Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Not all heroes wear capes.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Fight them, without becoming them!

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

So many bastards, so little time.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Open Thread: Boxing Day

Thursday Open Thread: Boxing Day

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Leftovers from our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner, since it’s snowing again and the Spousal Unit doesn’t want to drive in it.

What’s on the agenda for the evening in your neighborhood?

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  2. 2.

    Lurking Canadian

    The implication that we are still celebrating this tradition is unfair. I estimate that not one Canadian in a thousand knows that’s what Boxing Day originally was for. Until I read billmon’s piece, I thought it was something about putting decorations away. For most of us it’s just a day to get ridiculously low prices on clothes.

  3. 3.

    cckids

    Maybe, if I’m feeling a whole hell-of-a-lot better, chicken soup. Maybe.

    The only upside to having the stomach bug during the festivities is that I think my spouse & kids truly realize what I do to make the dinner & etc happen, while also making sure daily life stuff (laundry, etc) happens as well.

  4. 4.

    cathyx

    Having given practically zero thought to what boxing day was, I sort of assumed it had something to do with the sport.

  5. 5.

    Violet

    From the Wikipedia article on Boxing Day:

    The exact etymology of the term “boxing day” is unclear. There are several competing theories, none of which is definitive.

    That’s what I’d understood–the “Happy Christmas, serf” supposed origin is not definitive.

  6. 6.

    ? Martin

    Just got “Androgynous, ethnically neutral, yet still manages to elicit feelings of great loathing and repugnance” in the banner rotation. Nice addition.

  8. 8.

    Redshift

    Called “Walmart associates” in US @billmon1: So, “Merry Xmas, serf. Here’s a few leftovers for your overworked, underfed family.”

    In that context, I read the word as “un-derfed” instead of “under-fed.” May all of our families be un-derfed in the year to come!

  10. 10.

    ? Martin

    My grandparents always gave their gifts to the mailman and trash guys and paperboy today. So, there is certainly some lingering knowledge of the tradition here in the US.

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    Snowstorm canceled our plans to go visit extended family.

    We are holed up in the house eating leftovers and drinking. My oldest just took out a bottle of Knob Creek and handed me a glass. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    More unintentional, I’m sure, hilarity from the douchcanoes at Noisemax:

    Poll: Government Corruption Worse Under Obama

    “The Judicial Watch-Breitbart poll shows that the American people are thoroughly disenchanted with a government they see as corrupt and secretive,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

    In other breaking news, another poll from the same organization states that the shitty grade Z movie star is the reincarnation of Christ.

  14. 14.

    Violet

    @? Martin: I have no idea who the trash guys are. They drive around in a truck and it’s got a big mechanical arm that comes down, picks up the trash wheelie bin, empties it into the truck and they drive off. Couldn’t begin to describe what they look like, let alone know their names. They wouldn’t stop if you waved them down, even if you were trying to give them a Christmas gift. They’re on a schedule.

    Do “paper boys” even exist any more? The people who deliver the paper in my neighborhood drive around in cars and throw the papers from the car window. Never see them unless you’re up before 5:30 a.m. I’ve seen them deliver papers when I’ve been up that early for a run–that’s how I know. That’s how papers have been delivered for as long as I can remember. Never have seen the mythical “paper boy” throwing papers from a bag over his shoulder as he rode his bicycle through the neighborhood in daylight hours.

  18. 18.

    FlipYrWhig

    The problem with that etymology/origin story is that a holiday like that would much more logically be called “Box Day.” Why have that -ing in there? Unless what it was commemorating was that you spend a day preparing the box, i.e. boxing it up, then give it to someone the next day. That at least justifies the -ing. But then the significant day would clearly be the day on which you gave or received the box, not the one on which you packed it.

  20. 20.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Redshift: And the day was henceforth known as Un-derfing Day. Those who had suffered a year of having been derfed were un-derfed, and the townspeople cried “Hallelujah!”

  21. 21.

    different-church-lady

    Hey, at least the Brits had the decency to pass along their leftover food and some trinkets. All today’s American corporate persons can do is pass along prepackaged advice on how their employees can gain nourishment by sucking on their own bootstraps.

  22. 22.

    Hawes

    I always thought Boxing Day referred to the day when it finally came to blows with the visiting in-laws.

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    One of the things that Boxing Day seems to have represented is that you had personal contact with various service people who performed vital functions…for example, you’d know who your garbage collector is. That sort of contact just doesn’t exist in the atomized American suburban landscape. Oh, you’ll tip the pizza delivery person, because they actually deliver something to your door in person, but the garbage haulers? You never see them, they drive up in a big truck, grab your garbage can designed to be grabbed by a big truck from the curb (you hauled it to the curb, btw), dump it in the back, and drive away.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    @Villago Delenda Est: Speaking of polls, here’s another one:

    Democrats woke up Thursday to some gloomy post-Christmas news: they have fallen behind Republicans in the battle to win House and Senate seats in the 2014 election.

    A new CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday shows Republicans holding a 49 percent to 44 percent edge over Democrats in the “generic ballot,” which asks registered voters whether they would choose a Democrat or a Republican in the midterm elections without identifying specific candidates.

    Just two months ago, after the government shutdown, Democrats were up 50 percent to 42 percent. But a month later, the GOP had a narrow edge – 49 percent to 47 percent. The dramatic shift in the political landscape follows the rollout of the federal insurance exchanges, which have been plagued by technical troubles.

    One number in particular suggests Democrats are being hurt by President Obama’s low approval ratings: 55 percent of those surveyed said they are more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate who opposes the president, versus just four in 10 who would choose a candidate who supports him.

    There has been a huge drop in support for Democrats among men. In October, 46 percent opted for the Democrat on the generic ballot. In the most recent survey, just 35 percent did.

    Love that last bit–drop off in support for Democrats among men. What’s that about? Democrats aren’t manly enough? Too much pajama boy?

  25. 25.

    raven

    Horatio Jamison: Do you want the body in brackets?
    Capt. Spaulding: No, it’ll never get there in brackets. Put it in a box. Put it in a box and mark it, uh…”fragilly.”
    Horatio Jamison: Mark it what?
    Capt. Spaulding: Mark it fragilly. F-R-A-G… Look it up, Jamison, it’s in the dictionary. Look under “fragile.” Look under the table if you don’t find it there.

  29. 29.

    ? Martin

    @Violet: Yeah, society has changed enough that the tradition doesn’t hold up so well. I did give a gift to my mail carrier today (she’s delivered our mail for at least 5 years now), and we actually do know the trash guys, but no way can you slow them down. When I was a kid papers were delivered by kids on their bikes, but it required a very high paper delivery density to pull that off – roughly every other house needed to get the paper they delivered. Much worse than that and the route becomes too far-flung for a kid on his bike. That’s why its people in cars – a paper every 10 houses is probably the best they find.

  32. 32.

    raven

    @different-church-lady:

    Talk talk talk
    sometimes I think I must go mad
    why don’t you go home to your wife
    I’ll tell you what
    I’ll go home to your wife and outside of the improvement
    she’ll never know the difference. . .

  34. 34.

    Mustang Bobby

    Dinner will be leftover roast beast (prime rib with real horseradish sauce) and salad.

    Watching the Abby marathon on NCIS on USA. She and Ducky (aka Ilya Kuryakin) are my favorites.

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Democrats aren’t manly enough? Too much pajama boy?

    Pajama boy gets more pussy than most Rethuglicans can ever dream of. Of course, many of them have no desire for pussy…

  36. 36.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    The two competing creation myths for the name of the holiday seem to be the church collecting donations for the poor in a box to be distributed on the day after Christmas, and the similar one but with employers giving the box to their workers. Which, as others have pointed out, aren’t such different stories if you think about places like Wal Mart.

    The British Commonwealth tradition seems to have been picked up from the earlier church-based version in continental Europe, so it’s likely that even at that point people had forgotten the details about where the name came from. Things like that happen all the time, one of my favorites being the expression “San Fairy Ann” meaning “Don’t mention it” used to this day in parts of Britain, with many (most?) of those using it not knowing that it’s “ça ne fait rien”, picked up in France and widely used by WWI British soldiers serving there.

    So fretting about “still celebrating this tradition” gets a big “meh” from me at least, since for one thing the tradition being celebrated may well be charity to the poor, and for another no one really knows how it started, they grow and change, that’s just how traditions often work.

  39. 39.

    Botsplainer

    @Hawes:

    I always thought Boxing Day referred to the day when it finally came to blows with the visiting in-laws.

    Festivus is about the Airing of Grievances; Boxing Day could be the Day of Justice…

  41. 41.

    Keith G

    Often Billmon is a revelation. This time he seems just to be caustic because he had nothing else to type.

    There was nothing gained by replaying it.

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    Well, it has happened again. So I went on my job interview in NOLA today and I didn’t make it half way home before they sent me an email saying they wanted to offer me the job!

    The interview went well. They had scenario-like questions for me, I didn’t have that many questions for them. I didnt have any bad feelings walking through the lab and I did actually feel like I could def see myself working there. Now the question becomes, will the money be right. I refuse to accept less than I currently make, and my stated asking rate was $2 more than that. The lab manager said, salary negotiations will be all up to HR, but I have heard the parent company that handles human resources can be low ballers.

    Still if the money is NOT less than what I currently make, then the PROS for taking the job def outweighs the CONS. It’s all up the the gods now.

    Best part of the interview, I gave them my former Lab Managers number as a reference (I did see her last month and the welcome from her was such that I figured she’d be good for a recommendation, but she could be pretty bitchy and hardcore. I was never sure if I even really liked her while I was working under her, but I digress). The Lab Manager for the new position was able to get in contact with her and he said that she gave me a “glowing” recommendation and she told him they’d “be lucky to have me”!

  44. 44.

    celticdragonchick

    Took friends to see Gravity (pretty crowded theater considering how long the movie has been out) and taking dinner to some other friends near Durham.

  46. 46.

    Amir Khalid

    @burnspbesq:
    Oh God, don’t remind me. Liverpool had a perfectly good goal against Man City disallowed by a wrong offside call. Cost us an away draw.

  50. 50.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: Oh, and I’m not going to my bowling league. I’m too happy and excited, and I’ve actually come to HATE the whole experience. Is it bad that another PRO fro the job in NOLA is that I can get out of the bowling league without having to look my co-worker in the face cause I up and quit!

  52. 52.

    Violet

    @lamh36: Congrats! Be sure to study up on salary negotiations for the next step. There are definitely techniques you can use to justify why you’re worth more. Or, you can get other valuable things if the salary is non-negotiable–more time off, yearly bonus, starting bonus, parking spot paid for, relocation assistance (if you are moving), education assistance, more benefits, etc. Get the highest salary you can now, though. Don’t be afraid to be tough with them–in the nicest possible way, of course.

  53. 53.

    Origuy

    If you’re still looking for just the right gift, check the Amazon reviews for “How to Avoid Huge Ships“. My favorite:

    There is one major oversight in this generally well-written book, and that is that it addresses animate readers exclusively. As a large rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Giglio Island, I have recently been confronted with instances in which avoiding huge ships was of fundamental interest to my personal well-being. However, the methods presented in Capt. Trimmer’s book were none too useful in my efforts to avoid huge ships, as I was recently struck by a very large ship indeed, a cruise vessel called the ‘Costa Concordia’.

  59. 59.

    lamh36

    @Violet: thx. I’ve never had to do any salary negotiations, my last job was going from PRN to FT and my PRN Manager at the time REALLY wanted me FT so she practically made the HR department offer me more…lol

  60. 60.

    PurpleGirl

    @lamh36: Will hope that the money is what you want. Congrats on the positive experience and that you make such a good impression.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Violet:

    Never have seen the mythical “paper boy” throwing papers from a bag over his shoulder as he rode his bicycle through the neighborhood in daylight hours.

    It did actually happen. My brother worked as a paper boy about 30 years ago, and ISTR that my hometown still had paperboys as recently as 20 years ago.

  70. 70.

    lamh36

    @PurpleGirl: thx. I’ve gotten much more comfortable in interviews since I’ve gotten more experienced in my capabilities and my skills. I used to get by in the interview process on my personality alone. I’m much the same as I am online, so I just have a way with other people.

    A co-worker of mine once told me I have a voice that just really calming and make one feel safe. She likened it to a voice like Morgan Freemen where she could just sit and here me read a book and she’s love it…lol.

    So couple that with my now years of experience, I tend to make really good impressions in interviews.

    The best part for me was actually hearing that my former Lab Mgr spoke so highly of me, like Anne Laure said, it always feel good to know that your former bosses and/or co-workers appreciate you and the work you have done.

  71. 71.

    Violet

    @lamh36: A few years ago I interviewed for a job and fortunately had studied up on salary negotiations and did some role playing on the negotiating with a friend of mine so I was prepared. I shocked myself by ending up getting a significantly higher salary out of it than I’d expected by using some of the tactics. Definitely worthwhile for me. Of course do what you’re comfortable with because the most important thing is that you feel you are representing yourself honestly and are being compensated at a rate you feel is justified for you. Don’t sell yourself short.

    Oh, and you said the lab manager said the salary negotiations will be all up to HR. That’s bullshit. If the lab manager wants you then HR will find a way to make it work, unless you are asking a salary that is wildly out of range for the job. The lab manager is the one who needs you for the lab. The HR department’s job is to work for the company and if the company (ie, the lab manager) needs you to keep the lab working well, they will find a way to get you. If that means paying you more, so be it.

    The lab manager was putting distance between him/herself and the HR department so you wouldn’t lean on him/her, but if they offered you a job that fast, then they want you. If you do salary negotiations with HR and tell HR, “That salary is too low. I can’t afford to take the job at that salary,” then believe me, that will be reported back to the lab manager who will then lean on HR to find a way to make it work.

    You are now pretty much in the driver’s seat on the salary negotiations. Don’t sell yourself short. Get what you can out of it.

  73. 73.

    Suzanne

    @lamh36: YAAAAAAAY! That is fabulous.

    We are having our Christmas today. We have unwrapped all our loot. UPS delivered one package today. Mr. Suzanne got me a fire pit. YAAAAAY! Will have dinner soon.

  74. 74.

    lamh36

    @Anne Laurie: thx AL. I’ve got to admit, that was the best part of the interview for me, and even before I got the email about the job, I was sharing what my former boss said with some of my former co-workers who also left there and who I’m still friends with.

    Even they were pleasantly surprised by that particular Manager doing that. As I sad, she was a bit of a hard ass and not everyone left the job as amicably as I did

  75. 75.

    shelly

    Remember a story from Edwardian times- An upper-crust family presented their cook with a Christmas present of….a new apron. They later found that she used it to stuff the Christmas turkey (along with her resignation.)

  77. 77.

    Davebo

    Last full day in Holland tomorrow then fly home. I’d say I’m about ready to get back but what a trip it’s been.

  78. 78.

    Randy P

    According to a NYTimes article I read a few years ago, the tradition is supposedly alive and well in NYC. Everybody (according to the article) feels peer-pressured to give $50 tips to the doorman, the mail carrier, the aerobics instructor, the dogwalker, etc.

  79. 79.

    jl

    @ruemara:

    Nice photos. I checked them out because of a commenter’s description as ‘Tunchesque’. Man, as if the late Tunch ever dreamed of such delicious fatness. You got some fat squirrels around your place, they’re going to break some branches.

    lamh36: good luck on the salary negotiations.

    And boxing day: when I was rooming in grad school with a guy from W Africa, I saw him preparing gifts after Christmas, and he was doing boxing day for postperson, local merchants, etc. I said that was rarely done here. He said people in the U.S. were selfish sometimes to the point of barbarism. Case closed. So, I do a little boxing day action now. But I remember he did not give anything to the weird and cheap bitter old landlord, so there are limits.

  80. 80.

    lamh36

    @Violet: I def agree with you there. I remember when I was being offered the current job here in BR. I was NOT moving back to Louisiana unless the money was the same as what i earned in Texas. Luckily, I had the added benefit of being skilled in a segment of the lab that is very hard to be trained for. It literally can take at least 1 year of 2 in the Microbiology lab for a tech to be deemed a tried and true Micro tech. I have been doing that for 5-6 years. So I’m there. I can actually be certified as a Microbiology specialist.

    So I do know my worth, and the Lab Manager seemed to go out of his way to say that the salary I currently earn is in the “range” of what tech have been offered. but yeah he did put distance for himself because he said “range”, but then added, “but it could be more it could be less…”.

    Since my birthday last month, I’ve been thinking about my life and where I am financially, personally, and spiritually and the hard facts was that I realized that I need to value myself more, and even though I tend to be a giver/nurturer, I need to also realize that I am worth more, so tangentially, this pay rate and new negotiations is def coming at a time when I’m ready to fight for what I’m worth..

    Anyhoo….

  81. 81.

    jl

    @Randy P: I thought about NYC briefly, which does seem to be an exception. I don’t know of any place it is done in western U.S. Anyone know of regions in U.S. where people commonly do boxing day?

  82. 82.

    lamh36

    Ok, back to silly things, it’s #ThrowbackThursday on twitter, so enjoy this pic of me and my sisters, circa 1982, I’m 5 years old and they are 3 years old. I’m oldest. I basically look the same, just “fuller” in the face and body…lol.

    Me and my sisters

  85. 85.

    raven

    I also have a buddy who is in Ireland and he’s posting some weird pic from St. Stephen’s Day (or Wren’s Day) in Dingle.

  87. 87.

    jl

    @lamh36: Thanks for breaking into silly things. I wanted to, but was afraid, even if this is an open thread. Wonkette has had some great duck pics to go with its coverage of Duck Dynasty dude nonsense, and his gate, and pushback poutrage gate. Just an FYI for those who like duck pics.

    Though they need to use at least one silly goose pic.

  88. 88.

    lamh36

    A bit more of the silly…OMG! Obama’s got hippity hoppers at the WH and SoS John Kerry is sharing in some type of terrorist hand-shake with one of them.

    http://instagram.com/p/iZstshv9Ha/

    BTW, I love the expression on Theresa Heinz-Kerry face, like who is this…lol

  89. 89.

    dp

    Sure, Britain and Canada still celebrate it, but here in the US, the serfs know better than to expect any largesse from the overclass.

  90. 90.

    Mike in NC

    “The Judicial Watch-Breitbart poll shows that the American people are thoroughly disenchanted with a government they see as corrupt and secretive,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

    So what are the odds that this Tom Fitton pinhead is also the Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Envelope Licker for Judicial Watch?

    Meanwhile, Breitbart is a strong contender to remain dead well into 2014.

  91. 91.

    shelly

    The Wren, the Wren,
    The King of all birds.
    On St. Stephen’s Day
    He got stuck in the furze.
    Up with the kettle,
    and down with the pan,
    Give us a penny
    to bury the Wren!

  93. 93.

    raven

    @shelly:

    Saint stephen with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes,
    Country garden in the wind and the rain,
    Wherever he goes the people all complain.

    Stephen prospered in his time, well he may and he may decline.
    Did it matter, does it now? stephen would answer if he only knew how.
    Wishing well with a golden bell, bucket hanging clear to hell,
    Hell halfway twixt now and then,
    Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again.

    Lady finger, dipped in moonlight, writing what for? across the morning sky.
    Sunlight splatters, dawn with answer, darkness shrugs and bids the day good-bye.

    Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow,
    What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned.
    Several seasons with their treasons,
    Wrap the babe in scarlet colors, call it your own.
    Did he doubt or did he try? answers aplenty in the bye and bye,
    Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills,
    One man gathers what another man spills.

    Saint stephen will remain, all hes lost he shall regain,
    Seashore washed by the suds and foam,
    Been here so long, hes got to calling it home.

    Fortune comes a crawlin, calliope woman, spinnin that curious sense of your own.
    Can you answer? yes I can. but what would be the answer to the answer man?

  95. 95.

    Violet

    @lamh36: Good for you! Taking stock is a good thing to do from time to time. You don’t have to take this job and that puts you in the driver’s seat as you negotiate. You know what it will take to get you there and you decide where you are willing to compromise on that. Don’t settle for less.

    And that picture of you and your sisters is adorable.

  96. 96.

    Keith G

    @different-church-lady: Damn I missed that one! Sorry. I plead THC impaired memory. We would slide out on the balcony fire escape to light a few up during those late night double features.

    It was the 70s.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    Big congratulations, lamh!! Such good news, and well -deserved after all your years of less-than-ideal. Very happy and excited for you.

  100. 100.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Bill E Pilgrim: “San Fairy Ann” in my neck of the woods (Glasgow and environs) in the 1960s was a semi-polite circumlocution for “SFA” meaning “Sweet Fuck All” i.e. nothing.

    “So how much did you get for mowing the grass?”

    “San Fairy Ann”.

    “Bum.” (US: bummer)

  101. 101.

    jl

    @raven:

    As long as we’re going Marxist on Boxing Day, from Cocoanuts

    Mr. Hammer: Wages? Do you want to be wage slaves? Answer me that!
    Bellhops: No.
    Mr. Hammer: No, of course not. But what makes wage slaves? Wages!

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Saw your comment about possibly beginning to watch Seinfeld the other day.

    At first, couldn’t see any charm in it. Then, in the mind’s eye, viewed everyone on the show as having adult bodies but otherwise being 13 years old, and it clicked and worked reasonably well as a sitcom.

  106. 106.

    Corner Stone

    @NotMax: IMO, no one should go back and try to watch the series.
    It existed as a place in time, and that time has long since past. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by someone unfamiliar with the ins and outs.
    It will feel stilted and forced and have no value.

    I feel kind of sad for those who were unable to enjoy the Seinfeld show in real time, or close after syndication. But, like all things, it’s long since over.
    Nothing lasts forever.

  107. 107.

    WereBear

    @NotMax: Seinfeld is one of those shows where the comedy builds with repeated exposure. You can watch one episode and wonder what the fuss was about, but as the jokes accumulate and expand on one another, I find it one of my favorites.

  108. 108.

    Anne Laurie

    @lamh36: Best part of the video clip: Messrs. SnoopDogg and Kerry (as the NYT would say) sharing a moment — soundtrack by Billy Joel!

  109. 109.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    @lamh36:

    The Lab Manager for the new position was able to get in contact with her and he said that she gave me a “glowing” recommendation and she told him they’d “be lucky to have me”!

    Now that is some damn fine ‘bitchy and hardcore’ right there.

    Congratulations Lamh36!
    Here’s hoping everything unfolds perfectly for you.

  111. 111.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    @Baud:

    Judicial Watch-Breitbart poll

    There are no axioms of mathematics that would make that phrase coherent.

    Null Hypothesis?

    /taking axiomatic humor liberties.

  113. 113.

    Anne Laurie

    @Robert Sneddon: My Galway-born granny used “Sweet Fanny Adams” in that context — I always wondered if she knew what the unexpurgated version was!

    Wouldn’t surprise me if the pseudo-French ‘San Fairy Ann’ was a similarly cleaned-up-for-the-maiden-aunties invention that went viral…

  114. 114.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:
    @Corner Stone:

    Thanks to you both for weighing in. I think I’ll take the safe middle-of-the-road stance, watch half a dozen or so selected episodes, and if I find myself captivated, I’ll do a marathon from the beginning.

    If not, no harm no foul.

    Much appreciation to everyone who had a view or suggestion.

  115. 115.

    Violet

    @SiubhanDuinne: If you’re going to watch a few selected episodes, maybe find a list of the Top 10 episodes or something and try those. I remember thinking Seinfeld was funny, then hating it because I thought they were all so mean to each other, and then thinking it was funny again. That was probably a lot more about me than the show.

  116. 116.

    Corner Stone

    @SiubhanDuinne: To me anyway, most of the fun of that series had to do with the fact that all my friends watched it too. So when someone said something from an episode, literally 6 or 8 other people all started smiling/chiming in.
    Now, after the fact, and being a..uhh…mature adult…those jokes lose a lot of their impact.
    Like the whole running Steinbrenner in-jokes. Or about a dozen in-jokes I could name.
    I could call any number of my friends up right now, and with no introduction say some bit from one of the epis and they wouldn’t hesitate.
    Yeah, that’s sad and all, from a public sphere of knowledge and intellect. But it put a bunch of people in the same place and gave them something to have fun with. When a lot of times, we needed something besides just sports.
    Weren’t a lot of guys where I grew up talking about Foucault or Camus.

  118. 118.

    MattR

    @SiubhanDuinne: My only warning would be that the first season was not that good and that it took a little time for them to get their footing and find their rhythm (OTOH, my opinion of the first season may be colored by the fact I have seen how the show/characters develops). The show definitely loses something when you are watching it 15 years later (the whole “master of your domain” episode is a whole lot less funny now that cultural norms have changed so that masturbation can be freely referenced on TV), but I think a lot of it holds up.

    @Violet: It seemed like the majority of the time the situations were absurd enough that you could roll with it and enjoy the characters’ reactions, but there were times that it was close enough to a potentially real situation that you wanted to smack one of the characters in the head. I couldn’t ever get into Curb Your Enthusiasm becase it seemed to be too much of the latter category (and as NotMax mentioned the Seinfeld characters had a certain innocence or immaturity along with self awareness of their insecurities that made them likeable, whereas I always viewed the Larry David character in Curb as an irredeemable dick)

    Re disappearing threads – I bet they both saw the other one’s post and deleted theirs.

  119. 119.

    Corner Stone

    “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorence on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon… you know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time. “

  120. 120.

    ruemara

    @SiubhanDuinne: As a POC, I’ve heard much about how we never watched Seinfeld and didn’t find it funny. Well, I loved Seinfeld from the first. It’s a NYer’s sitcom. It’s funny, but they are mean, rude and weird, to each other and the world. But, they’re also trying real hard to be something, that it’s funny. YMMV. Just give it a few shots and if it doesn’t work for you, it’s just not to your taste. No harm, no foul, nothing important anyway.

    @Violet: It’s like “Gift of the Magi”, but with blog posts. I can picture Cole with those combs in his hair, though.

  121. 121.

    Anne Laurie

    @Violet: I put up a post, only to discover I’d bigfooted Cole, so I pulled it down & rescheduled. Then Cole’s post disappeared, and I can see from the WordPress Dashboard he’s rescheduled, too, but I can’t tell when. Both posts will resurface… eventually.

    [Consider this your moment of bloggerific holiday goodwil, and FYWP.]

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Corner Stone:

    There was a lot to be said for the proverbial water cooler. And the show wasn’t all that long ago, but I can’t think of anything current that would qualify for general conversatio (in-jokes, etc.) in the same way.

    Truly, I didn’t mean to turn Seinfeld into a thread-sucking topic (for the past 48 hours, yet!). I’ll give it a top-10 try, and if it doesn’t work for me, well, it doesn’t work. No big.

  123. 123.

    Violet

    @MattR: I agree re: Curb Your Enthusiasm. I watched a few episodes, but Larry David seemed like a complete dick. The Seinfeld universe has enough craziness in it that it’s fun.

  124. 124.

    Corner Stone

    @SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t get in on the original thread about the show about nothing because I was waiting for all the overly smug mofos to burn themselves out telling all the world how they never, ever watched it and were oh so pure for not doing so.
    It’s just a TV show.
    When you’re done we can talk about the time Jerry hosts the marathon runner and fails to wake him up in time because of Kramer’s hot tub.
    Or when a Japanese delegation spend all their yen and end up sleeping in Kramer’s chest of drawers.
    Or J. Peterman, or…
    Dammit.

  128. 128.

    Corner Stone

    @MattR: “It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s often wrong.”

  129. 129.

    FlipYrWhig

    @SiubhanDuinne: Big fan here. I really like the meta-ness of the season when Jerry gets a contract with NBC to develop a show, and he and George try to develop characters and write plots. It especially works if you’ve seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, because you can see how George is and isn’t Larry David. But of course you can’t start there because you have to know the rhythm of the show to get the most benefit out of how it’s looping back on itself.

    CS is right that it’s very time-specific. A huge number of the early puzzle-dilemma-frustration plots would be solved with cell phones.

  130. 130.

    Corner Stone

    Or the one where Seinfeld is sleeping with his rent a maid. And she wants to be paid for making the bed and he says, “But you took a nap in it!”
    And Kramer’s famous pimp walk.
    Gosh damn but that is some good shit.

  133. 133.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Violet: But the craziness is all second-order stuff, taking the obnoxiousness and narcissism of the characters and pushing it farther and farther. I still like the simplicity of the episodes like the “getting tired of waiting to be seated in a Chinese restaurant” one or the “getting lost in a parking garage” one.

    Our favorite minor character is Jack Klompas from the retirement home, with the space pen and the terrible skill at box-packing.

  134. 134.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: It’s not just the aging. What I meant was that with no cultural lifepoint reference to go back to, those jokes make no sense whatsoever.
    They were multi-layered at the time but now, with fresh, new eyes and no reference point, they seem what they are. Dated, immature and out of context.

  135. 135.

    Violet

    @efgoldman:

    Most sitcoms don’t age well.

    I don’t know. I still howl with laughter at “I Love Lucy” and it was made well before my time.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Violet:

    I’m not a huge “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fan, but the season where Larry get cast in “The Producers” (season 4) should be in a hall of fame somewhere. It’s amazing how they can walk you through 10 episodes just to get you to the punchline with Anne Bancroft (in her last screen appearance).

  137. 137.

    FlipYrWhig

    @MattR: in a similar vein, the later episode where Jerry buys a jacket he ends up not liking, and then when he returns it, he gives as the reason “for spite.”

    Also, although it’s not otherwise a great episode, I do like the one where George is trying to have sex, eat a sandwich, and watch TV at the same time, and his desires get so mixed up that they become “one disgusting urge.” Fantastically useful concept, that.

  139. 139.

    Corner Stone

    @MattR: Anyone who has never seen that, and doesn’t know that Jerry is making little hand gestures the whole time – that was fucking gold. Gold, Jerry! Gold!

  141. 141.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @ruemara:

    “Seinfeld” wasn’t that bad, POC-wise. They had a decent number if supporting characterd who were POC and the castibg director did a good job of getting diversity in the background extras.

    It wasn’t like “Friends,” where they somehow managed to live in the only all-white part of New York City.

  143. 143.

    Corner Stone

    The whole concept of George getting engaged, then his fiance dying from stamp poisoning (that I think he picked out) and then him finding out she was multi-bucks wealthy, then using the endowment to fund the college scholarship of Steven? who completely backstabbed George.
    That was sheer beauty.

  145. 145.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: Mainly because we all lived through those dated and immature times. And if we’re healthy enough to look back and laugh, all that shit gets a *lot* funnier in the re-telling.

  148. 148.

    Corner Stone

    Kramer being out-machoed by the gay male couple.
    Of course that led to the Soup Nazi giving him the piece of furniture that had all the soup recipes in the drawer.
    I’m going to have to stop sometime tonight…this weekend…sometime.

  149. 149.

    Violet

    @Corner Stone: I don’t agree. I think a lot of the jokes are relationship-based and so they still work. It’s why a lot of “I Love Lucy” still works and other good sitcoms. Relationship issues, whether dating or friends or family are perennial issues. The surroundings may change, and we may now have cell phones and computers or whatever, but “I’m not sure I really want to marry her” and “my neighbor is crazy” and “my parents are nuts” will always be current.

    And don’t forget Festivus.

  150. 150.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone: Comedy doesn’t age well, agreed. Most of the plays and novels that are supposed to have been a laff riot in their time are just tedious, leaden, or cruel now. I mean, come on, how funny is a Shakespeare comedy? Not, like, “droll” or wry, but actually laugh-inducing? Maybe the dick jokes. The rest of it, feh.

  151. 151.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman:

    Wait! You had friends?

    Yeah. Well, the ones who survived past high school, anyway. Some of the others liked Seinfeld too, but I can’t call them up at the moment.

  152. 152.

    FlipYrWhig

    @ranchandsyrup: nah, I can’t take any credit for that point. But it really is a funny slice of time that as the years go by starts to seem more like the world of Three’s Company than the world of today.

  153. 153.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: I’ve always thought we should have more sitcoms with men biting their knuckled fists in sexual frustration.
    Ah-yah-yah-hmmph!!

  154. 154.

    MattR

    @FlipYrWhig: The trifecta.

    One of my favorite things about that show is how a single episode could have several unconnected memorable quotes or scenes. George telling Jerry the story of having to leave a girl’s apt during foreplay because he had to use the bathroom (ending with “The only excuse she might possibly have accepted is if I told her I am in reality Batman, and I’m very sorry, I just saw the Bat-Signal.”) always stuck in my mind , but it took me years to realize it was part of the Chinese restuarant episode (not to be confused with the Chinese food delivery episode)

  155. 155.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: Some comedy is eternal, kind of like what I think Violet is alluding to.
    But some of it is like watching someone pull out a big brick cell phone or hearing the modem connect your computer online.
    Or Don Knotts doing his best Mr. Furley.
    No, wait. Don Knotts humor is actually eternal.

  156. 156.

    Corner Stone

    @MattR: What about Kramer getting cornered by the gang in the pizza shop and he held up his hands begging for them to back off – and inadvertently gave the sign of the gang insider.

    Only to have Stephen? get George cornered later after Costanza had his scholarship taken away.

  159. 159.

    MattR

    @Corner Stone: DOLORES!!!

    Which WIkipedia tells me was also the Junior Mint episode – “it’s very refreshing”

    Which then leads me to “these pretzels are making me thirsty” (which is the same episode as the car reservation scene I linked to earlier)

  160. 160.

    Mike G

    I think Seinfeld has aged much better than average for a sitcom, which generally do not age well at all.
    Looking at the 70s sitcoms of my childhood, like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Good Times or Welcome Back Kotter, they are unwatchable now — idiotic repetition of catchphrases and humorless stupidity.

  162. 162.

    FlipYrWhig

    @MattR: I was just rejoining this conversation to say “these pretzels are making me thirsty.”

    Another good, simple episode is the one where George and another loser-ish guy have a standoff over the parking space outside Jerry’s apartment.

  164. 164.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mike G: how does All in the Family hold up? Or Soap? I was too young to watch those and I don’t remember constant reruns (like Threes Company or Happy Days). I also never thought MASH seemed funny at all, but I haven’t tried to watch it in like 25-30 years.

  165. 165.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: Soap was freakin’ funny. Looking back, it’s almost like a forerunner to today’s elected GOP.
    MASH was never supposed to be funny. Their humor was brutal and intense when on their target.

  166. 166.

    FlipYrWhig

    @efgoldman: I saw a performance of that this past summer. There are funny antics, yes, and it can be performed in ways that amp up the laughs, but I stand by my claim. Probably people in the Elizabethan age would repeat funny lines from the porter in Macbeth or Launcelot Gobbo too, but it ain’t funny now, just tiresome.

  168. 168.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: How do you capture a show that has an episode where Hawkeye dreams his way through a field of disembodied human body parts?
    Maybe that cockup with Dr. House and his meds issue?
    But that wasn’t exactly a sitcom either.
    This has reached beyond my grasp, as I have become SiubhanDuinne.
    I’m really supposed to watch Mike & Molly? Or Two Broke Girls?
    No. NO. NO!!!

  169. 169.

    Corner Stone

    Thank you for mentioning Soap. I had somehow forgotten about that and also about Benson, which I mistakenly remembered more than Soap.
    Robert Guillaume was like a fucking revelation at the time. I don’t know how much in the tradition of African American “comedic sops (or some term I am unaware of)” he was working in or through, but I knew even back then that he was awesome.
    Looking back now, I’m wondering about his performance in that series.

  170. 170.

    ruemara

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): As a NYer, bred, if not born, I always wondered how “Friends” managed to not even have one slightly brown person in an emeffing shot.

    Oh, and y’all haters on MASH, suck it. I loved that show from when I started watching it at 7. I’d watch faithfully all the reruns. It made me laugh and cry. It’s only as an adult I realize how they softened the misogyny and eventually improved Hawkeye as a hero.

  172. 172.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @ruemara:

    Even when Ross had an Asian-American girlfriend, he had to come back from China with her because, of course, there was no other way a white guy could possibly meet an Asian-American woman in New York City.

  173. 173.

    NotMax

    @FlipYrWhig

    Ya say ya want classic comedy, bunkie? (If you’re too young to get that reference, just ignore it.)

    View the entire half-hour and watch the same joke slowly build, and build, and build. More than 50 years later, and still funny.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Also, too, anyone else notice that Billmon is dissing the traditional Christmas bonus so central to the plot of “Christmas Vacation”? Because that’s what the Christmas box was — an annual bonus on top of your salary.

  176. 176.

    Cervantes

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I mean, come on, how funny is a Shakespeare comedy?

    In Shakespeare’s day, “comedies” were called “comedies” not necessarily because they were meant to make you laugh but rather because they had (what you might call) happy endings.

  178. 178.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Honestly, the modern day incarnation of Boxing Day is “the holiday where you can do what the fuck you like”. So, no meal traditions, no family obligations, no gritted-teeth endurance of people you dislike. If you have guests, they’re your friends and you can do what the fuck you like. If not, no problem.

    Today, we had friends round, stuffed them with trifle and mince pies, watched Doctor Who, then played Cards Against Humanity. That’ll do.

  181. 181.

    FlipYrWhig

    @efgoldman: I teach. English literature. Shakesepare ain’t funny. Cervantes Is exactly right about the definition involving happy endings, not laughter. At any rate, apart from Importance of Being Earnest, almost nothing you’ll come across in a English class that’s supposed to be funny is actually laughably funny. Dirty is still dirty, clever is still clever. But drawing actual laughs… really, really rare.

  183. 183.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @FlipYrWhig:

    You obviously are not teaching nearly enough Wodehouse in your classes. If your students can read The Code of the Woosters or “The Crime Wave at Blandings” and NOT laugh out loud, you are obviously sucking all of the joy of literature out of them and will deserve to find out that they all start reading Dan Brown novels after graduation.

  187. 187.

    Cervantes

    @Cervantes: Plus there are passages in Dickens (“Janet! Donkeys!”) that always have me in stitches — but I suppose you’re right that not everyone finds them hilarious, exactly.

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