What do you have to look forward to today?
I’m getting ready to see the world premiere of the cutting edge new play “The Very Friendly Fireflies”. Kid #1 is in a critical supporting role as a bumblebee.
Otherwise talk amongs yourselves.
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Baud
Sounds dirty.
debbie
With all my nieces and nephews now in high school, I find that I miss all those grade-school programs.
WereBear
Very little, but thanks for asking. (Things should improve after I get through what is scheduled for the afternoon.)
Bumblebees are very important!
PaulW
There were more than one lobster at the birth of Jesus?
geg6
Going into work and hoping to find out how much was raised for campus scholarships at the alumni golf outing yesterday. I was a watcher on hole #4 and, for the first time in the decade I’ve been doing this event, someone got a hole in one! He won a Kindle Fire (which I totally covet). Hope we raised loads of cash for our students!
Baud
@WereBear:
In the directors cut, all the bumblebees die at the end because if the overuse of pesticides.
WereBear
@Baud: And no freakin’ narrator!
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulW: Ha, such a great line. I haven’t seen the movie for a long time and you have inspired me to dig through my DVDs and watch it again.
Baud
@WereBear:
:-)
Ivan X
I’m looking forward to absolutely nothing, because that’s how I roll.
Schlemizel
I am looking forward to another day indoors out of the heat. Management has squeezed the last bit of give a shit out of me in the last couple of weeks. My lazy, incompetent, boss got a new allie in this effort yesterday. On an all hands meeting for the department the CISO explained to me that our goal should be compliance with the weak standards corporate has produced and not actual security. I should be happy as this gives me an excuse to do less and not really push for better security. I wish I were built that way, it seems everyone else is OK with it.
PurpleGirl
At some point today I will walk across the yard, going to another building in the complex, to vote. We will be using the old lever machines because someone got scared that if there is a run-off the Board of Elections wouldn’t have the time to reprogram the scanning machines. So they had to pass a bill in Albany to allow the use of the old machines. They had the time to do this months ago, but did nobody think to start writing a run-off program a couple of months ago….
Scott S.
I have very little to look forward to today. I have to interview someone for a feature I don’t want to have to write. That’s probably the only unpleasant thing I’ll have to deal with, but I’ve been dreading this damned interview for weeks. :/
Randy P
Ah, kid plays. I can still remember the angst of not getting one of the coveted solo roles in the annual kindergarten production of “Danny the Dark Green Dinosaur”.
Most of these shows are very forgettable of course. But our kids’ elementary school had an outstanding music teacher, and 20+ years later we still sing some of the things our kids were in, much to their chagrin. I highly recommend “Sounds a Little Fishy to Me”. Some good tunes in that thing.
Or maybe I’m just being a parent.
raven
It’s fucking great to be alive and if you don’t believe that you should leave cuz this show will bring you down. . .
F Zappa
and me
Lady Bug
apparently Syria accepts Russia’s C.W. deal in order to “stop American aggression” against them: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-syria-crisis-chemical-proposal-idUSBRE9890IZ20130910
Lady Bug
@Richard, is there a lady bug in the play? ;)
fka AWS
I am reminded of David Sedaris’ Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol.
MazeDancer
@PurpleGirl:
So sorry to hear this. Desire to deliver excellence is a virtue and cannot really be removed from one’s fiber. It just feels like doing wrong all day when you have to provide less than your best,
So know, at least, you are not alone in knowing all jobs should be done well.
As a consultant, I take the counsel once given me by another. His policy was to provide your best advice three times. So, If I have done my best to make the client do what’s best for them 3 times, and they still prefer lousy, then I have to let it go and cash the check.
—-
Richard, Bumblebee is a great role. Such a costume! And wonderful pics to have in the future.
—
Linda Featheringill
@Lady Bug:
Syria, talk of handing over chemical weapons:
I was pleased to see that bit of news. Maybe, just maybe, the situation will change.
I do find it amusing that Obama and Putin are playing good-cop-bad-cop with Assad. Apparently that stuff works. And Putin as the good cop versus Obama as the bad cop is surreal!
Life is funny, ain’t it?
Dead Ernest
@raven:
Well, I dunno Raven. I always have, and always will love and admire Frank, Hell, I’ll always be in awe of him, but that doesn’t make any damn sense.
If one is so bummed to not find life great, one should leave the show’s celebration …because it could further bum you out?
Unless I’ve missed the gist (and I’m often gist missing, so that could well be the case), I think Frank’s angst mighta had his logic a bit Wazooed.
Yatsuno
First day of instructing for the next three weeks (has to be complete before the end of the fiscal year) but this day sucks because I have to change my schedule. Not. A. Morning. Person.
WereBear
@Dead Ernest: No, I get it. If that is your mindset, getting Zappa-ed would only make you more upset.
Richard Mayhew
I don’t know if there is a lady bug in the play. It would make sense but Kid #1 is too excited about being a bumblebee to give Mom and Dad spoilers
MazeDancer
@Schlemizel:
apologies to you and Purple Girl. Comment above was meant for you, not her.. WP on the IPad always risky. Won’t let me edit.
NotMax
Sudden urge to go to the liquor cabinet and mix up a Stinger.
Today is going to be the once per month trip into town to pay a raft of bills and buy groceries.
Incidentally, anyone have experience with nicotine gum? Have a 14-hour flight this week and gonna need something to sub for the usual beloved cigars, so contemplating purchasing some of that even though I loathe gum chewing.
Poopyman
I once was one of 8 dwarfs in Snow White. Don’t ask.
Today will be less hectic than yesterday, part of which involved driving thru downtown DC at lunch hour to Foggy Bottom between crafting 10 page responses to detailed job reqs. That was all fun. On the plus side, it’s likely I’ll be re-employed again. On the minus side, it might not be until contract award in March.
raven
@Dead Ernest: Full qoute
Poopyman
@Richard Mayhew: It was probably a good idea not to bring up the old SNL Killer Bees skits on Youtube for Kid #1 beforehand, although that might produce awesome video to keep around for decades.
MikeJ
@NotMax: The nicotine gum tastes awful, but it does get the drug into your system. When I actually quit I didn’t use anything except telling myself that the withdrawal would be over soon. I did use the gum for things like transatlantic flights before I quit.
Patricia Kayden
@Lady Bug: Great! Hope that actually pans out.
NotMax
@MikeJ
Thank you, that is helpful. Now just have to remember to pack an empty container for depositing the used gum.
Lady Bug
@Linda Featheringill:
agree! The added bonus, McCain is once again slamming the Obama’s campaign ‘incoherence’ on Syria. hmm…
Now, I could be completely off base here, but the more I read about the situation, the less likely I think it just something that ‘happened’ because Kerry made an ‘off the cuff’ remark and more something that was being at least discussed as a possibility since G-20 or even earlier.
I don’t mean to suggest that the admin’s threat of force was/is a bluff at all, I think they were genuinely outraged at the use of chemical weapons, the potential risk of chemical weapons being used against allies in the region, and the implications for doing ‘nothing’ after a blatant violation of international norms.
But, I would guess (again, just all speculation at this point) that while they were willing to drop missiles, they were also this entire time in the background, reaching out for a possible diplomatic solution as well. Of course letting it ‘slip’ through ‘anonymous sources’ that they were also looking at diplomatic solutions would of made their threat of military force seem less real or urgent.
We have reports that Kerry and his Russian counterpart meeting with each other since the CW attack, report that Putin & Obama discussed this idea at their G-20 meeting. In addition, while Kerry has made some ‘gaffes’ in the past, this really didn’t sound like a gaffe at all. Yes, what an amazing coincidence that while Kerry was making this ‘gaffe’ there just happened to be meetings between Syria & Russia! Now, this might actually be a coincidence, but the ‘gaffe’ was said on the exact same day Obama had 6 high profile T.V. interviews, with each interviewer asking him about the proposal.
YMMV
Soonergrunt
More tests for Soonerdaughter thirds morning. Barring finding something immediately bad, we should be able to take her home today our at least start back on solid foods.
Dead Ernest
@WereBear:
Guess it depends how firmly set that mindset’s set.
I can imagine Frank’s saying ‘if you insist on refusing to find Life is fucking great, when this show tickles, you’ll get annoyed, not giggle’
…maybe.
Sheesh. Combination of (far) too little sleep and insufficient dose of coffee… Don’t believe I’m wise this a.m. Nor healthy or wealthy either. More coffee oughta fix that right up.
Lady Bug
I was the critical role of “narrator # 3” for the classic play, “The Three Little Pigs”
Lady Bug
@Soonergrunt:
Hope the tests go well for Soonerdaughter!
Tripod
Disappointment in Obama is my daily ration.
NotMax
@Dead Ernest
Exchange from an old, old movie whose title escapes me.
Man #1: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Man #2: Oh really? Have you ever seen a milkman?
Dead Ernest
@raven:
Y’know, I’m thinking Frank mighta been having a little fun playing with the audience.
“Well, I’m not leaving. I guess that must mean …Hey! I must think Life is Fucking Great! Man, I love this show already!”
I think Frank was clever (and wicked efficient) that way.
You too.
Svensker
@PaulW:
One of our neighbors in Hoboken, NJ, had a plastic creche they’d put out every Christmas, with a glowing, lit-from-within Mary, Joseph and the Babe, with a cow, a donkey and a sheep looking on. Then they added plastic Dumbo, Rudolph, a few Dwarves and a Santa. It wasn’t ironic, either.
Poopyman
@Svensker: A creche with a lit Babe Ruth had already gone off the rails before they added Dumbo.
SarahT
@NotMax: Go for it. You’ll still want to smoke but the withdrawl won’t be so bad that your seatmates alert the sky marshalls. Just make sure you get the mintiest mint available.
NotMax
@Svensker
Reminded of the possibly apocryphal story from some time back about a Japanese department store where the management decided that too much valuable space was being taken up by Christmas decorations.
The employees assigned to the task, being unfamiliar with Christmas symbology and with its more commercial accoutrements, consolidated the displays and ended up producing one featuring a crucified Santa.
SarahT
@Soonergrunt: Very glad to hear it.
Dead Ernest
@NotMax:
(Smile)
Btw- the fact you don’t like chewing gum might make the nicotine gum tolerable.
The instructions for its use, IIRC, is to chew occasionally, when a dose of nicotine is desired. If one chews it like regular chewing gum, one gets a constant dose – and a sick stomach. One is supposed to keep the gum ‘parked’ in the cheek, chew a little every now and then.
If you’re looking to avoid nicotine craving, the patch might be a better option.
…or you could disable the restroom smoke detector. Popular I hear. And, hearing you tell the story of how that went would be most entertaining. Bon Voyage!
IowaOldLady
We have a community college millage election today. As far as I know, we have no voter ID requirement, but the woman next to me was asked to scan her driver’s license.
Omnes Omnibus
@IowaOldLady: From the Iowa Secretary of State’s website:
SarahT
@NotMax: you can always use your barf bag
low-tech cyclist
My favorite Firefly is Rufus T.
MomSense
@Soonergrunt:
Praying the tests go well!!
MomSense
@Svensker:
I used to live in a city where there were lots of “virgins on the halfshell” meaning statues of the virgin mary with an old, partially buried bathtub behind her. At Christmastime they were transformed into fantastic spectacles with lights and all sorts of Christmas characters. I miss those things!
Betty Cracker
@Soonergrunt: Here’s hoping all goes well. You’ve all been in my thoughts.
Jane2
@NotMax: I first tried it at a friend’s party out in the country, far away from convenience stores. As non-smokers are wont to do while drinking, they bummed my smokes until there were none left. Someone gave me a piece of nicotine gum and it did the trick just fine….I ended up quitting with it within weeks. Try it before you fly…it takes some getting used to (you chew it more like a wad of tobacco rather than a stick of Juicy Fruit).
Jane2
@Soonergrunt: Best of luck to Soonerdaughter with her tests.
artem1s
I’m getting ready to see the world premiere of the cutting edge new play “The Very Friendly Fireflies”.
so do Mal and Inara finally get together in this version? Is this pre-post Wash?
IowaOldLady
@Omnes Omnibus: Interesting. Looks kind of loose to me. We could vote at any of 7 sites today. My normal polling place was not one of them. So the people manning the tables didn’t know me for sure. But I vote regularly.
ruemara
@Soonergrunt: Good to hear, I was wondering. We’ll keep sending good vibes as long as she needs them.
I have nothing to anticipate other than driving the employer’s car over to distribution and getting reams of paper. I feel so fulfilled.
But I have an app in for a multimedia job at the local uni’s office of giving. Since I’ve done that work at UC Berk, I’m hoping it’s not utterly fruitless to think I might even get an interview.
MazeDancer
@Soonergrunt:
May good news abound for you and yours. (Knocking wood and sending light.)
Tom Q
What I have to look forward to is that this is the last day Anthony Weiner will be robo-calling me hourly (along with every other candidate for mayor, comptroller, Manhattan Borough president and City Council rep). For weeks now I’ve excitedly looked to see who’s calling me, only to find the same numbers over and over on my screen.
Oh, and my mailbox will also feature alot less wasted paper without all the flyers.
geg6
@Soonergrunt:
Been meaning to tell you that you and Soonerdaughter are being sent good vibes from me ever since your earlier post on this. I’ll shoot out a few extra for good test results today.
Mike E
Still making my calls to those who would try to shame the shameless in the NC legis. The hardest part of the work isn’t convincing people that it isn’t a waste of time to contact their state assembly monster; it’s counseling them during their dark moment of despair over how the TEA party has gotten this far. That’s definitely wearing me down.
Svensker
@MomSense: The place that had the Dumbo at the Birth also had a year round Virgin on the Half Shell. Lotta those in Hoboken in those days.
Another Holocene Human
@PurpleGirl: The lever machines are infamously error prone. I smell a rat.
I thought the scanners were like the ones they used in school. I never heard of teachers putting off a scantron test to reprogram.
MomSense
@Svensker:
YES!!
Another Holocene Human
@artem1s: Hey!
I watched all of Firefly but I am not allowed to watch Serenity because some idiot spoiled my wife on Wash dying and she’s so upset she has been ‘not getting around’ to watching the movie for about
five8 years now.Jesus, I’m old.Another Holocene Human
@Tom Q: What I have to look forward to is that this is the last day Anthony Weiner will be robo-calling me hourly (along with every other candidate for mayor, comptroller, Manhattan Borough president and City Council rep).
Why–?
I guess this must work?
On whom?
I can’t
I can’t even
Srsly, robocalled?!
Steve
Late to the thread, but I had a great morning. Got up early for a run, which went really well, and when I walked into the house my wife had sent down our 2 year old daughter with a present to show me: a positive pregnancy test (my wife’s, not the 2-year-old’s). Even being at work can’t bring me down from this.
Tom Q
Seriously. Most often they hang up when they get my machine. But at least multiple times a day I get messages from Weiner/Gloria Steinem/Ruth Messinger/Ronnie Eldridge, ad infinitum. I can only assume they have some evidence that there are people who’d otherwise forget to vote, for whom this works as a prod. For me, it’s as annoying as it presumably would be for you.
My favorite moment of the season: today I was entering the 72nd Street subway stop, and saw one woman holding a Christine Quinn sign standing a few feet away from another with an Anybody but Quinn sign. Even they were laughing about it.
coin operated
I get to write some visual basic script to call a function that was just patched in to our software. The customer the patch was designed for is a Windows shop…I’m a Unix guy. This should be interesting…
StringOnAStick
I’m looking forward to the end of the calls over the Colorado recall elections. I don’t live in the affected areas so obviously I won’t be voting, but I have contributed numerous times because I want to see the NRA get slapped, hard, plus I don’t want to see recalls become the next all-the-time-over-anything tactic here.
Yesterday it went from a string of mid-90’s to barely making it to 70 today, intermediated by a wrath of FSM thunderstorm/hail event (small hail – this time). Now the cloud deck is barely above the houses and it is raining moderately and COLD. Colorado: land of the sudden season shift.
Soonergrunt, I’m holding your daughter in my thoughts.
artem1s
@Another Holocene Human:
I’m still pretty pissed about it too but no more than when I found out after watching the series in a weekend Netflicks marathon binge that there were only 14 episodes. Don’t watch much TV in real time, only the stuff that makes it to syndication so wasn’ t prepared. yes, I live in a cave.
I thought that Serenity wrapped up the bulk of the story lines successfully so was pretty satisfied with it, other than Wash. And well, Summer Glau is awesome in it.