In lieu of the missing Friday Recipe Exchange (TaMara has a teenage Great Dane puppy on her hands), I swiped Jeffrey W’s excellent portrait of Toby. Beth S. is still collecting pet pics for the 2015 Balloon Juice Pet Calendar. Here are her rules:
the usual rules apply: you have a pet (or six) and you send me a photo (or six) and your pet(s) makes an appearance in the 2015 pets of balloon juice calendar. tell me his/her/its name and i will put it on their photo. the highest resolution photo you can provide is best. i accept the usual photo formats. any questions, don’t hesitate to send me an email.
send photos here: [email protected]
Deadline for photo submission is tomorrow, Saturday, November 8 — you still have time to take some new pics, if you decide none of the ones on hand do your animal companion(s) justice.
Any questions (or problems), post a comment, or email me (click on my name in the right-hand column, or annelaurie (at) verizon (dot) net).
All pets welcome (if you look at previous calandars, we’ve had rabbits, ferrets, horses, turtles, at least one iguana… )
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Man, it’s a quiet night here at Balloon Juice.
PurpleGirl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yeah, it sure is. Maybe influenced by the posting about Dan Ha being missing. And the aftermath of the politics this week. Everybody is wrung out. (Me, my sleep cycle has been up-ended. I sleep during the afternoons and an up all night.)
Mustang Bobby
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Just passing by on the way to the biffy, then heading back to bed.
Yeah, it’s been a hell of a week, PurpleGirl.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: Yeah I am stressed out and angry. I am not usually angry nor stressed out. As I have said in a number of other comments it was a total bloodbath in my district. A Republican has not won my House seat in 70 years. I think more than anything I was caught off guard. Many of the polls had it a toss up. The Republican won by 11 points. The political reporting in my district isn’t that good and I honestly still can’t figure out what happened. My best guess is as in many districts there is a 30% core of Republicans and they saw this as an election they could finally win.
A polarizing Republican, Mike Bost that people seemed to either love or flat out hate. A Democrat in Bill Enyart, that appears to be a total stand up guy, but with a personality of a pet rock. PACs spending a shitload of money behind Bost and almost total silence from Enyart until the last few weeks of the campaign. Then of course a mid-term election and I guess it was kind of a perfect storm.
Tommy
@Tommy: One other thing. I hate to admit it as a liberal, but both Mike Bost and our new Republican Governor Bruce Rauner both ran what I thought were very smart campaigns, even if against pretty weak candidates.
Even the PACs were in line and they didn’t talk at all about social issues. It was jobs, jobs, jobs and the state budget, which is in a pretty bad spot. Oh and taxes. Talking social issues in my district and many around me can get you in trouble. I don’t know if it is a libertarian thing, but your body, your land, your religion, you can do as you want but you don’t talk about it much either.
Rauner has NO voting record but Bosh is terrible on social issues. Whoever working for his campaign told him to stay away, no matter how much he might have wanted to talk about them, was a very smart man/women.
Hal
I just read that voter turnout may be the lowest since 1942, and in 1942 people couldn’t vote because of a little skirmish called WWII. All of this analysis aside, that is in the end a benefit for Republicans. Old white people show up in low turnout, and they are more likely to vote Republican. Combined with the fact that Dems seems to purposely concede midterm election in advance, and here we are.
Don’t worry though. According to the media, Boehner and Turtle are totally into serious governing now.
Tommy
@Hal: I had not read that but turnout in my district was down an entire 1/3 from 2012.
ThresherK
Scanned a bunch of old fotos. I need to get schooled in our ordinary digital camera, as the light management from our common autofocus, autoflas 35mm circa 1995 is simply prettier and warmer.
I don’t have the vocabulary of it. But the difference is noticed especially in pet pix with closeups and seeing every hair and whisker.
Tommy
I know I am preaching to the choir here but even if Boehner and Turtle wanted to actual govern I got no clue how they would. They embraced the crazy to win back control of the Senate and pick up seats in the House. Those people don’t want to govern. A government that actual works goes against everything they stand for.
My greatest fear is that through tax cuts and budgets they starve the ACA, Consumer Protection Agency, EPA, you name it to do what they are tasked with doing. They when they fail at something those same people will stand up and say, look, look government doesn’t work. We need less of it.
Tommy
@ThresherK: I am a little bit of a photobug, but by no means an expert. The only positive about digital is if you really do what to use actual film, the price for a near professional grade 35MM, used is next to nothing. My Nikon N7 autoloader failed. I took it in to have it repaired and the guy was like, “dude it isn’t worth enough to send it in for repairs. Just go buy another one.” In 1995 I spent $800 for the darn thing. But I got it fixed because it still takes a much better pic than my Sony digital and Samsung phone. Much, much better.
The only digital I find about the same as my N7 is the Nikon digital my brother’s wife has. And she paid almost $4,000 for it. Now I like “nice” things but even if I had that much money just laying around I’d never spend that much for a camera.
Tommy
@ThresherK: Let me geek out for a second. Adobe Photoshop used to cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Now they offer it all in the “cloud” for $9.99/month. Free 30 day trial. The purist in me frets about using Photoshop to turn a bad picture into a good picture. But the monthly Photoshop package also comes with Lightroom, if you are scanning in a lot of pics and organizing them it is a pure joy to work with.
And just using some of the basic autocorrects in Photoshop, where you don’t even really need to know what you are doing, will correct some of the problems you noted about digital pics.
Marilyn D
I’m an “old” person (69) living in the Red State part of Oregon….got my Senator but not my Congress-critter…..my more “older blind person” 94-year-old mommy got her Senator Merkley, and her Congress-critter DeFazio……but I repeat myself, that I live in Oregon where we have mail-in ballots (69%+ turnout!)…..that’s what got me flummoxed about CO…they had mail-in ballots, and they couldn’t be bothered to carry it to the drop-off box or spend a few cents for a stamp??!!
raven
Hells Angels on Wheels is on TCM right now! Lousy script but it’s cool to see Nicholson and Sonny Barger.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I love my Samsung Galaxy Camera 2, great quality. I can use different software to capture pics and while it’s technically a point and shoot it the default camera software allows setting exposure.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: That is same phone I have and the camera is pretty impressive. I use the HD Camera Pro app and 95% of the time it is all the camera I need and more.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I think you’re thinking of the Note3, I have that as well. This is the camera with 21x zoom.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: I have the Note II. Not seen a reason to upgrade because I flat out love the phone. Does everything I need and a lot more. Having been on a computer since my dad and I build one in the early 80s, I am always drawn to the newest shiny thing. But found, through painful experience, that if you have something that works the way you want it is often better to stick with it then upgrade just to upgrade.
My newest toy/gadget is the Galaxy Tab. I have fallen in love with the darn thing. How much more it does then my first tablet, the Google Nexus, is mind blogging.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I got the Note 3 after using a Droid Charge for about 2 years. I really do like the Note series; I’ve also got a Note 8(I really think 8″ is the sweet spot). About 2 years ago I got the Tab 2 7.0.
raven
God what a terrible end, I hadn’t seen it years and I knew it was bad but not THAT bad!
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: I was that annoying Apple fan boy from 1987 until about 2007. When I started to work for a virtual software company and they sent me a PC (I had always had one at work). When I saw how easy it was to open one up and upgrade this or that, then factor in the price difference, I did the reverse switch.
I say this because I feel about Samsung the way I used to feel about Apple. My phone, tablet, and Chromebook are all Samsung and I couldn’t be happier. It would be hard for me to imagine buying a phone or tablet that isn’t a Samsung. Heck my Chromebook’s monitor went out a few weeks ago. Still under warranty. I’ve had some horror stories with computer firms. Samsung made the process almost, almost enjoyable.
Big kudos to them!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: I’ve never owned an Apple product. I don’t have any animosity towards them, they’re just too little bang for the buck, IMO. I’ve been using PC’s since graduate school when I got a IBM PC(16K and cassette port). Right now my primary PC is a i7 based HP running Win8.1. I’m typing this on Chrome running in a Kubuntu Virtual Machine. OT, I just noticed that teh Google has added Pron Valley(San Fernando Valley) to is 3D availability. I can see at least one of the window boxes on my front windows.
Baud
@raven:
What are you referring to?
Baud
@Tommy:
I’m looking at the Note 4 right now. Nice device. Just trying to decide if I want something that big.
raven
@Baud: “Hells Angels on Wheels is on TCM right now! Lousy script but it’s cool to see Nicholson and Sonny Barger.”
From above.
I’ve moved on to This Old House and Today’s Homeowner!
It’s 35 out and the bride has 6 huge boxes of bulbs we have to take over to the White Tiger and bag up. Then the garden club peeps will come by at their leisure and pick up their order.
Baud
@raven:
Ah. I didn’t read through. I’ve never seen that movie.
raven
@Baud: It’s awful, I have a VHS of it but it’s pretty grainy. The version on TCM is good but it can’t make it a better movie. They did use lots of real Angels from the Bay Area. This was after Hunter Thompson’s book and the Angels were celebrities.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Shall preface this by saying that in no way whatsoever am attempting to chastise, demean or mock, but am genuinely curious as it would seem that our viewpoints on this might differ so much.
And this is a good thing why? As someone who values, nay treasures and covets privacy, I really don’t like having my house and/or its surrounding property available for view to anyone on the planet absent my explicit permission to publicly post such.
(Have never looked for this or any other address, but luckily the structure here is pretty distant from the street.)
raven
raven
@NotMax: Fackin Hermit!
Baud
@raven:
Not having lived through the time, I never quite understood the fascination with the Hell’s Angels.
NotMax
@raven
Compliments will get you everywhere.
;)
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: The privacy ship sailed several years ago. Detailed satellite views of the US have been available on-line for a good number of years via a number of different providers. My comment referred to 3-d view which is not all that different than an angled ariel view which as also been available on-line for several years.
raven
@Baud: Yea, I got my first bike 50 years ago Monday. In those days it didn’t matter what you rode, bike people gave each other a little wave. It was only a Honda 150 Dream but I rode that thing all over Northern Illinois and up to Wisconsin. The Angles had an aura back then and when I got out of the Army the outlaw thing was attractive. Of course they were really nasty fuckers and Altamont showed that clearly. I have owned a bike for 20 years but even renting a Harley for a weekend a couple of years back was great.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I always figured the man was looking at me through the TV! I’m so legal now I no longer care!
Baud
@raven:
I had a bike for about a year. It was wonderful. I think giving it up is one of my biggest regrets.
NotMax
@raven
Long ago figured (from a hypothetical, not a tinfoil hat perspective) that whomever might be assigned to monitor me would discover a perfect non-pharmaceutical sleep aid.
raven
@Baud: Being alive is a bonus. There was a dude here that bought a Harley. He’d never been on one and he took it to a high school parking lot and died when he lost it on his first ride. I sold my last one abut 20 years ago. The first day of school at UGA was enough for me. It wasn’t me, it was the idiots. Gotta be happy with my 66 Chev now.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven:
I take it that was before your sobriety. [/snark]
sharl
FYI Raven, listening to Bob Edwards Weekend, featuring interviews with some Vietnam War Marine medics – apparently they had a reunion not too long ago. Grim and sad stuff (mostly), but very worthwhile history. Clearly still a lot of rough memories for those guys.
raven
@sharl: Navy Corpsman, not a great mos. I went to a funeral at Arlington when the brother of a friend of mine died. He was a medic with the 25th ID and there were about 8 guys there that he saved. He drank himself to death because he never got over the ones he didn’t save.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: There it is. It was also a way of not giving a fuck.
Baud
@raven:
True. But the siren song of FREEDUMB shouldn’t be underestimated.
WereBear
Which the Republicans wouldn’t have gotten us into until too late. Truly, some people will not learn.
Mustang Bobby
Today marks the eleventh anniversary of my little blog Bark Bark Woof Woof. I’m kind of impressed with myself that I have kept it going this long; I was happy when I lasted six months.
And it if it hadn’t been for it I would have never stumbled on to this nice community of people, too. Thanks. I’d offer cake but we ate it all at the tenth anniversary party last year.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
That’s why I got rid of mine, I was too stupid to own a bike.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m wrung out too. It’s not the loss. It’s the rising tide of meanness and hatred and anger.
I’ve certainly been on the losing side of political battles before. I remember when Engler was elected governor in Michigan. My kid was just becoming politically aware and he was so dismayed. I remember telling him that what we had to do now was hope we were wrong and the Rs were right in what they wanted to do because that would be better for everyone. I don’t see much of that attitude from either side or from myself now.
Elmo
My wife’s first gig was ambulance driver. Her first fatality was a bike wreck. She made me swear a blood oath on the honor of my ancestors that I will never, ever, ride a motorcycle.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: I had a Yamaha something-something the first time I was in college; too broke to afford a car, but in Florida you could use a bike as transport year round.
Once was on a highway at night when the wind was blowing me into the other lane because the rain was coming down hard enough for me to hydroplane. I kept wrestling it into the proper lane but I knew if a semi was coming at the wrong time I’d have to let it blow me into the ditch — many Florida highways don’t have shoulders, just road or gator pit.
But what really changed things was me driving across a maze of old railroad tracks. Wasn’t going that fast, but my front wheel didn’t hit the track at exactly 45 degrees, and it flipped me. Had a helmet, had some scars that have faded now. But I never rode it again.
Just too dangerous.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: There’s a reason for that. At this point we’ve seen enough of what the Rs really want we know what is in store for us.
Elmo
@Iowa Old Lady:
Hell, it’s my OWN hatred and anger I’m getting tired of. Just this morning my eldest brother posted on FB about how maybe now, if the Republicans are “bold enough,” PBO will be tried and executed for treason.
He’s my brother, and right now I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. Never thought I would understand Kentucky families split by the Civil War, enough to shoot at each other. But I do now.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
You’re not alone. I don’t think it’s losing so much as not knowing where to go from here.
skerry
@Elmo: This summer, I was the first on a scene of a fatal motorcycle accident. The bike had just passed me and started up an exit ramp. I didn’t see the actual collision due to a curve in the road. By the time I got there 30 seconds later, the bike was in 2 pieces and the driver was dead. He had hit the guardrail. It was awful.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: The repubs are good at messaging. It took them years, but they convinced the public that photo id was necessary to insure democracy. It took them a shorter amount of time to convince the public that political correctness was harmful to democracy. Early on, I told a friend that what will happen is ridding the country of common decency.
@Elmo: This proves my point.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: I had a Honda 350. I lived on Arsenal St which at the time had about a 1 mile stretch with Tower Grove Park on one side and no stops. One night about 2:30-3 am I pulled out onto it and the next thing I knew I was doing 95. Didn’t mean to, wasn’t even aware of it, just happened to look down at the speedometer and there it was. Sold it that winter.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
What camera app(s) do you use? My Moto X has a great camera, but the standard app has a few shortcomings, e.g., no “thumbnail” mode (have to scroll through pics individually).
WereBear
@Elmo: If we ever wondered what people felt, watching children getting firehosed and having dogs set on them during the 1960’s, we do, a bit, now.
I see it as a similar “eruption of racism” because another milestone (black President) has been reached. Has they are getting hosed by the Republicans but cannot blame themselves or their party — so It’s our fault, somehow.
That’s the mismatch. Democrats don’t see this as a fight to the death. But it is and they should.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Tommy:
Will check out that app. It looks good.
ThresherK
@Tommy: But I don’t want to, so much. I have real camera geek friends who are reveling in the new riches they can afford easily, like that.
My knowledge of how to use the 90s-era automatic 35mm is pretty limited, and it works for me. My adapting to the Canon AE-1 and how to manage light for “mood shots” also did some nice things.
My wife came into our relationship with a Canon AE1 that she had a bit more experience with than I
She quite enjoyed the autofocus of the Pentax, but it took a lot of coaching to get her to no stop and look at every single displayed result, and just let it fly and snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnap digital for semi-action and candid shots.
I’m quite fine with taking as many and not having to wait and pay to see what happens. I just want to dim the flash a bit with either a setting or something more elegant than taping wax paper over the flash.
(To flip the script: My sister is one of those new-fangled “cell only” sorts, and she still has to remind me that I can call at any time and leave her a voicemail, that she shuts off the ringer or puts to vibrate, and it won’t wake her up. Soooo different from my youth, where the answering maching hadn’t been invented, and no decent person would ignore a ringing phone unless they had something to hide, and if the phone rang after, say, 11pm unbidden, that was either very good or very bad news.)
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Elmo:
Does he say what treasonous acts Obama has committed (other than presidentin’ while black)?
ThresherK
@Tommy: I’ll think about that after we finish our move. Never shopped it, didn’t know it’s become so reasonable. Thanks for the recco.
We are spending Thanksgiving with some of our aforementioned camera snobs (I mean that in a good way) and will pick their brains for both setting and software solutions.
Baud
@WereBear:
QFT
Elmo
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Of course not. If I had the stomach to ask, I’m sure it would be the Fox News highlight reel: IRS! Benghazi! Fast and Furious! New Black Panthers! Bergdahl! Muslim Brotherhood! Arg barg blackity black black BLACK!
OzarkHillbilly
@Elmo:
??? I must have fallen asleep.
Raven
@WereBear: I had an RD 350. Death on wheels!
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly:
You didn’t get that outrage memo? Hussein Obama released the Al Qaeda Dream Team of terrorist masterminds in a secret treasonous exchange for Traitor Scum Turncoat Bergdahl as part of his master plan to empty Gitmo and help the Muslim Brotherhood take over the world. Because Valerie Jarrett is Persian.
WereBear
@Raven: Yep, it’s not that they aren’t fun. But if you are going to fly through the air, ya better be as tough as Superman.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier held captive by the Taliban for five years.
What Elmo said, and also this is a perfect example of how the right (and the media) whip up manufactured crises that are the worst thing ever—until the next one comes along. Cf. Ebola disappearing from the headlines to make room for election gloating.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elmo: Oh yeah…. I had forgotten all about the treasonous repatriation of an American POW. Damn, it’s so hard to remember all the ways Obama has betrayed old white America.
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: because he hates the troops!
NotMax
@ThresherK
Photoshop, of course, is the Big Dog. But for basic photo manipulations (things such as sharpening, cropping, resizing, changing file type, adding text, etc.) Irfanview has long been a free, small program that just plain works. There’s even a small library of filter plug-ins for it.
Cervantes
@ThresherK:
@Mustang Bobby:
Sticking with it regardless of this and that — nicely done, you two.
Renie
@Tommy: My fear is that nothing will get done again and the Republicans will blame it all on the Democrats and the President! People will fall for this b.s. as they do in the past. We have too many uninformed people in this country who vote.