Email from ever-popular commentor Yatsuno / Yutsano:
So the Big Chop has happened. Things went very well and I was moved over to the rehab facility the 29th of May. This now means that most of my evenings will be pretty boring! I am completely open to some local BJers popping over after 5ish about any day. I don’t have a release date yet but that’s in in the future!
I have an email (and a room address). Leave a comment if you’re interested, or email me (click on my name in the right-hand column, or annelaurie at verizon dot net) and I’ll forward your message to Josh.
Baud
Big Chop? I didn’t vasectomies required such an lengthy convalescence.
Valdivia
glad to hear you are ok and recovering. wish I were out west to be able to visit you. sends hugs and love from swampy dc.
Poopyman
@Baud: Ummmm. I’m thinking it might be a bit more … drastic than a snip.
Ow?
Baud
@Poopyman: Hmm. I thought I kept up with most of the goings-on around here, but this is news to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Poopyman: @Baud: Hip replacement.
@AL: Are we using real names now?
NotMax
@Baud
Ditto. No idea as to what it refers.
And no sooner post below than a fresh open thread appears, so repeating.
Summarizing a piece in The American Conservative:
Lindsey Graham is a fibber.
The Dangerman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Whew!
I’ve seen far, FAR too many Bruce Jenner (the former) stories today.
ETA: …actually, any number of stories greater than zero would be too many. I couldn’t give less of a shit if he wants to be a she but it’s not a news story. Ditto with Kimmy being preggers.
Brachiator
Glad to hear that the Big Chop went well. Here’s wishing for a speedy and healthful recovery.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Dangerman: Facebook has its uses.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
So now one of his hips is female???
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: So sayeth the Supreme Court today!
Brachiator
Whenever I read someone complain about the mainstream media, I wonder whether the person clearly understands the sea change brought on by the Internet, where the algorithm rules. According to a new study, those born between 1981 and 1996 get a majority of their news from Facebook. They also claim that they often see opinions that differ from their own. The study involves a lot of self reporting, but still is informative. Highlights:
Millennials and Baby Boomers: A Generational Divide in Sources Relied on for Political News When it comes to where younger Americans get news about politics and government, social media look to be the local TV of the Millennial generation. About six-in-ten online Millennials (61%) report getting political news on Facebook in a given week, a much larger percentage than turn to any other news source, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. This stands in stark contrast to internet-using Baby Boomers, for whom local TV tops the list of sources for political news at nearly the same reach (60%).
The Generations DefinedAt the same time, Millennials’ relatively low reliance on local TV for political news (37% see news there in a given week) almost mirrors Baby Boomers’ comparatively low reliance on Facebook (39%).
Gen Xers, who bridge the age gap between Millennials (ages 18-33 at the time of the 2014 survey) and Baby Boomers (ages 50-68), also bridge the gap between these news sources. Roughly half (51%) of online Gen Xers get political and government news on Facebook in a given week and about half (46%) do so on local TV.
NotMax
            The Big Hurt
Mike in NC
Never been to Seattle. We’re thinking about a Pacific NW trip in late July or early August which would take in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver in about 5-7 days. Looking for an affordable travel agency.
NotMax
Dang these old eyes. Bad coding. If someone could delete the crappy code-visible version, pretty please.
The Big Hurt
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: Seattle is nice. Vancouver is wonderful.
Omnes Omnibus
Random observation: “Paul” is a funny movie, and it has Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones on its soundtrack.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
My doll is as dainty as a sparrow,
Her figure is somethin’ to applaud.
Where she’s narrow she’s as narrow an arrow,
And she’s broad where a broad should be broad.
A hundred and one pounds of fun,
That’s my little honey bun!
Get a load of honey bun tonight.
I’m speakin’ of my Sweetie Pie,
Only sixty inches high,
Ev’ry inch is packed with dynamite!
Her hair is blond and curly,
Her curls are hurly-burly.
Her lips are pips!
I call her hips ‘Twirly’ and ‘Whirly.’
She’s my baby, I’m her pap!
I’m her booby, she’s my trap!
I am caught and I don’t wanna run,
‘Cause I’m havin’ so much fun with honey bun!
I am caught and I don’t wanna run,
‘Cause I’m havin’ so much fun with honey bun!
Believe me sonny!
She a cookie who can cook you ’till you’re done,
Ain’t bein’ funny!
Sonny, put your money on my honey bun!
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: Vancouver is where you go to visit. Seattle is where you go to work. Portland is where you go to retire (at age 25).
At least that was my experience when I lived in the PNW.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus: I absolutely loved Vancouver the one time I was there. Some cities you just fall for quickly.
@Goblue72: who retires at 25?
JGabriel
Best wishes for a speedy and successful recovery, Yutsy.
mdblanche
How do you say “there’s that number again” in the original German?
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia:
And it’s close to Whistler/Blackcomb
Mike J
A mini meet would be good. I’m racing tomorrow night, but free after that.
Valdivia
@mdblanche: Mein Kampf?
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Mike in NC: someone was telling me the train between Seattle and Vancouver is a great way to make the trip. I hope to do it someday but haven’t looked into it yet, so I don’t know any details
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus: big big grin. I haven’t forgotten. I asked a good friend who goes to Park City every year, she couldn’t believe I was finally interested enough to ask her.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: I took boats from Seattle to Victoria and then Vancouver. I took the train on the way back from Vancouver to Seattle – highly recommended.
@mdblanche: Rural Austria can be quite appalling. Although the skiing is good.
FlyingToaster
@mdblanche: Siebenundzwanzig noch einmal, Herr Kommissar?
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: At its best, skiing is like dancing with the mountain. It doesn’t happen every time on every slope, but when it does it is magical and it makes all the falls and cold feet worthwhile.
srv
@Brachiator: Facebook needed a Colbert Channel
Jane2
Yutsano, It only gets better from here! Last weekend, I got to see my sister-in-law walk without pain for the first time in ten or more years…bent her knees and everything. Here’s to lots of BJ visits and progress.
srv
Billions left unserved in Seattle & Bay Area by Comcast tonight.
Is the NSA holding Yatsuno hostage? Have his intertubes been cut also?
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus: I am sold on that dance, and keen to try, let’s see if it happens.
good night people of Balloon Juice.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
What about those of us who don’t watch local news but also aren’t on Facebook? Are we really such a minuscule percentage of the population, or is “Facebook” being used as a catch-all for “internet”?
Also, newspapers probably wouldn’t be in as much trouble if they could figure out their fucking basic function of delivering a newspaper when people pay for it. The LA Times has charged my boss’s credit card three times and yet claims she doesn’t have an account. WTF?
NotMax
@srv
Billions?
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Facebook a news source? (Let’s not even get into whether it is reliable.)
Gilbert & Sullivan were right. Skim milk masquerades as cream.
Brachiator
@Valdivia: Who retires at 25? Do you know the movie “Holiday?” Cary Grant’s character has made a small pile and wants to travel and be free before settling down. His fiancee and prospective father in law wants him to join the family business and become a pillar of society. Katherine Hepburn, the fiancee’s sister, comes along and helps save him.
I knew a woman who was one of the early Google employees. She cashed in a substantial pile and has been traveling and figuring out what she wants to do next. Granted, she is a little older than 25, and had even had a career as a rocket scientist at JPL before joining Google. Still, if she is frugal, or maybe even not so frugal, she will be able to have a very lengthy holiday herself if she chooses.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Valdivia:
Pron stars.
mdblanche
@Valdivia: Nein danke.
@FlyingToaster: Sounds better in the original.
shortstop
Best wishes to Yat for a smooth recovery!
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Win.
Yatsuno
@Mike in NC:
Enough time to do 2 but not all three. They all have way too much stuff to see and explore that each city needs least a week. On their own.
The hospital is more than amenable to both visitors and bringing in foodstuffs. There are even DVD players available although i haven’t checked the logistics of that yet. The good news is I’m not hooked up to anything that can’t be taken off temporarily, so i COULD possibly go on an evening voyage. That can be discussed more.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: No, when asked, Facebook was specifically mentioned as the place people go for news. But note here that the source of the stories is not Facebook, but that Facebook curates the stories. I have found that friends who use Facebook often will not follow the stories to their original links. But these people are not often doing wider internet searches.
Newspapers are dying for a lot of reasons. I used to work for the LA Times, and still know some people there. There was a time when the paper knew that it was essential to get the paper to the customer. I am not surprised to see that home delivery has suffered. And I often see news racks in the morning with no papers or with yesterdays papers still in them. The paper is asking to be put out of its misery.
Also, I have noted that in my office no one under 30 reads the Times. Not even the online version. And only 1 person in the entire office subscribes. Even though there is still some good reporting done, the Times is largely irrelevant to most people.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
My internship at the LA Times inspired me to abandon journalism altogether right before the newspaper business collapsed, so I guess it wasn’t all bad. Also the only workplace where I’ve ever had to pee in a cup to get the job (as an intern), and that was in the mid-90s.
The cafeteria wasn’t bad, at least.
Steeplejack
I had a moderately productive day today. Took the car in for a major maintenance appointment, was ferried home and back by the dealer’s courtesy car. Very convenient. The doughty Kia got maintained and received a clean bill of health—plus I was told I won’t need new tires until the fall at the earliest—so everything’s go for a quick trip to Cape May, New Jersey, at the end of this week.
The last time I had dinner with my playwright friend she was bitching about how she has to be at a conference in Philadelphia at the end of the week but has to nip over to Cape May on Friday night for a performance of her play and some attendant activities, then get back to Philadelphia by 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. Confusing logistical talk about Amtrak, livery cabs, buses, I don’t know what all.
I have been wanting to get out on the road and also have been wanting to see Cape May, so I said, Screw it, I’ll drive to Philadelphia, pick you up and take you to Cape May and back. (It’s about two hours from Philadelphia.) I told her I was taking my car in and that my offer was contingent on no problems being found. So now I need to let her know we’re on, and I need to make a room reservation for myself for Friday night. She gave me the names of a couple of places, but anybody here an expert on Cape May? Also, restaurants.
east is east
Good for Bruce being himself. Best of luck for Caitlyn. Invecitive doubleplus on the hate sites.
east is east
herself. It’s alright.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Asians can make it to 30.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
I am so thankful that in my 40-year career I never had to take a drug test. I never had anything to fear from one, but I really think it would have been a deal-breaker if some employer had told me I had to have one. I’m thankful it never came up, and I realize that a lot of people these days don’t have the luxury of making the choice. Ugh.
Omnes Omnibus
Since it is an open thread: Ronnie Spector and Joey Ramone singing Johnnie Thunders. It rivals this demo.
piratedan
@NotMax: good choice… always digged that spacy effect coupled with her voice…. does harken to feelings of emotional disconnect
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: The Times, and most newspapers, used to be among the hardest drinking and hardest drugging occupations in the world. The extension for the Redwood Room, a bar up the street, was listed in the Times Company phone book. Pressmen and others would go to the Code 7 and drink with the cops. Some reporters, editors and admen would keep their booze in a drawer. Easier to get to.
The 10th floor cafeteria was great. You used to be able to go up to the roof. Once when they sent someone up to do some cleaning, they found an inches thick carpet of marijuana cigarettes and remnants of other drugs. I think formal drug testing came later.
I loved the Times when it was fun to work there. The Lou Grant tv show got quite a few details right. The Herald Examiner was equally crazy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: We drove by both the Times and Herald Examiner buildings yesterday.
Tree With Water
Has anyone else picked up on a KKK vibe in that new Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial?
The new “colonel” looks as if he’s only grudgingly taken off his klan’s white hood to film it, and its lily white cast of characters, in a lily white setting, all dumbly leering into the camera with a palpable menace, has creeped me out for that reason every time I’ve seen it.
Punchy
“Seattle mini-meetup” sounds like a gathering of grungy chicks in short skirts. And I’m OK wit dat.
Steeplejack
@Tree With Water:
I don’t get a KKK vibe, but the new colonel definitely creeps me out.
On the other hand, I find the young dude in the McDonald’s sirloin burgers commercial who talks about a “gosh darn shame” oddly appealing. Go figure.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: These stars don’t so much retire as get pushed out by younger bodies. The “best” of them often come back as M[LFs and G[LFs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: One will rely on your expertise.
Tree With Water
@Steeplejack: I wish Budweiser would bring back Louie The Wise Ass Frog as its pitchman. The final line spoken in that series of commercials (a staple of NFL broadcasts) was his frog buddy saying, “Ah, Louie, you’re bucking for a pink slip”. Turned out his buddy was right.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: “Retired” in pron usually means “your parents found out what you were doing”.
Brachiator
By the way, the PEW study on Internet use for news kicks a cohort of seniors to the curb.
And to think that this is a group the GOP is most desperate to reach out to.
Steeplejack
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Dude, srsly? That hasn’t been a factor for like 20 years. They have annual awards shows for porn now.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: Were you doing a driving tour of downtown LA? The Times and the Herald aren’t exactly across the street from each other.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: You’d be surprised how many think they mom and dad won’t find out about their “career”. Admittedly, some do it part time while going to college; so it’s a bit easier to hide.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: The wife has jury duty at the courthouse south of the 10, so we drove the route so she won’t get lost.
mdblanche
@Tree With Water: What really happened to the Budweiser frogs.
lamh36
@Tree With Water: isn’t that Darryl Hammond of SNL fam, playing the colonel
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: Makes sense. The last time I was in that area was for jury duty. They had a farmers market on Thursdays I think on the lawn at city hall.
lamh36
so getting away from the more celeb obsessed aspect of Caitlyn Jenner, I have a good friend who is a Lesbian and who is an LGBT activist. She has been discussing the idea about Transgender identity and adhering to the same “standards of beauty” that cis-woman do.
In other words what she has been saying is, so what if like a number of Transgender woman and men Caitlyn wasn’t “beautiful” or didn’t adhere to the “standards of beauty” that so many cis female try to adhere to….would the reactions be the same?
I suspect not. she was encouraged that Caitlyn found her truth, but she also hoped it would lead to real discussion past just saying “oh she’s beautiful”. My friends supposition was ok, supposed Caitlyn had chosen to do a more “true to life” shoot than the soft lighting and airbrush aspect of so much of Annie Leibowitz fashion photography.
I mean, not all transgender people have the resources of someone like a Caitlyn Jenner or the “glam squad” that is afforded a rich celeb.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: Also, too, isn’t there a Commuter Express bus that goes from Glendale to near the courthouse? It’s been a while since I had to go down to that area, so I might be thinking of another transit line.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: She’s at the muni courthouse on Hill & Washington.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh. South of downtown. I used to go to that building years ago to pay minor traffic tickets or to try to get into traffic school. I don’t know what the commuting options from there might be.
lamh36
oh and note…in her interview with Dianae Sawyer she identified as a Republican and doesn’t consider Obama that good a prez. yet and still, this happened
have we seen/heard any Republican sending support Caitlyn’s way? nope and ya won’t. in fact TPM has a post or two up about the ridiculous reactions on Faux News.
Brachiator
@lamh36: Life is complicated. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there are a number of transgender Republicans. On the other hand, I’m also sure that conservative morons look at the publicity that Jenner is getting as another sign that Hollywood libruls are dragging America closer to Satan.
lamh36
good night BJ
lamh36
@Brachiator: of course there are, but I remember when the Diane sawyer interview came out, even the likes of Rick Santorum had non-“batshit” crazy rhings to say, but today…silence even from the like of the Log Cabin Republicans
Mary G
Congratulations on your successful Chop, Yutsy!
opiejeanne
@srv: We were trying to watch a baseball game on MLBtv when ComCast was down. It appeared to be functioning but we couldn’t get online. Really annoying.
opiejeanne
I hope you heal quickly, Yutsano.
Valdivia
@Brachiator: I remember that movie, of course.
Of course someone with tech money gets to retire at 25 (and good for her!) I was just struck that that was the saying, assuming lots of retired 25 year olds make it to Portland.
@BillinGlendaleCA: best answer, sorry I missed it last night.
@Steeplejack: have a lovely trip to Cape May.
Bystander
Of course Obummer is being nice to “Caitlyn”. He wants to perform surgery on her tax bracket. At least she can trust other repubs to let her keep her capital gains to herself even if they would also like to burn her at the stake in the gated community town square.
As for Caitlin’s “beauty”….well, remember what they say about the eye of the beholder. You might as well remind me of how sexy Ann Coulter is or how beautiful Peggy Noonan was in their day.
Riley's enabler
Sending lots of healing vibes to Yutsy, hope the rehab portion of events goes smoothly. Cheers from Texas!
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Mike in NC:
That’s enough time for ONE of those cities. I could spend 5 days dicking around in the gorge.
Paul in KY
Best wishes on your recovery, Yutsano!