Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

In my day, never was longer.

Second rate reporter says what?

T R E 4 5 O N

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Books are my comfort food!

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

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

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

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

Let me file that under fuck it.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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

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

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Morning Open Thread

Saturday Morning Open Thread

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Via Buzzfeed:

pizza_cat

Why would you do that to a cat? Why would you do that to a pizza?

We’re taking a short road trip today to visit relatives and plan to be home in time to watch the afternoon / evening college football games. Need to find a cheap yard sale / Craigslist TV for the outside tiki bar because SOMEONE forgot to cover the old one, and it rained sideways.

Last night, we went to the local roadhouse and watched people humiliate themselves via karaoke. I think the hardest (non-opera) karaoke tune to pull off would be Janice Joplin’s version of “Summertime.” I could maybe pull it off with sufficient quantities of Jim Beam and Marlboros, but I’ve never attempted it.

What are y’all up to today?

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  1. 1.

    Lee Rudolph

    Why would you do that to a cat? Why would you do that to a pizza?

    Why would you do that with Photoshop? (No cheese on the chin or whiskers of the inhumanfelinely docile cat. No blood anywhere, either.)

  2. 2.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    Ye Gods, karaoke. I always think of a very old Janeane Garafalo riff when that subject comes up:

    “I believe that Hell is what your mind’s eye selects for you over the course of your life. And I think that my Hell will be the Stairmaster Circle, and the only music will be Michael Bolton, karaoke-style, on Drunken Secretary’s Night.”

    I also imagine a sea of disturbed faces as somebody belts out something that just does NOT fit that scene: an angry drunk shrieking out Scentless Apprentice, for example. I like those kinds of juxtapositions.

    This counts as well

  5. 5.

    jacy

    Kid’s got a Robotics competition in New Orleans. Which necessitated him to be up to get on the bus at school at 6:30 AM. On a Saturday. Blah.

    On the upside, oldest kid coaches high school football for a small school, and they won their first game last night, 32-6, with a 14-year-old freshman quarterback who, amazingly, threw 4 touchdown passes. Of course sitting on a metal bench last night for four hours in the damp did me no favors….. But it was worth it.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: That is indeed a vivid vision of a personal hell. I think mine would have something to do with enduring an endless PowerPoint presentation on global pesticide application statistics while undergoing a double root canal and being fitted for a bridesmaid dress. Something like that.

  8. 8.

    Schlemizel

    I used to be able to do a killer Janis Joplin imitation – seriously. Its even weirder because I can’t sing well. At a party, when everyone was in the proper frame of mind I would do “Ball and Chain” & it would blow people away. I used to do a joke thing with a poor imitation of Lawrence Welk introducing HA-Love-ahly HA-Linda and her accordion playing that-a HA-liting Ha-love ballad-a “Purple Haze” so I later combined the two & he would introduce a “young songbird” and the I’d sing “Take Another Piece of My Heart”. People were amazed at how well I did. Its not much of a useful talent & the surgeon removed it a couple years ago. I have never done Karaoke.

    Did you know that the frat boys at UT Austin voted her “ugliest man on campus” when she went there? Can’t imagine where all that pain she sang with came from.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    The one time I tried Karaoke I chose a favorite song but did not calculate just how much it depended on other voices. It was like Gladys Knight performing without the Pips. You just stand there, counting the beats, while an imaginary chorus never shows up.

  17. 17.

    Emily68

    I could maybe pull it off with sufficient quantities of Jim Beam and Marlboros,

    If you want to sound like Janis, you’ve got to drink Southern Comfort instead of Jim Beam.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemizel: Wish I could have seen/heard that. Janis… Dog do I miss her. This day and age, she would never make it. Not “pretty” enuf.

  19. 19.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @WereBear: Yeah my kinda stuff just doesn’t translate to that format especially well and attempting it would just be idiocy, even in jest. For me it’s in the same category as bowling, in that I’d need a couple Long Island Iced Teas and some friends in a wacky mood to give it much fun potential.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    @Lee Rudolph: Also, if you look closely at the image, there are ‘ghost’ pepperonis on the cat’s face– so it was done by jiggering with transparency.

  21. 21.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @Elizabelle:

    Thank pasta that was in the days before video cameras! Mrs. Schlemazel sort of reined me in and we never went to parties that served those kinds of refreshments and the bit lost some relevance since she was dead. I tried it on my kids a couple of time & they hated it (didn’t get it – duh!). it fell under “Put away the childish things of youth”

  25. 25.

    MattF

    @Emily68: Many years ago I knew a winger (before the phrase was common) who hated Janice Joplin because of her, um, immorality. I think that was the point where I decided that things were very wrong in his world view.

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:

    sparkling BCracker prose, from the killer eggnog recipe, to start your day:

    It not only tastes good, it’s deceptively strong and is highly effective for silencing tiresome wingnut relatives … That way the bakers don’t have to hear the self-described makers bitching about the goddamned takers:

  28. 28.

    Schlemizel

    Betty – I tried fixing my nym (as suggested last night) and am stuck in moderation, can I ask you to bless me?

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

  29. 29.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    Now it seems my original nym change disappeared?

    I suppose removing the ‘clever’ bit between the brackets will cause the same issue all over again

  31. 31.

    esc

    I’m attempting to have a garage sale of my grandmother’s stuff since she moved to a nursing home. Her ritzy town only allows two signs, including the one on your property, and her house is on a dead end way back in a development, so we’ll see how it goes.

  33. 33.

    MomSense

    I can do all the female Disney characters’ voices and songs. I can also do Mary Poppins’ songs and choreography. It started one day when the sound system at the dance studio broke during the beginner ballet class and I had to figure out how to keep 25 5 and 6 year olds moving and entertained somehow. Then it turned into requests for songs from the kids or rewards for all of them attempting something complicated. The best part was when they would sort of lip sync and act out the scene from the song or chime in with their best Sebastian or some other character’s voice.

  35. 35.

    rea

    @MattF: Many years ago I knew a winger (before the phrase was common) who hated Janice Joplin because of her, um, immorality.

    She briefly dated Bill Bennett. Now there’s some immorality for you!

  38. 38.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    THANKS! (I assume Betty)

    @Mustang Bobby:
    I liked that stuff when I was a kid. I lost the taste for it though. I suppose it has its place but I sort of view it as a gateway booze. Kids today have all these new-fangled sugar boozes (hard lemonade, berry-flavored crap) to indice them to a life of drinking, inmy day we had to WORK at drinking!

  39. 39.

    NotMax

    I think the hardest (non-opera) karaoke tune to pull off

    Send in the Clowns.

    Deceptively difficult, particularly those 4 opening notes.

  41. 41.

    Botsplainer

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    My personal Hell would be Heaven.

    Even worse, redneck fundamentalist heaven. Clouds and praise music and teatotaling family reunions with smarmy sweet grannies, wise white drawling grandpas, whittling jamborees, talks with white Jesus…,

    Makes me fucking sick. No booze or bare tit-TAYS anywhere. Nobody acting stupid or doing things fucked up to gossip about or laugh at.

  43. 43.

    Gvg

    It is raining in Gainesville. forecast is all day. Kid’s friend’s birthday party just got moved. sister will have fun doing jj finely PTA game day parking. I have heard it was really muddy last week. I hope this game actually gets played. No lightening at this time.

  44. 44.

    JR in WV

    @jacy:

    Wow, that must have been something to see. What a big night for all those kids, and your oldest, too. I know what you mean about the metal benches too.

    The last football game my mom attended in person was a Gator Bowl between WVU and somebody much better, maybe UNC, too long ago now to remember. It rained for that night game, and our tickets were 4 rows from the top of the stadium, Windy, VERY windy, and the seats were aluminum, dish shaped, to hold a puddle.

    My brother and I carried Mom the very long distance to the car, because she couldn’t straighten out. We were glad she was a small built person and we were in good shape at the time. We lost by several touchdowns to boot.

    Very glad you have the energy to get out for the big game, still thinking of you and hoping things turn out for the best!

    Betty Cracker is really a case, isn’t she? I wish we lived closer together so as to visit a little bit, anyone with a Tiki bar out back is doing it right.

  47. 47.

    WereBear

    @Mustang Bobby: To me, scotch smelled like Listerine. But then I tasted a single-malt, and figured out what all the fuss was supposed to be about.

    I cannot drink those malt derivatives from the grocery store, even before I discovered a gluten problem. It’s like eating the sundae from the ice cream shoot… which is made of lard and other inedible substances to stay in place under hot lights.

  50. 50.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @Mustang Bobby:
    HAMMS? The brew refreshing? From the land of sky blue waters?!?

    Huh, I thought that was just a local thing here on the frozen tundra. We are about the same age & I remember Boones Farm – have you ever heard NatLamps commercial for Boone- like Mother Gooses Sweet potato wine?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giPisi0LD4E

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    It’s been over a week, and I still can’t get the image of kitty Tricksey out of my head. What a stunningly cute photo that was. Cleek, what a lovely girl you have.

    Grown-up Tricksey is beautiful, but it’s the baby picture that snagged my heart. For some reason grown-up Tricksey looks just like a friend of mine, the friend being of human persuasion. I am going to send my friend the photo.

    Off to the farmer’s market. I am nearly 2 hours behind my usual time, but I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed at the normal saturday market time.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    That whirring sound you hear is McCain’s head spinning.

    Sources say Ayatollah Khamenei has sanctioned Gen Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force – an elite overseas unit of the Revolutionary Guards – to work with forces fighting IS, including the US. Source

  53. 53.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @Mustang Bobby:
    HAMMS? The brew refreshing? From the land of sky blue waters?!?

    Huh, I thought that was just a local thing here on the frozen tundra. We are about the same age & I remember Boones Farm – have you ever heard NatLamps commercial for Boone- like Mother Gooses Sweet potato wine?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giPisi0LD4E

  56. 56.

    FlyingToaster

    No drinking until after dark, if at all.

    I’m on the countdown for WarriorGirl’s birthday party (a week from tomorrow); I have the first batch of party favor bags packed, and the quantities to pack more if we get more reservations. I still need to print out the labels for the water bottles (they say “Melted Snowman”, which is pretty cruel).

    This week starts afterschool science and soccer, the all school picnic on Tuesday, plus next Saturday starts her other Suzuki classes.

    And then her actual birthday in two weeks, which she’s celebrating at our block party, then her class picnic, then a classmate’s birthday party, then parents’ curriculum night …

    Six-almost-seven-year-olds have a more active social life than I did back in the iron age.

    Off to the farmers’ markets and grocery.

    @Betty Cracker: Have fun finding the new-to-you TV.

  58. 58.

    MomSense

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Boone’s Farm! Did they have something called “tickle pink”? That was the culprit in a cast party turned ocean skinny dipping thereafter referred to as A Funny Thing Happened After the Forum.

  65. 65.

    FlyingToaster

    No drinking until after dark, if at all.

    I’m on the countdown for WarriorGirl’s birthday party (a week from tomorrow); I have the first batch of party favor bags packed, and the quantities to pack more if we get more reservations. I still need to print out the labels for the water bottles (they say “Melted Snowman”, which is pretty cruel).

    This week starts afterschool science and soccer, the all school picnic on Tuesday, plus next Saturday starts her other Suzuki classes.

    And then her actual birthday in two weeks, which she’s celebrating at our block party, then her class picnic, then a classmate’s birthday party, then parents’ curriculum night …

    Six-almost-seven-year-olds have a more active social life than I did back in the iron age.

    Off to the farmers’ markets and grocery.

    @Betty Cracker: Have fun finding the new-to-you TV.

  67. 67.

    JR in WV

    @jacy:

    Wow, that must have been something to see. What a big night for all those kids, and your oldest, too. I know what you mean about the metal benches too.

    The last football game my mom attended in person was a Gator Bowl between WVU and somebody much better, maybe UNC, too long ago now to remember. It rained for that night game, and our tickets were 4 rows from the top of the stadium, Windy, VERY windy, and the seats were aluminum, dish shaped, to hold a puddle.

    My brother and I carried Mom the very long distance to the car, because she couldn’t straighten out. We were glad she was a small built person and we were in good shape at the time. We lost by several touchdowns to boot.

    Very glad you have the energy to get out for the big game, still thinking of you and hoping things turn out for the best!

    Betty Cracker is really a case, isn’t she? I wish we lived closer together so as to visit a little bit, anyone with a Tiki bar out back is doing it right.

  69. 69.

    Cervantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    That’s according to Bennett, of course, who says they had one not-much-fun date.

    If it seems bizarre that they even encountered each other, remember that he used to be a Democrat at one time, officially switching parties only mid-way during Reagan’s second term.

  71. 71.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    Interesting new fail mode for FYWP, sorta glad to see it was not just me!

  72. 72.

    RSA

    Karaoke isn’t my thing, but… About ten years ago my wife and I lived in Venice, CA, and some evenings we’d walk a couple of blocks to Santa Monica, to a restaurant called Schatzi, founded by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Good beer, a reasonable Austrian menu, and the douchebags you might expect to find there were easy to avoid. Some evenings they’d do karaoke. A trendy bar full of people trying to break into the entertainment industry? It was pretty amazing.

  74. 74.

    WereBear

    @Elizabelle: My four-year-old nephew once asked for the cherry from my husband’s finished Manhattan; not thinking about what it had been soaking in, he gave it to him.

    Nephew declared: “It tasted funny, but I liked it.”

    After that, he got the cherry right away :)

  75. 75.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @WereBear:
    TO me scotch always tasted like pencil lead, until I tasted some super-duper ‘worlds greatest scotch’ at the urging of my scotch loving friend. That tasted like someone had set the lawn on fire and then dripped alcohol through the smoldering remains, pencil lead would have been an improvement.

  76. 76.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @Cervantes:
    Dear Bill,
    The only common thread in all your disappointing relationships has been you. Please note & act accordingly.

    Yours truly,
    Humanity

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    @WereBear:

    Yup, it were Manhattans my parents drank. Small ones, mixed carefully as soon as my dad got home, and we kids knew to leave the ‘rents alone until they finished their drinks.

    I used to even chew and swallow the cherry stem, because it tasted so good too.

  78. 78.

    jacy

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Ack, Boone’s Farm. Slightly nauseated just reading the name. The big thing when I was in high school was to raid the parent’s liquor cabinet and take a little of everything so that it wouldn’t be missed, pour out half a can of Coke, and add the various spirits. Then you smuggled your cans into the football game. Dog forbid there was only something like Creme de Menthe liquor or Sake available.

    @JR in WV:

    Those kids were so excited it was just a joy to watch. And they beat a team from Baton Rouge that had beaten them by 20 points last season. They only won one game last season, so there’s no where to go but up from here….

  79. 79.

    Mustang Bobby

    @jacy: All that sugar would give off a hangover that would kill a horse. I went to Europe the summer after I graduated from high school and I remember getting sh!tfaced on Galliano when I was in Venice and barking chow on the Rialto. The next day felt like I had to get better to die. Took me another 20 years to figure out I’m better off sober.

  80. 80.

    shelley

    the gateway booze was Boone’s Farm

    Ye Gods, Boone’s Farm Strawberry wine. Let me get out my tie-dyed shirt and love beads!

  83. 83.

    WereBear

    @jacy: raid the parent’s liquor cabinet and take a little of everything so that it wouldn’t be missed

    This must be how the Long Island Iced Tea was invented.

  85. 85.

    MattF

    @Mustang Bobby: A few years before that it was Liebfraumilch. I tried it several years later and it was awful. Although maybe its awfulness was due to not also inhaling the, um, whatever…

    ETA: But– no antifreeze headache, so I lucked out.

  89. 89.

    CaseyL

    @jacy:

    raid the parent’s liquor cabinet and take a little of everything so that it wouldn’t be missed

    @WereBear:

    This must be how the Long Island Iced Tea was invented.

    I think the BJ Comment app has been doing exactly that. The repeated comments look just like hiccups.

    Speaking of ghastly gateway alcohols from our youth, how about the I Love You wines? Each bottle was named “I”, or “Love” or “You.” I seem to recall one was a white, one was a red, and one was a rose.

  93. 93.

    Jebediah, RBG

    I think the hardest (non-opera) karaoke tune to pull off would be Janice Joplin’s version of “Summertime.” I could maybe pull it off with sufficient quantities of Jim Beam and Marlboros, but I’ve never attempted it.

    Hie thee to a recording studio, since that fuzzy dogs picture you took makes a fine album cover for your banjo’n’bass debut.

  95. 95.

    FlyingToaster

    FYWP:

    Sorry for the Dupe; I thought my browser had hung, but it was the update-in-progress. GRRRRRRR.

  96. 96.

    FlyingToaster

    @MattF: I’m living with a six-year-old who can sing both versions (Idina Menzel and Demi Lovato), plus both versions in Spanish.

    She got started because she saw the Boston Children’s Choir sing it at July 3rd, and demanded the soundtrack.

  97. 97.

    David

    Re: used TVs. Do you now what smaller new HD flatscreens go for now? Between $100 & $200. Much better deal, if not for the picture quality, then for the lightweight aspect.

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