Florence” isn’t at all prone to farting; in fact, general upsides to the breed is that they neither have any “doggy” odor nor do they shed enough to be detectable on anything except e.g. black velvet. Neither are they prone to obnoxious yap-barking the way many small breeds are.
That said, Italian Greyhounds amount to beautifully sporty looking dogs which are nevertheless undeniably foo-foo lap dogs, not very manly man looking dogs for a guy to be leading around on a leash. And they’re like cats in that they’re going to go where they want to go on furniture, beds, etc, and are resistant to obedience training, which they at best misunderstand as a form of flirtation game with their owners. They don’t usually snore, OTOH they like to curl up with you on a couch or in bed and intermittently exhaust a loud sigh.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Raven: “I have a vhs dvd converter if anyone wants one cheap!” Gaaa. I have 2 of them and did a lot of conversions for fambly members until I figgered I was wasting too much time. Torrent files can be converted to DVD but they also take forever. Nowadays, I just buy the damned things if I really really want ’em.
Poopyman
Since Venezuela’s Preznit 4 Life Hugo Chavez is, ummm, coming to the end of his term, does anyone have a premature obit they’d like to submit?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Poopyman: “On the whole, somewhat less un-good than Castro”?
Anthony
@Poopyman: RIP the most successful and oddly benign troller-of-America that Latin America ever produced. Scourge of the Washington Post editorial board.
scav
Health Care FRREEEEDUMZZZ Result!
Americans ‘are sicker and die younger’ than people in other wealthy nations
If you make it past 75 the nation does better but otherwise?
So, again, so much for actual kids when measured against a theoretical ideal a.k.a. mania.
Probably not much of a surprise to this lot but GSD it’s depressing.
J.
And speaking of animals…. I give you “If cats made new year’s resolutions.”
And yes, I have one of those farting cats, who waits until he is curled up in my lap to let one fly. And I still love him, farts and all.
? Martin
Shooting at Taft HS. Not the Taft HS in LA, but the one in Taft CA, up near Bakersfield. (CA has 1,000 high schools.) My BIL lives in Taft, as did my inlaws (both deceased). Know the area well. Rural, poor. More guns will be the reaction – guarantee.
Felonius Monk
Sounds like a new rock band to me: Betty and the Farting Pups.
Suffern ACE
@scav: I thought the interesting takeaway was even if you were wealthy, you still had worse outcomes than your wealthy counterparts in other countries. So you can afford to fly anywhere to get your cancer treated at Mayo or your heart disease treated at Johns Hopkins if you wanted to and on average, that class still fares worse than those from the same class who are shoved into public systems.
? Martin
@scav:
Yeah. We have an odd healthcare system. We have really advanced medical procedures compared to the rest of the world, so we can effectively keep you alive forever, but our distribution of medical care is so thoroughly fucked, that we can cure some people of 11 kinds of cancer, yet others will die from an abscessed tooth that they can’t afford to get pulled.
The reason it all sorts out at 75? Because we start to correct in inequities at 65 when Medicare kicks in and puts everyone on a level playing field. It’s too late for a lot of people, but if we can keep you alive for a few years after that point, we can do wonders. Costs a fortune, too.
Also, we’re much better at curing new things (injecting more money into the healthcare system) than finding cheaper cures for existing things (which removes money). C.R.E.A.M.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: It started out as a hare-brained notion of my husband’s but the chicken project has actually been a lot of fun. We live in a small town in a semi-rural area. We’re allowed to keep chickens, but we made sure it was cool with the neighbors before getting them.
Hubby wanted the chickens for the eggs and the poop (he’s an avid gardener). He built a coop and put together the hen house. I raised the 7 chicks in my home office, then transferred them outside when they got big enough.
After the initial investment, they aren’t really much trouble or expense. I make sure they’ve got food and water and collect the eggs daily. Hubby rakes up all the chickenshit in their pen and out of the hen house about once a week and puts it in a compost pile. That’s about all there is to it.
They have plenty of room to roam in the coop, but we let them free range (in our completely fenced-in yard) for about an hour or so a day, just before sunset. When the sun goes down, they high-tail it into the hen house to roost for the night, so we don’t even have to chase them back in. They’re a lot of fun to watch, and each has her own unique personality, believe it or not. And fresh eggs are delish!
Betty Cracker
@Poopyman: I did rather enjoy his speech to the UN when he called then-President GWB the devil and said he could still smell the brimstone at the lectern. The best part was the UN lady standing behind him trying not to bust up laughing.
ETA: Here’s a link. Unfortunately, this clip doesn’t show the lady who was cracking up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=binMjEiS8AY
scav
@Suffern ACE: Yep. That, and that the outcomes (etc) were worse when measured in so many different areas. Health, longevity, infant mortality, accidents, homicides and injuries, cost. . . Exceptional, one might be tempted to remark.
Raven
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: Yea, it was a gift. I’ve got some hard-to-get Vietnam vhs’s that I was glad I digitized. The biggest problem with mine is that it has no tuner so I can’t use it for my PIP.
only mike
I just got back to the apartment bldg where I used to live – someone was here asking for me but they don’t know more than that. I haven’t found homes for the cats yet so if anyone can help on that. I won’t be able to update much – I’m in a shelter and the VA is working with me. Things look positive but it will take time. I have multiple appointments over the next week and still have to pack a lot of stuff up – mostly I’ll be throwing stuff away – I’ve accumulated a l0t of useless stuff. I’m going to try to store what I can but i can only do it for thirty days – I’ll end up losing it i’m sure – I think this is going to take longer than that for me to be on my feet. Please if someone is looking to adopt the cats (or just one) try again – I am currently at a place called CASS (dont’ know what it stands for but I’ll be here at the apt for the rest of the afternoon – I’ll have to catch a bus around 6:30 to be back for 8pm check in at the shelter. I have a lot of BJers to thank – including a couple through snail mail – it will take me a while to get this accomplished. Please don’t think I don’t appreciate evreything you’ve done. Again I’ll be here all afternoon if someone is looking for me
Chuck Butcher
having owned a 135# Bull Mastiff and being around the Mastiff class a bit, they do seem to have an unfortunate digestive process that way. Bull Dozer (Dozer) was a bit of a gas plant. An AKC rockhead though not lacking in actual intelligence.
Patricia Kayden
@J.: Cute!
Those are two good looking boxers.
jp7505a
@Randy P: try moviesunlimited.com. back in the quill pen age, they had a movie catalogue about the size of the Manhatten phone book.
Elizabelle
Gotta love those hardworking dogs.
Holding down that sofa.
Mnemosyne
@cckids:
That may have been the Crispin Glover remake, not the original.
Seanly
@Ruckus:
Changing the food only goes so far. We adopted a shelter dog a couple of months ago. She is the most gassy creature I’ve ever known. We’ve bought very expensive dog foods & decreased the gas substantially, but she still throws lots of bombs.
EDIT: Don’t bother telling me we can get by with cheap brands – our elderly dog is a finicky eater & my wife fights me on being a cheapskate all the way…
NCSteve
@Amir Khalid: When the recently deceased mother of the rest of my cats was nursing them fifteen years ago, she was one seriously fartin kittah.
Poor thing wasn’t done growing herself and the metabolic load was horrendous. And dear jeebus, so were the farts.
ranchandsyrup
Heh, even the Jacksonville Jagwads don’t want anything to do with hometown Timmy Tebow. Someone put Skip Bayless on suicide watch. The poutrage commences from the god squad. http://espn.go.com/newyork/conversations/_/id/8833076/tim-tebow-new-york-jets-not-jacksonville-jaguars-plans-new-gm-says
eclare
@only mike: Check your email. Go by Western Union.
donnah
Haha, Betty, dog farts are TERRIBLE! Our dog Wendy isn’t too bad. She’s a long-legged foxhound beagle mix, kinda big, but she does like to sleep curled up on the sofa. Sometimes when she gets up, she puts her front paws on the floor first and stretches with her hind feet still up on the sofa. That stretch can end in a toot, at which point she turns around in astonishment and looks like, “who did that?”
Ruckus
@Seanly:
My dog ate better than me, pound for pound his food cost more than mine. I didn’t have to cook it though.
I used Fromm and the dog loved it and his gas was much less. And of course all of the usual disclaimers but my dog experience is that the cheap foods usually cause more gas.
Face
NRA is freakin out that pollys arent kneeing down to suxor their cox no mo. They cannot bully Biden and they are going apoplectic b/c of it. This despiration is palatable and should get worse as O’s team shows how serious they are….
ranchandsyrup
@Face: They’re banking on the libtards folding on this. We gots to keep pressing the issue.
PurpleGirl
@cmorenc: Remember Italian greyhounds were bred to be small lap-sitting dogs so that they could warm the lady parts of gentle aristocratic women, i.e., living aspirin as it were.
@VividBlueDotty
My dog almost never farts. And when he does, I hear a gentle hiss of escaping air if I am nearby; otherwise, I am completely unaware of it. In six years, only once has he produced any foul smelling gas in my presence.
I knew when I found Jake at Petfinder.com that I would be the luckiest doggie momma ever. I am taking this post and some of the comments as further proof of that wonderful truth!
Rosie Outlook
@Amir Khalid: A cat farts and then blames it on the dog. Thus the bad reputation of dogs in this department.
Rome Again
@only mike:
I was the one who went by to see if you were there last night. I am trying to contact you. I wanted to help you out and I have some ideas how. I cannot adopt any cats, sorry. I’ve got three already (one is a BJ rescue).
I live right behind your complex, in the forest. I left my phone number last night and I’ve emailed you with some ideas of how I want to help. Can you please contact me? Did they give you a phone number that I left there? They put it in the side room somewhere. I thought perhaps you had a message box back there.
If I don’t hear from you in the morning, I’ll go by tomorrow and talk to you. I work nights, so I don’t get out much in the daytime.
SiubhanDuinne
@Poopyman:
Gonna be in the 70s in Atlanta this weekend, so they say.
SiubhanDuinne
@jp7505a:
I used to subscribe to that. So I could order VHS tapes. One of my favourite reference books, right up there on the shelf with the OED, Roget’s, Bartlett’s, and Grove’s.
thedean
@only mike:
Hey Mike, this is Dean, hope you’re doing okay and good to hear you’re getting some traction at the VA. I’ve been in contact with Rome Again (RA) and RA has some good ideas, you might be interested in some of them. It’s up to you, I think the ideas are pretty good, lol. I wish I could help with the cats but I’m too far away.