Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

So many bastards, so little time.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bock-Bock-Bock (Open Thread)

Reader Interactions

185Comments

  1. 1.

    Buddy H

    On our way later to our tax preparer. I think I should have waited until next month before making this appointment. We usually don’t receive our tax statements until later. We got our W2s, but not much else.

    So this means I’ll have to go back in a few weeks with whatever late statements we get.

    I can definitely use our refunds this year.

  2. 2.

    the Conster

    Here in White World, we’re waiting for the next round of SUXX0R FROM THE SKY due later today in the form of liquid. After that, it will be the sound of roofs collapsing, then when it all freezes solid on Monday, it will be the sound of ambulances taking all of the slip and falls who didn’t die in their roof collapses to the ERs. Boston you’re (unfortunately) my home.

  3. 3.

    Glidwrith

    Enjoying the release from pain, after the last day of my usual three day long migraines. It isn’t enough to make you writhe in agony, but the constant low level nail through the eyeball gets to you.

  5. 5.

    JMG

    @the Conster: Yeah, although out here in Lexington it looks like snow with a dash of freezing rain on top, meaning the slips and falls will occur at the same time as the roof collapses. Not much I can do about it as I had my gall bladder removed yesterday. This has sure been a swell February!
    PS: My son is coming out from town for the weekend to do our snow removal in return for taking him out to the favorite Chinese restaurant of his childhood, bless him.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    @the Conster: My condolences. I lived there for a few years long ago, and while it seemed freezing-ass cold and dank, dark and gray all winter to this Florida girl, I never saw anything like what y’all are dealing with now. Stay safe and stay warm!

  8. 8.

    indycat32

    Shoveling snow. This wasn’t supposed to happen – I bought snow boots! It’s a well-known fact that preparing for something to happen makes it not happen.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    @Glidwrith: That is certainly a cause for celebration.

    From end of the last thread…

    In other cat-related news, my editor in Estonia reports:

    Great news, the cat articles are very popular among our readers!

    Which tickles me no end. I still don’t have a look at my work on the website; I don’t know the language and it’s one of those mega-sites. I’ve asked for a direct link.

  11. 11.

    Rob

    I’m waiting for the light snowfall to commence. It might double the 4 inches from earlier in the week before turning to rain and washing everything away. This also means that it will be above freezing for once, instead of below 20 degrees, which for my area is cold.

  12. 12.

    Infamous Heel-Filcher

    Many of my homebrewing friends declared today “Pumpkin-Peach Ale Day” in response to that execrable Budweiser ad, and are planning to brew something worth fussing over. Looks like you’re getting in on the fun with a Triplebock.

  13. 13.

    the Conster

    @JMG:

    It’s hard to imagine how anything could be worse than this February without the gall bladder surgery, so, I think you’ve hit the bottom. Nowhere else to go but up!

  16. 16.

    FlyingToaster

    @indycat32: One of our friends in the ‘ville bought a 15 foot long roof rake. He forgot to take his position on the slope of the anthill into account. He can reach about the front third of his roof; the sides and back, well, heh.

    I’d have him come rake the bottom two feet of my roof, but there’s no where for him to park.

  17. 17.

    gogol's wife

    I’m just hoping that the Wednesday snowstorm that has now vanished from the forecast stays vanished. Our snow tonight is supposed to turn to rain tomorrow. I can’t imagine what it’s like in Boston. Everyone here in CT is at each other’s throats.

  18. 18.

    gogol's wife

    @FlyingToaster:

    My husband loves his roof rake (we’re on a flat surface). The cats go crazy when they hear the icicles crashing — they run for the closets!

  19. 19.

    JMG

    You know you’ve got cabin fever when your initial reaction to entering the surgery area of a hospital at 6 a.m. is “hey, new faces!”

  22. 22.

    normal liberal

    That’s a very snazzy flock. The white and tan bird with her back to us and the feather tutu is especially fetching, and the black chickens are elegant with an air of quiet menace.
    My town forbids backyard chickens, despite repeated efforts by our resident locavores to change the ordinance. Someday….

  23. 23.

    ruemara

    Comic-Con tickets! At least, I hope so. I’ll be logging in and waiting for the queue to pop. It can be the longest, worst, LFR ever, so wish me luck. Last year I was on for 3 hours+ and never even got to the ticket purchase window, while people on the twitters kept boasting about how they just got on and then the purchase queue popped real fast.

  24. 24.

    FlyingToaster

    @gogol’s wife: We have icicles for the first time since we put up gutters; the rooftree is bare, but the eaves are holding 6-12″ of ice/snow/what-have-you.

    My husband is convinced that tonight’s fall is going to cause some catastrophe. I’m convinced that we’ll have icicles falling all day tomorrow, and water finally running in the downspouts for the first time in a month. Since the icicles are hanging directly over vegetation, I can’t be arsed to do anything about it. Especially because I’d need a 22′ roof rake to keep from pulling everything onto myself.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    Fowls wouldn’t survive in my back yard. The mutt did not come when called, so I put on my coat to go out and find him. He was towards the back fence tossing a mouse in the air, letting it fall and repeating. I drag him inside and now am working up the courage, to see if it got away. If not, I’ll lift it and put it on the other side of the fence, dead or alive.

  28. 28.

    Elmo

    More snow in the forecast, then ice on top. I’m going to spend the day either in the basement playing Dragon Age or in the kitchen cooking.

  29. 29.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @JMG: When my kid was little and I was working more than full time, he once showed signs of an ear infection and I remember thinking I hoped he got sick in the night rather than the day because then I could take him to the ER and still make it to work.

    Yeah, sometimes these moments tell us something about our lives.

  30. 30.

    Botsplainer

    http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/rand-paul/2015/02/20/rand-paul-favors-increasing-retirement-age/23733743/

    So Rand Paul has a good libertarian plank of raising the retirement age to 70. This will likely poll extremely well among soft duty Cold War military retirees who pulled the ripcord before their 45th birthday, public safety retirees who got theirs starting about age 50, industrial retirees and pensioners (and their widows) who had that option for retirement at age 62 1/2 and a majority of current Medicare recipients.

  31. 31.

    JMG

    There are many things to worry about in this world, but the threat of a Rand Paul presidency isn’t one of ’em.

  32. 32.

    danielx

    Currently reading about the exploits of one of our local boys in blue. This jackhole shot his live-in girlfriend in the face with a blank round and then browbeat her into telling his fellow cops that she was accidentally struck in the face with the corner of a steel bred frame, which gives an idea as to how badly she was hurt. The cop is a third generation police officer with father and grandfather still in uniform, so my major source of amazement is that his bros in blue didn’t come up with a way to arrest her instead of him.
    Would be in keeping with usual local procedures, such as losing/mishandling – accidentally on purpose, like – the blood samples from a cop who plowed into a group of stopped motorcyclists at a stoplight at 70 mph – while drunk. Killed one and maimed two more…the police union only tossed him over the side after he was arrested for DUI again during the appeals process from his first trial. Got to be a local joke that IMPD stood for I Must Patrol Drunk.

    In other news, watching snow come down in a mere pale imitation of the frozen wasteland known as Boston, home to several BJ denizens who have my sympathy*. Leftover brisket vegetable soup later today, following leftover brisket burritos last night (they were excellent). I found that the feline inhabitants of Chez X found leftover brisket to be a delicacy only slightly less desirable than leftover chicken, amazingly enough.

    *Edit – total sincere sympathy – I cannot imagine what you guys are going through. Pictures are bad enough. My only nasty thought is about the absolute rage of the entitled inhabitants of the Hahvahd Square area that the total resources of the city of Boston are not being devoted to easing their paths…

  33. 33.

    Fred

    Mrs. Fred took the littlest dog to dog show and they had a wonderful time. When she got back we took a good walk through the woods dodging patches of ice and slushy snow.
    And tonight we will celebrate her birthday because it is.
    “Ain’t life grand?”

  34. 34.

    JPL

    @danielx: 9/11 changed everything including the fact that the police can do no wrong. Before that, it was known that not officers were pillars of society and it was okay to write novels expressing that.

  35. 35.

    Bobby B.

    @danielx: I used to follow those exploits by hate-reading the Policeone.com blog but recently they closed the comment section to outsiders. I already had a bellyful of racist homicidal sludge and now they’ve “turned off the dashcam”.

  37. 37.

    Howard Beale IV

    Debating whether I should just put the home server out of my misery and just get a small NAS box for backups and slap a 6 TB hard drive in the HTPC. My RAID array drives on the second 5-way SATA splitter just keeps crpaping out and thing spends a solid day rebuilding the arrays. (Yeah, first world problems, but still, annoying as hell.)

    (It’s the Seagate and the Hitachi drives that are giving me fits-my Samsung drives have been rock solid.Go figure.)

  39. 39.

    max

    @the Conster: Here in White World, we’re waiting for the next round of SUXX0R FROM THE SKY due later today in the form of liquid

    We’re having a bit of the old white ourselves, and I’m just not really seeing the point here.

    max
    [‘If I wanted to move to bloody Siberia I’d have put it on the form.’]

  40. 40.

    Botsplainer

    @JMG:

    What remains of local punditry/reportage after the Gannett carnage directed at all who don’t climb aboard the “both sides” train is frequently flogging the “Rand Paul is IN” angle.

    Each of those pathetic hacks perceives himself the next Ron Fournier, sad as that is.

  41. 41.

    ruemara

    @Botsplainer: Will he keep those niggers in their place? Then we’re voting for him! — pretty much every one of those groups when faced with a toxic mess of a republican.

  42. 42.

    Mack

    I really, really want to keep chickens. The problem is, in addition to the raccoon, coyote, bobcat and fox we share this property with…we are hawk central. I can stand in my yard and count at least twenty nests, and they are everywhere…especially when I mow. (I guess I flush small game and they go after it) I would have to build the mother of all coops, and there would be no way to let them roam freely. A friend of mine who lives in a more citified part of this town lost his birds to hawks within a week. Sigh.

  43. 43.

    JMG

    @Botsplainer: It’s the “local guy” angle. The allegedly liberal Globe was still covering Mitt Romney like he was a thing this winter. Newspapers would sell nuclear secrets for “access.”

  44. 44.

    Botsplainer

    @ruemara:

    Will he keep those niggers in their place? Then we’re voting for him! — pretty much every one of those groups when faced with a toxic mess of a republican.

    So you’ve met my mother, then?

  45. 45.

    danielx

    @JPL:
    @Bobby B.:

    If you want to raise your blood pressure, check some of the posts at policestateusa.com or hermes-press.com/police_state.htm. Mind, you’ll likely end up on a list somewhere for just visiting the web sites…

  46. 46.

    chopper

    cleaning up. have to take one of the critters to a classmate’s birthday party later (there’s gonna be spiders and snakes and shit, sounds cool), then a long-ass run.

  47. 47.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Weather sez it might get up to 25 today before dropping again to zero for a while.
    Doglius may get a walk today if it stays dry and he’ll keep his boots on to protect his tired old feet.

    I’m taking a week off work to burn some PTO. I’d rather take it in July when MI is glorious, but the PTO expires soon.
    I’d rather be working. My job has gotten interesting and rewarding over the last year and I’m very grateful to have an occupation that I get up in the morning looking forward to.
    I’ll probably spend most of the week indoors except for some social visits. Winter is a good time to hole up in the basement and build stuff.

  48. 48.

    Bobby B.

    @JMG: Morning Joe, Phil Donohue fired…can we now call MSNBC “allegedly liberal”? It’s like Jack Doneghy from “30 Rock” saying the whole NBC news thing was a tax writeoff for GE and now it’s business as usual with our old friends Exxon and AIG. And that reminds me: Alec Baldwin fired while Scarborough stays.

  49. 49.

    Scout211

    We just lost four of our chickens yesterday morning in a coyote attack. :(

    The darned rooster was supposed to protect the hens or at the very least send out a warning cry. Instead, he flew into a tree to save himself. The little coward didn’t come down for hours.

    These are the perils of free ranging chickens. Sigh.

  50. 50.

    bemused

    @Mack:

    This is why our current cats are indoor only. We live in the country and previous cats did go outdoors. 3 lived to 15, 16, 19. None of previous 5 died from predators or anything outdoor related. Today bald eagles have made a huge comeback, rarely saw one years ago. We see eagles and hawks fly over plus more owls close by. Too risky now.

  51. 51.

    Tenar Darell

    @WereBear: Thanks for suggestion. It really is on my mind enough that I can’t read right before coffee and so I posted on a recipe thread.

    I’ve got an inquiry in to Charles River Alley Cats. Maybe they know about this gray shadow…. My father would physically not be able to keep an eye on a shelter, and there’s lots of other small critters in the area that should not be encouraged. Thus, I really am crossing my fingers they know something.

  52. 52.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Scout211:

    We just lost four of our chickens yesterday morning in a coyote attack. :(

    Sorry about your birdies. That’s grim.
    Last week someone videoed a coyote trotting down our suburban street. There isn’t so much as an acre of park for miles. Just solid houses. We figure it must be denned up at the nearby golf course.
    All small pets are on lockdown just in case.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    Just got in a while ago from a resupply mission. Did the hat trick: grocery—a normal run, but nicely timed before round two of the snowpocalypse starts today; Trader Joe’s for coffee and a few goodies; and Total Wine because in a perfect world I would drink champagne every day but in this one I’ll settle for some Conde de Caralt cava now and then. Also filled up the car with gas in case civilization breaks down and I have to flee the city. I got home just as the snow was starting and scored the Doris Day parking spot right in front of my building. So I’m set for the duration. The housecat’s heating pad is fired up, and we’re settling in for the second half of Chelski-Burnley.

    Probably will make chili later. Oh, sorry, I meant a chili-like stew, because there will be beans in it, haters.

  61. 61.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Roger Moore:

    It could be worse. My area has bears that come down to raid people’s trash cans, break into their garages, and warm up in their hot tubs.

    Yeah, no ursine activity here. We get raccoons, possums and all of the usual urban fauna. A coyote this far from Detroit is an oddity, though I’ve seen two myself. In the city there’s a population of probably several hundred multiplying to occupy the large areas that used to be neighborhoods. And good for them I say.

  63. 63.

    debbie

    @the Conster:

    I lived in Boston back in the early/mid 1970s and there never was the kind of snow there’s been there lately. I do remember freezing winds whipping around me, but I walked everywhere back then and without a heavy coat. I point to this as proof of climate change.

  65. 65.

    Botsplainer

    Crap. Somebody’s cabin fever is manifesting itself in rabid cleaning.

    Somebody else’s cabin fever includes binge-watching on Netflix and random eating, to be followed by sex and drinking.

  66. 66.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    We’re waiting for our new bed to be delivered. Once we determine that it has room for two humans, two dogs, and four cats, I suspect my wife will want to get more animals.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    Man, the snow is really coming down now. Glad I got out and back early. It wasn’t supposed to hit until after noon, but it was starting when I got home about 10:30.

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    Just finished puppy class and today we had a wild card appearance by a Great Pyrenees. Wow but that is a big puppy!

    Still the little pug chased that big dog around while mine hid under my chair. We had a great session with the trainer last night and got some helpful tips. I love my pup but she is definitely more strong willed than my labs were.

    I can’t even talk about the ice/snow that we are expecting soon. My living room window started leaking last night and the ice dam is smaller now but still there causing damage. When I called the insurance broker he said they were getting about 500 calls a day and then we got on the subject of what will happen when this stuff melts–pretty sure we could ride the wave down to Betty’s place. Anyway the insurance companies are dreading spring floods.

  70. 70.

    Scout211

    @Amir Khalid:

    Time will tell.

    The last one “paid the price” because he was too protective of the hens and started attacking us.

    This one is much more respectful of us, but apparently a bit of a coward.

    It is hard to find the right balance in a rooster.

  71. 71.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
    Our complement of animals has been growing in a strange way. As well as the turtle I’ve had since 1987, Doglius the poodle/Maltese and a tank full of rescue goldfish, we’ve acquired Sonny the parrot through inheritance. We’re also housing Houdini, a mouse that we caught in the kitchen after an extensive exercise in trapping and didn’t have the heart to put out in the cold. Luckiest rodent in the county.
    Now there’s Blaze, who came to us as a tiny snail on a head of Brussels sprouts. he’s thriving on a diet of greens in a Mason jar and has grown quite large.
    Clearly we can never take a vacation now. Who would mind this menagerie?

  72. 72.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker:

    Thanks.

    The Mister was already starting to get his order ready for new chicks so we will replenish the flock.

    But once the coyotes find easy prey, they do return.

    We have fence around our five acres, but the coyotes will jump the fence quite easily.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    I need to get up and shower so I can get my hair cut and colored, but Charlotte decided that she needs to be snuggled.

    We had an unfortunate setback in reintroducing the cats because I forgot to close the door to the closet that’s been the center of the territorial dispute and Charlotte and Keaton got into a spat. Back to square one. Sigh.

  77. 77.

    ruemara

    Turns out SDCC did not send me the actual link to purchase tickets at all. Sooo, I had to call a friend all panicked to see if something was up. Luckily, they gave me the url and I got into the waiting room. On the machine I was planning to work on, since this machine refused to let me even get into the log-in.
    …

    I better get tickets.

  79. 79.

    max

    @Steeplejack: Man, the snow is really coming down now. Glad I got out and back early. It wasn’t supposed to hit until after noon, but it was starting when I got home about 10:30.

    It was going at nine over here and now it’s really going. Shoveled out one side of the car and cleaned the windshield, shoveled around to the other side and there was 1/4″ of snow.

    The snow plow came along but this is the fluffy stuff so it just kind of blew it around the street.

    max
    [‘The shitty part is that it’s 20 and I’m sweating.’]

  80. 80.

    VFX Lurker

    @ruemara:

    Turns out SDCC did not send me the actual link to purchase tickets at all. Sooo, I had to call a friend all panicked to see if something was up. Luckily, they gave me the url and I got into the waiting room. On the machine I was planning to work on, since this machine refused to let me even get into the log-in.
    …

    I better get tickets.

    Wishing you luck!!!

    Next month I’ll have the chance to sign up for a professional badge. The one wildcard is whether I’ll be able to buy a guest badge for my friend so she can go with me to Comic-Con. There’s a limited number of guest badges for professionals, and they tend to go quickly.

  81. 81.

    Howard Beale IV

    @jeffreyw: I originally built a WHS 1.1 box (later upgraded to WHS 2011) with 3 RAID 5 arrays (3x1TB Hitachis for system backups, 3×2 TB Samsung for data, 4×3 TB Seagates for Video) with an old Intel Quad Core running the whole shebang. For 4 years it was rock solid, then one of the Hitachi drives failed, and within the last two years 2 of my Seagate drives died. And every now and then the Home Server needs a hard reset because something gets scrambled in one of its services.

    If I do go the Synology/Buffalo route, I should be able to part out my Supermicro 5-bay drive cages on Cragislist/(fl)ebay and get some money back on them at least

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: You’ve had the turtle since 1987? That’s marvelous! And you spared the rodent! And kept the snail! And house assorted fish and four-legged as well as winged creatures! You’re clearly a wonderful person!

  83. 83.

    Mack

    Pretty sure I’m asking a stupid question…but why does this site make you leave to follow links? Seems you would want them to open in a new window, amirite? I have a WP site, and it was a toggle thing to have links open in new window. I’m using Chrome if that matters.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    @ruemara:

    FWIW, all of the cool kids I know say that ComiCon is passé and it’s all about WonderCon now. So, worst case scenario, you can always say you didn’t boher to get ComiCon tickets because everyone knows thats So Over. ;-)

  87. 87.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Betty Cracker:

    Thank you. Barney is a twistneck turtle from South America who came to me 28 years ago as an adult. I estimate that over the years he’s eaten over 8,000 earthworms.
    Nobody knows how long they live, and at age 55 I may never find out. I recently outfitted his water tank with a heating and temperature sensing system that I built.
    Most years we get a mouse in the house. After trapping we incarcerate it in a habitrail and keep it fed and watered in the spare bathroom until the weather breaks. Then it’s off to a park with a hand full of seeds and a wave goodbye. Considering the lifespan of Mus Domesticus, the critter spends the majority of his existence locked up and coddled.

  88. 88.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Betty Cracker: Clearly! And rescue goldfish are in residence to boot. I think we need pictures of everybody, including Blaze.

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: You do understand, I hope, that we (by which I mean I) will be demanding photos until they are provided. Ahem.

  89. 89.

    CaseyL

    A second coyote pack has moved into my North Seattle neighborhood, a couple miles north of me.

    The first pack has been here for years, is very shy and keep to themselves – successfully, as I didn’t even know they were here (and they live in the cemetery not far from my house), until a friend told me about them after I mentioned the newcomers.

    The second pack is not at all shy. Many photos and vids of coyotes strolling down the street. They’ve been raiding neighborhood chicken coops (a neighborhood blog posted a photo of a coyote taking home some chicken takeout). So far no reports of pets being taken, possibly because there are enough rats, squirrels and chickens to feast upon.

    My two indoor-outdoor kitties have been keeping closer to home of late, and coming indoors every night like good little fluff muffins. The other night we heard strange ululations coming from east of us that freaked them both out – but it could have been anything, raccoons fighting, raccoons mating, or a raccoon-coyote fight. Raccoons don’t seem to have a wide verbal repertoire, and sound royally pissed off no matter what they’re saying.

  92. 92.

    Redshift

    @Mack: Following a link in the same window is pretty much standard Web functionality. You can always do ctrl-click or command-click to open it in a new window if you want.

  95. 95.

    Mack

    @CaseyL: Last year, I accidentally came face to face with a raccoon the size of a pit-bull. (You are right about the hissing) Fortunately, he decided to jump straight up, right into the vinyl soffet (sp?) and disappeared. Later, I tried with all my might to move that soffet up…couldn’t move it an inch. He went through it like it was paper. Oh, and a raccoon will eat a chicken through a wire fence…one bit at a time. Fearsome creatures.

  97. 97.

    Mike J

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Do a right click, the select ‘open in new tab/window’.

    Or even easier, hold the control key while you click.

    There are two ways for a site to force links to open links in new tabs. One is to add a target attribute to the links, and is pretty painless all around. The way the WP plugin does it is to wrap all links in javascript, making them impossible to copy and paste without editing, and seriously annoying those of us who have discovered how much less annoying the web is when you are very, very selective about what sites are allowed javascript.

  98. 98.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Mack: If a raccoon doesn’t hiss and run the hell away from you, avoid him-likely he has distemper, and won’t be long for this world.

  99. 99.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Mike J:

    Or even easier, hold the control key while you click.

    If you select the new tab, the focus stays in the same tab while the new tab loads its contents. If you select new window, the focus shifts to the new window.

  100. 100.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    Holy shit. Richard trumpka asked my wife to stay in Georgia for a couple days to lead a workshop. She has a meeting here tomorrow she can’t miss, so they’re asking to fly her back to Atlanta Sunday night for the workshop.

  101. 101.

    Roger Moore

    @Mack:
    Another useful trick is that if your mouse has a middle button- and the scroll wheel on most mice that have one serves as a middle button- you can open a link in a new tab by middle clicking on it. I’ll agree, though, that off-site links should default to opening in a new tab.

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    My Luna is still limping. She’s putting a little bit of weight on her right rear foot, but not using it like normal. I made a vet appointment, but they couldn’t get us in until Tuesday. Sigh. I want her to be OK.

  107. 107.

    Ferd of the Nort

    Getting ready to move back into the cold.

    Week Monday it is off to Arviat. Current temp (USian) -29 and windchill at -63. Apparently a not quite blizzard with around 1/2 mile visibility.

    Dogs might be husky type but they now really like the indoors. Getting them used to this will be a challenge, especially the $12000 dog with a steel knee.

  110. 110.

    Redshift

    @Howard Beale IV: It depends on your browser and how it’s configured whether ctrl-click opens in a new tab or new window. I think most tabbed browsers these days default to opening a new tab in background. Chrome does that for me, and I know I didn’t change the default settings.

  111. 111.

    MattF

    Cold. Snowing. I went out this morning on my usual Saturday-morning bagel run and I was in some pain by the time i got to the bagel bakery. I am extremely ready for warmer weather.

  114. 114.

    catclub

    @JPL: I think if it is not falling from the sky, it is the kind of flooding they do not cover. Although, if it snows and stays on your roof, and then finds it way into your walls, that might be covered. If it melts off the house next door and runs into yours, I bet you would not be covered. That would be ground flooding again – not covered unless you have flood insurance.

    I am not an insurance adjustor – but I was near Katrina ground zero.

  115. 115.

    catclub

    @Suzanne: There are great architectural words that have specific meanings I generally do not know.

    Jamb, soffit, eave, clerestory, lintel…

  117. 117.

    kindness

    Got up late. Went to Gov’t Mule at the Fox Theater last night. Fun stuff. Overcast here in the valley. Wonder how far up the hills I’d have to go to see the sun? Pups would like it. Might be a plan.

  118. 118.

    Suzanne

    @catclub: Jamb is the vertical profile of the side of a door or window, and typically refers to the detail of how the door or window sits in the frame. In stud (or frame) construction, you use two studs to support the jamb.

    Lintel is often confused with header, even by architects. A lintel is the horizontal member that frames an opening or spans space. Think Stonehenge—those horizontal pieces are lintels. Headers are the members that provide end support of cantilevers.

    Eaves are the overhanging parts of a roof that project past the wall and cover but don’t enclose space on the exterior.

    Clerestory windows are high, usually horizontal windows. Typically in a double-height space, if there are windows that let in light but not views, they are clerestory windows.

    I am also partial to “escutcheon” and “intumescent” and “preaction”. Architecture has great words.

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    @catclub: Oh, and soffits are pieces of ceiling that are lower or higher than the main ceiling. They’re a great way of defining space without walls, or can have specific purposes, like supporting upper cabinetry or mounting monitors.

  121. 121.

    Buddy H

    Headline from Salon:

    Terrible news for Hillary Clinton: Bill Kristol thinks she’s going to win
    Former secretary of state is on track to win the presidency, pundit with history of awful predictions predicts

  122. 122.

    JPL

    @Buddy H: Obviously, it’s a call to action. They will do everything in their power to depress voter turnout . In fact, why vote if she’s going to win anyway.

  124. 124.

    Suzanne

    @Mack: Reveals are those little recessed channels in walls or millwork, or those spaces created above protruding soffits. Often with lights inside.

  129. 129.

    Winnie Frolik

    Ok, I don’t know if Balloon Juice does this kind of thing or not but I’m part of Avon 39 in Washington D.C. On May2-3, I will be walking 39.3 miles to raise money for breast cancer research, and I’m trying to raise donations. If anyone wants to contribute it’s a great cause. For that matter if any of you want to do it yourselves or join a team you should check it out!

    Here’s the link…

    http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR/Walk/WashingtonDC?px=7748528&pg=personal&fr_id=2401

  130. 130.

    MattF

    @Buddy H: Bummer. Kristol was touting a Clinton/Petraeus ticket for a while, which is just so weird that it gives new meaning to ‘wrong’.

  131. 131.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Send em to Betty Cracker or Anne Laurie for posting direct! Since I’m guessing your Juice email is pseudonymous, as long as you send images w/o a link to a hosting site that could identify you, that should work. Says she who knows next to nothing about internet id security but who really, really, really wants to see critter pictures. kthxbai

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    @gogol’s wife:

    In all those old rom-coms with Rock Hudson where Doris Day was a stylish but hard-charging businesswoman, she would always pull her giant car right up in front of the huge Manhattan skyscraper containing her office and find an empty parking space waiting right there. Doris Day parking. I look for it wherever I go. Unsuccessfully, much of the time, alas.

  133. 133.

    raven

    In carpentry, a reveal is a feature resembling a rabbet, but constructed of separate pieces of wood. A reveal may typically be seen at the edge of a door or window, where the face molding is set back, often by a distance from 3/16″ (5 mm) to 1/2″ (12 mm,) to reveal the edge of the casing plank.

    A “tight reveal” is where the distance to the edge of the casing is kept as small as possible, to give a smoother, more consistent look, often thought to be more contemporary. This is often achieved on a cabinet door by notching out the area of the door where the hinge mounts.

  134. 134.

    Phylllis

    @Bex: Thanks for this link. We’re implementing Youth Mental Health First Aid training in the district and the community through a SAMHSA grant. Our first community training is Thursday & I’m going to add this to the resource list for attendees.

  135. 135.

    danielx

    @Suzanne:

    Could be worse – once upon a time the spousal unit kept referring to “faucets” as something I needed to caulk and paint. I was all “caulk maybe, okay, but paint a faucet? what the fuck are you talking about?” She said you know, those horizontal sections under the eaves! I said” oh SOFFITS, why didn’t you say so”…and made a hasty exit to avoid hurled blunt objects.

  138. 138.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Howard Beale IV: I’ve got a Synology DS214 that has treated me well so far. The software is very good (works with PCs and Mac Time Machine) and is regularly updated. It’s my first RAID box – I’ve read and heard so many stories from friends and colleagues over the years about RAID problems (drives dying, arrays dying, controllers dying) that I put it off for a long time (and had multiple separate backups instead).

    The quality of the drives matter a lot when you’re doing RAID with large disks. When a big hard drive was 100 MB, it didn’t matter as much. But now, with multi-TB drives, you’re up against random errors, and much tighter tolerances are needed on the smaller magnetic domains on the platters, and the drives handle them in different ways.

    If you haven’t seen this Intel report on consumer- vs. enterprise-class hard drives (12 page .PDF) , it’s well worth a read.

    I’ve got two WD 4TB Enterprise drives in the DS214, along with a 3rd on the shelf as a replacement spare. So far, so good…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  139. 139.

    Elizabelle

    Enjoying watching the snow come down. Obv, not a Bostonian.

    As Steeplejack mentioned, our NoVA snow arrived earlier than expected, so did not make it out for shrimp and andouille to make Jeffrey W’s suggested dish. But it’s on the menu sometime this week.

    I don’t know if this will be the last gasp of real winter for us or not. Unusual winter.

  141. 141.

    ThresherK

    Just put the make-ahead chocolate souffles in the freezer.

    Finally took the plunge and had my wife buy me two dishers for Xmas: Vollrath #16 (regular cupcakes) and #50 (mini cupcakes).

    Her reward has been more precieq, quicker, and cleaner baking of cupcakes, cookies and souffles. Smart woman.

  142. 142.

    MattF

    @Elizabelle: It’s starting to pile up here in Bethesda. I’m hoping the weather predictions for tomorrow are true so the winter Farmer’s Market will be open and so maybe I can get a pint of mushroom soup.

  143. 143.

    Gin & Tonic

    @catclub: Ice dams on the roof that cause water to back up under the roofing and leak into the house through the walls are covered in the standard homeowners policy. Water entering the house downward from the ground (rising river, blocked storm drain leading to standing water, etc.) is not, unless you have a separate flood insurance policy. If you have one you know you do. Ground water infiltration, i.e. water coming “up” into the basement through the floor or walls is not covered under either policy, as that is not considered flooding.

    Unfortunately I know all about these details.

    But hey, we don’t have earthquakes or wildfires.

  147. 147.

    Suzanne

    It’s fun to think of all these residential architecture words, since I do much bigger buildings.

  150. 150.

    mainmata

    @WereBear: Estonians speak Estonian; a similar language to Finnish and one of the rare Finno-Ugric languages. I worked there in the early-mid 90s. Old Tallinn, the capital, is a very pretty medieval city and the Estonians pretty progressive people. Of course, they hate the Russians.

  153. 153.

    muddy

    And now I find that soffit is related to suffix. And that jamb means leg, and is related to gambol. This is delightful.

  161. 161.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Glidwrith: I can relate. That sucks and is misery inducing.

    I found out I was getting migraines this winter triggered by cold, dry air and rigged up a humidifier. But of course there are lots of triggers.

  162. 162.

    Another Holocene Human

    @the Conster: only in Boston: “Knock it aaahhfff.”

    It’s nice to see bystanders intervening. That would not happen where I’m living now. Everyone is scared and paranoid.

  163. 163.

    MattF

    @Another Holocene Human: Humidifier is a good thing. I’ve suffered from dry skin and dry eyes every winter, finally put two and two together and got a humidifier for my bedroom. Not a panacea, but a definite improvement.

  164. 164.

    Another Holocene Human

    @danielx:

    My only nasty thought is about the absolute rage of the entitled inhabitants of the Hahvahd Square area that the total resources of the city of Boston are not being devoted to easing their paths…

    Why would they? They’ll just get theirs by wasting down Cambridge’s funds. There’s a whole city out there but you’d never know it. They’re the only ones that matter. The real hilarity will be the “local business owners” kvetching in the local Tab rag about snow removal and loss of business, like anybody is going to take on icy bricks at this point. Now that’s comedy.

  166. 166.

    Elizabelle

    @raven: And me thinking it was a delectable little fish.

    We had one of those in our front yard a few years back. It was big. Wish I’d posed a Barbie doll near it to indicate size, because it didn’t look that fearsome in the photos.

  168. 168.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore: Yes, because it’s kind of considered a lowered ceiling. I’ve heard it used more often when the soffit is parallel with the floor/ground rather than matching the slope of the roof, tho.

  169. 169.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @muddy:

    Oh, I know. I’ve spent most of my life yearning for the perfect bag and perfect organizing system. I suspect they don’t exist, but that doesn’t stop me from searching.

  170. 170.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:
    One thing I’ve noticed is that very dry skin makes me much more prone to cuts. My skin loses its elasticity, which means even a touch from something mildly sharp will cut it. Sometimes it will just crack and result in things that look like paper cuts for no obvious reason. That’s my ultimate warning sign that I need to moisturize like crazy.

  173. 173.

    Roger Moore

    @Suzanne:

    I’ve heard it used more often when the soffit is parallel with the floor/ground rather than matching the slope of the roof, tho.

    That’s generally the case with enclosed eaves, isn’t it? At least around here, it seems as if you only see enclosed eaves where the under side is parallel with the ground; if the bottom of the eave follows the slope of the roof, it’s because it’s the underside of the roof.

  177. 177.

    Violet

    @Roger Moore: I’ve had very good luck with affecting my skin from the inside. In the case of dry skin, when I am consuming bone broth, with its inherent collagen and other skin-enhancing nutrients, I find my skin is much less dry and is a lot more supple, even in the middle of winter.

  179. 179.

    FlyingToaster

    @Another Holocene Human:

    The real hilarity will be the “local business owners” kvetching in the local Tab rag about snow removal and loss of business, like anybody is going to take on icy bricks at this point. Now that’s comedy.

    There’s been a heavy push for the “dig out dine out” thang (declining to link), 3/4 of which restaurants I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.

    Also, note that Harvard and MIT both have snow removal budgets that exceed Cambridge’s. You’ll be able to walk around Harvard just fine, as well as Mass Ave where it passes along/through campus. Brattle Street? Not so much. Heh.

  180. 180.

    Violet

    @Shana: A guy I knew always found a spot up front in the parking lot. Always. It was bizarre. Didn’t matter if the parking lot was packed. When he drove up, someone right up front would be leaving. He told me about his luck and I didn’t believe him, but sure enough, every time we’d go somewhere the perfect spot right up front would either be open or open up right as he drove up. Maybe he was Doris Day? No idea how he got such good parking karma. Didn’t extend to other parts of his life, as he had a heart attack before the age of 40 and almost died. Congenital defect in the heart. I couldn’t begrudge him good parking karma.

  181. 181.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore: It’s a regional difference, due to climate and style.

    @Violet: I take flaxseed oil every day, and my skin has gotten so much more moisturized, it is ridiculous. I go through oil-blotting sheets like crazy, but rarely break out anymore. My dermatologist advised it and she was right. I’ve also been making my own sugar scrubs with olive oil plus essential oils or extracts for fragrance. To clear pores, homemade mud mask of bentonite clay plus cocoa powder.

  182. 182.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I am not permitted to buy any more bags right now, but that is really cool. I also have a weakness for internal organization. I sometimes want to call up manufacturers and say, “Cell phones have been ubiquitous for over 10 years now — how hard is to put a friggin’ phone pocket in your bag?”

  183. 183.

    Howard Beale IV

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I was actually looking at the new Hitachi He3 (Helium sealed) drives – but they’re still just a tad too pricey right now. What’s making matters worse is that manufacturers like Western Digital has got so many different lines of drives it’s hard to tell just what the hell they’re doing in them. It’s now to the point that I’m looking at the drive warranties to make my purchase decision-problem is that most of he drives are now 3 years with the enterprise classes at 5 years. And using RAID arrays just muddies the waters further-when you start to revivie the array you can pull the data off during the rebuild process.

  184. 184.

    Ruckus

    @MattF:
    I use an aloe gel that I got a wholepaycheck and it works way better than Lubriderm, which used to be my go to product. Working with machines and grease and dirt and steel and aluminum, etc, etc and having to wash the hands several times a day is tough on skin. Ivory hand soap keeps them from getting as dried up and gets them clean as well.

Comments are closed.