I swear, every time this website gets news that there will be a rebuild, it pre-emptively blows up a couple days before we start. Please bear with us. The designer and mistermix will be making this place run like a finely tuned Ferrari by next Friday.
I am down for the count, though. Simmering sinus infection is now a full blown gack. Watching All the Presidents men and sipping diet ginger ale, and will probably watch another movie classic later. Leaning towards Terms of Endearment.
Death Panel Truck
What a coincidence. I also happen to be sipping diet ginger ale at the moment. Canada Dry.
Baud
Feel better. I think most of the bitching (incl. mine) was because people didn’t know what was going on.
Steve J.
The designer and mistermix will be making this place run like a finely tuned Ferrari by next Friday.
I’d settle for a 1978 Toyota Celica (in mint condition).
Schlemizel
From what I have heard about Ferrari’s this place is already running line one. Goes like hell for a bit & then requires hours of expensive maintenance.
B-{D
we’ll be patient – right up to the point we hold our collective breaths till we turn blue, THEN YOU’LL BE SORRY!!
Baud
@Baud:
Forgot to mention, I’m really looking forward to complaining about the new site design.
Schlemizel
@Death Panel Truck:
I tried drinking Canada dry when I was younger. Not only did I fail I had the worst hangover ever. The RMCP escorted me out of the country
Schlemizel
@Death Panel Truck:
I tried drinking Canada dry when I was younger. Not only did I fail I had the worst hangover ever. The RMCP escorted me out of the country
EDIT: I DIDNOT HIT SUBMIT TWICE!
danielx
Of course they will, and then you’ll get a raft of shit from all those who don’t like the site rebuild. It’s like grass being green or Republicans not being to keep themselves from being colossal dicks.
Have the house to myself this evening and vol 1 of the Richard Sharpe series with Sean Bean in the title role; god bless the local library – vol 1 has the first five episodes. Have to fetch firewood and alcohol; I don’t know how I survive these brutal hardships.
cathyx
Terms of Endearment? A good cry could clean out those sinuses.
Mudge
Terms of Endearment? Oh my.
gelfling545
@Schlemizel: Living, as I do, here on the border we have many young folks who make the attempt when they turn 19.
Bonnie
I just told my grandniece about All the President’s Men and what a good movie it is. She had NEVER heard of Watergate. I am gobsmacked.
gogol's wife
@Schlemizel:
Well, you need to post it twice because no one’s ever heard that joke before. :)
jl
I have been able to read this miserable lefty blog with no interruption. But on one of the inferior browsers I can use, everything looks too small with too much white space. So I figured Tunch got into the computer again and His Plump Whiteness (which refers to Tunch, since I realize there is some ambiguity in that phrase) was crowding other stuff out. Everything looks fine on the better class of browsers.
But whatever. If I were the kind of picky trivial person who expected shit to ‘work OK’ all the time, I would not visit this blog.
Edited for grammar, which was probably unwise for me to even try to fix.
gelfling545
If I don’t share this news I’ll burst (which would be really ugly). My daughter has just been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Since she took the long route – got married, had a kid & her husband was in Afghanistan when she started college (they now have 2 kids) I would not have believed it would be possible to do this with toddlers in the house & all.
Trollhattan
Site is now to be needing Korolev, “The Designer” from “The Right Stuff.”
Will include impressive kaboom, for comedy purposes.
Schlemizel
@gelfling545:
Actually not true but Wisconsin was only 30 minutes away & 18 was the legal age. Never let reality get in the way of a bad joke!
@gogol’s wife:
Yeah but if John can rewatch AtPM then I can recycle that sad jape
BD of MN
I’ve been having a weird site thing, I think unrelated to the past couple of days. When I’m on my 1st gen Kindle Fire browsing, if I hit the back button anywhere, the Kindle browser backs up to a TWIB embedded audio. I haven’t listened to one from my Kindle, and clearing the cache and rebooting haven’t eliminated my problem…
Calming Influence
Note: a “finely tuned” Ferrari breaks down once every 10 hours on the road, as opposed to a “normally tuned” Ferrari which breaks down once every 2 hours on the road.
You might want to shoot for something along the lines of a 1968 VW Beetle, which could be driven for roughly 150,000 miles before having to open the hood.
Baud
@gelfling545:
Congratulations! You obviously raised her well.
Schlemizel
@jl:
I had to switch to IE in order to get anything posted today. using IE makes me sad.
danielx
@gelfling545:
Your daughter is full of teh awesome. Congratulations for having such a great child.
joel hanes
will be making this place run like a finely tuned Ferrari
John Cole, long experience has shown that the only safe thing to say before a rollout or demo is
“Watch this.”
All else is vanity and a haughty disposition.
Schlemizel
@gelfling545:
WOW! That is soooo cool. You must be so proud & rightfully so. Congratulation to both of you!
jl
@gelfling545: Congrats. That is a great accomplishment, and inspiring.
jl
@joel hanes:
‘ John Cole, long experience has shown that the only safe thing to say before a rollout or demo is
“Watch
thisout.”All else is vanity and a haughty disposition. ‘
At least that is my understanding of how all IT, computer, and internet projects work out on the first try.
different-church-lady
You folks in particular ought to appreciate this one:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/08/1185687/-You-know-your-neighborhood-is-gentrified-because-they-re-de-icing-the-sidewalk-w-Himalayan-pink-salt
dance around in your bones
Hey, you know what I watched a couple nights ago? Sea of Love, with an incredibly hot Ellen Barkin and a pretty appealing (though short) Al Pacino. It held up pretty well.
Plus, it’s a great fucking song.
Also, watched Groundhog Day on actual Groundhog Day and The Big Lebowski the night before. I am satiated. Until later tonight – then I will have to go hunting….
Oh, P.S. – for ever so long now when I come to the main page it shows old videos in the place of whatever new ones are on the post. Once I click to the new post the real video shows up but it is disconcerting and I haven’t complained about it because what the hell.
Professor
Test
Quicksand
@Professor:
Oh no, a pop quiz? I’M NOT READY!!!!
TaMara (BHF)
Hopefully it will work ok enough for the recipes tonight. Until then, how about a handsome kitteh?
NotMax
Bqhatevwr.
fuckwit
Umm, Ferrari’s are not reliable at all.
They’re finicky, temperemantal beasts. They’re designed to be raced for one season, torn down and completely rebuilt, and then raced again the next season.
If you want the site to run like something, I’d suggest making it run like a Mercedes. Something indestructable, not terribly flashy, but reliable as hell.
Calming Influence
My brother-in-law’s best friend was a certified Ferrari mechanic on Long Island and got fairly wealthy fixing them. He also had pretty strong feelings about the typical Ferrari owner’s wealth/intelligence ratio: Back in the 70s an owner picked up his new Ferrari in Queens and drove it to Montauk on the L.I.E. in 1st gear because he couldn’t get it to go into 2nd. It snowed that night, so he scraped off the snow with a snow shovel and then took it to a drive-thru coin operated car wash, where the automatic mechanism dragged the bulk of the Ferrari through, leaving very expensive bits of the suspension behind.
Death Panel Truck
@Schlemizel: I couldn’t drink Canada dry, because I really, really, really hate Canadian whiskey.
Violet
Hope you feel better soon, John.
magurakurin
@Calming Influence:
I always was told that 68 was the year that VW turned into a pumpkin. ’67 or older was what I used to hear. But, I’ve owned a 72 Bus, and it was an utter piece of shit. Broke down all the time, any time, every time.
For my money, I’ll take a Toyota Corolla. Now, there’s a car that doesn’t need the hood to be opened. Make this site run like a Corolla and everyone will be happy.
jl
@TaMara (BHF):
” Hopefully it will work ok enough for the recipes tonight. Until then, how about a handsome kitteh? ”
If the blog don’t work for the weekly recipe post, I think the BJ bylaws say you have to send us the real food. IIRC, that is.
thanks for kitty pic, which is not only handsome but a work of art. Reminds me of my family’s recently deceased cat, back when it was in its prime of life.
Miki
If you can handle subtitles, try Cinema Paradiso. It streams on Netflix.
Fucking fabulous. Sniff.
dance around in your bones
Oh, and I would still come here even if the posts were scratched on clay tablets or papyrus.
That’s how much I love this place, doncha know.
Although Riddled gave you a run for your money this morning – gawdamn that place is a crackup.
GregB
Apparently Governor Patrick in Mass. is now Hitler too. I just read a spittle flecked post from an old high school chum and libertarian blogger railing on about the tyranny of emergency declarations.
Tyranny I say!
quannlace
If ever there was a night that called for a hot toddy , it’s tonight.
dance around in your bones
@Miki: Oh, I have loved that movie for years.
Checking out the Netflix as we speak!
Schlemizel
@Death Panel Truck:
When I drank wiskey I didn’t mind McMillian for a blended. But then I discovered bourbon and Kentukey is the only place for me!
BAtFFP
About 5 years ago my dad, sister, brother, and I discovered over dinner one night that we all drink Canada Dry — and ONLY Canada Dry — on planes every time we take a flight anywhere. And never anywhere other than planes.
I suspect all that extra radiation at 30,000 feet.
Yutsano
@magurakurin: I had a 68 Beetle that would break down every other Tuesday. Like clockwork. Always on the main bridge over the river on the way home. My best friend got so paranoid about it she thought she was the cause of the problem. And it was never the same thing twice. I swear that car was half-new when I finally got rid of it, although I never had an engine issue. It was just everything else.
danielx
@GregB:
Probably drives a Hummer. Been my observation that not all assholes drive Hummers, but all Hummer drivers are assholes.
gelfling545
@Baud: I’d like to think so but it was a rough road! She has ADD(!)
she also has a boatload of determination & a remarkable husband.
Baud
@gelfling545:
All the more impressive.
muddy
@magurakurin: My family had a ’60 VW that went well over 300,000. Family with 5 kids riding in there.
The car that was a real trooper I thought was the old Toyota Tercel 4wd wagon. Now I have all-wheel drive but I liked better when you could shift into 4wd or not. I rolled one once and drove it home. Drove it for years afterwards.
JPL
House of Cards is worth streaming if you have Netflix instant. I didn’t see the British version but Kevin Spacey is frightening good.
danielx
@Yutsano:
I don’t know what you guys are complaining about – I once was cursed with ownership of a Fiat 124 Sport Couple, and everything broke on that car, including the steering wheel. Transmission, engine, driver’s side window mechanism…found out later that Fiat had recalled the entire model run for that year for rust. I finally paid sixty bucks to have it hauled away.
Ralph
Hmm….ToE.
You are an unusual fellow, Mr. Cole.
realbtl
Old VWs can be reliable but they need more care and feeding than modern cars. The nice thing is that they are easy to work on. I check the valve clearance on my 63 every 3k miles, takes me about 15 minutes.
magurakurin
@Yutsano: My bus had trouble with vapor lock in the carb. Of course, we didn’t identify that exact problem until after it took us 50 hours to drive from Philly to Key West one Christmas holiday. The bus stranded us on the 7-Mile bridge heading onto Marathon Key. It died about 6 miles across. We pushed it the last mile under the stars across that narrow, narrow bridge. We wonder if it would be better to just be slammed by the oncoming traffic(probably drunk driving, too) or leap into the dark and, what we were sure was, shark infested waters. We passed out in the bus (yes we were loaded on a laundry list of…stuff) and woke up to find we were only yards away from a VW repair shop. The mechanic identified our probably, gave us a can of spray ether and taught us how to get the bus going. Of course that didn’t help when the fan belt broke on the way to Sannibel Island two days later on Christmas Eve….
nonRaven
Yeaah! Now maybe these twits will go find some culture, and real news topics!
Oh yeah, fuck you Raven!
bemused
@dance around in your bones:
Sea of Love, haven’t listened to that in a long time..one of my favorite tunes!
Schlemizel
@gelfling545:
Our younger son also has ADD but really blossomed after he was ousted from high school. He ended up in an aternative school that really got him going. He went to college, made the deans list, was inducted into PAT, a national homor society, had has become the kind of guy yuo would enjoy being around.
And I freely admit I have none of the credit. It was his mom a lot but mostly he did this on his own. He gets tired of me telling him how proud he makes me.
Argo
@dance around in your bones:
Why??
Rosie Outlook
@gelfling545: Congrats. What are the qualifications to be inducted into PBK?
Death Panel Truck
@Schlemizel: The first time I drank whiskey, it was Canadian MacNaughton. It was vile. Tasted like it’d been run through a radiator. I tried others (R&R, Black Velvet, Canadian Club, etc), but the only one I could halfway tolerate was Canadian Mist. I had an employer once who used to give me a half-gallon of Canadian LTD (the cheapest of the cheap Canadians) for Christmas three years running. I thanked him, and then took it home and poured it down the kitchen sink.
The first time I drank Scotch, I knew I’d found the whiskey for me.
bodacious
I don’t know, if you want to be lifted out of a full blown pity-pool, I always reach for Cool Hand Luke!!! You’ve got to realize you smell better and feel better than Paul on a bad day…………Look better??? He’s hard to beat.
Tim in SF
If you haven’t watched Network, you really should. It was intended as satire, not prescient.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08
Gin & Tonic
We have a foot of snow outside and it’s coming down at about 2 inches an hour at this point. I still have electricity, which is good.
Gin & Tonic
We have a foot of snow outside and it’s coming down at about 2 inches an hour at this point. I still have electricity, which is good.
Gin & Tonic
I didn’t post twice.
I hate the new site design.
dance around in your bones
@bemused: Here’s the original Sea of Love
Here’s a pretty creepy 80’s version by The HoneyDrippers complete with curly mullet and skimpy bathing suit. Urghh.
JPL
@NotMax: You won’t have Bqhatevwr to kick around any more.
freelancer
@Gin & Tonic:
Hasn’t been implemented yet, this the regular ole BJ you know and love.
Schlemizel
@Death Panel Truck:
So, did you like licking your pencil when you were a kid ;)
I never developed a test for the stuff. A friend one time told me not all scotch tastes like pencil lead & insisted I try some super expensive stuff. It tasted like mud that had been burnt! Made me thing pencil lead was not so bad.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: I can never remember how to spell bqhatevwr. Is there a mnemonic for it or something, or should I just drink more?
bemused
Marco Rubio will give response to SOTU and then Rand Paul will give tea party response after that, according to TPM. Popcorn night.
Gin & Tonic
@freelancer: I hate it anyway.
WereBear
You’re going to watch Terms of Endearment with a sinus infection? Won’t it make you tear up? Aren’t you a glutton for punishment?
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: Late night posting after a few hours of drinking helps. Your fingers just do the work for you…
Have you shoveled yet? A friend called and she’s been trying to keep path clear for the pup. She said the snow is heavy.
bemused
@dance around in your bones:
Original is the only way to go. From your description, I think I will skip the Honey Dripper version.
dance around in your bones
@Argo: Why what? Why I liked Riddled?
Because this post cracked me the fuck up. Read it, judge for yourself.
Argo
Dorner is the new “Rambo”. Love it.
dance around in your bones
@bemused: You are correctamundo. Skip the Drip!
WereBear
That is most awesome. I read the books; have not seen the series. Will have to track it down now… though the fact that Sean Bean lives through it will take some getting used to.
Argo
@Argo:
Except NOW he’s a “Domestic Terrorist”. Or WORSE! Oh NOOEESSS!
Lets Drone his ass!
Test Case U.S. soil.
“Git er Done!!”
bemused
Even better than ginger ale for whatever congestion ails you is Ginger Soother made by Ginger People. Love it. Nice for a yucky stomach too.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: I’ve shoveled twice so far. It was pretty heavy, but the temps are supposed to drop now, making the snow a bit lighter and drier. I’ll probably head out again in an hour or two.
gelfling545
@Schlemizel: High school as it is presently constituted ill-serves a lot of our kids for so many reasons and this unfortunately includes the highly intelligent ones as well as others from a whole range of abilities. She made it through high school but I’m pretty sure they gave her a diploma to make her (and me) go away. She was a bit sour on the whole education idea until she found her own way. So glad your son did too. You have every reason to be proud.
bemused
@dance around in your bones:
Ha.
Sea of Love is one old movie that stays in my memory banks. Ellen is probably one of the main reasons why. She was memorable.
dance around in your bones
@bemused:
Ok, for your delectation I offer Earth Angel by The Penguins as well as In The Still of The Night by The Five Satins….
Groove to the tunes!
dance around in your bones
It’s so funny – In The Still of The Night they are so clearly (and badly) lip-syncing and the audience is so Mad Men. Woohoo!
gelfling545
@Rosie Outlook: As far as I know – graduating senior in a liberal arts field with greater than 3.5 GPA, foreign language proficiency, proposed & elected by the university’s chapter on recommendation of faculty.
Argo
@Argo: Whaaa? Dorner? http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-lanow-manhunt-cold-big-bear,0,2030857.story?track=rss
Jack Jones
early 70’s to late 80’s Ferrari’s were questionable (as was pretty much any make during that period), before and after they are pretty good. Even better than average. I had a 250GTE and put 130k on it before i had to do any major work. After timing chains, water pump and some suspension i sold it down the line.
Unreliable no, expensive parts and rare (expensive)technicians yes. Driving experience – no match.
p.s. I was a co-owner in a restoration shop way back when and got the car for a song, almost literally. I miss that shop.
SiubhanDuinne
@gelfling545: Big congratulations to you, your daughter, and her supportive husband! Sounds like a wonderful family, well worth some pride and bragging.
gelfling545
@gelfling545: part of my comment got cut off
also proficiency in math demonstrated through course work & breadth of study beyond the major field. Should rank in the top 3%class.
Mr Stagger Lee
Thanks to the TV show The Americans(I don’t stay up late, so I watch it a week later OnDemand) the song Tusk by Fleetwood Mac is back on my playlist after a long hiatus. Loved the use of the USC band.
bemused
@efgoldman:
Yes, he and all of his buddies must go out on the highways now to conquer emergency tyranny.
bemused
@dance around in your bones:
Switched from the oldies. I was listening to Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello, 2001 but now takeout dinner has arrived.
dance around in your bones
I was living on the East Coast in ’94? 95? when we had something like 13 consecutive hellacious snowstorms in a row that winter.
It was fucking scary – you could hear branches breaking off trees (from the ice load) and sliding down the hill behind the house. I thought they would bust through the French doors.
Of course we lost power for several days, and I remember walking down the street looking at all the downed trees and talking to neighbors who were just as spooked.
Naturally once it was over and we could get to the KMart/Target we bought tons of emergency supplies.
Ha! Closing the barn doors after the horse and etc,
Argo
@Argo: That’s what I’m saying…next time it will be a “Drone” somewhere in the future.
“But, hey, we’re cool with that, he’s a enemy of the state”.
Argo
@efgoldman: And you are going to give that power to drones in the future? To keep you safe?
dance around in your bones
@bemused: Did you listen to the Rockpalast Elvis Costello concert that Omnes Omnibus linked to last night>?
It’s from 1978 – here’s part one but there are four parts to the concert which are easily found on the yoo toob.
Ben Mays
For ginger ale, try to find Northern Neck (both diet and regular). It is made by the Coca Cola bottler on the Northern Neck of Virginia. (Land between the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers. Its an old family recipe from here and well worth finding. Its boutique but priced exactly as other Coke products. 12-packs at Food Lion and everything.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
My grandnephew has a new little sister, complete with new baby smell. He won’t let her out of his sight and hasn’t stopped grinning in four days. Mrs. Cisco and I get to go up tomorrow to meet her. CAN’T WAIT!
Bago
@Calming Influence: When getting ready to drive a vow bus down to burning man, we just bought doubles of all the fuses, belts, and other replaceable parts. On the way back I had to fix a fuel leak. Calling an old vow a paragon of reliability is… Not congruent with my experience.
Bago
Hay Zeus da kristo, I hate apple autocorrect.
Schlemizel
@gelfling545:
Yeah, traditional education settings work well for the majority but not all kids. A couple of things really worked against the kid. First was that other kids got great delight out of pushing his buttons knowing he would react badly (poor impulse control) and the other was a principal who decided that when something bad happened & they didn’t know who had done it he must be responsible. She suspended him for 3 days because a toilet was intentionally clogged causing a flood. Despite other kids saying he was not there she knew better. The best part was the same thing happened a couple times while he was out those 3 days!
There was none of that crap at the alt school, just a lot of support and guidance. It was great to see the change in him and his grades.
Anne Laurie
@gelfling545:
Congratulations, first to her & then to you!
James E. Powell
@Tim in SF:
I’m not so sure it was satire, or at least not only satire. I definitely got the impression that Chayefsky was saying, “This is where we are headed.”
HeartlandLiberal
One more time with advice on dealing with serious sinus infections. A neti pot is not enough. Get a Sinupulse. Powered pulsed water through each nostril. As I have suddenly discovered myself getting old and retiring these past three years (how the **()*& did that happen?), I have been plagued with terrible sinus infections requiring antibiotics. Discovering this device has been a salvation in fighting the impaction and helping it break up.