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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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Everybody saw this coming.

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

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

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“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

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Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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You are here: Home / Humorous / Monday Night Open Thread: Who Doesn’t Like John Hodgman?

Monday Night Open Thread: Who Doesn’t Like John Hodgman?

by Anne Laurie|  January 13, 201411:28 pm| 72 Comments

This post is in: Humorous, Open Threads, Television

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Well, in the New Yorker, he’s gonna (further) disarm you with Dowton Abbey — and cats!:

Look, I never want to tell stories about my children, because it always seems a little lazy. Children tend to be sort of dumb, and, in the end, the stories are always the same: children say hilarious things, and I am old and dying.

So when I tell you these stories about my children let’s just pretend they are about my cats.

So my cats and I were watching “Downton Abbey” last year. (I have two cats, one girl cat, who is twelve—in cat years, obviously—and a boy cat, who is seven.) And at one point my younger cat turned to me and said, “What is that human woman trying to say to that other man?”

And I said, “That is Mary Crawley. She is trying to tell Matthew that she is in love with him.”

And my younger cat thought about it and said, “Well, that is a very hard thing to do.” And then he said, “You have to pick just the right time.”

Then my older cat turned to him and said, “WILL YOU BE QUIET, PLEASE?”…

***********
So, what’s on the agenda this evening that isn’t maddening and/or depressing?

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Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike E

    January 13, 2014 at 11:35 pm

    Sweet, sweet sleep, then flu shot in the morning followed by car inspection… oh, gotta find a place to live too, also.

  2. 2.

    jl

    January 13, 2014 at 11:43 pm

    Only have time to skim it now, but it seems to be John Hodgman poking fun at the Downton Abbey thing, which sounds good. I am in, and will read it first thing tomorrow. I am a boor and not a fan of BBC TV drama.

    Just read TPM list of bigshots in the GWBridgeocalypseChristieGate. Man, his Chief of Staff, Dep Chieff of Staff, Press Secty, campaign manager, and ex Chief if Staff were in on it from beginning or within days. And I read someplace his counsel was in on it too (maybe the TPM story has to be updated) So, six bigshots.

    They say many fat men are suprisingly light on their feet and can really move elegantly on the dance floor, swinging and twirling around like ballerina, you would not believe your eyes. It will be interesting to see how Christie does.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/christie-bridge-scandal-players

    Edit: maybe a future for him on Dancing with the Stars (is that things still on?)

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    January 13, 2014 at 11:45 pm

    Veronica Mars on the TV.

  4. 4.

    MomSense

    January 13, 2014 at 11:46 pm

    Watching 24 and I don’t know how people watched this show when they had to wait a whole week in between.

  5. 5.

    James E. Powell

    January 13, 2014 at 11:55 pm

    @jl:

    And I read someplace his counsel was in on it too

    If his lawyer gets a lawyer, then we’ll know there is something very interesting going on.

  6. 6.

    Anoniminous

    January 14, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Another responsible gun owner:

    An argument over texting at the movies ended in a cellphone user’s death, when a retired police officer in the audience shot him at a theater near Tampa, Fla., on Monday afternoon, the authorities said.

  7. 7.

    Culture of Truth

    January 14, 2014 at 12:05 am

    I read his book. It was very funny.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    January 14, 2014 at 12:06 am

    Never seen the show*, don’t much care for cats or children (nor Mondays, for that matter), and no idea who John Hodgman is.

    Now get off my lawn.

    *My impression was it’s similar to Upstairs, Downstairs, and couldn’t stay interested in that. As usual with TV, YMMV.

  9. 9.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 12:07 am

    I, for one, can’t get enough of TV shows that reinforce the 99%’ers proper place.

    @MomSense: A measure of sociopathy is if you don’t need some down time between torture sessions.

  10. 10.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    January 14, 2014 at 12:18 am

    @srv: I know, I once walked out of a movie called The Lion in Winter because it “reinforced” feudalism.

  11. 11.

    rda909

    January 14, 2014 at 12:24 am

    So let’s see here…long-time, trusted journalist is kicked out of Russia because….well, just because, and at the exact same time, lil’ Eddie Snowdenwald, carrying a bunch of classified U.S. material that he stole, is welcomed into Russia with open arms after his stay in China first. Makes perfect sense:

    “Under Putin, the FSB has brought back KGB-style methods of harassment against foreign journalists. These include demonstrative apartment break-ins, surveillance and interrogations. Largely unreported, the FSB is increasingly rejecting visa applications from western academics seeking to visit Russia if their publications are deemed hostile.”
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/13/russia-expels-american-journalist-david-satter

    Privileged progressives gonna keep phucking that chicken though in order to scold the most liberal president in America in any of our lifetimes. Brilliant strategy!

  12. 12.

    The Pale Scot

    January 14, 2014 at 12:32 am

    Advise requested; i’m setting up an old dell laptop (w/ Ubuntu god save me) for an older female member of the family and it’s struck me that what the home page will be is sorta important to draw her into using the thing. Does anyone know of a gateway website that might interest a person who watches Downtown Abbey, The Walking Dead, those finding a house to buy shows and has a NE attitude but is stranded in FL? Not quite the National Enquirer but not at the Economist either, I’m a bit stumped.

    I’m punching out now, thanks in advance for any suggestions. Nite.

  13. 13.

    FlipYrWhig

    January 14, 2014 at 12:38 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Kings of this, princes of that, otherworldly time-traveling doctors, it’s all a racket to flatter special people with their specialness. That’s why I only watch the world outside my window. Because it’s real, man.

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    January 14, 2014 at 12:38 am

    I spent the day dodging queries from coworkers about projects of theirs that I’ve been procrastinating on. So, overall, a crappy day at work.

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    January 14, 2014 at 12:38 am

    @The Pale Scot: This web site isn’t a home page or gateway per se, but someone who likes Downton Abbey might find it interesting:

    http://www.janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/downton-abbey-season-4-episodes-1-2-some-observations/

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    January 14, 2014 at 12:47 am

    the most liberal president in America in any of our lifetimes.

    A shaky superlative, as we olds have witnessed the center mangled and shoved more and more to the right, a phenomenon which has accelerated over the past 40 years.

  17. 17.

    Keith G

    January 14, 2014 at 12:47 am

    Been saving up extra shekels to plop down cash for a new desktop system. Went to Micro Center with the contents of my now zeroed-out slush fund and came home with a few boxes of goodies. A short time later, I broke my “good pair” of glasses. Oy.

  18. 18.

    Mark B.

    January 14, 2014 at 12:47 am

    Hey, I’ll be going on a cruise in February with Hodgman. And Coulton (Jonathan). It’s going to be a blast.

  19. 19.

    Gex

    January 14, 2014 at 12:50 am

    @Anoniminous:

    The killing underscored the increased debate about when to use smartphones in public.

    That sentence, right there, is a pretty good summary of what the hell is wrong with this country. So much navel gazing about the wrong goddamn things. Once again, being rude is the real problem.

  20. 20.

    FlipYrWhig

    January 14, 2014 at 12:59 am

    @Keith G: get the cheapies from Zenni Optical. Whole pair of glasses for like $20.

    Also, your story is like that twilight zone with the guy who breaks his glasses after the nuclear apocalypse.

  21. 21.

    Anoniminous

    January 14, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Gex:

    A “nice and neat” (sic) riff on the “an armed society is a polite society” meme. Only those of us with a fingertip hold on Reality realize an armed society is a violent, homicidal , society.

  22. 22.

    rda909

    January 14, 2014 at 1:07 am

    @NotMax: Given the most obstructionist Congress by far, ever, and the terrible Senate/House numbers compared to LBJ’s and FDR’s times, the amount of liberal change brought on during the Obama Presidency on so many issues across the board, is nothing short of astounding.

  23. 23.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 1:08 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Sheeple.

    @rda909:

    Privileged progressives gonna keep phucking that chicken though in order to scold the most liberal president in America in any of our lifetimes.

    The hippies were in fact pretty awful to Nixon.

  24. 24.

    ruemara

    January 14, 2014 at 1:16 am

    Trying to find someplace to go and take pictures. I have a costuming party function, but I’d like to take some other shots. And I’m trying to figure out ways to get a newer car or improve the current car for long trip durability. That being said, I am very interested in a vehicle like this one, but what should I know about vans and stuff?

  25. 25.

    piratedan

    January 14, 2014 at 1:29 am

    @srv: in his defense, Nixon acceded to a lot of liberal social programs so he could have a free hand in foreign affairs, things like the EPA (for example); but then when the left started to apply pressure over Vietnam, well shit just kinda went down and the straight laced Okies from Muskogee have been hating on liberals ever since. Those old my country right or wrong types never suffered any kind of self examination over that issue and because they couldn’t wrap their heads around it, the effect kind of killed old midwestern populism and certain elements of folks retreated into their Bibles and started hating on everything that threatened their way of life without looking at BigAg (strange that).

    Why the far left firebaggers have embraced the dudebros in demanding a dismantling of the surveillance state just has the feeling of certain folks being played imho. I understand the outrage, just that things change in the country incrementally and as such, it’s become just as much an idiotic mantra as Benghazi has… ymmv.

  26. 26.

    mai naem

    January 14, 2014 at 1:41 am

    I don’t understand why this movie theater shooting in Fla has become such a big deal. It was one of the stories in hourly AP news for at least three hours. There have been so many stupid shootings – whats the big deal with this one?

  27. 27.

    Tommy

    January 14, 2014 at 1:48 am

    @mai naem: My gut. You go to see a movie you shouldn’t worry about getting shot. I hate going to see a movie. I want to “hit” folks with their cell phones. That can’t eat pop corn without making enough noise to raise the dead. But in no world would I think I’d pull out a gun and fire it.

  28. 28.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 1:56 am

    @piratedan: What would McGovern have saved us from? Detente? SALT/ABM? China? CointelPro? A ‘Decent Interval’ strategy?

    Trying to imagine what Kissinger would do differently with Afghanistan.

    Or was Angry Gates wrong, and Obama is a True Believer?

    So much easier with an AVF, damn hippies just didn’t appreciate their civic duty like the 69% of Americans who kept shopping in 2003.

  29. 29.

    Mandalay

    January 14, 2014 at 1:59 am

    @Anoniminous:

    An argument over texting at the movies ended in a cellphone user’s death, when a retired police officer in the audience shot him…

    More death by cellphone….

    A 26-year-old man is dead after dropping his cell phone in the Chicago River and lunging in after it, the Chicago Tribune reports. Not only that, a 21-year-old woman friend went in after him and is missing, presumed dead; and a male friend, 23, is hospitalized in critical condition after going in the water.

  30. 30.

    Tommy

    January 14, 2014 at 2:04 am

    @srv: I am a hippie liberal. But at the same time a military brat. Dad worked at high levels within the DoD. A military planner. Heck there was a time I lived in Leavenworth, Kansas cause he was teaching at the Army War College.

    Funny thing often on the topic of war we agree. You don’t fight a war just to fight it. And what Americans seem to do is being good at starting a war, but not ending it. That is a problem.

    Name the last time since like the 1940s where we “ended a war.”

  31. 31.

    Mandalay

    January 14, 2014 at 2:11 am

    @mai naem:

    There have been so many stupid shootings – whats the big deal with this one?

    I think it because of the mundane nature of the incident that provoked it, and the fact that most people can identify to some extent with both the victim and the killer. (See comments in thread.)

    When really bad shit happens to ordinary people in everyday situations it is inherently newsworthy.

  32. 32.

    piratedan

    January 14, 2014 at 2:12 am

    @srv: who knows, maybe a couple of decades of stopping the support of every dictator in South America, Central America and the Middle East? Maybe the Soviet Union endures without Reagan forcing them to bankrupt themselves? Does China more strongly mimic North Korea without Nixon? I don’t have the answers, just commenting on the effects and ripples that marked Nixon’s time in the chair, some good and some bad.

  33. 33.

    Tommy

    January 14, 2014 at 2:13 am

    @Mandalay: Sad. I don’t mean this to sound heartless, but I’ve spend a ton of time around water, woods, nature. I was always taught to never go into the water to save somebody, well if you might not get out yourself. Two bodies are worse then one. But I don’t think I can help myself.

    Two years ago I went white water rafting. Hardcore stuff. A friend brought a guy I didn’t know. I would later learn he “didn’t like water” much and couldn’t really swim. Nothing happened but I let my friend know that wasn’t cool. You don’t do stuff like that. Maybe I have to “fish” him out. Not knowing he isn’t comfortable in water might have been a nice thing to know.

  34. 34.

    YellowJournalism

    January 14, 2014 at 2:14 am

    @Mandalay: Not to mention one of our most recent mass shooting occurred in a movie theatre.

  35. 35.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 2:16 am

    @Tommy: I’m a brat too, dad was in Vietnam. 12 uncles in WWII, Korea. One KIA.

    We’ve ended a lot of wars, they were all just different shades of victory.

    It’s just funny, a blog that is filled with the equivalent of 1968 Firebaggers emoting about those that don’t show enough fealty today.

  36. 36.

    Mj_Oregon

    January 14, 2014 at 2:23 am

    The (Oregon) Multnomah County Republicans are raffling off an AR-15 assault rifle as part of their yearly homage to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, whom they identify as fellow Republicans. No, really, they are.

    Multnomah Country Republicans recognize the incredible time of year we are in. In successive months to start the year, we celebrate the legacy of two great Republicans who demonstrated leadership and courage that all of us still lean on today: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. In celebrating these two men, and the denial of the rights they fought so hard against, the Multnomah County Republican Party announces that we have started our third raffle for an AR-15 rifle (or handgun of the winner’s choice).

  37. 37.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 2:23 am

    @piratedan: Latin America appears to have been a pretty bipartisan effort, but maybe JFK would have been more careful after the Bay of Pigs.

    And I think the Cold War strategy was as well. All that scary stuff Ronnie got credit for? Pershings, ALCM, GLCM, SLCM, Euro-deployments, Trident, MX, B-2, Afghanistan?

    All started by or fully funded by that liberal James Earl. Unless resurrecting B-1B made the difference, Ronnie just kept signing the checks.

  38. 38.

    Mandalay

    January 14, 2014 at 2:24 am

    @Tommy:

    Name the last time since like the 1940s where we “ended a war.”

    Grenada, 1983.

    Thank God Reagan had the courage and vision!…..

    An orgy of self-congratulation followed the triumph. A total of 8,612 medals were awarded to participants — most of them to desk officers who never came within a thousand miles of the island. “Our days of weakness are over!” Reagan exulted in a speech to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in New York. “Our military forces are back on their feet and standing tall.”

    If only all our wars were like that one. More medals than gunshots.

  39. 39.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 2:28 am

    @Mandalay: My sister is still, to this day, embarrassed about her medal.

  40. 40.

    Mandalay

    January 14, 2014 at 2:34 am

    @Tommy:

    I was always taught to never go into the water to save somebody, well if you might not get out yourself. Two bodies are worse then one.

    Which is exactly what happened here. That water must have been barely above freezing. I don’t know the details of what happens to your body in that situation, but I would think that unless you get out of the water immediately your ability to survive drops rapidly.

  41. 41.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    January 14, 2014 at 2:34 am

    @Tommy:

    I’m a native Michigander, grew up around the water, got swimming lessons young and kept ’em going for quite a few years (quit before I got my life saver’s license, but only because I was really bored hanging around the pool when I was 13). You’re right about it being dangerous, but that’s if you dive right in and try to rescue someone head on. You have to get behind someone who’s in distress, and talk them down- they’re usually panicking- before you explain how you’re going to grab them from behind.

    I’ve never had to use what training I’ve had. The closest thing I came to saving someone was while boogie boarding in the best warm surf I’ve ever seen in Grand Haven. It was a red flag day, some 5- or 6-year old kid was getting pulled out by the undertow, right near the trough (it’s amazing how many people drown in shallow water close to the shore, especially kids), as I was boarding in towards shore. I got an arm out, asked him where he was from (Indiana, and probably not from anywhere near the shore there), and sent him off to find his parents, who I’m sure didn’t know the significance of a red flag.

  42. 42.

    piratedan

    January 14, 2014 at 2:34 am

    @srv: come on now, don’t just lay it all in the lap of poor Jimmy, JFK and LBJ had their faults too, that cold war mentality wasn’t simply confined to the R’s to be sure, but Reagan surely embraced it and took it to the next level. Can’t speak to how beholden the Dem’s were to the complex (hey, I was still a kid during the time of Kennedy and Johnson) but Nixon was most certainly in bed with them (and Gerry Baby). While those programs may have started with Carter, the machine was already fully entrenched by that time, and afaik, the machine is/was only answerable to itself. It’s only during this last administration are we starting to see some curtailing of the ongoing boondoggle. You could make a case for the 60’s thru the aughts as to ask just who was really driving the foreign affairs bus.

  43. 43.

    Mandalay

    January 14, 2014 at 2:36 am

    @srv: She was one of the brave 8,612? You must be proud of her for being embarrassed.

  44. 44.

    srv

    January 14, 2014 at 2:47 am

    @Mandalay: She made it sound like a complete cluster f**k and inter-service shitfest. Not noted anywhere that I know, but the first C-130 on the ground to light the runway had a female crewmember (not her), because it was the backup of the backup that didn’t make it.

    Alas, it did take all those days to fight back those Spestnaz trained Cubans. The internets don’t have the pic of the rest of them (all about 50 lbs overweight and wearing track outfits to go with their AKs, I guess).

  45. 45.

    ? Martin

    January 14, 2014 at 2:49 am

    @Mandalay:

    A total of 8,612 medals were awarded to participants —

    Only about 1600 women earned a medal during all of WWII.

  46. 46.

    ? Martin

    January 14, 2014 at 3:04 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Some years back, my dad had the misfortune of finding a mom and her young son at the bottom of the community pool. Lifeguards were long gone in the budget cuts in his town, and best as he and the police figure, the boy (5) got in trouble, and mom (divorced) went in after him. Nobody reported them missing.

  47. 47.

    ? Martin

    January 14, 2014 at 3:06 am

    @billmon1

    When someone is shot in cold blood over texting, & NYT thinks the issue is smart phones, safe to say we’ve gone completely nuts as a country

    In reponse to this:

    An argument over texting at the movies ended in a cellphone user’s death, when a retired police officer in the audience shot him at a theater near Tampa, Fla., on Monday afternoon, the authorities said.
    …
    The killing underscored the increased debate about when to use smartphones in public.

    Apparently the debate about bringing loaded weapons to the movies and shooting random people is over.

  48. 48.

    VodkaGoGo

    January 14, 2014 at 3:26 am

    @? Martin:

    Can I have a link to that last blockquote please? Because holy shit that is messed up.

  49. 49.

    ? Martin

    January 14, 2014 at 3:44 am

    @VodkaGoGo: It was here, but the line was removed. Check the comments for countless references to the sentence.

  50. 50.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    January 14, 2014 at 3:45 am

    @? Martin:

    We’ve had the same sort of thing around here in the last decade or two. The one that leaps to mind happened at an apartment complex that went Section 8 right after it opened in the late ’90s, and instead of emptying the pool, the management just didn’t hire a lifeguard. Outdoor pool, low fence, and a lot of young, poor kids whose parents could only dream to have the money for swimming lessons for those kids. One of the younger kids- again, 5- or 6-years old- just turned up dead in the bottom one evening. Just a heart-wrenching, avoidable shame….

  51. 51.

    ? Martin

    January 14, 2014 at 3:56 am

    Time to update the handle. Birthday week has begun.

  52. 52.

    MikeJ

    January 14, 2014 at 4:09 am

    Florida, retired cop. How many hours you think he’ll do?

  53. 53.

    Anne Laurie

    January 14, 2014 at 4:14 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Tragically, I think the case of Marie Joseph trumps you both — she drowned in a public pool with lifeguards on duty and nobody noticed her body for 48 hours. IIRC, she was chaperoning a bunch of kids, but she wasn’t a good swimmer; one of the kids told the lifeguard ‘she hadn’t come up’ but when the guard brushed him off he didn’t mention the problem to anyone else…

  54. 54.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    January 14, 2014 at 4:40 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    Yep, that’s bad. Murky water (in the case I noted above, the water was sparkling- not the entire complex was Section 8, just the townhouses nearer the pool, while the apartments up the hill were being rented out largely to Aquinas College students, so, ya know, clean pool) and non-swimmers. At least one drowning at our Millenium Park’s murky lake…Well, gravel pit, really…That I can think of. That “beach” gets shut down from time to time due to issues with infectious bacteria in the water.

  55. 55.

    Ash Can

    January 14, 2014 at 4:41 am

    @piratedan: Given the roles of Afghanistan, the Helsinki Accords, and Gorbachev and his desire for reform, I doubt the Soviet Union would not have fallen in the absence of Reagan. In fact, given the timing of the fall of the Eastern Bloc (well after Reagan left office), I wouldn’t be surprised if Reagan actually prolonged the existence of the communist governments of the Eastern Bloc with his belligerence. It seemed as if, once Reagan was out of the way and they didn’t have to worry about him dropping bombs on them out of the blue, they could focus on domestic issues, and the shoes began to fall.

  56. 56.

    Debbie(aussie)

    January 14, 2014 at 4:47 am

    The comments to that NYT article were almost all excellent. How come I could find no admission to a correction in the article?

  57. 57.

    Tommy

    January 14, 2014 at 4:54 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): My parents threw me in a pool and swim, swim. My four year old niece is taking swimming lessons Her parents watch her. I was asked to go see her lessons. I was confused, don’t you swim with her? I went into the pool and we swam around. Yet another way I am the cool uncle!

  58. 58.

    PurpleGirl

    January 14, 2014 at 4:58 am

    OT (Via Avedon Carol/The Sideshow)

    RIP: Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), 79.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/arts/amiri-baraka-polarizing-poet-and-playwright-dies-at-79.html?_r=0

    He died Thursday, January 9th. Did any fp note this last week?

  59. 59.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    January 14, 2014 at 5:13 am

    @Tommy:

    I’m sure I was in the water before I took lessons, but I was so young that it blurs together. I don’t think my parents had lessons, but learned by osmosis- they were born and raised in Muskegon, Lake Michigan is right there, so…I think they wanted my little sister and I (me?) to learn properly, and we did. My sister swam competitively, but I wasn’t into, like, the competition, maaaan. But we could both handle ourselves in some of the rougher stuff Lake Michigan can throw at you in the summer. I think I’m still confident enough in my skills to be able to jump in if I saw someone starting to go down.

  60. 60.

    Tommy

    January 14, 2014 at 5:19 am

    @Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It is a strange thing. Like I might yell get off my lawn or something,

    My niece is taking lessons. I learned to swim by being put in a pool of water and told to swim. I can’t stress how strange my brother and his wife found it when I was asked to attend her swimming class and I got in the water. I was like water folks, it won’t hurt you.

    I am a strong swimmer, I like to think I’d jump in to help somebody, well I would and not even think about it, but I hope that person didn’t drawn me while trying to help them.

  61. 61.

    raven

    January 14, 2014 at 5:31 am

    @Tommy: Damn, I’m sitting here contemplating what it is going to be like when I get this shoulder surgery next week and what it will do to my daily swim. Most of the information I can find on masters swimming discussion boards indicate it will be at least four months and probably a lot more. I’ve felt lucky I made the transition from hoops to running and then to the water. I guess a stationary bike is going to be the best that I can hope for.

  62. 62.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    January 14, 2014 at 7:25 am

    @ruemara: I would research the specific engine and transmission and search for those on car forums.

  63. 63.

    aimai

    January 14, 2014 at 8:36 am

    @Anne Laurie: That was such a horrifying story, it haunts me to this day.

  64. 64.

    SteveM

    January 14, 2014 at 9:12 am

    Sorry to say this, but I can’t stand John Hodgman. I find him insufferable on TV. He exudes a sense that he regards himself as the cleverest person on earth.

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    January 14, 2014 at 9:38 am

    @srv:

    Ok, well I haven’t gotten to any torture sessions yet. Just want to know if wife and daughter survive.

    Do they show torture?? I don’t think I can watch that.

  66. 66.

    ThresherK

    January 14, 2014 at 9:59 am

    Cannot dig it up now, but I seem to remember a New Yorker editor’s front-of-issue column saying “The chief function of an editor is to keep writers from writing about their pets. The subject turns everyone, from a Hemingway to a Lessing to a Runyon, mushy and sentimental.”

  67. 67.

    The Pale Scot

    January 14, 2014 at 11:11 am

    @ruemara: I think what you want is the
    “Cadillac of minivans”, can’t remember which one that is though.

  68. 68.

    The Pale Scot

    January 14, 2014 at 11:31 am

    War is politics “by other means”, when does politics ever end?

  69. 69.

    Neddie Jingo

    January 14, 2014 at 11:50 am

    @SteveM:

    Sorry to say this, but I can’t stand John Hodgman. I find him insufferable on TV. He exudes a sense that he regards himself as the cleverest person on earth.

    …And then utter walleyed nonsense comes out of his mouth. That’s sorta…the…schtick….

  70. 70.

    Mark B.

    January 14, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    @Neddie Jingo: That’s right it’s a character he plays. He’s a bit like Stephen Colbert, in that he’s always in character when he appears in public. His character is a little more esoteric than Colbert’s arrogant conservative dolt, but it’s no less satiric.

  71. 71.

    Jebediah, RBG

    January 14, 2014 at 2:32 pm

    @Mandalay:

    Which is exactly what happened here. That water must have been barely above freezing. I don’t know the details of what happens to your body in that situation, but I would think that unless you get out of the water immediately your ability to survive drops rapidly.

    When we had our little boat, we were told about the 50-50-50 rule – if the water is fifty degrees, and you are in it for fifty minutes, you have a fifty percent chance of survival.

  72. 72.

    grillo

    January 15, 2014 at 4:18 pm

    @The Pale Scot: Oldsmobile Silhouette

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