Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Bark louder, little dog.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You are here: Home / Sports / The Yoke Has Been Lifted

The Yoke Has Been Lifted

by | 253 Comments

This post is in: 

On October 14th, 1992, a crime was committed. A man named Sid Bream slid across home plate, basically destroying the Pittsburgh Pirates for the rest of the century and all of this one. The Pirates then spent the next two seasons becoming the first team in MLB history to get rid of a 20 game winner and a 100 RBI hitter two years in a row (Drabek/Smiley/Bonds/Bonilla).

A half a year later, I was in a foxhole in the pitch dark allegedly on guard duty in an OP with the National Guard at Fort Dix, NJ, during annual training. On my earphones, I listened to David Volek score a fucking goal in OT of Game Seven, lifting the Islanders over the Pens. I screamed so loud that I woke up the entire unit, revealed our location, and pissed off my 1SG so much he threatened to beat me to death with the company guidon if I ever did that again.

Tonight, the Pens beat the Islanders in the playoffs, and after carrying around that horror for twenty plus years, it has been released.

SCRATCH MY BACK WITH A HACKSAW!

Reader Interactions

253Comments

  3. 3.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Well you gave Sooner’s post 7 minutes at the top, as my Calculus prof used to say “loads of time”, after starting a new proof 7 minutes before class was to end.

  5. 5.

    David Koch

    Sid Bream worst than watergate and iran-contra X 10

    if only bonds had been using gas back then he could have thrown him out.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    The Yoke Has Been Lifted

    Yesterday, a self-described jackass. Today, an ox.

    Movin’ on up.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    It’s amazing how fickle you are, you fucking monster. It’s almost like Stuck’s death means nothing to you. He loved you like a brother, and probably called out to you at the end.

  10. 10.

    Redshirt

    Pittsburgh, as a whole, is worse than Benghazi x 3 plus Watergate and IranContra squared.

    Also, alas! The Red Sox have fallen back to earth. It was a dream month of April.

  11. 11.

    Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)

    @Corner Stone: Wow, you are worse than JSF. Fuck off with a rusty pitchfork, you stupid motherfucker.

  12. 12.

    MattR

    As an Islanders fan, the most painful playoff series of my life was 1994 when the Rangers beat the Canucks.

  14. 14.

    cbear

    @Corner Stone: I suppose at this point we can only hope that the police report isn’t leaked to the Smoking Gun people.
    I’d hate to think it might have been wetsuit-related.

    Too soon?

  16. 16.

    John O

    Goddamn that made me laugh.

    You can bet I’ll be posting some smack out here if the Pens are lucky enough to play the Blackhawks in the Big Series for the Cup.

    Pens are good, John. Just not quite as good as the Hawks.

  17. 17.

    MikeJ

    @Redshirt:

    The Red Sox have fallen back to earth. It was a dream month of April.

    By August they’ll get it together enough to get your hopes up. Then they’ll crush them.

    I’m an old school red sox fan. I never fell for that “winning” bullshit. A World Series or two was just a way to get hopes up higher than ever.

  18. 18.

    Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)

    @Corner Stone: Grow the fuck up you Houston-living stupid fuck!

    ETA: DRROOOOOONNNNEEEESSS! GREENWALD!

  19. 19.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @MikeJ:

    A World Series or two was just a way to get hopes up higher than ever.

    I’m sure Cubs, Indians, Rangers, etc. fans read this and just laaaaaaugh. “Oh, just 2 World Series. Why those barely even count. We’re still tortured and agonized souls, really.”

  22. 22.

    Corner Stone

    @cbear:

    I’d hate to think it might have been wetsuit-related.

    Well, clearly, it might be. The ongoing contention is he died of massive stroke while trying to stay on the regular.
    Not saying he always wore a wetsuit or two to the restroom, but that’s clearly the leading speculation at this point.
    I think, at this point, AWS is our best lead to how things went down.
    If you know what I mean.

  24. 24.

    dww44

    I’ve not been around much of late, but have observed no comments from Stuck. Can someone update me, please?

  27. 27.

    Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, I saw corner stone with the dildo, leaning over Gen. Stuck, trying to stuff it in his mouth. I ran out in horror. i will testify in open court.

  28. 28.

    Redshirt

    @MikeJ: I said it back in 2004, yes sir. I said “Fitzy, just you watch. We’re gonna miss the tragic losing. It was our ‘thing’ and now we’re just the Yankees North”.

    And lo! So it came to be. Fitzy will vouch for me.

  29. 29.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Redshirt:

    Orioles, then. Pirates, like our host. Whatever. Point is when your team has won two world series in ten years and made the playoffs 8 or 9 of these years, you no longer have the right to be self-pitying mopes. Hell, Red Sox fans loved last season: they finally got to do the oh-woe-is-us thing again.

  36. 36.

    Unsympathetic

    Wow, I thought I was in a bad mood. The last thread was simply “we don’t know where this guy is” and now someone’s asserting he’s dead.. via snark?

    That’s not funny in any way, dude. Seriously, grow up.

    Changing topics: John, this article deserves a thread because it’s absolutely insane:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/01/a-new-gop-bill-would-prevent-the-government-from-collecting-economic-data/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): That’s it. Thaaat’s it. Let all the self-loathing go.
    Stuck was all you had that kept you going through those dark times. He was your “the somebody”. We get it.
    I can’t imagine that awful emptiness inside you right now.
    It gets better. It will get better.
    And we’ll be here for you, every step of the way.

  38. 38.

    Hill Dweller

    Does MSNBC give Chris Hayes his weekend show back after they dropped him from the 8pm slot?

  39. 39.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @efgoldman:

    There’s a sports website called KissingSuzyKolber, and one of their stock characters is ‘Tawmmy from Quinzee’, a belligerent, hyper-emotional sports fan from Southie who goes from bullying other lesser fanbases to collapsing into a heap of self-pity whenever the Red Sox or the Patriots miss/lose in the playoffs. “No othah city can know ow-ah pain!” Of course, he’s also a chronic bandwagoner.

    It’s a broad stereotype, to be sure, but when I see Red Sox and Patriots fans griping about their teams’ bad luck and missed chances over the last few years, it makes me think that it’s based on truth.

  42. 42.

    jayboat

    The Bream moment is forever seared in my memory.
    Verrry nice memory…
    Lived in Atl for 22 years- huge Braves fan.

  43. 43.

    Unsympathetic

    @Hill Dweller:

    They haven’t dropped him.. but I’m not sure what they expected – it’s tough sledding against both O’Reilly and Anderson Cooper.

  44. 44.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’m afraid shortstop may be dead. Someone find her number for me and I’ll call her.

  50. 50.

    cbear

    @jayboat: Oh hell yeah, I’ve been a Braves fan since the early 70’s and suffered thru all those brutal losing seasons (except for 1982) until we started winning.
    I’ll never forget how loooooonnnngggggg it took Bream to make it to the plate. Awesome!

  51. 51.

    NobodySpecial

    Congrats, Cole, it only took the Penguins six games to beat the Islanders. Good thing they play in the soft conference, the Wild would have killed them dead the way they played.

  53. 53.

    Hill Dweller

    @Unsympathetic: They haven’t dropped Hayes yet, but it is only a matter of time. He isn’t coming close to Ed’s numbers.

    Maddow’s ratings have also been hurt since Hayes took over. She is now consistently 4th in her time slot, which, as their highest rated show, has to be costing MSNBC money.

    The interesting part is MSNBC’s numbers have plummeted in the last few months, independent of Hayes’ show. CNN has now become the number 2 cable news network behind Fox.

    The suits are going to have to shake up their lineup if they want to get out of the ratings cellar.

  54. 54.

    Yatsuno

    @cbear: It worked for Jeffrey Dahmer.

    (still too soon?)

    @efgoldman: The audience MSNBC is trying to reach by and large very rarely watches television. So unless they want some kind of miracle here they’re gonna have to take a different approach. Like putting Chris Hayes back on weekends where his work didn’t suck.

  55. 55.

    Alison

    @Yatsuno: Didn’t suck? I think the show has done a good job of transitioning to the nightly format while staying true to the original intent. You don’t agree?

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    I was actually rooting for the Pirates in that game because F the Braves.

    Sid Bream was half crippled and stupid Bonds couldn’t throw him out.

  58. 58.

    Hill Dweller

    @efgoldman: I avoid that network like the plague, so I’ll take your word for it.

    The fact is viewers are fleeing MSNBC in droves. I’ve seen some grumbling on the twitter machine about MSNBC being more willing to internalize wingnut talking points recently, especially during morning and afternoon programming. Trying to shed their “liberal” tag?

    I only watch Maddow’s show, and couldn’t tell you what else airs on that network, but something is causing people to quit watching.

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    @Alison:

    It depresses me that people prefer shouty nothingburger Ed and his ridiculous text message polls to Chris.

    You mean mild-mannered, hipster glasses, “my good friend Andrew Sullivan” Chris?

    What’s not to love?

    Scratch that. What is there to love?

  60. 60.

    cbear

    @Yatsuno:
    Stuck’s missing and presumed dead, Corner Stone is a suspect, Cole’s apologizing left and right for being an asshole, Fuckhead’s stalking unsuspecting commenters, and now you’ve changed your name???

    Do I call you Yats now?

    I’m so confused.

  62. 62.

    Hill Dweller

    @Alison: Hayes was great during the Boston bombing/manhunt coverage. The show was less scripted, and he was good on the fly.

    When things are more structured, Hayes just isn’t as good.

    If he wasn’t hurting Maddow’s ratings they’d probably give him more time, alas…

  63. 63.

    Yatsuno

    @cbear: There there. It’ll all turn out in the end you’ll see. But kick JC a few more times that’ll make you feel better.

    @Alison: The few times I’ve seen him he looked harrowed and nervous. He also talks really really fast, not at all at the pace when he had the three hour format. Plus there isn’t time to dedicate the research like he used to do. He is capable of laying out points that take longer than seven minutes in a very clear fashion. I’m not seeing this now.

  65. 65.

    cbear

    @Yatsuno: Kicking Cole just ain’t as fun as it used to be now that he’s gone all hippy-dippy, peace, love and feeling your painy on us.

    Why the name change bro?

  66. 66.

    Yatsuno

    @cbear: FYWP. If certain commenters tried to reply to me they got sent into oblivion. Not even moderation, just complete evaporation. I switched a couple vowels around and the issue disappeared. So yeah, FYWP.

  71. 71.

    The Dangerman

    …and after carrying around that horror for twenty plus years, it has been released.

    Ugly case of Blue Balls Pucks there.

    ETA: Are you shitting me? This is the new look? And am I the last one to bitch about it?

  72. 72.

    Yatsuno

    WHOA! Did the site just change or is it just me?

    @cbear: Not tellin’. But I will say little dogs stew up quite nicely.

  73. 73.

    cbear

    @Yatsuno: “Certain commenters” were just disappearing, huh?
    Yeaaaah, right. Ok, come clean—–what did you do to Stuck, you sneaky bastard?

  77. 77.

    cbear

    @Yatsuno: Holy shit!!! First you off Stuck, and now you reformat the whole fucking site?
    Good God man, forget I said anything, alright?

  79. 79.

    Yatsuno

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: It looks a lot like the mobile site. Which on some levels is a fecking pain.

    @TaMara (BHF): The page is too wide for me. I have to move the scroll bar just to hit reply. Something in the page size is off. MikeJ is gonna have a field day here.

  83. 83.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    OMG, at first I thought I was on the mobile site. Then I thought that the roost beef I had for dinner might have been a tad old and was causing me to trip out. Wonder what the site will look like when I hit submit.

  85. 85.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Yatsuno: It’s perfectly centered for me. My guess is this is just a test. This is only a test. If this had been the real site rebuild there would be a thread up just for the bitch fest.

  87. 87.

    Spaghetti Lee

    OK, um, first impressions….the font is way too small. I guess you needed to do that to make room for all the…blank white space on the right. And did the search bar disappear? Whose idea was all this?

  88. 88.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Redshirt: This is the room where we shine the bright light on you and ask you what you’ve done with Stuck. I bet this glass of water is looking real good to you right now, isn’t it? /barney fife

  89. 89.

    Yatsuno

    @TaMara (BHF): If it’s a test then there definitely needs to be some rework. There’s a Google search function at the top blocking the text. Sounds like there might be some wild inconsistencies with browsers or something. Or the blog is just borked and reverted to the mobile site because FYWP don’t give a shit.

  93. 93.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I’m sure John will put up a post about the site rebuild that apparently just occurred, though I think it will be a repeat of Wednesday’s very brief post.

  94. 94.

    The Dangerman

    Great, in 20 years I can post about the primal scream I made after the new look came out (kill it and bury it in the backyard like raccoon roadkill, Dude).

    ETA: Or fry it up andserve it with some ripple as is done in some parts of these lands

  97. 97.

    dance around in your bones

    @Yatsuno: Not just you!

    I thought I landed on the mobile site somehow – WTF? Is this the new site layout? It’s a little scary – and where the hell is the little guy with the striped pants and megaphone! Ack! Gah!

  99. 99.

    eemom

    um…..did some fucking site update just happen? Eeeyeeew.

    eta: This SUCKS. It looks like SHIT.

  101. 101.

    Yatsuno

    @dance around in your bones: And the sidebar block with the Google search function is now taking up half the comments. Jeez Cole, just kick us all off until everything’s done or something.

    And is the font just straight up Arial? WTF over?

  103. 103.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Isn’t the date icon, witch I like, and the “Posted by John Cole on May 11, 2013” a bit repetitive. How about “Posted by John Cole at 10:05pm”. It doesn’t even have the time anymore below the post.

  106. 106.

    dance around in your bones

    @Yatsuno: Now all of a sudden what was centered is left justified.

    I have a confused. And the type is too tiny. And the reply button is half hidden (though that may be because I use NoSquint of Firefox to enlarge the type ’cause I can’t see the tiny font? Oh, just shoot me now.

    eta:Of course, as soon as I said that it changed back to centered. There is some jiggery-po.kery going on!

    .

  113. 113.

    Warren Terra

    The site update is indeed, as several have mentioned, deeply unfortunate.

    On the other hand, it did cause me to look at the page a bit, at sections I usually ignore: how long has this site been pushing a freaking widget full of headlines from flipping NewsMax?

  114. 114.

    The Dangerman

    That’s a nice little virtual pencil next to the Leave a Reply, but I use a virtual pen; will that cause any problems?

    This is Tunch screwing with the code, right?

  117. 117.

    dance around in your bones

    On the plus side, I see that the previous and next post links are back at the bottom. I always liked that.

  118. 118.

    Alison

    Whoa! Okay…is this where we say what we like and don’t like, or should that wait for a specific post? :P

  119. 119.

    Calming Influence

    I’m against capital punishment, except for whoever just took a shit on this site’s format.

  124. 124.

    Warren Terra

    I note that the design is signed:

    Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

    So I suppose we have a specific person to blame. Well, and Cole, of course,

  126. 126.

    Calming Influence

    I’m seeing about 40 acres of white space on either side of a strip of address labels. Klassy!

  127. 127.

    TaMara (BHF)

    No FPers, Cole’s twitter is silent. Stuck is missing. Was this the rapture and we missed it? And now we’re left behind with this borked blog? I should have took communion more often.

  132. 132.

    SatanicPanic

    In all seriousness I was waiting for the redesign to start griping around but I was planning on doing it ironically.

    ETA- maybe ironically is the wrong word, since the expectation is that we’d all gripe about it. I don’t know what word I’m looking for and I wish I had being drunk as an excuse.

  134. 134.

    dance around in your bones

    Well, I was going to post a link to the Wayback Machine to remind us of the way we were (haha) but it seems all the little buttons on top of the comment box have vanished. Shitenzeplatz.

  136. 136.

    The Dangerman

    Well shit, now “next post” and “previous post” have been taken from us; oh, woe is me, what is next? If I see virtual locusts, I’m outta here.

  137. 137.

    Calming Influence

    This site redesign is exactly like what the dinosaurs went through after the meteor hit. Plus Benghazi.

  138. 138.

    Alison

    I don’t mind it so much, though there’s a lot of stuff missing, and some of the sidebar menus are broken…like, the words run off past the edge of the window for the headlines, etc. I assume that’s just a small coding thing…

    And no rotating taglines?

    ETA And dumb me just realized those are Newsmax headlines. The hell?

  139. 139.

    Violet

    Urgh. The text is smaller. I’m going to have to change the settings on my browser.

  141. 141.

    billgerat

    Where are the links? I came here for the links tonight, and they’re not there! I hate site redesigns. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  147. 147.

    CaseyL

    The new layout looks OK. Just takes some getting used to. Like, a lot of getting used to. Much… brighter… in a JJ Abrams lens-flare kind of way. Because the margins are so big. I guess.

    ….Whyinhell is there a Newsmax window on the (appropriately) right-hand sidebar?

  150. 150.

    cbear

    It’s Stuck’s revenge I tell you, Stuck’s revenge!
    Sweet Jesus, I’m sorry Stuck, it wasn’t me—-LOOK there’s JSF AND CS right over there, they’re the bad guys, I was only an unwitting pawn!!!

  151. 151.

    dance around in your bones

    @SatanicPanic:

    >>>I predict an increase in blockquote fail. <<<

    You got THAT right. I don't know squat about HTML. I want my buttons back!

    ok, total fail on the HTML test try. O_o

    test

  152. 152.

    piratedan

    yeah, coming in on Firefox, that ads bar at the top blow right through the body of the text, that’s the google ad, the amazon ref, the newsmax items and then the premium blogads boxes just superimpose themselves over the body of the blog for me.

  154. 154.

    The Dangerman

    OK, the scratch and sniff feature is pretty cool, but the only option in the drop down menu is “Catbox”; that’s wrong, right?

  155. 155.

    scav

    Mine’s squeezed into about half an inch wide, one word, tiny font, is about all it can handle.

  157. 157.

    Alison

    I’m watching Harry Potter and I refreshed and saw the comments shrink just as someone yelled out a spell. That was kinda neat.

  158. 158.

    Amir Khalid

    Hmm. I hope that this is just the first go at the redesign, because this thing still needs more tweaking. We need the HTML buttons back for commenting, and the Recent Comments box back as well. Font size for comments needs to be closer to that for the post. Glad to see that the Recent Posts box now includes the top post again.

    @Irish Steel:
    To pre-empt John Cole’s likely answer: If you want a ten-foot tall blue humanoid body, you’ll have to grow it yourself.

  160. 160.

    dance around in your bones

    ok, WTF just happened NOW? Everything SHRANK!

    Saturday night, nothing’s happening anyway, right?

    eta: I am only getting about 5 letters of anyone’s nym. Bummer!

  161. 161.

    TaMara (BHF)

    If JC knew anything about coding and site redesign, I’d say he was just fucking with us. Maybe this is Tunch, who secretly knows much more than he lets on, getting back at all of you for the fat jokes. (Tuncheee, you know I love you and I’ve never said a bad word about cha).

    p.s. this comment is now 1/2 wide and 6 inches long. sorry about that.

  165. 165.

    Calming Influence

    Hey, try this! If you grab the edge of your browser window and move it in to try to get rid of all the white space, you can actually make the comments column disappear! Feature, or Bug?!?

  166. 166.

    The Dangerman

    Hold on, we’re comparing width and length now? Well, ALRIGHT!

    ETA: Well, shit, I just got really tiny; someone really knows how to ruin a guy’s ego

  168. 168.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Sigh, I must retire for the evening and I don’t want to, because I’m guessing stuff is just starting to get fun. Like Alice In Wonderland, I’m sure things will get curiouser and curiouser as the night wears on.

  172. 172.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I went to bed at 10:00 pm and slept for 3 hours. Had a nightmare and woke up. Now I can’t sleep.
    But at least I know what caused the nightmare: a thousand wounded psyches screaming in terror at the site redesign reached out to me in my sleep.
    I share your pain.

  174. 174.

    Amir Khalid

    I wonder what I’ll get when I hit Submit Comment this time. I hope everyone has adjusted their seat to the upright position, fastened their seat-belt, and returned their tray to the stowed and locked position.

  177. 177.

    scav

    Different platform – Not so bad here but only because the screen is wider possibly. Looking like they’ve got the ad / side columns fixed width and the comments column left to float, which is why it can completely disappear, which is fun to play with if one is easily amused.

  178. 178.

    TaMara (BHF)

    On October 14th, 1992 May 11-12 2013, a crime was committed.

    ETA: and suddenly the columns are big again. Alice must have drank from the other vile.

  179. 179.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I haven’t read the whole thread yet. Can someone point me at the post where John comes down and gets all “COME ON YOU BABIES QUIT WHINING IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT GET YOUR OWN WEBSITE JESUS I HATE YOU ALL” on us?

  180. 180.

    eemom

    holy shit, it’s getting worse. It’s narrowing like the walls of some medieval torture chamber.

    Yer a sick
    man,
    Jo
    hn

    C
    o
    l
    e

  185. 185.

    jheartney

    I’m assuming the right hand column is supposed to be the same narrow width as the left hand column, so that the blog posts are wider. Because if you really mean to have the columns stay these widths, you need a new designer.

    Also when I rollover the “Submit Comment” button, the rollover image is wider than the default image, probably because the text is bold in the rollover version.

    Is there some reason you couldn’t iron out these kinds of css tweaks before you went live with the redesign?

  186. 186.

    mai naem

    I would bitch about the format but I figure this isn’t the final product. From what I remember about the numbers, Fox had lost a lot of viewers esp, the demo. I totally do not get Erin Burnett doing well at CNN. Not surprised about MSNBC losing viewers after the election. Obama won and is in for 4 years. I was worried that Chris Hayes’ style wouldn’t work in prime time. I didn’t like Ed Schultz but Ed was up against Oreilly who is the king of cable news shows so i figured Ed was doing pretty good. I hate to say it but they need somebody like Keith Olbermann – somebody who’s got an “A” personality and is also kinda dickish.

  187. 187.

    Amir Khalid

    Someone should have brought this up by now: WHERE IS THE MAN WITH THE CANE AND THE MEGAPHONE?

  188. 188.

    Irish Steel

    Oh, wait! This is an homage to the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.

    Leia!

  189. 189.

    scav

    ok,

    This is Blockquoted


    This is code

    Bold
    Italic
    strikethrough

    doubt they’ll have lost these, although the buttons have gone awol.

    ETA: SERIOUSLY, This is Bold?
    Strong any better?
    ETA 2.0, whew.

  190. 190.

    dance around in your bones

    I
    c
    a
    n
    n
    o
    t

    s
    t
    a
    n
    d

    t
    h
    i
    s

    I feel like Alice in Wonderland after she drank from the ‘Drink Me’ bottle. I’d say where’s my ‘Eat Me’ cake but I know y’all would mock.

  191. 191.

    Calming Influence

    Oh, now I get it! The Newsmax headlines? The Balloon Juice website has been hacked by brilliant conservative hack…..

    O.K., never mind.

  193. 193.

    Calming Influence

    @jheartney:

    “Is there some reason you couldn’t iron out these kinds of css tweaks before you went live with the redesign?”

    Cole secretly enjoys the abuse. It comes from living in West Virginia, I think.

  196. 196.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    blockquoted text. Let’s see if I remember how this works.

    Non-blockquoted text.

    ETA: okay, that came out italic. Let’s see if I can fix it.
    ETAA: Italics fixed.

  198. 198.

    dance around in your bones

    This style reminds me of that joke about two guys pissing off a bridge into a river and one guy says “Man, this water is cold” and the other guy says “And deep, too!”

  199. 199.

    rda909

    Newsmax?!? You have got to be kidding me, right? I have no problem if you need to work out kinks with width and so on, but if you’re putting Newsmax links on here, I’m gone for good and taking back every positive thing I’ve ever said about you. Unacceptable. (and I’ve given money to your pet blegs too)

  202. 202.

    Irish Steel

    @MattR: I forget the first series had some genuinely funny moments in light of the grim, humorless tone of the prequels.

    Unless you find Jar Jar funny, I suppose…

  203. 203.

    rda909

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Classic case, like Phil Donahue too, where his ratings were on a rapid rise, and often beating O’falafel on Pox, and mysteriously gets fired for some odd reason. Can’t have the “free market” choosing a liberal voice after all. Shut that shit down, stat!

  204. 204.

    Calming Influence

    @rda909: So is that an official Goodbye Cruel World, or are you just setting up the foundation for a future official Goodbye Cruel World.?

  206. 206.

    scav

    @TaMara (BHF): That looks like giant cloven hooves stomping on comments. Can’t decide if it’s Rambo Bambi Seeks Revenge or a Jolly Green Giant / Demon offspring.

    FEE
    FIE
    FOE
    FUM!
    I smell the blood of a FWYPageddon!

  207. 207.

    Steeplejack

    @TaMara (BHF):

    LOL.

    The current look of the site blows. This is obviously a work in progress. I tried to find a YouTube video for Sterling Archer: “Cry havoc and let slip the hogs of war!”

    “Dogs.”

    “Well, whatever farm animal of destruction.”

    Something like that.

    I’ll check back in the morning. Carrying the exhausted housecat to bed.

  209. 209.

    TooManyJens

    The right sidebar is so wide in order to accommodate the categories list, apparently. Of which the longest one is “Since We Have A Category For Everything Here Is One for Insomina.”

    So, just like gastritis broke McMegan’s calculator, “insomina” broke the blog.

  211. 211.

    rda909

    @Calming Influence: So you have no problem with not 1 or 2, but 8 Newsmax headlines at the top of this page, which of course all imply the most liberal president in any of our lifetimes, President Barack Hussein Obama, is a complete failure and crook, on the top of every page view of this site?

  213. 213.

    dance around in your bones

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: How do you do a hyperlink? I just want to push a button and paste my link.

    I guess it’ll all get fixed eventually.

    :::sobs into pillow:::

  215. 215.

    TooManyJens

    I’m just assuming that someone decided a Newsmax module would be the trolliest possible thing they could use for testing during the redesign.

  218. 218.

    Dead Ernest

    Sort of intersting. I’m stuck… Er, bad choice of words tonight, I’m only able to access the site via iPhone this evening.

    Switching from mobile to ‘regular’ view, the redesign is actually much nicer on a mobile device. I’ve got comments numbered, it is not at all unpleasant.
    There is a LOT of blank space on the right side. All the stuff typically on the right is now underneath the comments (or posts on the home page).

    I can imagine the non-mobile view on a computer screen looks horrible as y’all are saying, but on the phone the non-mobile is far superior to the ‘mobile view’. …so far.

  221. 221.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I’d love to stick around for Cole’s inevitable rant when he finds out we’ve been bitching about the new design. But I gotta try and sleep.

    ‘Night all. And Stuck, wherever you are, happy trails, man.

  222. 222.

    dance around in your bones

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Thanks – I understand it more now, but I still prefer the buttons, which I presume will return soon enough.

    I see we have our whole nyms back now and the reply arrow isn’t half hidden, so things are improving.

    Dump the Newsmax feed, though. Ugh.

  224. 224.

    scav

    Current iteration
    on Mr Pad certainly
    is the best illustration of a comment thread I’m ever likely to see. I feel honored to have witnessed. Google’s gone quite elaborate for Mother’s Day too.

  226. 226.

    PeakVT

    Well, I certainly hope this isn’t the final version of the redesign, because it sucks elephant dick.

    If it is, I’ll try to write a Stylish script for it as soon as possible. If there are professional CSS coders (unlike me) in the audience, please consider writing one as well.

    ETA: and just as soon as I hit post, we’re back to the old design.

  228. 228.

    MattR

    Wow. The yoke has been lifted

    (EDIT: Looks like they finally removed the virus that Stuck embedded to go off if anyone ever revealed his real name in the blog comments)

  231. 231.

    dance around in your bones

    @TaMara (BHF): Well, the center column just widened again, so hopefully the buttons can’t be TOO far behind!

    Wish the font was larger and that we’d get the little striped pants guy with megaphone back again (and lose the candy half balloon) as well as the classy curvy grey numbers . I guess I’m conservative in that one area – sure, get a larger server and all, but why change the funky ambiance of the older layout? It was unique.

    eta: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the buttons are back, we’re left-justified again, and the numbers are grey and curvyish. I should just shut up until it’s done.

  232. 232.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m going off for the afternoon here. I wonder what I’ll see when I get back.

  233. 233.

    rda909

    @TaMara (BHF): I see the width issues are improving, but having Newsmax links is not about some setting wrong somewhere. That’s a very specific choice. That propaganda mill exits solely to denigrate liberals and President Barack Hussein Obama. If this site continues to promote that crap, then anyone who considers themselves “liberal” or “logical” should never come here again. I wouldn’t say a word about formatting and technical issues with a re-design. I understand how difficult that stuff can be. Again…Newsmax = unacceptable. Deal-breaker.

  236. 236.

    rda909

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Of course I understand “what a test version is.” That’s why I didn’t care about formatting and other technical snafus. Explain how having a box of 8 Newsmax articles is necessary for testing.

  241. 241.

    rda909

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Yes, perfect. Someone who hates Newsmax with a passion = someone we don’t want here. I actually expect the site owner is going to apologize for the snafu, and we’ll never see Newsmax headlines here again and it was just a f-up somewhere in the chain of command. Yet, some Online Progressives feel the need to get on my case for hating Newsmax so much. You have no problem with Newsmax….got it.

  243. 243.

    rda909

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Yes, my supposed concern-trolling (according to you) about Newsmax headlines on BJ is ridiculous. Why sure, here’s a current headline on the Newsmax frontpage:

    “Limbaugh: Obama Ultimately Responsible for Benghazi:
    Conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh declared that President Barack Obama will ultimately be held responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012, attack at the U.S. post in Libya — not former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

    Yes, big deal, right? No harm in promoting and profiting that!

  244. 244.

    rda909

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: So I specifically and consistently call out the difference between formatting issues with a site re-design (which I have no problem with), and having Newsmax headlines at the top of the page, and you and a friend here get on my case about it, and I’m the problem here or “idiot,” apparently. As I asked earlier, “explain how having a box of 8 Newsmax articles is necessary for testing.” I’m waiting…

  246. 246.

    SiubhanDuinne

    On October 14th, 1992, a crime was committed miracle occurred. A man named Sid Bream slid across home plate, basically destroying the Pittsburgh Pirates for the rest of the century and all of this one. The Pirates then spent the next two seasons becoming the first team in MLB history to get rid of a 20 game winner and a 100 RBI hitter two years in a row (Drabek/Smiley/Bonds/Bonilla).

    Now, doesn’t that read better?

  247. 247.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @PeakVT:

    I have a Stylish style that I use to fix the current site design. Will adjust as necessary and publicize when the redesign stabilizes.

  248. 248.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    Mildly disappointed that no one last night linked the “Follow me! Follow me to freedom!” ESPN ad.

  250. 250.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yes, thank you. As someone who watched the Orioles lose the Series when they were up 3-1 in 1979, that reads much better.

  252. 252.

    ADS

    It’s been a long, nightmarish three decades for Islander fans, such as me. We were paying for our amazing run — 19 consecutive playoff series wins, four cups. Glad they are beginning to look like a real team again.

  253. 253.

    low-tech cyclist

    On October 14th, 1992, a crime was committed. A man named Sid Bream slid across home plate

    BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN!!!!!!!!!!!

    Yeah, I remember that moment. :D

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