I’m hanging out with some old friends and eating gorgeous little nibbly things like this: 
As you can see, one dollop of crème fraîche and caviar slid off its sautéed sea scallop. That may be the most first world problem ever.
What are you up to?
Reader Interactions
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redshirt
Are those alien embryos?
Benw
Bringing the old man hound home from the vet after he’s had 2 days of IV antibiotics for a bad infection of unknown origin. Woot!
jl
I see beans and scallops again. BC on a bean kick lately?
Scallops look delicious.
NotMax
(Non-WoW players just scroll on by.)
Scored a pair of level 710 boots for my resto shaman.
Howard Beale IV
Looks like the Rage Furby’s hijacked account was shut down by Twitter. Thank the FSM and his noodly appendages for minor miracles.
gogol's wife
Looks great. We’re going to a party tomorrow that will have fabulous Middle Eastern mezes.
I just finished a book. I also just finished getting my office ready for a move this coming Wednesday. It’s not voluntary, but I’m trying to make the best of it.
trollhattan
“Damnit, I shall seek recompense for this crème-fraîche-and-caviar outrage!”
Would love to thunder that, someday.
Also, too, you think you’ve got problems….
BGinCHI
This thread is off to a strange start.
JPL
Betty, Now you have to chime in and let us know what’s on the avocado/bean dish. It appears to be balsamic vinegar but I might be wrong.
KG
@BGinCHI: just this thread?
jl
@trollhattan: Would be an interesting and not worthwhile experiment to send that plate back to the kitchen and see what it looks like when it gets back. Or maybe you wouldn’t see the real difference?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Now I crave some kind of white beans in vinaigrette… can’find those big ones in my local food mart, gigantes?
BGinCHI
I’m always amazed that the anti-gay examples are so often florists.
wonkette.com/591375/jeb-bush-says-gays-can-have-flowers-but-not-gay-flowers
Are there that many straight florists?
Pro tip: if you are considering living in a place where the flower sellers are not gay and also mean, get the fuck out of there!
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: I hate it when that happens.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
I might be missing out, but who is “Rage Furby”, and whose account did he hijack?
Mandalay
Some cheery news for the weekend:
This guy really was a nasty asshole. A bully, a crook, and a complete hypocrite. Just a vile human being.
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: See here.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: You guessed if — balsamic vinegar. Never had those giant beans before, but they’re good!
Mike E
@redshirt: Nuke’em from orbit, just to be sure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI: I’d link to the old Belushi skit, but NBC is a ass with videos and I can’t find it.
BGinCHI
@Betty Cracker: I can hear you later this evening: “It wasn’t me, it was the giant beans!”
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Do you have the SNL app?
Iowa Old Lady
I am effing sick of old men knocking themselves out to get rid of health care options for women. I know women can be jerks too, but I swear to you that if Congress were half female, this would not be happening.
srv
I haven’t had caviar in weeks.
Sometimes the diet just gets so lowbrow in summer.
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: I’d vote for you as many times as they’d let me.
NotMax
(With apologies to Bill Mumy, who in person is quite a pleasant fellow BTW.)
Fish eggs, fish eggs
Roly-poly fish eggs
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI: i have distinct memories of a John Belushi fake-commercial skit from 1976. I am always a little surprised to hear what specific things you young people have your “apps” for. In my day, “apps” meant potato skins (Do they still make those mini-strokes on a plate?). Now it’s fancy fish eggs and those weird green Mexican pears!
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You can search any SNL skit with it.
Do you have electricity?
redshirt
@Mike E: I’m not sure which one is the alien egg, so nuking from orbit is A1 prime choice.
kindness
@Mandalay:
Oh, so he was a regular Republican then, eh?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI: Consarned fools bringing lightning in to their own homes? I’ve heard of it.
Elmo
Trying to take a nap while ostensibly “working from home” and my wife insists on using power tools. #mostfirstworldproblemever
Ruckus
My FB feed has finally ended up being the modern version of a newspaper comment section. It had in the past sashayed in that general direction occasionally but now that President Obama has thrown away his rose colored glasses it has descended into the 5th level of bullshit. Some of my friends have picked up the gauntlet but the level of hate and stupidity and racism may be stronger than they are capable of fending off. And they are the smart ones. I may have to entirely forgo the disgusting waste of time that is FB.
Now that’s a first world problem.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ruckus: I use FB mostly to keep track of my former grad students and colleagues. Almost no one posts political stuff, and I don’t either. If someone gets too obnoxious, I just unfriend them.
kindness
@Ruckus: Learn how to unfollow people on FB. In the upper right hand corner of an offending post there is an arrow. Click on that arrow and drop down the menu. Hit un-follow. It allows one to ignore assholes without telling them you think they suck and without having to un-friend them.
I have done this bunches lately and am much happier.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
He was misbehaving even by Republican standards.
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: IOL, if you are really Marilynne Robinson, now would be the time to say so.
Roger Moore
BTW, who decided we need World Emoji Day?
Lavocat
Damn! Looks like fava beans on avocados with a vinaigrette drizzle together with caviar on sour cream on sea scallops with a sprinkling of chives.
Holy shit, I’m hungry!
And here I am eating pizza on a Friday evening.
You suck.
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady: @kindness:
Thanks.
I know how to pull the plug on assholes and I have no fear of doing so. That’s one reason it has mostly stayed semi-sane. I also don’t friend anyone I don’t know or are friends of friends and I can see that we are in general agreement. But mostly this comes from good friends who either aren’t as picky or are commenting on some assholes post. I wanted to use FB as a way to connect to friends around the country and the world and for that it works OK. I’ve connected up with a bunch of my HS friends, which is nice now that we are coming up on my 50th reunion. But not all of them. There are some serious wingnuts out of approx 500 graduates.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
:-P
BGinCHI
I’m having one of these when I get home:
mkebrewing.com/beer/o-gii/
But only one as I have to get up at dawn and ride 70 miles. Finally hot here, with a vengeance.
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady:
Had one rather well off friend who I knew thorough a job I had and we share a common hobby. The other day he got pissed at someone who put some political talk in a comment. He went on to claim that GWB was the greatest president ever and a personal friend and that if we didn’t like his politics we should unfriend him. Easiest decision I ever made. Took two seconds, gone.
Iowa Old Lady
@BGinCHI: If only.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ruckus:
Lordy, lordy. The delusional fool must have a very tiny circle of friends left.
sparrow
omg, are those γιγαντες I see????
sparrow
@BGinCHI: This is true. My SO makes the gigandes beans mainly for one reason…
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m still voting for you.
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: How are things in Greece?
boatboy_srq
@BC@Top: YUM. Is that at home/friend’s, Columbia or Fly?
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: The day I graduated high school was the last day I had any contact with anyone from there. The thought of “reconnecting,” even accidentally, with any classmate fills me with dread.
Cervantes
@BGinCHI:
What makes you think they are straight?
Plantsmantx
Avocado and butter beans. Yum?
BGinCHI
@Cervantes: The vitriol, hate, and homophobia suggests to me that they are not at all fabulous.
boatboy_srq
@BGinCHI: There are as many straight florists as there are gay plumbers. Occupation is not sexuality. Go figure.
Mike in NC
@Mandalay: They should tack on a couple more months for giving his restaurant such a stupid name.
boatboy_srq
@Mike in NC: Years, Mike, years. Months still leaves it at less than 12. Still: YAY!!!
Cervantes
@BGinCHI:
There have been more than a few (not openly) gay people who have treated other gay people like dirt.
Just think of it as a possibility.
donnah
I cleaned under the kitchen sink and two bathrooms today, so I think I should receive some sort of award.
Supper was easy and yummy, a bowl of cheese tortellini covered with tomato marinara loaded with garlic, onion, and topped with mozzarella. I thought that was pretty simple to prepare after scrubbing stuff all afternoon.
And yes, I wore rubber gloves for the cleaning and washed my hands before the cooking. ;-)
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: IIRC more than a few of those were recipients of the treatment AnotherM______ recommended for that guy who Gawker outed.
Mike in NC
@Gin & Tonic: Last time I got contacted by someone I knew from high school, he tried to sell me a life insurance policy.
BGinCHI
@Cervantes: I have no idea why that matters.
Let’s just say that anyone who sells flowers and also judges people based on who they love is into some real cognitive dissonance.
Like a pacifist with a gun store.
Cervantes
@donnah:
Nicely done!
Honest work — there’s almost nothing as satisfying.
Gin & Tonic
@Cervantes: What is, then?
Origuy
Anybody else watching Another Period on Comedy Central? It’s hilarious. Indolent aristocrats in Edwardian Rhode Island. Betty’s creme fraîche malfunction made me think of it. A servant would have been flogged if that had happened.
Cervantes
@BGinCHI:
Not a big deal, but if “that” is the assumption that only straight people pick on gay people, well, it may not be a good assumption. Many incentives are still warped in our society (and elsewhere).
Can’t conclude from someone’s flower commerce that they are hippies or kind people! Maybe it’s just a business, period.
Cognitive dissonance again? Or industrial-grade denial? Sure, I see what you mean.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I actually liked some of the people that I went to HS with. Some of those I still do. Notice that the second group is smaller than the first. Quite a bit smaller. And some of the current I still like them group, I just knew in passing in HS. It’s fun to see which ones turned into assholes and even more fun to see who didn’t.
JPL
Although my name isn’t smith, it’s still a fairly common name. A few years back, someone with the same name as a son was arrested for a naked burglary. (true story) Anyway someone who had moved from my hometown and now lives in GA saw the name and told her daughter who told a cousin in San Francisco who told my brother who lives in Houston, who called me. I simply said follow the same rumor in reverse, to let them know it’s not true. Nah! Didn’t contact the person cuz like Gin and Tonic, sometimes, it is okay to leave high school friends behind.
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic:
Not for me to say!
And on that reticent note I must depart. The ocean beckons.
Have a great evening — and week-end.
NotMax
FYI, go easy on the kale.
Mandalay
Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in Britain is trying to go even lower than Gawker’s effort yesterday: A video of Her Royal Heilness the Queen giving a Nazi salute!!!
Admittedly she was only seven, but the public have a right to know!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: I saw that, and I wondered if Downton Abbey will go on long enough for one of the Family to get Nazi-curious.
Germy Shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic:
Out of curiosity I peeked at the facebook pages of some folks I went to high school with. There was one really nice guy who was bullied incessantly because the bullies suspected he was gay. I was glad to see he is successful and living on the other side of the country. He seems to have made new friends.
Meanwhile, the bullies are all still in the same hometown and seem to still be friends with each other.
Iowa Old Lady
I assume most of my Detroit HS friends are dead or in jail.
Felonius Monk
@BGinCHI: What? No Chinga Tu Pelo? And you’re so close to the source.
Happy Friday.
BGinCHI
@Felonius Monk: I really should get some of that. Hoping MKE will make some Scott Walker Criminal Idiot Stout soon.
Germy Shoemangler
Mother raccoon teaches her baby to climb
Germy Shoemangler
Monkey teaches human to crush leaves
This one makes me feel tingly; I think it’s the sound of the leaves and the patience of the monkey.
John Revolta
@Mandalay: Pffft. For the Sun, that’s downright tasteful. Normally she’d be topless as well.
Felonius Monk
@BGinCHI: I’d buy a bottle of that, if we could toast Walker being in leg-irons and behind bars.
Elizabelle
Really late to this topic, but I am disgusted and distressed at the outing of a certain media company CFO, by a bunny-burning type male escort. Facilitated by Gawker.
Read it to the end, and kept wondering, why did they run this story? They’ve taken it down, but the damage to the CFO and his family is done.
That’s destroying a life, for page clicks. Editors and accountability.
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady:
Some of mine are. One in for multiple murders (40+yrs don’t think she’ll ever get out), good friend OD/suicide at least a couple gone in Vietnam…….
shell
Betty, are those butter beans.
Light supper tonight. Had a quart of wonton soup, and added a few fresh shrimp afloat.
JPL
@Germy Shoemangler: That was cute.
Elizabelle
For anyone in SoCal/LA area: Tomorrow night is the Wiener Dog races at Las Alamitos Racecourse, benefitting the Seal Beach Animal Care Center.
One of my fave things to do. Wish I could be there. If you’re free, you should go. Cheap tickets and a great evening. $5.00 ticket; free parking. Good beer available.
Here are pics of some of the doxies practicing earlier this week, from the Long Beach Press Telegram. Dachshunds warm up for Wiener Nationals in Los Alamitos on Saturday
Makes me smile. I want a doxy.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ruckus: Our parochial HS had a small graduating class of about 45, and my brother and I were the only ones from that class who went on to college. The more decent other guys wound up as cops. The rest probably really are in jail or dead. We were like a giant cliché.
Pogonip
@Gin & Tonic: Me too. I’d sooner reconnect with the pneumonia I had.
scuffletuffle
@Gin & Tonic: Seconded!
Germy Shoemangler
@JPL: give a man a crushed leaf, he has a zoo souvenir for the day. Teach a man to crush leaves, he can upload a youtube video.
Pogonip
Betty, that picture reminds me of the Klingon-mess-hall scenes on Deep Space 9.
PurpleGirl
Slept off and on all day; now I’m finally feeling awake and wanting to do something but not sure what. Will probably do some cleaning out of paper. It wasn’t too warm today and the humidity was low. Although that is supposed to change tomorrow and increase.
Elizabelle
@Benw: Hope hound pup is on the mend and feeling more sprightly.
PaulW
Blogging, and getting at least one short story finished.
Did I brag already on BJ about one of the anthologies that published a short of mine getting nominated for an ayyyyy-ward?
Another Holocene Human
@Howard Beale IV: Ramen.
PaulW
Also, the Lost Battalion / Golden Horde of Ta-Nehisi Coates abides.
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tell-your-stories/397727/
Another Holocene Human
@BGinCHI: Inorite?
Among the jobs my “weird” artistic uncle had during his find himself phase was florist.
Aaaaaand turns out he’s bisexual.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Snoopy dance!!
Will he be out on bail? Will he get his sentence reduced? I sorely want to see him spend at least 3 months behind bars. Horrible piece of work.
Mack
My FB feed had this story awhile ago…I’m just speechless.
delk
Getting ready to walk out the door and see Wilco tonight at the Pitchfork Music Fest.
Sadly, too damn hot to make me want to go out and see some of the other bands.
glaukopis
Alas, had dental surgery this morning to fix an infection that developed around the end of a dental implant. Just open that up and clean it right out, he said…. Am on vicodin, antibiotics and soft foods. Gazpacho for me tonight.
A friend from the following year’s class who keeps track of HS friends said that 10% had died by the time they were 55. Combination of living in a rural, heavy pesticide zone, poverty and lack of good medical care/insurance, I suspect. And a couple in jail.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Robert Costa embarrasses me when he greases his source by referring to “Mr Trump”
Germy Shoemangler
@Mack: He needs to go. Immediately.
It’s one thing when private assholes talk like that. I’ve come to expect that. But elected officials?
Tree With Water
Speaking of fine dining, my doe and her two fawn are back in my yard chowing down of plums from the tree… and some plants I paid good money for not more than four months ago. Bye bye plants, or hello venison?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeesh, cars on fire on an interstate highway (15) (d;oh!) east of Los Angeles, looks to me like it’s near the town of Hesperia, or Victorville. A boat burning on the trailer, SUVs burning on a car-carrier
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just started streaming MSNBC to see if Costa was still talking about Trump. That’s pretty scary.
shell
On PBS tonight: Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow. I hope no lives are lost.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was playing with the PIP feature on my new monitor and saw the news coverage of that fire. I’ve never seen them do air based water drops on car/truck fires on a freeway before. They said Cajon Pass, so it’s between Victorville and San Berdo.
Germy Shoemangler
@shell:
What a long career! Lansbury was in movies in 1944… a different world. And Jones, I just saw him in Strangelove… 1961?
I admire their talent and longevity.
Mandalay
@Germy Shoemangler:
He sure does. Here’s a link to a gazillion of his racist posts.
He’s not qualified to be a mayor, but he’s definitely qualified to be a Grand Wizard.
Another Holocene Human
@shell: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigandes_plaki
JPL
For those watching the CA highway fire, I might just add, that Al Gore is fat.
Seriously, I hope no one is seriously injured, although I did hear there are burn victims.
shell
For some reason the bluejays have been digging in my rain gutters.Nice of them to help clean them out.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Shit, Spokane. And I was all ready to guess Florida, the Deep South, or Michigan. Also running up California’s inland empire and Illinois. But no! Spoka–the-“e”-is-silent-ne.
Can you maybe understand why Dolezal gave up inside and decided to take a vacation from reality? Not approve, but maybe understand how somebody could maybe think it was a good and viable idea.
The race-baiting on that mayor’s facebook was just some sick crap. No wonder he thought he could get away with going to the monkey and gorilla slurs. Sick sick sick.
Ruckus
@JPL:
Just checked it out and it sounds like they aren’t sure about burn victims. But with that many cars/trucks on fire, pretty hard to believe no injuries.
Elizabelle
Brave new drone world: LA Times:
Elizabelle
Betty Cracker has a fresh thread up. With mermaids at a bar and all.
bemused
@Mandalay:
The dishonorable mayor seems to spend a lot of time and effort offending. One of his posts was seeing a woman searching for a parking spot and he pointing to one. She said that it was a handicapped spot to which he replied, my mistake, indicating the Obama sticker on her car.
Gravenstone
@Tree With Water: Put up hair bags (small sacks of human hair clippings in nylons) on the affected plants. The smell of humans will repel the deer.
marduk
Why, for gods sake, would you ruin the most perfect food ever with cream slop and fish eggs? I want to find your chef and slap him silly.
Tree With Water
@Gravenstone: Far out, thank you. I’ll give it a try.
Zinsky
Did a whale puke on that plate?
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: Very late reply, but, things are stable. People are resigned. Definitely feels like we lost a war but are still waiting for the conquering army to finish the rape and pillage. May sound overly dramatic, but that’s how it feels, whatever the reality. And the reality is that the “deal” is a shitty one, that is designed to fail, and leave us in this same position again in a few months. We will see what happens then.
The part I have nightmares about is the selling of the water rights and coastlines. Those, you don’t get back.
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: Then why not just leave the Eurozone and go on the Drachma? Is staying in the zone worth the sacrifice of sovereignty?