Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Please don’t feed the bears.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

No Justins, No Peace

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Busy Day

Busy Day

by | 173 Comments

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Several things:

1.) Spent pretty much the entire day dealing with eye exams and pricing new glasses. I am finally breaking down and buying bifocals, and in addition I am getting computer glasses and prescription sunglasses for driving. I went to several places after my eye exam, and had several estimates and finally got one that I thought was reasonable for all three. I suppose 500 bucks is not a bad deal, especially since I got all the bells and whistles (anti-glare, polarized for the sunglasses, etc.). I got three reasonably decent frames by some company named fatheadz, so I think I did alright.

2.) Don’t forget, if you are using amazon for the cyber Monday bullshit or just general purpose christmas shopping- click the amazon link to the right.

3.) Heard from Alain and he is still working on tweaking things, so expect some changes here and there.

4.) Made a new recurring donation to Planned Parenthood for 10 bucks a month. Who wants to match me?

5.) You’ve all been reasonably well behaved, so here is a video of Thurston and Rosie wrestling. If I do not pay enough attention to them, they will do this until they fall over or I yell at them and pay attention to them and take them out.

If you look closely, you can check out Thurston’s mad ninja skills when he jumps up onto the couch and then back down for an aerial attack.

Reader Interactions

173Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    I’ll pony up $10 a month to match your Planned Parenthood donation. It’s a good cause, and I’ve also heard that every time a dollar gets donated to Planned Parenthood, a bible-humping wingnut fetus fetishist loses his boner.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    Thanks John, Made me smile! They are playing lion which is kinda cute unless it’s three in the morning. Thurston is becoming quite the looker.

  5. 5.

    Lurking Canadian

    Have you worn polarized glasses before? If not, make sure you do a test drive before you buy them.

    I went into the optician some years ago looking for prescription sunglasses. I wound up with Polarized prescription sunglasses. Can’t wear ’em. The damned things make my stomach sick. Awfully expensive mistake.

  8. 8.

    BruceFromOhio

    Whew, watching the Browns-Ravens is kinda like watching the dogs play – lots of ngngkngkgnkgnhgkngknnggggkkkk and not much else.

    “WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOOOOING???” he screamed at the teevee.

  9. 9.

    RSA

    I suppose 500 bucks is not a bad deal

    That sounds like a good deal! I paid more than that for my single pair of progressive transitionals, similarly for my wife. It turned out to be a reasonable deal for us, though; we’ve each had a pair replaced for free after damage to the frame or the lenses.

  12. 12.

    raven

    @RSA: I stepped on mine at the beach and I’m hoping they can put the rimless lenses back in and straighten the hinges.

  13. 13.

    Pogonip

    Why is it that when you ask a dog a question to which any possible reply would be pointless, it thinks a sneeze will make you give up and go away? E.g.

    COLE: What are you idiots doing?

    ROSIE: Uh–

    THURSTON: Um-

    ROSIE: Ah-choo!

    Is that the magic word that makes the obtuse owner go away so the dog can get back to important dog stuff?

  14. 14.

    Hildebrand

    Quick update on the University of Chicago story I was talking about last night. A UIC student was taken into custody today for posting the threat on yesterday – the threat said he had plenty of firepower and wanted to kill 16 white male students or faculty (the right wing is frothing about this already), corresponding to the 16 bullets that killed Laquan McDonald, and then wanted to die.

    My son will get back to campus tomorrow morning. He and his friends are pretty shaken, especially as his dorm is right in the area the suspect said he was going to go. I am very glad the University decided to cancel everything for the day. He had plenty of studying to do for finals (they start next week), so he was able to keep his mind buried in Physics problem sets.

  15. 15.

    bystander

    We think you got a good deal on the glasses and a better deal on Rosie teaching Thurston the finer points of self defense. Brilliant and humbling.

  16. 16.

    Mike J

    @raven: I use Zenni and have always been happy. I don’t have bifocals, but I go through multiple sets of prescription sunglasses per year while racing.

  17. 17.

    max

    OK, so things are back to normal blogwise now, since I see you just stomped Anne Laurie?

    max
    [‘That’s good.’]

  22. 22.

    Pogonip

    Rant! Everything is crapified these days. In the last two days I have bought in-store:
    –2 amaryllis bulbs. Bulbs are fine. What is not so fine is the soft-sided “pots” included. Dixie cups would be more substantial.
    –a pretty Xmas top. I was in a hurry and momentarily forgot that all purchases must be examined with a microscope, and thus noticed, when I got home, that one sleeve was an inch longer than the other.

    Why SHOULD we have to examine everything? Boycott crap–in other words, fellow citizens, buy nothing except at secondhand stores and estate sales! Starve the vulture capitalists! Fight back!

    Thank you. I need a cigarette now. But since none of us here smoke, I’d have to buy one. It would probably fail to ignite.

    BOYCOTT CRAPIFICATION!

  23. 23.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I’ll match you. Thurston vs. Rosie made me happy. Nice she’s got someone to boss around. Great deal on the glasses, my single vision were $300 – of course I got fancy frames, cause I’m a girl and all.

    I have broken Bixby and am going to spend this week trying to fix him. I got lazy and would throw him in his crate when I had to run a quick errand or bring him with me. It seemed easier than making sure the living room was Dane proof (there is no such thing, I just remove anything I don’t want to replace). I had been letting him roam while I was gone for short periods of time.

    Now he is totally anxious when I’m out of his sight and he’s not in his crate. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom at Thanksgiving at our friend’s house without him becoming frantic. Crate or car he’s fine, feels safe.

    So I’m leaving him out of his crate and leaving the house for thirty minutes at a time this week. See if repetition will ease his stress.

    I broke my dog. :-(

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    $500 for THREE pairs of glasses…

    AND, you have bifocals?

    Cole, fork over the dough before they realize what they’ve charged you.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @RSA:

    I paid more than that for my single pair of progressive transitionals, similarly for my wife.

    I hope you don’t mind my asking, but just how much over $500 did you pay for your wife?

    Okay, intermission’s almost over. Back to Branagh and Dench and Shakespeare.

  28. 28.

    RSA

    @raven:

    I stepped on mine at the beach and I’m hoping they can put the rimless lenses back in and straighten the hinges.

    Ouch! Good luck. Glasses are an odd sort of product, in my experience: expensive, fragile, and difficult to repair, but I have found good craftspeople able to do it.

  30. 30.

    yodecat

    @raven: Yeah, Cole, Raven’s right. Don’t buy at your local shop the Internet is the way to go. And as Raven said, go for progressive lenses. I’ve tried both progressives and bifocals and the former is the way to go.

    jw

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I’m not sure, and will withhold final judgement until I hear further but I’m thinking that he misspoke. And after all stranger things have happened. Way too often actually.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Kayden

    Got a good laugh from NYT’s account of the Black Pastors’ meeting with Trump. Only one Pastor is endorsing Trump. Many Pastors, including Hezekiah Walker, didn’t show. Sounds like a bust.

  34. 34.

    Hildebrand

    @efgoldman: Don’t know, as of yet, how much was pure bluster and how much was real. Of course, with the amount of firepower sloshing around the country, one can’t always easily dismiss such a specific threat. Too many guns, in all the wrong hands, makes me nervous as hell.

  35. 35.

    Soprano2

    You’ll love those computer glasses. I got a pair and they made my work life much much better. Before I got them I’d go home with headaches every day. I recommend then to everyone with bifocals who spends a lot of time on the computer.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    John, I haven’t bought prescription glasses for over 20 yrs, since laser surgery. But I wore glasses for the 35 yrs prior and $500 for three pair seems not all that bad.

  38. 38.

    Three-nineteen

    I agree with those touting progressive lenses. Mine cost about $600 (with $200 frames), but it was a buy one/ get one free situation and I also got prescription sunglasses out of the deal.

    ETA: I already have a $15 monthly donation to PP.

  39. 39.

    Renie

    Some justice for now:

    Sheldon Silver, who held a seemingly intractable grip on power for decades as one of the most feared politicians in New York State, was found guilty on Monday of federal corruption charges, ending a trial that was the capstone of the government’s efforts to expose the seamy culture of influence-peddling in Albany.

    NY Times article

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    I’m still debating laser surgery, but I’m probably going to go for it early next year. I still worry that something will go horribly wrong to punish me for getting frivolous elective surgery, though. It’s the Irish Catholic in me.

  44. 44.

    Shana

    @Hildebrand: While the threat he posted said he had fire power, the reporting I’ve seen said there was no gun found in his house which he shared with his mother. Both my daughters graduated from UofC, younger one just this past June so we’ve been pretty closely following this issue.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Baud:

    I have truly terrible vision — minus 8 in one eye and minus 6 in the other — so it’s not totally frivolous because if I ever lose my glasses in an emergency, I’ll be completely screwed. It’s still frivolous, though.

    @TaMara (BHF):

    I am apparently an ideal candidate, which makes me even more nervous in some ways. So many more ways for it to go horribly wrong.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @Hildebrand: I’m glad they caught the asshole who made the threat and that no one was hurt. I wonder how schools and other organizations will be able to cope if this sort of thing escalates even more than it already has.

    A pair of dickheads in Missouri were able to disrupt activities on a campus many miles from their location by posting threats on social media. Now this asshole with your son’s school. Who knows if anyone of them actually intended to carry out the threats or if they are just felony-class trolls.

    The cops have to take it seriously because school shootings are tragically too frequent. But it’s so easy for unhinged cretins to make threats. Hopefully the consequences will be severe enough to discourage anyone else who is tempted to do something similar.

  52. 52.

    Poptartacus

    Foolish child
    Zenni optical- glasses made in village no. 246 guandong province
    3 pair hundred bucks bifocal included

  53. 53.

    p.a.

    I’ve gone from progressive bifocals to the old style; progressives have such small ‘hot’ spots for each ‘scrip. Trad bi’s much better. Except going down stairs. Good thing my serious drinking days are behind me.

  54. 54.

    Jager

    When I was doing a lot of sailboat racing, I asked my ophthalmologist if his contact lens maker could make a me a set with “eagle vision”, so I could spot the marks sooner. He said no problem and we worked it out. One Wednesday night after a race, I locked up the boat on the mooring. I got in my car and realized I still had the “eagle vision” in my eyes. I’d left the other everyday contacts on the boat. The drive home was amazing, I couldn’t read the dash board or tune the radio, but I could read street signs from three blocks away.

  60. 60.

    RSA

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I hope you don’t mind my asking, but just how much over $500 did you pay for your wife?

    I forget the exchange rate between goats and dollars, unfortunately… but it was a fortune well spent!

  62. 62.

    Hildebrand

    @Betty Cracker: I was wondering about that – how do you extinguish this behavior? My wife and I are worried about copycats, or worse, someone unhinged enough, with the necessary guns, to follow through on these threats.

    I know the school may catch flak for their reaction, but in this gun-soaked nation, better safe than sorry.

  64. 64.

    pluky

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): -8.25(L), -8.75(R). Some people laugh at me when I tell them I’m legally blind, until I hand them my glasses to put on. Still it kept me out of West Point much to my old man’s dismay (career Army and all).

  65. 65.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I just listened to the video at higher volume. Cole said ‘what are you idiots doing?’ I thought he said ‘what are yinz doing?’Hence the Pittsburghese slang. Iron is Iron City beer.

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    I worried about this as well. But I’ve been happier about the laser surgery more than anything else I’ve ever done. I wore glasses since 10th grade and had to convince my mom to take me to get them, she said I was faking. 35 yrs later I had the surgery. You have no idea how good it feels to be able to see the clock at night without fishing around for my glasses, or how much I saved purchasing glasses/contacts. That was 20 yrs ago and my vision is still the same. Of course I have cataracts that will have to be fixed someday when they get bad enough, but nothing is perfect and that has nothing to do with the surgery.
    Two others where I worked at the time had it done and were very happy with it. On fellow had pretty poor uncorrected vision and he was astounded with how well it went.

  69. 69.

    Renie

    @efgoldman: that’s NYT’s phrase. Another corruption trial is going on here in NYS.involving our former State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son. I hope these two get convicted also.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Jager:
    I had a strong correction when I had contacts but the laser doc said they never try to correct over 20/20 because if they screw up you’ll have headaches all the time. I liked it so much for driving that I had a pair of glasses made with minimum correction so that my vision is 20/15 with them. I use them at night and only if I remember, my normal vision works so well.

  71. 71.

    p.a.

    @Renie: ah but are there (mostly) honest Dems to replace them or can the prosecutions benefit the R’s. Or in Albany is it all the same thing?

  73. 73.

    Jager

    @Ruckus:

    Supposed to be a single use deal…I couldn’t read the instruments on the boat, but the crew could. I got rid of them after a few weeks. For a while I felt like Chuck Yeager, who would call out during WWII, “bandits at 12 o’clock and the rest of his wing would say where?” I still have them somewhere. The drive home that night was insane. I can’t see shit without my contacts.

  74. 74.

    Mike J

    BTW, if you’re on the west coast, like decent people, you can still catch the 50th anniversary of the Charlie Brown Xmas, including PBO speaking the way Republicans always hear him, sounding like a muted trumpet.

  75. 75.

    amk

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): and et al wimps

    Daughter unit, who was wearing glasses since her school days, went ahead and got lasik done for both of her eyes (horror) over ‘my dead body objections’ 3 years back and now both of us are very happy.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @pluky:

    Yes, it’s always fun to make people put my glasses on, especially the naturally 20/20 ones who just don’t get it.

    The one downside is that because I’m in my 40s, I’m still going to need reading glasses (presbyopia happens because of changes to the lens of the eye, but LASIK can only change the cornea). But I’ve been wearing glasses for 40 years now, so it wouldn’t be that upsetting to me.

  79. 79.

    srv

    2.) Don’t forget, if you are using amazon for the cyber Monday bullshit or just general purpose christmas shopping- click the amazon link to the right.

    If Brietbart can sell out Merry Christmas coffee mugs, why doesn’t Balloon-Juice have proper seasonal offerings? Clue.

    Cousin had the lasik Dr. do one eye near and one eye far. I question the ethics of that, but it’s still working for him.

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I have the same fear. I want Lasik, yet I freak out. Also, I’m farsighted instead of nearsighted, so that also worries me.

    But $500 for three pairs is a bangin deal. I spent almost $800 on my last pair, because I get progressive bifocals, with the high-index lenses and scratch proof coating. I also got some snazzy iciberlin frames, which I adore because they are much more comfortable. The bridge of my nose is narrow, so in order to get glasses to not slide down my nose, they typically have to make them squeeze the sides of my head, and they rub against the backs of my ears painfully. These glasses look good and are uber-comfy.

  81. 81.

    kindness

    Cute video of the kids. Truly I have used the Amazon button this season already. Everything helps, right?

    As far as glasses go, I’ve got Kaiser so I can’t go pricing one place against another. I do like their optical though.

  82. 82.

    srv

    And you people think he can’t get Mexico to pay for a wall:

    MACON, Georgia — Business mogul Donald Trump demanded on Monday that CNN, the host of the next GOP debate, pay him $5 million dollars to participate, with the proceeds to be donated to veterans.

    “I won’t do the debate unless they pay me 5 million dollars,” Trump said.

  83. 83.

    andy

    I’m in the same boat and have been getting bifocals plus ‘puter glasses for several years now. You can save yourself some money and get those sunglasses that fit over your regular glasses. Got mine from the same optometrist, and they don’t even look like old-people shades!

  85. 85.

    Mike J

    @kindness:

    As far as glasses go, I’ve got Kaiser so I can’t go pricing one place against another

    It’s cheaper to buy them online from China than to buy from any place local with insurance.

  86. 86.

    Howard Beale IV

    @srv: You wouldn’t want real glass if your script gets up there in correction-things would weight a ton and be hideously thick as hell. Besides, if you could even find someone who could actually make glass lenses that matched poly in size, they’d be insanely expesnive to manufacture-and you can forget about progressives.

  87. 87.

    frosty

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    I still worry that something will go horribly wrong to punish me for getting frivolous elective surgery, though. It’s the Irish Catholic in me.

    I’m not Irish Catholic, but I worry just as much about something going horribly wrong. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 9 and I’ll wear them forever. I’m sticking with Rule 1: “If it works, don’t f@#k with it.”

  88. 88.

    srv

    @Howard Beale IV: Progs are a bad idea, don’t need much distance correction.

    My glass glasses lasted 3-4X longer than crappy poly/CR.

    Try looking for Rx glass sunglasses that are non-polarized… they really make it hard for us 1%’ers.

  89. 89.

    guachi

    John, my wife did your #1 and is much happier now. She’s about your age and got bifocals/prescription sunglasses about a year ago.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @frosty:

    It’s sometimes debatable how well being half-blind “works,” though, especially when my glasses fall behind the nightstand and I have to call my husband over to find them because I can’t see that far, or when the arm of my glasses gets unscrewed and I have to search for a tiny screwdriver. I really hate the idea of being 80 years old in assisted living and unable to see because the nurse forgot to put my glasses on me.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Suzanne:

    I get a really good copay for my frames, so I’ve gotten Gucci or Coach frames in the past and only had to pay $50 for the frames. But I have to pay $200+ for the fucking lenses even with insurance.

    ETA: Back when I was uninsured, I didn’t wait for the frame sale at LensCrafters, I waited for the 50 percent off lenses sale. And no glasses in about an hour for me — more like a couple of weeks because their on-site lab couldn’t handle my prescription.

  100. 100.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Mike J: “We had to ride into town, blind everyone, cause famine, pestilence — oh we used to dream of just makin people wear glasses!” — The Four Yorkshiremen of the Apocalypse

  104. 104.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I’ll be curious to hear how the bifocals thing works, I tried progressive lenses a few years back and felt like I was walking in a fishbowl, just couldn’t get used to it. My alternative was to just go back to being in denial and not wearing glasses, reading everything online and just enlarging the text enough to where it’s no problem. And on the other side, the nearsightedness side, just continuing to peer at exit signs in the metro going uh, okay I should be able to read that but there’s no way…..

    On a side note, it strikes me as weird to refer to the lack of being able to see far away as “nearsightedness”, when the up close/reading vision is even worse.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): It’s not that I don’t lack empathy. And I even have an ableist exemplar – my dad is in his 70s and has perfect distance distance vision and has just started to hold books a bit farther away. You guys were starting to go someplace weird.

  110. 110.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Omnes Omnibus: Right but I can’t see things that are near. My reading vision needs more correction than the far away vision.

    Just funny to refer to my inability to see far away things as my being “near sighted” when actually, nope, can’t see near things either.

  111. 111.

    Mike J

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I’m also curious. I wear glasses to drive, but I can actually see threats. I’ve always said I could see if a kid ran out in the road in front of me, but I couldn’t read his t-shirt. Bifocals tempt me for sailing, since I need to tie knots up close and read the wind coming across the water a half mile away. Right now I just take off my glasses if I need to tie a knot, or tell somebody else to do it.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: Wow, I haven’t been called a prude in years. Probably not in your lifetime. And you go there over a phrasing issue?

  118. 118.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Bifocals and computer glasses are the way to go. I have a pair of progressives, but it’s very difficult to hit the sweet spot for computer use with them, so I’m going to drop them and go with bifocals instead for my reading/stargazing/general use glasses. My optometrist at the VA suggested the computer glasses, and they’ve made a huge difference…he’s gone that way too and is very happy with the results.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    The way my eye doctors explained it to me is that there’s myopia (nearsightedness), there’s hyperopia (farsightedness), and then there’s presbyopia (age-related difficulty seeing things close up), and since they’re caused by different parts of the eye, you can have both myopia and presbyopia or both hyperopia and presbyopia at the same time. Which is very annoying.

  127. 127.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: I apologize for entering into any discourse with you this evening where absolute approval of every word you said was not a given. Any attempt to have any kind of fun with your comment is hereby retracted. Shithead. Happy now?

  128. 128.

    Satby

    @Bill E Pilgrim: do you need a prism correction or something like that? Super severe astigmatism? Because normally nearsighted people don’t need corrector up close.If you see better far away than close up, you’re farsighted.

    When I was an optician at Lenscrafters 25 years ago I had an Rx like Mnem’s and Lasix was new enough that we had several people who didn’t have good surgical outcomes come in to try to get glasses that would help. Made me think I would never risk that. In the meantime, presbyopia has improved my vision enough that my think heavy glasses are a normal size. Though I wore progressive lenses for years, I switched to a dedicated pair for laptop and one for distance stuff like driving. Honestly, I can drive now in the computer glasses,I only need the distance ones for night driving. One thing got better with age!

  131. 131.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: my metaphorical fart of a Sarcastic Bitch Cloud: I find someone who is Wrong On The Internet and subject them to intellectual ridicule.

    Tonight’s highlights included telling a MRA that I can smell his Axe body spray from here, calling myself “Adolf Period-Shits-ler, Chancellor of the Feminazis”, and various comments about world’s tiniest violins and other tiny things.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    Very, very happy with both the product and the low, extremely affordable price of glasses finally broke down and got for reading tiny print and on computer monitor (was beginning to have difficulties when eyes were tired) at Sears Optical department. Out of pocket, not with insurance.

    Oddball thing was that the charge on the Sears card was listed as “Miscellaneous Toys and Games.”

  135. 135.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Satby: Fun thing: impaired color vision leads to improved night vision. I can’t tell the difference between blue-green and green-blue, but I can see well in the dark.

  138. 138.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: Of COURSE it does something other than make him angry. It makes me HAPPY.

    But no, there’s really nothing else to it. I could be high-minded and say that dumb opinions should be exposed to ridicule so that dumb people will be more ashamed of being dumb and then maybe they’ll be less likely to be dumb in public, but really it’s just fun.

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Satby:

    I need a corrector up close these days and have almost no astigmatism, at least according to my doctors. I also apparently have unusually good peripheral vision for someone with my prescription, so maybe I just have freaky eyes.

  146. 146.

    Suzanne

    @redshirt: No, it’s not enough to be dramatic and cool, it’s not concentrated in one area. Like, I either have to dye it brown or dye it grey. Both entail EFFORT. I am anti-effort.

  150. 150.

    Mike J

    Anyone have faves on the Holiday bake offbaking show (damn you pilsbury)? They didn’t bring Ruby over, did they?

  152. 152.

    Satby

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): so much depends on the whole optic system: eye shape, muscle coordination, adaptability, etc. It’s why some people do great with progressive lenses and other people never adapt. Everyone’s different. When my eyes were their worst I needed close correction too, or my nose would be two inches off the page. Presbyopia did me a favor there.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: The LLBean/Brooks Brothers palette. Oddly, yes, it does include the bright pink oxford shirt.

    @Suzanne: Oh, kid, so much more. Dear god, the comparison is silly but for the fact that you two are on the same time zone.

  156. 156.

    Suzanne

    @redshirt: Nah, it’s almost always a killer, career-wise. Signs of aging for women rarely go well.

    Right now, I’m probably 15% grey, so it’s easier to just dye the roots at home. Going all grey right now would mean frequent, expensive trips to a salon. Nope nope nope.

  158. 158.

    NotMax

    @Mike J

    Reminded by that of the episode of Pushing Daisies wherein Kristin Chenoweth’s character relates that she won the Jock-off.

    (Writers deserved extra cookies for coming up with that name.)

  159. 159.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Satby:

    My eyesight has been very stable with slight improvement for at least the past 3-5 years, which is another reason I’m a good candidate for Lasik. But I’m definitely noticing some problems with reading lately.

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    When I get a new job, I’m getting purple highlights instead of red/auburn. My colorist says I can, and we have the color all picked out. Now I just need that new job.

  160. 160.

    Eric U.

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I don’t not lack empathy

    Our older dog got a lot sleeker since we got his younger doppelgänger. We even had to increase his food.

    Anyone buy safety glasses from one of these online places? I think I would like to do that. My current glasses were ridiculously expensive, but they have some fancy kind of progressive lenses that work really well. I never even notice them at all.

  163. 163.

    SWMBO

    @Pogonip: The sneeze is a classic “Look over there!” So is the yawn. “What is going on in here?” Yawn. Translates into “nothin'”.

    I had cataract surgery in 2012. If they can’t get your eyes corrected to 20/50 or better, it’s time to have it done. Otherwise you can’t legally drive. My doc picked my worse eye to do first. He does surgery on Thursday and you come in to the office on Friday to get the bandages removed and see how it looks. I looked at the eye chart (less than 24 hours after surgery) and couldn’t read the big E at the top. Just a black/gray blur in a blinding white field. Shit, I thought I was blind for life. Went in the next Friday and I could see better without my glasses in that eye than I could with them. Funny how much a week of letting the swelling go down and everything adjust makes everything better. He did the other eye a month later and I was amazed at the difference. He fixed the astigmatism and set my eye focal point for computer use. I wear bifocals to drive and thread needles. Most of the time I’m looking over the glasses and I walked out of the house without my glasses a few times because I left them on the keyboard. I never wanted the laser surgery but this changed my mind about a lot of things. I can see colors true now. The last few years, picking the right yarn or thread was a challenge since the cataracts skewed my color discernment.

  165. 165.

    J R in WV

    My dad had terrible vision. He tells a story about taking a eyesight test in first or second grade, and the teacher said, “Why, Jacob, your eyes are bad!” Didn’t tell him to tell his parents, didn’t recommend anything. So he thought that was it: “My eyes are bad. Darn!”

    Years later he and his father were in the big city, walking along after a business meeting Granddad took Dad to, and Dad asked him where the newspaper plant was – well, it was across the street, and he couldn’t see it. So the next day they took Dad to get glasses made, and he saw leaves on trees for the first time.

    So when my brother and I took him to an eye surgeon in downtown Houston to see about his cataracts, we were a little amazed how long the pre-op appointment lasted. He took test after test. And they had a library of replacement lenses in a big room, tens of thousands of barely different lenses. And they selected two for Dad.

    We took him to a commercial outpatient surgery center the surgeon used on Tuesdays and Thursdays. By the time we had him “home” into the NW suburbs of Houston where my brother lived, he was seeing better without glasses than ever in his whole life. He was delighted. At the first followup they told him to get some specific diopter of reading glasses at Rite-aid, which also was the easiest thing he had ever done. And he could get cool Ray-Ban sunglasses to drive with. Also a first.

    So I’m tempted to get cataract surgery preemptively, if I can’t talk the eye-doctor into calling it bad enough to fix. Seems more secure than the various corneal laser surgery technologies, which my Doc has told me are not indicated when you have the near-sightedness I have going on.

    It sure would be nice to have one circumstance where I don’t need glasses, as opposed to needing one pair or the other all my waking hours.

    Planned Parenthood – Mrs J and I make a monthly donation, between us $50/monthly – partly in honor of my Mom’s attitude about anti-women’s health organizations. She actually forced herself to live 3 more years to vote against the Republican presidential candidate in the last election of her life. Only the second time she voted for a Democratic candidate, swore me not to tell Dad. She had a friend or cousin who died back in the 1940s when care after an induced abortion was non-existent. She hated people who tried to end abortion on demand, once it became the law of the land.

    Maybe I should write an essay and submit it to the news-media – she worked in the newspaper business from 1947 until she retired around 1977 or so. She died in 1997, at 5 am, in her husband’s arms in their bedroom, after years fighting COPD caused by Pall-Mall Cigarettes – which were given for free to students at the U during football games. Back then everyone dressed up for football games, women wore nice dresses and men wore suits and ties, or at least nice sport coats. And flowers. And smoked the best cigarettes at the games, to get hooked on nicotine, the most addictive drug known to man today.

    I still hate Phillip-Morris, which produces Pall-Mall – their high end brand at the time. They are murders for profit, after all and should be put down like the rabid dogs they are. They all know that their product promotes mouth cancers, esophageal cancers, lung cancers, kidney cancers, other more obscure cancers, all induced or aided by the cancer-causing components of tobacco, some added just to make them more addictive than nicotine alone can manage.

    Thanks, Mom – for all you did for your family and friends, the theater you supported, the absent friends you never forgot, and for whom you reformed your whole political perspective when it became necessary. We will never forget you!

  168. 168.

    shell

    Why is it that when you ask a dog a question to which any possible reply would be pointless, it thinks a sneeze will make you give up

    Either that or a burp, which has additional comedy appeal.

  169. 169.

    vikram

    John,
    This new website interface sucks. The fonts are irregular and the background color is just godawful on chrome….Any way we can switch back to white as the background and make sure fonts are regular sized and spaced?

  170. 170.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @SWMBO:

    There’s a famous (apparently true) story about an early Monet exhibit where the guards were horrified that an old man whipped out a paintbrush and started painting over some of the canvases. It turned out to be M. Monet himself, who had recently had cataract surgery and realized how much blue was in the world, so he came in to re-touch his paintings.

  173. 173.

    VFX Lurker

    Count me in as another $10/month. I’ve been donating $15/month since Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke all kinds of names for three days straight. I upped it after an acquaintance on Facebook declared that he denounced the killings, but couldn’t wait to strip Planned Parenthood of funding.

    I blocked the stupid fucker and upped my Planned Parenthood donations to $25/month, along with a promise to continue voting in each and every election.

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