Good group of people, and a good time was had by all. I actually left about an hour ago, but, as usual, got lost on the walk back and stopped by some restaurant 20 minutes before closing and sat on the patio and ate some mussels.
Just made it back and I am going to sleep like a baby tonight.
Also, I loathe Lena Dunham, if for no other reason than that god awful show, but she keeps giving me more reasons to hate her.
The Artist as Meh
Sleep well. Enjoyed the get-together. Weirdly, it was as I had imagined it.
Violet
That’s quite some habit you’ve got there, John.
Glad the meetup was fun. Wish I could make one of them some time.
Steeplejack
I watched the premiere of Broadchurch on BBC America. It was good, but there were a few warning signs in the way they larded the foreshadowing plot niblets around. It felt just this side of heavy-handed. But it was the first episode, they had to cram in a lot of stuff, so they get a pass. Still looking forward to next week.
And, seriously, Obama sent McCain and Graham to Egypt?! I thought this was another one of their freelance road trips, but apparently not. WTF.
ETA: Hmm, I’m thinking of casting them in The Road to Cairo, sort of a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby remake. It could be a laff riot.
max
Also, I loathe Lena Dunham
I don’t! I don’t care! But that line Queen Anne quoted was good:
They’d be voting Republican but those people are so uncouth! That’s why all it’s people from NY always pimping a new way of picking 3rd party candidates who will find a Third Way between those racist rednecks and those damn dirty hippies and produce tax cuts without all those uncouth remarks! Like No Labels or Unity or whichever one it was.
NO UNITY 2016!
max
[‘Glad you enjoyed the meetup. Also glad that a pit bull flying a hang glider didn’t crash the bar just to steal your mustard.’]
Ted & Hellen
Lena Dunham is an untalented, unattractive beneficiary of gross nepotism.
I posted about this yesterday and all the Bots ignored it.
Yes, Obama is now actively promoting and seeking out politicians who obstruct his (alleged) agenda at every turn, to be his representatives.
Dildo.
max
@Steeplejack: And, seriously, Obama sent McCain and Graham to Egypt?!
There are two possibilities here, both of which might be true. 1) The President is mining the hope and change thing again and taking foreign policy advice from those guys which might explain why the last three months have been so weird & stupid on that front, and 2) he might have sent them on a fact-finding tour (no facts will actually be located) to get them to shut the fuck up, or at least talk about something else.
max
[‘Or management has finally gone mental. Which I couldn’t blame him for exactly, considering.’]
Violet
Can’t say I loathe Lena Dunham, but I don’t understand her appeal. I find her boring. She seems like she’s trying too hard to be edgy and that always seems tiresome to me unless it’s just funny and sad.
Redshirt
Ted & Helen & John Cole: A Bromance
JCJ
When there is a meet-up in Madison I am twelve time zones away instead of just over an hour away by car. Hope it was nice for all. John, how do you get lost in Madison? I realize you are from a tiny town so Madison seems big, but to get lost? Oh well, I will send happy thoughts and good wishes southward down the Malay Peninsula and across the Isthmus of Kra to Amir Khalid in KL.
Jerzy Russian
I had never heard of Lena Dunham before. Should I bother with google?
I am not a kook
@Steeplejack:
Has anybody checked if State didn’t just happen to cancel their passports after they left US airspace? Also, he sent them to Egypt at the same time they are closing embassies all over Middle East due to the terror alert? Hmm.
MikeJ
@Jerzy Russian: If you don’t already know who she is you won’t care after you find out.
Jerzy Russian
@Steeplejack:
It does result in these two gentlemen being out of the country and several time zones away. The ideal place would be on the spot that is exactly opposite of Washington on the globe (this point is off the western coast of Australia, many miles from land), but Egypt is a good start.
Jerzy Russian
@MikeJ:
This seems to be one benefit of not having a TV: I can spend less time caring about topics such as these.
Violet
@Jerzy Russian: No, don’t bother. She’s known for writing and starring in that show “Girls” on HBO that got a lot of buzz and won awards. It’s got rich white girls in NYC in it. Doesn’t seem very original or interesting to me.
I am not a kook
@Ted & Hellen:
The world is SO UNFAIR. Listen to ME.
Yeah, dunno. From my reading it seems that it was convenient to let those guys go there and denounce the coup as a coup. Coming from another branch of government it isn’t an official administration position. It lets the admin put pressure on the junta while being careful not to trigger cutting off military aid. Diplomacy, how the fuck does it work?
If this is your new nym, remember to change it on top as well.
rammalamadingdong
I don’t really follow Lena, but I thought her Obama ad was genius at a critical time.
MikeJ
@Jerzy Russian: I’m still not entirely clear on what a Kardashian is. I’m pretty sure the Muppets have gone way downhill since Henson died.
Jerzy Russian
@MikeJ:
I believe they were those aliens in Star Trek that gave the Bajorans such a hard time (I did finally get caught up on DS9 by watching DVDs borrowed from the county library).
Anne Laurie
@Violet: Remember when Joyce Maynard was promoted by the NYTimes as “The voice of a new generation”? I’ve decided that Lena Dunham is the new JoyMayn — a not-actually-talented daughter of the intellectual class who gets rewarded by rich old white guys for talking dirty at them. But this is a visual age, so Ms. Dunham has to take her clothes off, too. I guess the elaborate tats gives the rest of the audience something to look at…
Redshirt
@Jerzy Russian: DS9 is the best Trek. In all regards. The Cardassians are bastards, no doubt, but there’s some small nuance. Like with Kim.
Phoenix Woman
@Steeplejack: I think it’s actually clever — it gets them out of the country right as the GOP’s gearing up its obstructionist grandstanding for this year’s budget showdown.
Meanwhile, check out Alex Pareene’s brilliant explanation for the RNC’s fauxtrage over the Hillary biopic stuff: It’s a pretext to try to get the debates off regular TV and keep them solely on FOX, so that the average American won’t see and be horrified by the latest iteration of the GOP Clown Car.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I know Lena Dunham’s name because half the websites I look at talk about her show, it’s one I feel like I can resist catching up on, in spite of my long record of late-adopting binge-watching (Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad and Mad Men).
I’m watching yesterday’s Colbert, and it turns out “daft punk”, another phrase I frequently encounter in the toobz, is not a style of or trend in popular music, but a group or duo which performs said popular music.
Anne Laurie
@MikeJ: I find Go Fug Yourself a useful — and, more important, entertaining — guide to all things celeb. That’s how I know one of the Kardashians just lost the annual Fug Madness title to… Justin BEiber!
Violet
@Anne Laurie: I’m afraid I don’t know who Joyce Maynard is. But I agree with you about the rest of it. I honestly don’t understand her appeal at all. Do rich old white guys find her dirty talk appealing in some way? Really? I think she’d be pointing and laughing at them, which definitely causes shrinkage.
I saw her on Colbert (a few years ago now) and she made a point of telling him she didn’t watch his show but her dad did and he’d be excited she was on it. Yay. Entitled rich girl insults host of show she’s invited onto before the interview even gets going. So appealing.
Spaghetti Lee
Guys, chill out about McCain and Graham. Imagine Obama is King David and those two are Uriah.
Spaghetti Lee
Lena Dunham sure seems to inspire a lot of free-floating primal rage. Is it her haircut?
patrick II
@Phoenix Woman:
When they come back Obama will thank Graham as profusely as he did Jon Huntsman and that will have the same results in the upcoming republican primary.
kideni
@JCJ: “how do you get lost in Madison?”
He probably got sent off track by one of the diagonal streets.
It was indeed a delightful time, and I hope we didn’t bore John too much with local politics. I also really enjoyed meeting some of the other Madison crew from these boards (one of which turned out to be someone I already knew).
Mike D.
Probably here:
http://www.tempestoyster.com
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That was one of the greatest Colbert episodes of all time! Anyone who missed it should check it out on the Web site.
eemom
I am hopelessly out of sync this evening….thought we’d see pix of a wild and crazy Cole dancing on a wedge of cheese in Madison, and don’t know or care who Lena Dunham is.
However, I do know that Joyce Maynard is a no-talent twat whose biggest claim to fame is boinking JD Salinger, so there’s that.
What?
@MikeJ:
All I remember is a picture of Mr. Decathalon wearing a tea shirt that read “Happiness is 12inches”
Not sure it was giving or getting, but he married Mz. Ex-OJ Lawyer Guy.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Graham enjoying patty-cake not a picture I care to see.
/cheap shot
@Redshirt
Say what now?
As fictional director Oscar Jaffe (1st summary at link) blustered, “I close the iron door on you.”
? Martin
@Steeplejack:
I think it was easier to get McCain and Graham to say things they wanted to say, but which Obama didn’t want coming straight from Kerry. And I agree with the message that McCain and Graham delivered. No administration will ever want to step down if they’re only going to get arrested by the next administration.
rda909
Damn. Stopped by there as soon as I could from my job duties. Must’ve just missed ya.
hamletta
Mussels are delicious.
NotMax
@hamletta
Always a bit leery of mussels on a menu. Mussels filter the water they live in, so they readily pick up pollutants.
If they’re available, will go for the green-lipped variety (in a wine and garlic broth, preferably) as the waters they thrive in off New Zealand are generally considered cleaner.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@hamletta: I don’t hate them, but I’m not a fan, either.
Yatsuno
@NotMax: A lot of the Oregon mussel farms are in the cleaner parts of the Pacific, so they tend to be rather safe. New Zealand mussels are known for a different slightly sweeter flavour as well, but they can get pricey.
seaboogie
Okay hamletta, tear NotMax and Nostradumbass a new one for being very bad men who are liars and will never get laid. This time over shellfish. Because men are so shellfish. Last night was pretty surreal.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@seaboogie: What are you yammering about?
seaboogie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Well, there was this little back and forth yesterday eve about crabs (the crustacean) and Obamacare, and I thought I was being a bit witty about ointment and tartar sauce and such with hamletta. So then I thought I should clarify myself and mentioned that I am more of an aioli person re: crab, and also a Cancer star sign….and then hamletta informed me that I was a very bad man, a liar, and would never get laid.
Well, a quick check in my pants will find only lady-parts, and I am in no hurry to get laid, but that was a surprisingly pointed post that she did, and I was kind of taken aback. I think that NotMax was on the scene, so that was why I posted now with a familiar reference. It was late. Maybe so late that it was early.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@seaboogie: Uh, okay.
seaboogie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Yup.
Steeplejack
@seaboogie:
Last night was surreal because you apparently have no sense of humor at all and completely misinterpreted Hamletta’s joking remark. Jesus, get a clue.
NotMax
Crabby is as crabby does.
- Lucy Van Pelt
seaboogie
@Steeplejack: Seriously? Did you read what she wrote?
ExpatDanBKK
@JCJ: Sounds as if you are in Thailand JCJ? We can have our own BJ meet LOL in The Big Mango…
Steeplejack
@seaboogie:
Yes, I read the whole goddamn thread.
Let me dumb it down for you from the perspective of a disinterested reader. You and Hamletta were going back and forth about the best way to eat crabs. You said she might need tartar sauce.
She said, “I appreciate your concern, but you obviously don’t know how to eat crabs.” (Humor alert!)
You said something about Dungeness crabs and being an aioli girl, and then she said (additional humor alert!):
Which apparently hit you the wrong way, because you came back with:
And then you followed it with another comment after that. “You clearly misunderstood me through whatever the filter of your current experience is,” etc., etc.
Look, it’s humor on the Internet. Sometimes people aren’t very good at it, sometimes people aren’t good at picking up on it. The analogy is: “My local sports team is better than your local sports team, and you no doubt have less sexual prowess and less success with potential mating partners because of your foolish support for your local sports team, which sucks.” The humor lies in exaggerating the other person’s supposed flaws because of their support of their local sports team. Get it? Ha-ha-ha!
It’s not exactly Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley at the Algonquin Round Table, but whatever. Let it go. It’s easily forgotten.
But what does seem crazy is for you to bring it up out of nowhere a day later in an unrelated thread. Obviously you were offended and got your feelings hurt. But I suggest it was not because of some sinister, malicious intent on Hamletta’s part but because you misread her attempt at humor. That is all.
(And I can’t believe I have spent this much time on this. But, hey, it’s the middle of the night and I’m up and this is what’s going on.)
ETA: File under “XKCD, Internet, Someone Is Wrong On.”
Another Holocene Human
Why the Dunham hate? For supporting Stringer? Whatever.
I used to loathe her until she started pissing off all the right people. Then I was like, fuck it, this cosseted rich hipster kid is terrible, but I am loving the fact that she is comfortable with her body image and enraging all of these terrible people who are horrible to everyone all the time. So she did something good with her life.
Doesn’t she have the same surname as Barack Obama’s mom? What’s up with that?
Another Holocene Human
@Jerzy Russian: I had never heard of Lena Dunham before. Should I bother with google?
The question is, how much unfiltered hipster trustifarian can you take?
My in-person threshold is pretty low, even if the hipsters do give me good prices on beer.
Steeplejack
@Another Holocene Human:
You could have stopped right there.
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: Well, in Massachusetts and I would assume likewise in other New England states the state inspectors enforce the rules about keeping filter feeders in filtered tanks for 24-48 hrs (hm, hope that’s actually 48, but don’t recall for certain). I met some of the actual inspectors once. They do a good job but at one time they did have mobsters illegally digging for clams in the brackish waters of the river the Tobin goes over which is to say we’re not exactly talking about a genteel business here where everybody politely complies.
But yeah, anybody’s who’s NOT a sociopathic asshole understands the necessity.
Now as to Cedar Key clams from the Florida Gulf, I’ve been afraid to eat them since the oil spill and the reports of toxic bacteria everywhere. And food safety in Floriduhhh is a joke. Even when people mean well, which is to say, far from everyone, the ignorance level is at critical.
We learned about that filtering process back in 7th grade in Eastern Mass even though we weren’t exactly apprenticing in the fisheries trades directly, just to give you some perspective.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Me too. The music was surprisingly groovy, which is not what I expected.
@Redshirt: DS9 was the most ambitious Trek. I far prefer it to TNG but TOS will always be #1 for me. I kind of wandered off midway through DS9 to nurse a B5 obsession.
One problem to me is that Dax was just horribly miscast. The first episode is kind of painful to watch. (Never realized how many people hated Nana Visitor, though. Kira was my favorite character.) I don’t think conventionally attractive and capable of spewing techno dialogue are somehow mutually exclusive–see Ryan, Jeri. Hey, let’s face it, Jeri Ryan successfully pulled off a re-rolling of a lot of the same character concepts that were supposed to go with Jadzia Dax but never did because the actress couldn’t pull it off. Then they flailed around and did that whole Klingon thing and then finally killed her off. Ezri as a character is annoying like Kyle Rayner in the comics but, hey, competence! Imagine that.
Also never cared for some of the direction of DS9 as the years went on. The first season was kick ass, though. Always loved the Bajoran stories, the power struggles, the backstabbing … yeah.
Omnes Omnibus
@kideni:
He had his golf for consolation.
gnomedad
@Another Holocene Human:
Well, Obama has that time machine that he uses to go back and regenerate as Hitler, so maybe she is his mom.
Singing Truth to Power
John, it was great to meet you – thoroughly enjoyed the chat. It was also lovely to see someone I know from local political struggles. Looking forward to more meet-ups – hope to see you on Friday under the Solidaritree near the State Street corner of the Square. Tubas and cymbals and fiddles, oh my! (And how could anyone be bored with our political doings?)
kideni
@Omnes Omnibus: It was like being on the blog – John starts a thread and then goes off to play video games! (Really, though, he spent the vast majority of his time talking with us. He’s a great host.)
kideni
@Singing Truth to Power: Also, Friday night the Overpass Light Brigade is coming to town to honor the Vets for Peace with a lighted message on the Capitol lawn. OLB events are always a good time.
JCJ
@ExpatDanBKK:
Oh my. Sorry to reply so late. Yes, I am in Thailand, and from your nym in the same city as you. My wife is from Bangkok and we are here visiting. We actually come once or twice a year. we stay in Sukhumvit Soi 24 (BTS Phrom Phong.)
MomSense
@max:
I can think of two other possibilities. After they leave he talks to the military leaders in Egypt and says “Well, you can either work with me and Kerry or with McGrumpy and Miss Lindsey. Your call.”
Or.
Phone in oval office rings and PBO answers call from military leaders in Egypt. “you weren’t kidding. they are total freaks. how do you stand it?” followed by much laughing.
kc
@Spaghetti Lee:
She’s not pretty enough to be a Famous Actress.
schrodinger's cat
Photos or it didn’t happen.
Ted & Hellen
@I am not a kook:
So in your haste to Botsplain you neglected to splain why there might not be at least two reputable Dems supportive of BO’s alleged overall agenda whom he might have sent.
No, instead, he chose two of the biggest assholes in D.C. to REPRESENT him.
And they do so, very well, just not in the way he intended.
Sandia Blanca
@MomSense: This sounds about right!
kc
@kc:
I should have included a “sarcasm” tag here. Dead as the thread is, I’ll say that I think the level of hostility towards Dunham is bizarre.
Singing Truth to Power
@kideni: I love OLB events, but I have an art fair on Saturday that I have done next to nothing to prepare for, so I cannot be there – hold a letter for me!
Singing Truth to Power
@kideni: Wonder if John Cole knows about OLB and might like to go? If we see him on Friday, must remember to ask him.