Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Republicans do not trust women.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Bark louder, little dog.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Thorsday Evening Open Thread

Thorsday Evening Open Thread

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Doing my part to keep Thor in Thursday:  FYWP is particularly squirrelly in the back room tonight, which may be discouraging others from posting. Hopefully it’s not eating your wise and beautiful contributions. 

It’s raining as usual. The mister is making a pizza, so I’ve got that going for me. What are you up to?

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Sitting in a hair salon watching my nieces get their hair un-highlighted per the Devil Woman’s demands. Oh, well, at least they got to enjoy it for a week. On Saturday, they fly to Louisville to hang out with more family and then they drive home to Florida with crazy mom.

  3. 3.

    PaulW

    stressing out over my credit card. someone in Miami just tried to order a copy, so the company shut down my existing card and mailing me a new one. in the meantime, I am dreading how that identity thief got my ID and how far they’ve gone with it.

  5. 5.

    jl

    The descent of the GOP presidential primary into low budget C-list reality show continues apace:

    Star Of Bloomberg’s Trump Supporter Vid: Wait, I’m No Trump Supporter!
    TPM
    ‘ But DeBurro, a data analyst, told TPM Thursday in a phone interview that she is actually a supporter of Carson’s and not Trump’s. She added that while all the participants in the focus group had listed Trump among their top three favored Republican presidential candidates, just one person was “100 percent a Trump supporter.” ‘

    talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bloomberg-politics-trump-supporter-dispute

    So, I think more evidence that Trumpmania is endemic to the GOP primary base. They love Trumpism, but can support a wide variety of crazies who are each crazy in their own special way.

  8. 8.

    the Conster

    Shitstain lion killer is being hunted and is in hiding. Fuck you #walterpalmer, you fucking coward.

  9. 9.

    Gravenstone

    @jl:

    DeBurro, a data analyst

    Seems to be a lot of those around (cf. the earlier thread about the Bloomberg article.)

  10. 10.

    Hungry Joe

    What am I up to?

    Stirrin’ my brandy with a nail, boys. Stirrin’ my brandy with a nail (i.e., listening to Tom Waits’ “Get Behind the Mule”).

  12. 12.

    the Conster

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    He’s a classic sociopath, and a serial killer. Entitled asshole is entitled asshole, and those people never understand The Point. Hope he’s found decapitated. If that makes me a bad person, I can live with that.

  14. 14.

    satby

    I’m nursing a killer headache and hiding from the mosquito swarms that engulf me and the dogs every time we go out
    I hate Michigassippi.

  16. 16.

    scav

    @the Conster: Perhaps someone will think to lure him out of his safe space with some bait drug behind a jeep ??? mea culpa, suggestion made for pure narrative and symbolic fitness mea maxima culpa

  17. 17.

    shell

    Finishing up the laundry and looking forward to the tribute to Steve Martin on TCM tonight.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @PaulW: Ouch. I had my card number stolen last winter and it was No Fun even though the fraud filters caught it right away and nothing was charged. Good luck dealing with all the fallout.

  20. 20.

    jl

    @Gravenstone: I think that is the same person. She was publicly and prominently identified as a Trump supporter, but Carson is her top pick for GOP nominee.

    The focus group appears to have been anyone who listed Trump as one of their top three choices, not people who are currently supporting Trump as their top pick. That is, the focus group, and Bloomberg story, was a botch (aka, bollucks).

  22. 22.

    donnah

    Today is my husband’s 57th birthday, so he chose Spaghetti Warehouse for his dinner. It’s been around for many years and he gets a free dinner. So, it was a nice meal, not crowded, and I think it was a nice treat for the old man. haha!

  23. 23.

    Shakezula

    I’m being very grateful for the fact that I have air conditioning. Trying to decide if I want to go get dinner or just go to bed. When it gets this hot I hate to cook in the house.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @scav:

    I’m still not sure how baiting the lion to leave the preserve could possibly be legal. I’m guessing it isn’t, but that the poachers usually aren’t caught.

    Turns out the US has an extradition treaty with Zimbabwe, so if he’s indicted, we have to turn him over for trial. Too bad, so sad.

  27. 27.

    Linda Featheringill

    I overdid it today. But the house is cleaner.

    I signed up to volunteer for Bernie. Not sure how much I can do but I’m rather good at data entry if that would help.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    Hopefully it’s not eating your wise and beautiful contributions.

    It must be eating all the wise and beautiful contributions; it wouldn’t be Balloon-Juice if there were anything but snarky and obnoxious ones.

    @scav:

    Perhaps someone will think to lure him out of his safe space with some bait drug behind a jeep ???

    The police will occasionally do the moral equivalent of this. They put on fake giveaways and call criminals they can’t get into the open telling them they’ve won. A surprising number go for the bait. I guess if they were really smart, they would have gone into the kind of white collar crime that never gets punished.

  30. 30.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @PaulW: We’ve had that happen at least twice. It’s good they caught it right away. Most likely that’s all that happened.

    One time when our card was hacked, someone used it to donate $5K to Harvard.

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    People hate the big banks but I have to say Bank of America has been very good about protecting us from identity theft over the years, and it never cost us a penny when accounts or credit cards got hacked.

    P.S. – Got in the car this afternoon and the thermometer read 108. Oh to live in Maine again.

  38. 38.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    Watching a baseball game. Kazmir just walked Trout.

    At the break I’ll go pick some sweet corn, a cuke or two, and pull up some carrots to go with the leftover bbq ribs.

  40. 40.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Linda Featheringill: When I worked Obama in ’08 we always needed data entry people, and given the state of his campaign machine, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie *really* needed data entry people.

    That is, assuming they’ve been canvassing and phone banking and bought something like VoteBuilder. Otherwise there’s no data to enter.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Did they merge with US Air?

    Even after all these years, whenever I see USAIR, I think of it as the acronym of Unfortunately Still Allegheny In Reality.

    Now ask me about LUFTHANSA….

  43. 43.

    redshirt

    So they’re potentially making a Sandman movie and I so hope they do AND include Odin, Thor and Loki as central to the main plot – as they should be.

  49. 49.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Linda Featheringill: Last photo had grandchild, which was a sweet way to end the series.

    How was the July 29th event? I was hoping I’d hear more about it on the national news. But the MSM seems at this point to be willfully ignoring Bernie…

  50. 50.

    bystander

    We DVRd the Les Blank film festival on TCM the other night. Just watching “Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers”. Pretty great. Makes me want to make the pilgrimage to Gilroy.

    In a just world, we would fund the Les Blanks and the Maysles of this world.

  51. 51.

    Mandalay

    @the Conster:

    Shitstain lion killer is being hunted and is in hiding.

    Apparently shitstain lion killer had hoped he could be a shitstain elephant killer as well….

    The client asked if we would find him an elephant larger than 63 pounds, [the weight of one tusk] which is a very large elephant, but I told him I would not be able to find one so big, so the client left the next day…

    What a sick scumbag.

  52. 52.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Major Major Major Major: Speaking of handsome sons, or actually the opposite, I saw news footage of NY republican Skelos leaving court with his son. Skelos looks like the stereotypical “handsome” older republican, all coifed hair and square jaw, but his son looks like a thuggish rat-faced bastard. No resemblance whatsoever.

    Apparently, Skelos got his son a $70K/year no-show job. Son’s boss called son and asked “why haven’t you been to work?” (I guess he didn’t get the memo) and the son yelled at him and threatened him.
    youtube.com/watch?v=2KaymEiomQg

  54. 54.

    raven

    I sent that cartoon to my old buddy Thor Kjeverud. We’ve been buddies for 40+ years and are just now finding our roots are in Stevangar!

  56. 56.

    the Conster

    @JPL: It’s really not a spoiler kind of show – it’s really quiet and it’s about the development of the characters in relation to each other. The sheriff is really where the action is, with his thoughtful investigation – he really wants to know what happened with Daniel. What I really like about the show is that everyone acts in good faith. The Holdens are a great family.

  57. 57.

    tybee

    and the lion had a collar on it.

    which reminds me of the old joke where the wife wants to go hunting.
    the husband trains her in marksmanship, gun safety, etc.
    and right before the hunt, the husband tells her that sometimes other hunters will get to your kill first and claim it.
    so if she is sure she shot it, don’t back down
    so he puts her in a stand and goes off a few hundred yards to get in his stand.
    dawn breaks and shortly after that, from the direction of her stand, he hears a BANG!
    so he climbs down and walks towards her stand and as he gets closer he hears her voice and an obviously male voice in argument.
    as he gets closer he hears the male voice say “lady, you can keep the deer, just let me get my saddle off of it”.

  58. 58.

    RSA

    Coincidentally (with the Thor mention), I’ve started watching Agents of SHIELD on Netflix. I’m just a few episodes into the first season, and enjoying it.

    Tonight it occurred to me that the production company might have obsessive nerds on staff to read the show’s scripts and make sure there are no conflicts with the movies.

    If so… Cool.

  59. 59.

    gelfling545

    Had dinner with my eldest grandchild at a nice, local (non-chain) Italian restaurant. She has grown into an interesting person to spend time with. Now home to read Cold Comfort Farm, which I had somehow missed over the years. I’ve been on an early 20th century kick for reading lately.

  60. 60.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @tybee: 19th-century fable from Ambrose Bierce:

    The Archer and the Eagle

    An Eagle mortally wounded by an Archer was greatly comforted to
    observe that the arrow was feathered with one of his own quills.

    “I should have felt bad, indeed,” he said, “to think that any other
    eagle had a hand in this.”

  61. 61.

    redshirt

    @RSA: Conventional (and mine) opinion on Agents of SHIELD is it has a weak start and then completely turns around towards the end of the first season, then continues to be awesome in season 2.

    So if things start to drag, stick it out till “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

  63. 63.

    redshirt

    Speaking of “Thor of France”, I’m intrigued lately about the founding of England. As near as I can tell, vikings from France played a really big part.

  64. 64.

    raven

    Rachel is now going to take a fucking half an hour talking to people like they are idiots to explain that the ship is stuck/.

  65. 65.

    lamh36

    Evening peeps.

    Woo…it’s been a LONGGGGGG day at work. Our hospital is moving to a larger facility up the street and the lab and ancillary services moved today. Inpatients move this weekend and clinic facilities move next week.

    So anyway, we had movers moving alot of big stuff and boxes, and then we had a coworker or two moving smaller things in their SUVs or trucks.

    Some people stayed over at the old hospital to work up stuff, and the rest of us were at the new facility unpacking and doing quality control, etc..

    So anyway, we have two coworkers who are examples of 2 pet peeves we probably all have with coworkers. One is easy, she just talks entirely too much. I swear she spends more of her time talking and walking around, then like 2 or so hours before she has to leave, then all of a sudden she’s got all this work and “how can she finish it all before she has to leave”…ugh.. bish…you got 8 hours! If you wasn’t lollygagging round all damn day…ugh.

    Employee number 2 is a piece of work, she basically past retirement, and just does the bare minimum of work and if she can Flex out (i.e. leave 2 hours early) everyday, then she does so. She not gonna ask you if you need help, we had a couple of people resign to work elsewhere, so we ALL had to pick up an extra day or shift (and get time off) she basically told the manager “hell naw” and he just lets her walk all over him…so he reassigned the shift to someone else. She always talking about “oh I’m out of here” or “that’s it…” AND.SHE.NEVER.DOES.ANYTHING. While the rest of us were helping to unpack and set up the lab. She put on her glasses didn’t say “good bye, good night, good riddance”, she just left for the day…ugh.

    Long story short, I.HAVE.BEEN.DROVE.ALL.DAY! My lower back hurt, my feet are killing me and my head is pounding.

    When I finally left, I was like fug this shit

    Shoot, boss man said we could accrue overtime, but after today I’m like…naw mahn, I’ll see ya Saturday.

  69. 69.

    redshirt

    @the Conster: Agreed. But not all viking are the same. The Danish Vikings went south to wreak havoc and found the French nation of all things. The Norwegian Vikings went to Northern Ireland/Scotland and eventually Iceland(and Vinland, briefly), while the Swedish Vikings went and created Russia to their East.

  71. 71.

    redshirt

    @RSA: Shows are often experienced very differently based on watching in real time or later via other media. When you can powerwatch a show, for example, it’s often far better than watching as it aired on TV (I’m looking at you, “Lost”).

  73. 73.

    JustRuss

    Poker night with da boys. Hopefully my pattern of crap hands for 40 minutes then turning red hot will continue. God knows I can’t count on skill.

  74. 74.

    danielx

    Yet another inspection of tomato plants, which have grown by leaps and bounds but, alas, have very few flowers and no fruit to speak of. Due to this being the rainiest summer in these parts in 137 years, evidently….don’t want it to quit raining altogether, but monsoon-type downpours, like the 3-5 inches we got in three hours Sunday evening, are getting old.

    Aside from that, have to eat dinner before the eleven o’clock deadline. Biopsy tomorrow and they’re going to put me out, thanks be to FSM.

  76. 76.

    Another Holocene Human

    @bemused: Crooks love to give flashy donations with other people’s money.

    Not every crook is a penny ante crook who uses stolen #s to buy gas or electronics.

  77. 77.

    RSA

    @redshirt:

    (I’m looking at you, “Lost”)

    Good example, at least from what I’ve heard. I was a Lost regular for the first few seasons, but the life got in the way, and I finished up the last three or four on Netflix. Okay emotional closure in the finale, and I didn’t have years of built-up expectations for plot resolution.

  79. 79.

    Another Holocene Human

    @RSA: I don’t expect much from JJ Abrams. I just hope that he wasn’t lying about being such a big Star Wars fan and gives the franchise the treatment it deserves, in other words, does not do to it what he did to Star Trek.

  83. 83.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @danielx:

    Yet another inspection of tomato plants, which have grown by leaps and bounds but, alas, have very few flowers and no fruit to speak of.

    Sunday morning already? Where does the time go?

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @danielx:

    Aside from that, have to eat dinner before the eleven o’clock deadline. Biopsy tomorrow and they’re going to put me out, thanks be to FSM.

    I hope, and am sure, that all will go well. Will be thinking of you. Report back as soon as you’re able.

  86. 86.

    RSA

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I don’t expect much from JJ Abrams.

    I’m the same way. I used to be excited about his work, but I’ve been disappointed in the end more often than not. Not a good finisher.

  87. 87.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    @Another Holocene Human: Sometimes they buy gift cards, worth hundreds of dollars. That was with my debit number, they didn’t even have a card, jus the number written on a piece of paper, and Southwest sold them a ticket to Vegas, the Walmart and various other stores in Vegas sold them merchandise or gift cards; they tried to buy a car from Enterprise’s used car lot. With a debit card number.

    Southwest was extremely unhelpful with the Vegas police and with us, until the local cops got on their case. This was early September, 2001 around the first.

  89. 89.

    Pappenheimer

    Re: England and Vikings

    A bit of historical “what if” I’ve never seen discussed is William of Normandy landing in England to find Harald Hardraada, King of Norway, in possession of the North and the Crown, after an upset victory at Stamford Bridge; of course, if the Hardraada had sailed a bit later, William would have met a ready and rested English host at Hastings, one which had not force-marched all the way to Yorkshire, defeated the last major Viking host in a savage battle, and rushed back south when news of William’s landing reached them. I don’t think there has been a Harold (or Harald) on the throne of England since 1066.

  91. 91.

    Mike E

    @bystander: Saw Fitzcarraldo in the theater and it was great… Blank’s Burden Of Dreams docu on the making of that Herzog film is as good if not better.

  92. 92.

    scav

    @Pappenheimer: Does Harald Hardraada really count as classic “Viking” (albeit definitely Scandinavian) after there’d already been Cnut as King of England and the whole Anglo-Scandinavian Empire sort of short-lived thing? It somehow seems more kingy line squabbling power-grabs than classic Viking raid and exact the geld behavior. Besides, aren’t many of the Normans just settled down in France Northmen, and they’re not counted as Viking.

  95. 95.

    donnah

    @Punchy:

    I hate United. On one flight to California, they lost my luggage. Two weeks later when I flew to Vermont, or tried to, they cancelled three flights in one day. I had to fly out a day later. And on the way home, my flight was cancelled again, and I had to stay over an extra day.

    They overbook every flight and they suck.

  97. 97.

    Steeplejack

    Just got in from a great dinner with bro’ man, his husband and my long-time friend (from college) who’s in from Las Vegas for a long weekend. We went to Morini in D.C., down on the Anacostia River near the Navy Yards. Excellent food, great company, but I’m glad to be home. A lot of time out and about today.

    Tomorrow: Costco! Friend wants to buy household supplies for one of her daughters, who is moving to town with her boyfriend, who is starting law school in a month. Daughter is a member of WindSync, a leading hipster wind quintet. Check ’em out: “Summertime.”

    Time to have a nightcap, make peace with the neglected housecat and catch up on the threads.

  98. 98.

    Yatsuno

    In Seattle. Sucky hotel Internet is sucky. Trying to order pizza and no one delivers to the hotel. Bah.

  101. 101.

    burnspbesq

    Had a brief but fairly serious thunderstorm here about 45 minutes ago (“Here” being central OC). Third time in the last 30 days. Really strange.

  102. 102.

    shortstop

    Why can’t the moon really be blue, like I imagined it would be when I first heard the expression as a little bitty girl?

  104. 104.

    ruemara

    peaceful day but as usual there’s a buttload of work left over that I’ll try to tackle a bit on the weekend.

    Another job rejection notice for lack of experience (you’d think about 20 years in design would count as experienced, but NOOOOooo). Hell or high water, though. this is my last year in this area. If there isn’t a great job, then I’m out.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Pie Happens (opiejeanne):

    I know. And the font is so deadpan, there’s really no way to tell snark from serious. (I keep saying we need a decent sarcasm font to go with the bold and italic, but does anyone listen?)

  107. 107.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    @SiubhanDuinne: On a now-defunct forum, long long ago, we used to use red to designate sarcasm/satire/joke/snark. It worked really well except for newbies. We had a setup that allowed us to use stealth to post; we didn’t tell newbies about it until we thought they were ok.

  108. 108.

    Pie Happens (opiejeanne)

    @Yatsuno: The east side of the state? That’s a pretty dramatic move.

    My niece and her boyfriend just announced that they’re moving here next month and she said to me it can either be Seattle or Spoke-ane. (I could hear her boyfriend tell her, no, anyplace from Seattle to Spokane).

    I explained to her how to pronounce that funny name, and then advised her that if she’s looking for work she’d probably have more luck in the Seattle area, plus the weather is nicer here.

    I’m pretty happy that she’ll be up here. It means my sister will have to come visit us now. Heh.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    @Steeplejack:

    Wow, well done. And their Bolero is more than good musicians, they put on a pretty good show too, taking turns on the little snare drum, changing instruments and all. If someone drops a drumstick, it could be all over, so there’s that suspense, as well as the Bolero build for the whole piece.

    Which one is yours, Bassoon/Sax, French Horn or Clarinet – did I get that right, the instruments? They were all very good, job well done. Tell’em I said so!

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack

    @J R in WV:

    My friend’s daughter is the French horn with the Sideshow Bob hair.

    ETA: Other instrument is a bassoon, not a sax.

  113. 113.

    Pappenheimer

    @scav:

    Probably too late for a reply, but you’re right – the Normans could be considered mounted, Francophonic Vikings if close one eye and squint hard enough. Harald Hardraada was pretty much the real thing, though – I remember reading about him having a pretty wild youth, including serving in the Varangian guard. Even the earlier Vikings weren’t just raiders, though; they settled if they thought they could get away with it. Not a lot of good farmland up by the Fjords.

  116. 116.

    sukabi

    @jl:Bloomberg is producing propaganda for trump, I think that’s the important take away from this. Someone should ask them (Bloomberg) how much they were paid, how long they’ve been on his payroll, if they’re not being paid, who’s idea was it to volunteer for his campaign. And finally, explain how being a propagandist for a candidate squares with being a journalist for a “respected” news organization.

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